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“Please!” she said. “Sounds much more fun than revisions.”
I told her about my week at Hecate’s. The more I talked, the more Mom tapped her fingers against her cup, like she was channeling all her worry into the porcelain. If she’d had my sea powers, she probably would’ve been stirring up a tempest in her teapot.
“Quite an ordeal,” she conceded. “But at least you got the animals back.”
“Yeah…except the hardest part is still to come. If this raising-the-dead thing doesn’t work out—”
“Hey.” She reached across the table and took my hand. It reminded me of when I was a little kid. Sometimes I’d felt like the world was spinning too fast. I couldn’t process all the sounds and lights. My mom would tell me to focus on holding her hand. She wouldn’t let go until I felt steadier. “You’re going to be fine,” she said now.
It didn’t matter that her own hand was trembling. I knew she was as scared as I was. But that was okay as long as we were scared together.
“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”
“Just support Annabeth. If she’s holding the torches, she’s going to need you tonight.”
“Is that a secret mom-life-hack?” I asked. “How you keep from getting too freaked out?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like…focus on the people you love. They need you; you can’t afford to get overwhelmed, so you keep it together.”
She laughed. “Maybe so. All I know is that you and Annabeth and Grover are going to get through this.”
Optimism—another of my mom’s superpowers.
I remembered my talk with Grover yesterday. He’d been so worried that he’d subconsciously sabotaged us so Annabeth and I couldn’t leave for California. I thought about the temptations Hecate had left in our path—the strawberry potion, the library, the torches—almost like shewantedus to fail.
Crossroads were Hecate’s thing. Whether I liked it or not, I was standing at one now. Everything was going to change one way or another. I just wished the options didn’t all feel so terrifying. Why couldn’t Hecate be waiting at the intersection with a helpful map and a selection of refreshing beverages?
My first meeting with her in the principal’s office, when she’d turned into a fiery triple-headed horrorfest, had been enough to reduce me to a terrified child with a loose bladder. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for an actual child to encounter the goddess.
“I’ve got to ask you something.” I told my mom about the apparition I’d been seeing—the child on the bike, leaving behind a pair of broken glasses. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
She stared at the steam coming off her teacup. “I wondered…when you mentioned Gramercy Park. So thatwasHecate’s house.”
I’d been pretty sure I was right. Now that I knew, I had a sudden urge to take away all of Hecate’s candy corn. Certain things should be off-limits, even for gods. Harassing my mom was at the top of that list—especially when she was a child.
I had a lot of questions. As usual, the most random thought came out first. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
She smiled wistfully, the way she does when she looks at old photographs. “I haven’t since that day. My family made me wear them because I was seeing things…differently.”
“Through the Mist.”
She’d always been able to do that. Some rare mortals could, but I’d never considered how hard that would’ve been for her as a kid.
“They were just trying to help,” she said. “They were worried. When other kids saw a mounted police officer riding down the street, I saw a pegasus. That kind of thing. We used to live near Gramercy Park West. One day, when I was riding my bike down the street, I saw that mansion, shifting and blending into the buildings around it. Those tombstone walls.”
“Yep,” I said. “Hecate definitely has an aesthetic.”
My mom frowned. “An old lady was standing on the porch. Just one head, and no fiery aura. She looked like a witch, though—black robes, white hair. She saw me on my bike, gawking at her house. I figured she would yell at me for staring, but instead she said something surprising.”
I remembered the voice from my vision. “Let me guess. ‘There is nothing wrong with your sight.’”
My mom nodded. “She flicked her hand at me and the glasses broke—fell right off my face. Then she said, ‘You arrived too late. Move along. Find another life.’ I was so scared.…Like I told you, I haven’t been back to Gramercy Park since. But afterward, when I looked through the Mist, I kind of understood what was happening. I told my family my eyes felt better. I learned not to mention the strange things I saw. In a way, Hecate helped me.”
I tried to imagine what it would’ve been like if Hecate’s school was still open back then. Would she have invited my mom inside to meet the hellhound and polecat? Would Sally Jackson have become a witch? I knew my mom could do anything she set her mind to. But that path would have been so different.…Would I ever have been born?
I felt like I needed to apologize, but I wasn’t sure what for. Hecate had scared her and hadn’t offered her a chance to learn magic. On the other hand, my mom had turned out great. Did I really want her to have a life like Gale’s? Also, I had been born. I had to consider that a plus. So why did I feel guilty?
