‘YOUR BOW!’ HAZEL SHOUTED.
Frank didn’t ask questions. He dropped his pack and
slipped the bow off his shoulder.
Hazel’s heart raced. She hadn’t thought about this
boggy soil – muskeg – since before she had died. Now,
too late, she remembered the dire warnings the locals had
given her. Marshy silt and decomposed plants made a
surface that looked completely solid, but it was even
worse than quicksand. It could be twenty feet deep or
more, and impossible to escape.
She tried not to think what would happen if it were
deeper than the length of the bow.
‘Hold one end,’ she told Frank. ‘Don’t let go.’
She grabbed the other end, took a deep breath and
jumped into the bog. The earth closed over her head.
Instantly, she was frozen in a memory.
Not now! she wanted to scream. Ella said I was done
with blackouts!
Oh, but, my dear, said the voice of Gaia, this is not one
of your blackouts. This is a gift from me.
Hazel was back in New Orleans. She and her mother
sat in the park near their apartment, having a picnic
breakfast. She remembered this day. She was seven
years old. Her mother had just sold Hazel’s first precious
stone: a small diamond. Neither of them had yet realized
Hazel’s curse.
Queen Marie was in an excellent mood. She had
bought orange juice for Hazel and champagne for herself,
and fritters sprinkled with chocolate and powdered sugar.
She’d even bought Hazel a new box of crayons and a pad
of paper. They sat together, Queen Marie humming
cheerfully while Hazel drew pictures.
The French Quarter woke up around them, ready for
Mardi Gras. Jazz bands practised. Floats were being
decorated with fresh-cut flowers. Children laughed and
chased each other, decked in so many coloured
necklaces they could barely walk. The sunrise turned the
sky to red gold, and the warm steamy air smelled of
magnolias and roses.
It had been the happiest morning of Hazel’s life.
‘You could stay here.’ Her mother smiled, but her eyes
were blank white. The voice was Gaia’s.
‘This is fake,’ Hazel said.
She tried to get up, but the soft bed of grass made her
lazy and sleepy. The smell of baked bread and melting
chocolate was intoxicating. It was the morning of Mardi
Gras, and the world seemed full of possibilities. Hazel
could almost believe she had a bright future.
‘What is real?’ asked Gaia, speaking through her
mother’s face. ‘Is your second life real, Hazel? You’re
supposed to be dead. Is it real that you’re sinking into a
bog, suffocating?’
‘Let me help my friend!’ Hazel tried to force herself back
to reality. She could imagine her hand clenched on the
end of the bow, but even that was starting to feel fuzzy. Her
grip was loosening. The smell of magnolias and roses
was overpowering.
Her mother offered her a fritter.
No, Hazel thought. This isn’t my mother. This is Gaia
tricking me.
‘You want your old life back,’ Gaia said. ‘I can give you
that. This moment can last for years. You can grow up in
New Orleans, and your mother will adore you. You’ll never
have to deal with the burden of your curse. You can be
with Sammy –’
‘It’s an illusion!’ Hazel said, choking on the sweet scent
of flowers.
‘You are an illusion, Hazel Levesque. You were only
brought back to life because the gods have a task for you.
I may have used you, but Nico used you and lied about it.
You should be glad I captured him.’
‘Captured?’ A feeling of panic rose in Hazel’s chest.
‘What do you mean?’
Gaia smiled, sipping her champagne. ‘The boy should
have known better than to search for the Doors. But no
matter – it’s not really your concern. Once you release
Thanatos, you’ll be thrown back into the Underworld to rot
forever. Frank and Percy won’t stop that from happening.
Would real friends ask you to give up your life? Tell me
who is lying, and who tells you the truth.’
Hazel started to cry. Bitterness welled up inside her.
She’d lost her life once. She didn’t want to die again.
‘That’s right,’ Gaia purred. ‘You were destined to marry
Sammy. Do you know what happened to him after you
died in Alaska? He grew up and moved to Texas. He
married and had a family. But he never forgot you. He
always wondered why you disappeared. He’s dead now – a
heart attack in the 1960s. The life you could’ve had
together always haunted him.’
‘Stop it!’ Hazel screamed. ‘You took that from me!’
‘And you can have it again,’ Gaia said. ‘I have you in my
embrace, Hazel. You’ll die anyway. If you give up, at least
I can make it pleasant for you. Forget saving Percy
Jackson. He belongs to me. I’ll keep him safe in the earth
until I’m ready to use him. You can have an entire life in
your final moments – you can grow up, marry Sammy. All
you have to do is let go.’
Hazel tightened her grip on the bow. Below her,
something grabbed her ankles, but she didn’t panic. She
knew it was Percy, suffocating, desperately grasping for a
chance at life.
Hazel glared at the goddess. ‘I’ll never cooperate with
you! LET – US – GO!’
Her mother’s face dissolved. The New Orleans morning
melted into darkness. Hazel was drowning in mud, one
hand on the bow, Percy’s hands around her ankles, deep
in the darkness. Hazel wiggled the end of the bow
frantically. Frank pulled her up with such force it nearly
popped her arm out of the socket.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying in the grass,
covered in muck. Percy sprawled at her feet, coughing
and spitting mud.
Frank hovered over them, yelling, ‘Oh, gods! Oh, gods!
Oh, gods!’
He yanked some extra clothes from his bag and started
towelling off Hazel’s face, but it didn’t do much good. He
dragged Percy further from the muskeg.
‘You were down there so long!’ Frank cried. ‘I didn’t
think – oh, gods, don’t ever do something like that again!’
He wrapped Hazel in a bear hug.
‘Can’t – breathe,’ she choked out.
‘Sorry!’ Frank went back to towelling and fussing over
them. Finally he got them to the side of the road, where
they sat and shivered and spat up mud clods.
Hazel couldn’t feel her hands. She wasn’t sure if she
was cold or in shock, but she managed to explain about
the muskeg, and the vision she’d seen while she was
under. Not the part about Sammy – that was still too
painful to say out loud – but she told them about Gaia’s
offer of a fake life, and the goddess’s claim that she’d
captured her brother, Nico. Hazel didn’t want to keep that
to herself. She was afraid the despair would overwhelm
her.
Percy rubbed his shoulders. His lips were blue. ‘You –
you saved me, Hazel. We’ll figure out what happened to
Nico, I promise.’
Hazel squinted at the sun, which was now high in the
sky. The warmth felt good, but it didn’t stop her trembling.
‘Does it seem like Gaia let us go too easily?’
Percy plucked a mud clod from his hair. ‘Maybe she
still wants us as pawns. Maybe she was just saying things
to mess with your mind.’
‘She knew what to say,’ Hazel agreed. ‘She knew how to
get to me.’
Frank put his jacket around her shoulders. ‘This is a
real life. You know that, right? We’re not going to let you
die again.’
He sounded so determined. Hazel didn’t want to argue,
but she didn’t see how Frank could stop Death. She
pressed her coat pocket, where Frank’s half-burnt firewood
was still securely wrapped. She wondered what would’ve
happened to him if she’d sunk in the mud forever. Maybe
that would have saved him. Fire couldn’t have got to the
wood down there.
She would have made any sacrifice to keep Frank safe.
Perhaps she hadn’t always felt that strongly, but Frank had
trusted her with his life. He believed in her. She couldn’t
bear the thought of any harm coming to him.
She glanced at the rising sun … Time was running out.
She thought about Hylla, the Amazon Queen back in
Seattle. Hylla would have duelled Otrera two nights in a
row by now, assuming she had survived. She was
counting on Hazel to release Death.
She managed to stand. The wind coming off
Resurrection Bay was just as cold as she remembered.
‘We should get going. We’re losing time.’
Percy gazed down the road. His lips were returning to
their normal colour. ‘Any hotels or something where we
could clean off? I mean … hotels that accept mud
people?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Hazel admitted.
She looked at the town below and couldn’t believe how
much it had grown since 1942. The main harbour had
moved east as the town had expanded. Most of the
buildings were new to her, but the grid of downtown streets
seemed familiar. She thought she recognized some
warehouses along the shore. ‘I might know a place we can
freshen up.’
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