Chapter 1- Thalia
Thalia was ten years old when she lost her brother. She still had nightmares about the terrible day, when her life had changed forever.
Thalia was itching to go on the picnic. It was so rare for her Mom, the famous Doreen Grace, to suggest doing something as a family. Well, most of a family; Thalia’s father had left just after Jason was born, and he was already two. Despite that, Thalia was determined to make the best out of the picnic. They would be eating in the state park, and there was beautiful weather outside, not a cloud in the sky. She eagerly looked out the car window and prayed that no rain or lighting storm would ruin the day.
“Thalia,” her mother chided. “Get away from the glass. You’re getting smears all over it.”
Thalia was happy to oblige. It was so much easier to spend time with her mother when her mom wasn’t drinking. The drinking had started gradually after Jason was born, and her mom had slowly descended into becoming a full-blown alcoholic from there.
Jason giggled from where he sat in his navy blue car seat. When he smiled like that, Thalia barely noticed the tiny scar on his lip from when he tried to eat a staple.
She turned her attention to the front windshield as her mom pulled them in to a parking space. There weren’t many people in the park because it was almost noon on a weekday, and the majority of visitors were at work or school. They almost had the park to themselves.
Thalia reached over to unclip Jason’s seatbelt. He poked his finger into her eye.
She swatted his hand away and rubbed the stinging to lessen the pain. “Jason,” Thalia complained. But he was so adorable that she couldn’t contain her grin. Nothing would ruin her day.
She pulled her brother out of the car and smoothed down his disheveled blonde hair, so different from her own and yet so similar to her mother’s. Most people didn’t even recognize that Jason and Thalia were siblings just from their hair colors.
Her mom was stepping out of the minivan while Thalia settled Jason onto her hip. “Which trail do you want to take?” Thalia asked.
“How about Gosling Grove?” her mom suggested. “I’d love to see that pond again.”
Truthfully, Thalia would have preferred to go on Wonderdog Way, the trail that went in a loop around some stables so you could see the pretty horses inside. But Gosling Grove was good, too; she had gone fishing in that pond once, a very long time ago. “That’s perfect, Mom.”
They started walking to the pond. On the way, Thalia saw a colorful little finch nearby. She pointed it out to her mom. Then the bird flew straight towards her, and Thalia started screaming and waving her free hand that wasn’t holding Jason. Those were the kinds of memories she wanted to make as a family; memories you could look back on and laugh.
They reached a flat area with a good view of the pond and her mom laid out the picnic blanket, a big piece of pink and yellow plaid fabric. Then her mom smacked her forehead. “Oh, silly me; I left the sandwiches back in the car. Honey, would you mind getting them?” Why did her mom sound so nervous? Maybe it was just because she wasn’t used to having family time. “Here, I’ll take Jason.” Thalia handed her brother off to her mom and caught the keys her mom tossed her way.
Thalia went to the car and got the picnic basket out of the backseat where it had been left. On the way back, she took her time: partially because she was on the lookout for dangerous birds, and partially because she wanted to enjoy the beauty of the park. Wasn’t that some kind of saying? Stop and smell the roses? Thalia made sure to sniff every rose she saw along the way back to her mom and brother.
The Gosling Grove trail curled around the entire pond, and Thalia was able to see her family from the opposite side of it. She was about to wave when she saw something odd, and froze with her hand still in the air.
Her mom was holding Jason under both his arms, and she raised him up above her head. Thalia heard the echoes of her mom’s voice rolling across the pond.
“Hera, I beg your forgiveness!” she cried. “I meant you no offense, and now I offer my only son in an effort to make peace between my family and the gods!” The sky rumbled. Thalia had no idea what was happening, but she started running towards her mom. She didn’t like that part about “offering” Jason.
“Take him, Hera, to end any ill-feelings between us!”
Thalia broke into a flat-out sprint. Jason was crying.
There was a single cloud in the sky, and it was growing over the site of the picnic. It formed into what looked like a giant hand that reached down over her mother and her brother.
Thalia was screaming. Her mom was screaming.
The hand passed right through her mother, but it condensed around Jason until Thalia could no longer see him. It started retreating back into the sky as Thalia reached her mother. She shoved her mom onto the blanket.
“What have you done?” Thalia yelled at her mom. She looked back at the cloud that had taken her brother. Thalia jumped like she wanted to grab him out of the sky, but her efforts proved futile. The hand had already dissolved into a cloud again. Her brother was nowhere to be seen. “No! Take me instead! Do you hear me?” Her voice was verging on hysteria, and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
Her mother had the nerve to get up off the ground. She looked visibly shaken. “Calm down, Thalia. I did what had to be done.”
“You- you monster!” Thalia screeched at the only family member she had left. “You. Aren’t. My. Mom.” And after that, Thalia was alone.
She woke up drenched with sweat and tangled in her blanket. Thalia ran her hands through her hair and tried to fight off the nausea that always came after that nightmare. Her jet-black hair used to fall all the way down her back, the way her mom had liked it. After Jason died, Thalia used scissors to chop it off. Now it stopped just past her ears. She had planned on dying it some rebellious shade, but black was the color of mourning, and Thalia didn’t want to disrespect him right after his death. So it stayed black.
In the days following Jason’s death, everything had gotten worse at Thalia’s house. Doreen’s drinking was worse than ever, and Thalia had finally left when she slapped Thalia across the face in her drunken rage. Thalia snatched all the money her mom- Doreen- had stuffed in a safe and took the first bus out of town. That led her to a train station, and she bought a ticket on the next train departing.
But that had happened nearly two years before. Now Thalia’s money was close to running out, despite her efforts to save it as best as she could, and soon she would have to find a way to get food and shelter.
Every couple of months, some sort of mythological monster would come to kill her. Thalia soon discovered that normal weapons couldn’t hurt the monsters, so she relied on her ability to sense danger early and then run like hell. She would end up leaving the town she was staying in, then travel haphazardly all over the country so the monster would lose her scent, before finding a new place to live. Her most recent residence was an old abandoned apartment building in the tiny town of Toadsuck, Arkansas, just because the name had made her smile. Whose job was it to come up with this stuff?
Thalia pulled off the blanket to get up and stretch. She was careful not to wake Serafina. Sera was another runaway, a pretty Latino girl she had met in Toadsuck, a year younger than Thalia. She had run away from her home in New Mexico after her stepdad sexually abused her. Together Thalia and Sera had found an apartment building on the outskirts of town that had electricity: some idiot at PECO forgot to shut off the power when the building was condemned, the girls figured. Having electricity was a luxury neither of the girls was accustomed to.
Thalia splashed some water on her face from the green plastic bucket in the kitchen. There wasn’t any running water, so the girls took turns dragging the bucket to and from a nearby river to use for teeth brushing and washing dishes. Thalia noticed that the bucket was very low on water, so she decided to refill it. She quickly jotted down a note for Sera to find if she woke up while Thalia was gone and left it on the counter.
Thalia stepped out into the hallway. They usually left the lights off at night to avoid detection, so it was hard for her to see. She dragged a hand along to the wall to make sure she wouldn’t smack into any walls. Thalia walked through the old reception area and lobby, and then she was out in the fresh air again. She moved quietly towards the woods, not that there were many people to wake in Toadsuck.
Thalia stepped over roots and around trees to find the creek that ran through the forest. She knelt down and submerged the bucket in the icy water, only to hear the sound of twigs snapping. Thalia quickly spun around on her heels. She saw a dark creature emerge from the branches of an oak tree and heard a low growl. (i)Hellhound(i), she thought before taking off into the woods and leaving the bucket behind.
Thalia was ten years old when she lost her brother. She still had nightmares about the terrible day, when her life had changed forever.
Thalia was itching to go on the picnic. It was so rare for her Mom, the famous Doreen Grace, to suggest doing something as a family. Well, most of a family; Thalia’s father had left just after Jason was born, and he was already two. Despite that, Thalia was determined to make the best out of the picnic. They would be eating in the state park, and there was beautiful weather outside, not a cloud in the sky. She eagerly looked out the car window and prayed that no rain or lighting storm would ruin the day.
“Thalia,” her mother chided. “Get away from the glass. You’re getting smears all over it.”
Thalia was happy to oblige. It was so much easier to spend time with her mother when her mom wasn’t drinking. The drinking had started gradually after Jason was born, and her mom had slowly descended into becoming a full-blown alcoholic from there.
Jason giggled from where he sat in his navy blue car seat. When he smiled like that, Thalia barely noticed the tiny scar on his lip from when he tried to eat a staple.
She turned her attention to the front windshield as her mom pulled them in to a parking space. There weren’t many people in the park because it was almost noon on a weekday, and the majority of visitors were at work or school. They almost had the park to themselves.
Thalia reached over to unclip Jason’s seatbelt. He poked his finger into her eye.
She swatted his hand away and rubbed the stinging to lessen the pain. “Jason,” Thalia complained. But he was so adorable that she couldn’t contain her grin. Nothing would ruin her day.
She pulled her brother out of the car and smoothed down his disheveled blonde hair, so different from her own and yet so similar to her mother’s. Most people didn’t even recognize that Jason and Thalia were siblings just from their hair colors.
Her mom was stepping out of the minivan while Thalia settled Jason onto her hip. “Which trail do you want to take?” Thalia asked.
“How about Gosling Grove?” her mom suggested. “I’d love to see that pond again.”
Truthfully, Thalia would have preferred to go on Wonderdog Way, the trail that went in a loop around some stables so you could see the pretty horses inside. But Gosling Grove was good, too; she had gone fishing in that pond once, a very long time ago. “That’s perfect, Mom.”
They started walking to the pond. On the way, Thalia saw a colorful little finch nearby. She pointed it out to her mom. Then the bird flew straight towards her, and Thalia started screaming and waving her free hand that wasn’t holding Jason. Those were the kinds of memories she wanted to make as a family; memories you could look back on and laugh.
They reached a flat area with a good view of the pond and her mom laid out the picnic blanket, a big piece of pink and yellow plaid fabric. Then her mom smacked her forehead. “Oh, silly me; I left the sandwiches back in the car. Honey, would you mind getting them?” Why did her mom sound so nervous? Maybe it was just because she wasn’t used to having family time. “Here, I’ll take Jason.” Thalia handed her brother off to her mom and caught the keys her mom tossed her way.
Thalia went to the car and got the picnic basket out of the backseat where it had been left. On the way back, she took her time: partially because she was on the lookout for dangerous birds, and partially because she wanted to enjoy the beauty of the park. Wasn’t that some kind of saying? Stop and smell the roses? Thalia made sure to sniff every rose she saw along the way back to her mom and brother.
The Gosling Grove trail curled around the entire pond, and Thalia was able to see her family from the opposite side of it. She was about to wave when she saw something odd, and froze with her hand still in the air.
Her mom was holding Jason under both his arms, and she raised him up above her head. Thalia heard the echoes of her mom’s voice rolling across the pond.
“Hera, I beg your forgiveness!” she cried. “I meant you no offense, and now I offer my only son in an effort to make peace between my family and the gods!” The sky rumbled. Thalia had no idea what was happening, but she started running towards her mom. She didn’t like that part about “offering” Jason.
“Take him, Hera, to end any ill-feelings between us!”
Thalia broke into a flat-out sprint. Jason was crying.
There was a single cloud in the sky, and it was growing over the site of the picnic. It formed into what looked like a giant hand that reached down over her mother and her brother.
Thalia was screaming. Her mom was screaming.
The hand passed right through her mother, but it condensed around Jason until Thalia could no longer see him. It started retreating back into the sky as Thalia reached her mother. She shoved her mom onto the blanket.
“What have you done?” Thalia yelled at her mom. She looked back at the cloud that had taken her brother. Thalia jumped like she wanted to grab him out of the sky, but her efforts proved futile. The hand had already dissolved into a cloud again. Her brother was nowhere to be seen. “No! Take me instead! Do you hear me?” Her voice was verging on hysteria, and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
Her mother had the nerve to get up off the ground. She looked visibly shaken. “Calm down, Thalia. I did what had to be done.”
“You- you monster!” Thalia screeched at the only family member she had left. “You. Aren’t. My. Mom.” And after that, Thalia was alone.
She woke up drenched with sweat and tangled in her blanket. Thalia ran her hands through her hair and tried to fight off the nausea that always came after that nightmare. Her jet-black hair used to fall all the way down her back, the way her mom had liked it. After Jason died, Thalia used scissors to chop it off. Now it stopped just past her ears. She had planned on dying it some rebellious shade, but black was the color of mourning, and Thalia didn’t want to disrespect him right after his death. So it stayed black.
In the days following Jason’s death, everything had gotten worse at Thalia’s house. Doreen’s drinking was worse than ever, and Thalia had finally left when she slapped Thalia across the face in her drunken rage. Thalia snatched all the money her mom- Doreen- had stuffed in a safe and took the first bus out of town. That led her to a train station, and she bought a ticket on the next train departing.
But that had happened nearly two years before. Now Thalia’s money was close to running out, despite her efforts to save it as best as she could, and soon she would have to find a way to get food and shelter.
Every couple of months, some sort of mythological monster would come to kill her. Thalia soon discovered that normal weapons couldn’t hurt the monsters, so she relied on her ability to sense danger early and then run like hell. She would end up leaving the town she was staying in, then travel haphazardly all over the country so the monster would lose her scent, before finding a new place to live. Her most recent residence was an old abandoned apartment building in the tiny town of Toadsuck, Arkansas, just because the name had made her smile. Whose job was it to come up with this stuff?
Thalia pulled off the blanket to get up and stretch. She was careful not to wake Serafina. Sera was another runaway, a pretty Latino girl she had met in Toadsuck, a year younger than Thalia. She had run away from her home in New Mexico after her stepdad sexually abused her. Together Thalia and Sera had found an apartment building on the outskirts of town that had electricity: some idiot at PECO forgot to shut off the power when the building was condemned, the girls figured. Having electricity was a luxury neither of the girls was accustomed to.
Thalia splashed some water on her face from the green plastic bucket in the kitchen. There wasn’t any running water, so the girls took turns dragging the bucket to and from a nearby river to use for teeth brushing and washing dishes. Thalia noticed that the bucket was very low on water, so she decided to refill it. She quickly jotted down a note for Sera to find if she woke up while Thalia was gone and left it on the counter.
Thalia stepped out into the hallway. They usually left the lights off at night to avoid detection, so it was hard for her to see. She dragged a hand along to the wall to make sure she wouldn’t smack into any walls. Thalia walked through the old reception area and lobby, and then she was out in the fresh air again. She moved quietly towards the woods, not that there were many people to wake in Toadsuck.
Thalia stepped over roots and around trees to find the creek that ran through the forest. She knelt down and submerged the bucket in the icy water, only to hear the sound of twigs snapping. Thalia quickly spun around on her heels. She saw a dark creature emerge from the branches of an oak tree and heard a low growl. (i)Hellhound(i), she thought before taking off into the woods and leaving the bucket behind.
