The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

A sense of relief washed over the assembled dryads. Their spikes relaxed. The chlorophyll came back into their complexions. Grover may not have solved their problems, but he had given them hope – at the very least, a sense that we could do something.

I gazed at the circle of hazy orange sky above the Cistern. I thought about the fires blazing to the west, and what might be going on up north at Camp Jupiter. Sitting at the bottom of a shaft in Palm Springs, unable to help the Roman demigods or even know what was happening to them, I could empathize with the dryads – rooted in place, watching in despair as the wildfires got closer and closer.

I didn’t want to quash the dryads’ newfound hopes, but I felt compelled to say, ‘There’s more. Your sanctuary might not be safe for much longer.’

I told them what Incitatus had said to Caligula on the phone. And, no, I never thought I would be reporting on an eavesdropped conversation between a talking horse and a dead Roman emperor.

Aloe Vera trembled, shaking several highly medicinal triangle spikes from her hair. ‘H-how could they know about Aeithales? They’ve never bothered us here!’

Grover winced. ‘I don’t know, guys. But … the horse did seem to imply that Caligula was the one who had destroyed it years ago. He said something like I know you think you took care of it. But that place is still dangerous.’

Joshua’s bark-brown face turned even darker. ‘Doesn’t make sense. Even we don’t know what this place was.’

‘A house,’ Meg said. ‘A big house on stilts. These cisterns … they were support columns, geothermal cooling, water supply.’

The dryads bristled all over again. They said nothing, waiting for Meg to continue.

She drew in her wet feet, making her look even more like a nervous squirrel ready to spring away. I remembered how she’d wanted to leave here as soon as we arrived, how she’d warned it wasn’t safe. I recalled one line of the prophecy we hadn’t yet discussed: Demeter’s daughter finds her ancient roots.

‘Meg,’ I said, as gently as I could, ‘how do you know this place?’

Her expression turned tense but defiant, as if she wasn’t sure whether to burst into tears or fight me.

‘Because it was my home,’ she said. ‘My dad built Aeithales.’





11


No touchy the god

Unless your visions are good

And you wash your hands





You don’t do that.

You don’t just announce that your dad built a mysterious house on a sacred spot for dryads, then get up and leave without an explanation.

So, of course, that’s what Meg did.

‘See you in the morning,’ she announced to no one in particular.

She trudged up the ramp, still barefoot despite traipsing past twenty different species of cactus, and slipped into the dark.

Grover looked around at his assembled comrades. ‘Um, well, good meeting, everybody.’

He promptly fell over, snoring before he hit the ground.

Aloe Vera gave me a concerned glance. ‘Should I go after Meg? She might need more aloe goo.’

‘I’ll check on her,’ I promised.

The nature spirits began cleaning up their dinner trash (dryads are very conscientious about that sort of thing), while I went in search of Meg McCaffrey.

I found her five feet off the ground, perched on the rim of the furthest brick cylinder, facing inward and staring into the shaft below. Judging from the warm strawberry fragrance wafting from the cracks in the stone, I guessed this was the same well we’d used to exit the Labyrinth.

‘You’re making me nervous,’ I said. ‘Would you come down?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ I muttered.

I climbed up, despite the fact that scaling walls really wasn’t in my skill set. (Oh, who am I kidding? In my present state, I didn’t have a skill set.)

I joined Meg on the edge, dangling my feet over the abyss from which we’d escaped … Had it really been only this morning? I couldn’t see the net of strawberry plants below in the shadows, but their smell was powerful and exotic in the desert setting. Strange how a common thing can become uncommon in a new environment. Or, in my case, how an uncommonly amazing god can become so very common.

The night sapped the colour from Meg’s clothes, making her look like a greyscale traffic light. Her runny nose glistened. Behind the grimy lenses of her glasses, her eyes were wet. She twisted one gold ring, then the other, as if adjusting knobs on an old-fashioned radio.

We’d had a long day. The silence between us felt comfortable, and I wasn’t sure I could tolerate any further scary information about our Hoosier prophecy. On the other hand, I needed explanations. Before I went to sleep in this place again, I wanted to know how safe or unsafe it was, and whether I might wake up with a talking horse in my face.

My nerves were shot. I considered throttling my young master and yelling, TELL ME NOW!, but I decided that might not be sensitive to her feelings.

‘Would you like to talk about it?’ I asked gently.

‘No.’

Not a huge surprise. Even under the best of circumstances, Meg and conversation were awkward acquaintances.

‘If Aeithales is the place mentioned in the prophecy,’ I said, ‘your ancient roots, then it might be important to know about it so … we can stay alive?’

Meg looked over. She didn’t order me to leap into the strawberry pit, or even to shut up. Instead, she said, ‘Here,’ and grabbed my wrist.

I had become used to waking visions – being yanked backwards down memory lane whenever godly experiences overloaded my mortal neurons. This was different. Rather than my own past, I found myself plunged into Meg McCaffrey’s, seeing her memories from her point of view.

I stood in one of the greenhouses before the plants grew wild. Well-ordered rows of new cactus pups lined the metal shelves, each clay pot fitted with a digital thermometer and moisture gauge. Misting hoses and grow lights hovered overhead. The air was warm, but pleasantly so, and smelled of freshly turned earth.

Wet gravel crunched under my feet as I followed my father on his rounds – Meg’s father, I mean.

From my vantage point as a tiny girl, I saw him smiling down at me. As Apollo I’d met him before in other visions – a middle-aged man with dark curly hair and a broad, freckled nose. I’d witnessed him in New York, giving Meg a red rose from her mother, Demeter. I’d also seen his dead body splayed on the steps of Grand Central Station, his chest a ruin of knife or claw marks, on the day Nero became Meg’s stepfather.

In this memory of the greenhouse, Mr McCaffrey didn’t look much younger than in those other visions. The emotions I sensed from Meg told me she was about five years old, the same age she’d been when she and her father wound up in New York. But Mr McCaffrey looked so much happier in this scene, so much more at ease. As Meg gazed into her father’s face, I was overwhelmed by her pure joy and contentment. She was with Daddy. Life was wonderful.

Mr McCaffrey’s green eyes sparkled. He picked up a potted cactus pup and knelt to show Meg. ‘I call this one Hercules,’ he said, ‘because he can withstand anything!’

He flexed his arm and said, ‘GRRRR!’ which sent little Meg into a fit of giggles.

‘Er-klees!’ she said. ‘Show me more plants!’

Mr McCaffrey set Hercules back on the shelf, then held up one finger like a magician: Watch this! He dug into the pocket of his denim shirt and presented his cupped fist to Meg.

‘Try to open it,’ he said.

Meg pulled at his fingers. ‘I can’t!’

‘You can. You’re very strong. Try really hard!’

‘GRRR!’ said little Meg. This time she managed to open his hand, revealing seven hexagonal seeds, each the size of a nickel. Inside their thick green skins, the seeds glowed faintly, making them look like a fleet of tiny UFOs.

‘Ooh,’ said Meg. ‘Can I eat them?’

Her father laughed. ‘No, sweetheart. These are very special seeds. Our family has been trying to produce seeds like this for –’ he whistled softly – ‘a long time. And when we plant them …’

‘What?’ Meg asked breathlessly.

‘They will be very special,’ her dad promised. ‘Even stronger than Hercules!’