The Tower of Nero

I wished I could just once wake up refreshed after a dream about getting seaweed wraps and pedicures with the Nine Muses. Oh, I missed our spa decades! But no. I got sneering emperors and giant laughing reptiles instead.

I sat up, woozy and blurry-eyed. I was lying in my old cot in the Me cabin. Sunlight streamed through the windows—morning light? Had I really slept that long? Snuggled up next to me, something warm and furry was growling and snuffling in my pillow. At first glance, I thought it might be a pit bull, though I was fairly sure I did not own a pit bull. Then it looked up, and I realized it was the disembodied head of a leopard.

One nanosecond later, I was standing at the opposite end of the cabin, screaming. It was the closest I’d come to teleporting since I’d lost my godly powers.

“Oh, you’re awake!” My son Will emerged from the bathroom in a billow of steam, his blond hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist. On his left pectoral was a stylized sun tattoo, which seemed unnecessary to me—as if he could be mistaken for anything but a child of the sun god.

He froze when he registered the panic in my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

GRR! said the leopard.

“Seymour?” Will marched over to my cot and picked up the leopard head—which at some point in the distant past had been taxidermied and stuck on a plaque, then liberated from a garage sale by Dionysus and granted new life. Normally, as I recalled, Seymour resided over the fireplace mantel in the Big House, which did not explain why he had been chewing on my pillow.

“What are you doing here?” Will demanded of the leopard. Then, to me: “I swear I did not put him in your bed.”

“I did.” Dionysus materialized right next to me.

My tortured lungs could not manage another scream, but I leaped back an additional few inches.

Dionysus gave me his patented smirk. “I thought you might like some company. I always sleep better with a teddy leopard.”

“Very kind.” I tried my best to kill him with eye daggers. “But I prefer to sleep alone.”

“As you wish. Seymour, back to the Big House.” Dionysus snapped his fingers and the leopard head vanished from Will’s hands.

“Well, then…” Dionysus studied me. “Feeling better after nineteen hours of sleep?”

I realized I was wearing nothing but my underwear. With my pale, lumpy mortal form covered in bruises and scars, I looked less than ever like a god and more like a grub that had been pried from the soil with a stick.

“Feeling great,” I grumbled.

“Excellent! Will, get him presentable. I’ll see you both at breakfast.”

“Breakfast…?” I said in a daze.

“Yes,” Dionysus said. “It’s the meal with pancakes. I do love pancakes.”

He disappeared in a grape-scented cloud of glitter.

“Such a show-off,” I muttered.

Will laughed. “You really have changed.”

“I wish people would stop pointing that out.”

“It’s a good thing.”

I looked down again at my battered body. “If you say so. Do you have any clothing, or possibly a burlap sack I might borrow?”

Here’s all you need to know about Will Solace: he had clothes waiting for me. On his last trip into town, he’d gone shopping specifically for things that might fit me.

“I figured you’d come back to camp eventually,” he said. “I hoped you would, anyway. I wanted you to feel at home.”

It was enough to start me crying again. Gods, I was an emotional wreck. Will hadn’t inherited his thoughtfulness from me. That was all his mother, Naomi, bless her kind heart.

I thought about giving Will a hug, but since we were clad in just underwear and a towel, respectively, that seemed awkward. He patted me on the shoulder instead.

“Go take a shower,” he advised. “The others took an early-morning hike”—he gestured at the empty bunks—“but they’ll be back soon. I’ll wait for you.”

Once I was showered and dressed—in a fresh pair of jeans and a V-necked olive tee, both of which fit perfectly—Will re-bandaged my forehead. He gave me some aspirin for my aching everything. I was starting to feel almost human again—in a good way—when a conch horn sounded in the distance, calling the camp to breakfast.

On our way out of the cabin, we collided with Kayla and Austin, just returning from their hike with three younger campers in tow. More tears and hugs were exchanged.

“You’ve grown up!” Kayla gripped my shoulders with her archery-strong hands. The June sunlight made her freckles more pronounced. The green-tinted tips of her orange hair made me think of Halloween-pumpkin candy. “You’re two inches taller at least! Isn’t he, Austin?”

“Definitely,” Austin agreed.

As a jazz musician, Austin was usually smooth and cool, but he gave me a serene smile like I’d just nailed a solo worthy of Ornette Coleman. His sleeveless orange camp tee showed off his dark arms. His cornrows were done in swirls like alien crop circles.

“It’s not just the height,” he decided. “It’s the way you hold yourself.…”

“Ahem,” said one of the kids behind him.

“Oh, right. Sorry, guys!” Austin stepped aside. “We got three new campers this year, Dad. I’m sure you remember your children Gracie and Jerry and Yan.…Guys, this is Apollo!”

Austin introduced them casually, like I know you don’t have a clue who these three kids are that you sired and forgot about twelve or thirteen years ago, but don’t worry, Dad, I got you.

Jerry was from London, Gracie from Idaho, and Yan from Hong Kong. (When had I been in Hong Kong?) All three seemed stunned to meet me—but more in a you-have-to-be-kidding-me way, not in a wow-cool sort of way. I muttered some apologies about being a terrible father. The newcomers exchanged glances and apparently decided, by silent agreement, to put me out of my misery.

“I’m famished,” Jerry said.

“Yeah,” Gracie said. “Dining hall!”

And off we trekked like one big super-awkward family.

Campers from other cabins were also streaming toward the dining pavilion. I spotted Meg halfway up the hill, chatting excitedly with her siblings from the Demeter cabin. At her side trotted Peaches, her fruit-tree spirit companion. The little diapered fellow seemed quite happy, alternately flapping his leafy wings and grabbing Meg’s leg to get her attention. We hadn’t seen Peaches since Kentucky, as he tended to only show up in natural settings, or when Meg was in dire trouble, or when breakfast was about to be served.

Meg and I had been together so long, usually just the two of us, that I felt a pang in my heart watching her stroll along with a different set of friends. She looked so content without me. If I ever made it back to Mount Olympus, I wondered if she would decide to stay at Camp Half-Blood. I also wondered why the thought made me so sad.

After the horrors she’d suffered in Nero’s Imperial Household, she deserved some peace.

That made me think about my dream of Luguselwa, battered and broken on a stretcher in front of Nero’s throne. Perhaps I had more in common with the Gaul than I wanted to admit. Meg needed a better family, a better home than either Lu or I could give her. But that didn’t make it any easier to contemplate letting her go.