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The Diariy of Luck Castellan
MY NAME IS LUKE
Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with this diary My life is pretty crazy But I promised the old man I would try After what happened today…well, I owe him
My hands are shaking as I sit here on guard duty I can’t get the horrible iirls wake up Maybe if I write down the story, I’ll be able to put it behind me
I should probably start with the oat
For three days, Thalia and I had been following the goat across Virginia I wasn’t sure why Tospecial, but Thalia was itated than I’d ever seen her before She was convinced the goat was son from her dad, Zeus
Yeah, her dad is a Greek god So is ain Denets All those ancient Greek nasties like Furies and harpies and gorgons still exist, and they can sense heroes like us from miles away Because of that, Thalia and I spend all our ti for our lives Our superpowerful parents don’t even talk to us, much less help us Why? If I tried to explain that, I’d fill up this whole diary, so I’ to move on
Anyway, this goat would pop up at random times, always in the distance Whenever we tried to catch up to it, the goat would vanish and appear farther away, as if it was leading us somewhere
Me, I would’ve left it alone Thalia wouldn’t explain why she thought it was i enough that I’d learned to trust her judgoat
Early in the ed across a narrow bridge over a lazy green river, past wooded parks and Civil War ceated through sleepy neighborhoods of red brick town houses wedged close together, hite-coluardens
I i in those cozy houses I wondered what it would be like to have a ho fro eaten by monsters every day I’d run ahen I was only nine—five long years ago I barely remembered what it was like to sleep in a real bed
After walking anotherinside et sooat
The street ere following opened up into a big circular park Stately red brick mansions faced the roundabout In the middle of the circle, atop a twenty-foot whiteon horseback Grazing at the base of the oat
“Hide!” Thalia pulled me behind a row of rosebushes
“It’s just a goat,” I said for the millionth time “Why—?”
“It’s special,” Thalia insisted “One of my dad’s sacred animals Her name is Amaltheia”
She’d never oat’s name before I wondered why she sounded so nervous
Thalia isn’t scared of er than I a down the street you’d clear a path She wears black leather boots, black jeans, and a tattered leather jacket studded with punk rock buttons Her hair is dark and choppy like a feral animal’s Her intense blue eyes bore into you as if she’s considering the best way to beat you to a pulp
Anything that scared her, I had to take seriously
“So you’ve seen this goat before?” I asked
She nodded reluctantly “In Los Angeles, the night I ran away Aht you and I met…she led me to you”
I stared at Thalia As far as I knew, ourhad been an accident We literally ran into each other in a dragon’s cave outside Charleston and teaoat
As far as her old life in Los Angeles, Thalia didn’t like to talk about it I respected her too much to pry I knew her mom had fallen in love with Zeus Eventually Zeus duods tend to do Her s—I didn’t know the details—until finally Thalia decided to run In other words, her past was a lot like mine
She took a shaky breath “Luke, when A ierous She’s like a warning frouide”
“To what?”
“I don’t know…but look” Thalia pointed across the street “She’s not disappearing this ti us”
Thalia was right The goat was just standing there, less than a hundred yards away, contentedly nibbling grass at the base of the monument
I was no expert on barnyard anie now that ere closer She had curlicue horns like a raray fur…was it glowing? Wisps of light see her look blurry and ghostly
A couple of cars looped around the traffic circle, but nobody seeoat That didn’t surprise e that keeps ods Thalia and I weren’t sure what this force was called or hoorked, but it was pretty powerful Mortals ht not see it at all
Thalia grabbed my wrist “Come on Let’s try to talk to it”
“First we hide frooat?”
Thalia dragged me out of the rosebushes and pulled ets an idea in her head, you just have to go with it She always gets her way
Besides, I couldn’t let her go without me Thalia has saved my life a dozen times She’s my only friend Before we met, I’d traveled for years on my own, lonely and miserable Once in a while I’d befriend a mortal, but whenever I told them the truth about me, they didn’t understand I’d confess that I was the son of Hered sandals I’d explain that ods were real and very much alive in the modern world My mortal friends would say, “That is so cool! I wish I was a de
But Thalia understood She was like me Now that I’d found her, I was deterlowing goat, then we’d do that, even if I had a bad feeling about it