the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

always made Reyna feel like she was being watched (because often, she was).
Their father had done everything he could to make the centuries-old hacienda feel like a modern
home. He’d added the skylights, painted everything white to make it brighter and airier. But he’d only
succeeded in making the place look like a well-groomed corpse in a new suit.
The trapdoor had opened into the massive fireplace. Why they even had a fireplace in Puerto Rico,
Reyna had never understood, but she and Hylla used to pretend the hearth was a secret hideout where
their father couldn’t find them. They used to imagine they could step inside and go to other places.
Now, Hylla had made that true. She had linked her underground lair to their childhood home.
‘Hylla –’
‘I told you, we don’t have time.’
‘But –’
‘I own the building now. I put the deed in my name.’
‘You did what?’
‘I was tired of running from the past, Reyna. I decided to reclaim it.’
Reyna stared at her, dumbfounded. You could reclaim a lost phone or a bag at the airport. You
could even reclaim a hazardous waste dump. But this house and what had happened here? There was
no reclaiming that.
‘Sister,’ Hylla said, ‘we’re wasting time. Are you coming or not?’
Reyna eyed the balconies, half expecting luminous shapes to flicker at the railing. ‘Have you seen
them?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Papa?’
‘Of course not,’ Hylla snapped. ‘You know he’s gone for good.’
‘I don’t know anything of the sort. How could you come back? Why?’
‘To understand!’ Hylla shouted. ‘Don’t you want to know how it happened to him?’
‘No! You can’t learn anything from ghosts, Hylla. You of all people should realize –’
‘I’m leaving,’ Hylla said. ‘Your friends are a few blocks away. Are you coming with me, or should
I tell them you died because you got lost in the past?’
‘I’m not the one who took possession of this place!’
Hylla turned on her heel and marched out of the front door.
Reyna looked around one more time. She remembered her last day here, when she was ten years
old. She could almost hear her father’s angry roar echoing through the main room, the chorus of
wailing ghosts on the balconies.
She ran for the exit. She burst into warm afternoon sunlight and found that the street hadn’t changed
– the crumbling pastel houses, the blue cobblestones, dozens of cats sleeping under cars or in the
shade of banana trees.
Reyna might have felt nostalgic … except that her sister stood a few feet away, facing Orion.
‘Well, now.’ The giant smiled. ‘Both daughters of Bellona together. Excellent!’
Reyna felt personally offended.