~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

What Happened To The Nymphs?

{Piper}

Percy turned. "Watch this last step."

   He jumped to the floor of the cylindrical room, which was five feet lower than the stairwell. Why would someone design a set of stairs like that? Piper had no idea. Maybe the room and the stairwell had been built during different time periods.

   She wanted to turn and exit, but she couldn't do that with Jason behind her, and she couldn't just leave Percy down there. She clambered down, and Jason followed.

   The room was just like she'd seen it in Katoptris's blade, except there was no water. The curved walls had once been painted with frescoes, which were now faded to eggshell white with only flecks of color. The domed ceiling was about fifty feet above.

   Around the back side of the room, opposite the stairwell, nine alcoves were carved into the wall. Each niche was about five feet off the floor and big enough for a human-sized statue, but each was empty.

   The air felt cold and dry. As Percy had said, there were no other exits.

   "All right." Percy raised his eyebrows. "Here's the weird part. Watch."

   He stepped to the middle of the room. Instantly, green and blue light rippled across the walls. Piper heard the sound of a fountain, but there was no water. There didn't seem to be any source of light except for Percy's and Jason's blades.

   "Do you smell the ocean?" Percy asked.

   Piper hadn't noticed at first. She was standing next to Percy, and he always smelled like the sea, just like how Kiara always smelled like fresh earth after rain. But he was right. The scent of salt water and storm was getting stronger, like a summer hurricane approaching.

   "An illusion?" she asked. All of a sudden, she felt strangely thirsty.

   "I don't know," Percy said. "I feel like there should be water here—lots of water. But there isn't any. I've never been in a place like this."

   Jason moved to the row of niches. He touched the bottom shelf of the nearest one, which was just at his eye level. "This stone... it's embedded with seashells. This is a nymphaeum."

   Piper's mouth was definitely getting drier. "A what?"

   "We have one at Camp Jupiter," Jason said, "on Temple Hill. It's a shrine to the nymphs."

   Piper ran her hand along the bottom of another niche. Jason was right. The alcove was studded with cowries, conches, and scallops. The seashells seemed to dance in the watery light. They were ice-cold to the touch. Piper had always thought of nymphs as friendly spirits—silly and flirtatious, generally harmless.

   They got along well with the children of Aphrodite. They loved to share gossip and beauty tips. This place, though, didn't feel like the canoe lake back at Camp Half-Blood, or the streams in the woods where Piper normally met nymphs. This place felt unnatural, hostile, and very dry.

   Jason stepped back and examined the row of alcoves. "Shrines like this were all over the place in Ancient Rome. Rich people had them outside their villas to honor nymphs, to make sure the local water was always fresh. Some shrines were built around natural springs, but most were man-made."

   "So... no actual nymphs lived here?" Piper asked hopefully.

   "Not sure," Jason said. "This place where we're standing would have been a pool with a fountain. A lot of times, if the nymphaeum belonged to a demigod, he or she would invite nymphs to live there. If the spirits took up residence, that was considered good luck."