The Son of Neptune

Hazel helps Percy up to the store while Frank uses his bow and arrow to scare off the basilisks. When he uses his bow as a club to hit one of the basilisks, the bow disintegrates. He’s afraid then that they won’t be able to leave past the basilisks. Once in the store, they discover it is a sort of new-age store called Rainbow Organic Foods & Lifestyles. Two women are there, a young woman named Fleecy, and an older woman named Iris. Fleecy is a cloud nymph and Iris is the rainbow and messenger goddess. Iris has Fleecy prepare Percy a tea that will cure his illness, and allows Percy and Hazel to try to use Iris-messages to send messages to both Camp Jupiter and Annabeth.

Iris takes Frank into the dining area of the store to talk to him. She tells him that he has a strong family history of extraordinary gifts, then shows him a series of images in a rainbow. First, a time when his mother saved him from an angry bear on his grandmother’s Canadian property. Second, it shows him a memory of himself sitting in his mother’s lap and listening to her tell him about his ancestors, Xu Fu and Sung Guo, also known as Seneca Gracchus, “who fought twelve Roman dragons and sixteen Chinese dragons in the western deserts of China” (241).