"Alright then. Who shall read next?" asked Andromeda.
"I will," said Nico, raising a hand. Percy passed the book to him and he cleared his throat.
"Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks of Death." Nico read.
"Oh, dear," sighed Rachel. She and Thalia both grimaced, and the other demigods and Olympians watched them, confused. "Is there ever a peaceful chapter in this book?" asked Chris. "No," sighed Percy. This of course did nothing to help with Poseidon's nerves.
I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.
The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.
"Man, the Mist can be really annoying," sighed Percy with a shake of his head, and Thalia smirked. "Amen," she agreed, high-fiving him.
I saw no sign of the strange auburn-haired girl either, but that didn't stop me.
Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.
"Duh. That's 'cause you are psycho!" exclaimed Rachel. Percy huffed indignantly. "I'm not psycho! That's Nico's job!" he snapped. "Guilty as charged!" said Nico proudly with a wide, maniacal grin.
It got so I almost believed them – Mrs. Dodds had never existed.
Almost.
But Grover couldn't fool me.
Everyone snorted at this. Grover looked a little dejected, but then Connor clapped him on the back. "No worries, my young satyr! Me and Travis will teach you everything we know about lying when we get back to camp!" he exclaimed.
"Don't bother; the satyrs a useless liar," said Dionysus as he perused through a magazine, listening to the story but unwilling to admit it.
When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.
Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.
The freaky thing was, my memory of the girl seemed to be fading. Every time I tried to remember the exact shade of auburn and grey that matched the mysterious girl's hair and eyes, the image didn't look right, and when I tried to place a voice to her face, it just sounded completely wrong.
I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings and the girl shouting at me to do something about it would wake me up in a cold sweat.
"Wuss!" called Ares and Clarisse in singsong voices, but everyone was ignoring them again.
The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.
Once again, everyone began staring at the Big Three brothers like they were from outer space. Zeus was once again examining his master bolt, while Poseidon seemed to be looking for new constellations on the star-covered ceiling. Hades was glowering at them but said nothing.
One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.
*Cue staring again* Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Curiosity killed the cat!" she called in a singsong voice, making everyone jolt in surprise; she had disappeared into the background again until that moment.
I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.
I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.
Ares smirked. This kid wasn't so bad in his opinion.
Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.
Everyone snorted, and the demigods all burst into fits of giggling. It took about five minutes until Nico could talk again.
The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.
Fine, I told myself. Just fine.
I was homesick.
"Aw, Prissy Princess Percy misses his wittle mommy!" mocked Clarisse, making Ares snort with laughter.
Nico stared at them and said solemnly, "If you ever met her or had her chocolate chip cookies you'd miss her too." "Exactly!" exclaimed Thalia, and she high-fived her cousin.
I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.
Poseidon frowned. That did not sound good at all.
And yet . . . there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.
Grover grinned at Percy gratefully, and Percy gave him a thumbs-up. Annabeth watched out of the corner of her eye; maybe Percy wasn't so bad.
I worried how he'd survive next year without me. I'd miss Latin class, too – Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.
As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.
Athena looked appalled but she said nothing, just huffing in irritation.
I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner told me about this subject being life-a-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.
"Good thing too, or else you'd be getting nowhere in the world of magic," said Travis sagely, though Katie just rolled her eyes at him.
The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room.
Athena sent Percy a fierce death glare but again said nothing.
Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin Verbs? Forget it.
"Man, I feel your pain," sighed Nico, patting Percy on the shoulder with a cheeky grin. Percy just rolled his eyes and told him to keep reading.
I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.
I took a deep breath. I picked up my mythology book.
I'd never asked a teacher for help before.
"That's probably why you do so bad in school," said Athena critically Annabeth nodded with her, though she couldn't help but sympathize with Percy; he was stubborn, and so was she.
Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.
I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.
I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice was definitely Grover's said ". . . worried about Percy, sir."
"And so it begins," said Nico in a dramatic stage-whisper. Andromeda snorted with laughter, making everyone jump again; was she purposefully fading into the furniture or what? It was like she just turned into mist every second she didn't want to be seen; it was freaky.
I froze.
I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.
Artemis rolled her eyes. 'Boys always try to hear things they shouldn't', she thought knowingly.
I inched closer.
". . . alone this summer." Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"
"We would only make matters worse by rushing him." Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."
"But he may not have time! Monsters will start flocking to him once word spreads that he has a Guardian, and the summer solstice dead-line-"
Everyone tensed, hoping to get information.
"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."
Everyone huffed in disappointment and glared at Chiron, who ignored them.
"Sir, he saw Mrs. Dodds! He even saw Andromeda! He'll want to know-!"
"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."
"Sir, I . . . I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."
At this Thalia looked at the ceiling, ignoring the stared of sympathy and sadness being sent her way.
"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"
The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.
"You idiot! Don't give away your position!" cried Thalia, thwacking Percy in the head harder than she meant to. His eyes rattled in his head but he said nothing.
Mr. Brunner went silent.
My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.
A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.
I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.
A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.
A bead of sweat tickled down my neck.
Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."
"What happened at the solstice?" asked Hestia curiously. "Cat," Andromeda reminded them, but Hestia just smiled and sat back; she would be patient.
"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn . . ."
"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."
"Don't remind me."
The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.
Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.
"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to get ready for this test?"
I didn't answer.
"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"
"Just . . . tired."
I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.
I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.
"You didn't," Rachel said with a sigh.
But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.
The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,
"Three hours," moaned Travis and Connor, both of them going cross-eyed as they began muttering awful things about the world's education systems.
-my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.
For a moment I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's . . . it's for the best."
His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic kissing motions with her lips.
Andromeda's expression soured greatly and a cold wind blew through the throne room, making everyone shiver. They wisely decided not to ask.
I mumbled, "Okay, sir."
"I mean . . ." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."
My eyes stung.
Andromeda walked very near Clarisse before she could say anything.
Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.
"That is pretty harsh," said Katie, wincing in sympathy.
"Right." I said, trembling.
"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say . . . you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-"
"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."
"Percy-"
But I was already gone.
Thalia patted Percy on the shoulder but said nothing.
On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.
The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.
"Well, considering he's sitting in this room, I'd say he wasn't a total nobody," offered Nico. This earned him a punch on the arm and a smack on the head, courtesy of his two cousins. "I hate you both!" he whimpered, but they both laughed and hit him again.
They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.
What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.
Everyone winced slightly. Poseidon was definitely worried now.
"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."
They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.
"How rude!" spat Hestia, her eyes narrowed.
The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.
During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.
I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"
"Straight and to the point," said Beckendorf. "Bet that scared him pretty bad," said Silena, patting Grover sympathetically on the head.
Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha- what do you mean?"
I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.
Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh . . . not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"
"That's what I want to know!" snapped Hera; she was worried about her family and she wanted answers, damn it!
He winced. "Look, Percy . . . I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers . . ."
"Grover-"
"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and . . ."
"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."
His ears turned pink.
From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."
The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:
Grover Underwood
Keeper
Half-Blood Hill
Long Island, New York
(800) 009-0009
"Ugh, those cards are murder on my dyslexia!" moaned almost all of the half-bloods. All of the gods glared at Dionysus, and he made a mental note that he would change the cards before he got murdered.
"What's Half-"
"Don't say it aloud!" He yelped. "That's my, um . . . summer address."
My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.
"Okay." I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."
Everyone smirked. "Mansion," scoffed Clarisse.
He nodded. "Or . . . or if you need me."
"Why would I need you?"
Hestia gave Percy a gentle scolding glare, and he grinned sheepishly.
It came out harsher than I meant it to.
"Good. You feel guilty," muttered Silena as she patted Grover's head again.
Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."
I stared at him.
All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.
"Aw, you care so much about your friends!" cooed Aphrodite, making everyone laugh and Percy blushed. "Keep reading, di Angelo!" he ordered. Nico obliged.
And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.
"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"
There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.
'Not good,' thought Poseidon with a sigh. His son might be in trouble again. Great.
The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.
After a few minutes clanking around in the engine around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.
We were stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.
"Why does that sound….. eerily familiar?" asked Athena. Nobody answered her.
The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. Despite the fact that there were no customers, a girl with auburn hair was standing behind the fruit stand, leaning on the woodwork like it was the only thing supporting her weight.
I jumped and looked again. Yep. It was her; the girl from the museum. She locked her grey eyes with my green eyes and smiled warmly. Her eyes seemed to glow with an unnatural light for a second, but it was gone too quickly for me to be sure.
Everyone was now looking about said-auburn-haired girl now, but she stood as still as a statue, ignoring them completely as she listened to Nico.
Right behind her, three old ladies sat in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.
I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.
All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.
"Oh my gods, the Fates!" gasped Artemis, and all the other gods and goddesses gasped in horror and tensed. The demigods all stiffened so much, Percy was sure they'd never be able to move again.
Now everyone's attention was directed at him; they all gaped and stared at him, gawking like he was a zoo animal. "How are you alive? !" whispered Annabeth. Percy winced.
Nico, Thalia and Rachel gripped each other's arms; they had never heard of Percy's run in with the Fates before. "Continue and you'll find out," said the quiet voice of Andromeda. Quietly, like it was a magic incantation, Nico began reading again:
The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.
I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.
"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"
"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"
"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"
"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."
Everyone smiled slightly, but they didn't dare break the moment of tension.
The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.
Poseidon held his breath, not daring to breathe.
"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."
"What?' I said. "It's thousand degrees in there."
"Come on! Listen to him!" exclaimed Annabeth. Athena was so caught up in the book she didn't even bother shooting a look at her daughter.
"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.
"NO, DON'T!" screamed all of the half-bloods except Percy.
Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The girl had turned to them and seemed to say something that I guessed was probably like, You're really going to cut it? The middle lady nodded. The girl turned back to me and I saw a flash of sympathy flood her grey eyes and she mouthed to me, Sorry.
The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four-lanes of traffic.
Silence enveloped them. The demigods, Rachel, and Poseidon had all turned extremely pale in the light of Hestia's hearth. Andromeda was smiling sadly and she nodded at Nico to continue.
Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for- Sasquatch or Godzilla.
At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.
The passengers cheered.
Everyone started to relax a little, but the demigods, Rachel, and Poseidon were still extremely pale compared to their usual complexions.
"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"
Once we got going I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.
Everyone tensed up again. 'Damn it, why is it always my son in danger? !' Poseidon wailed silently to the sky.
Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.
"Grover?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you not telling me?"
He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"
"You mean the girl and the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like . . . Mrs. Dodds, are they?"
"Worse," hissed Annabeth. Athena nodded with her and said nothing.
His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies and the girl were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."
"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn. Then the girl told me 'sorry'."
He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.
He said, "You saw her snip the cord."
"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.
"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumbs. "I don't want this to be like the last time."
"What last time?"
"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."
"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me, "What are you talking about?"
"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."
This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.
"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.
No answer.
"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"
He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.
Nico placed the bookmark back and slapped the book closed. He stood, stretched and yawned. "Gods I'm tired. Is there anywhere we can crash for the night?" he asked. This jolted the Olympians out of their various states of shock. They hadn't even realized how late it had gotten until now.
"Ahem, there are some rooms down the corridor on the left for you to stay in. Chiron, if you would," said Zeus, motioning to him to do something. Chiron jumped and said, "Right, follow me, everyone!" He led the main group of demigods away, but Andromeda caught Percy and Nico by the backs of their shirts.
"Oh no you don't. You four are coming with me," she ordered, snatching Thalia and Rachel as well and dragging them all out of the room down a separate corridor, watched the entire time by the Olympians and the other demigods.
/\/\/\/\
A/N: And? How was that? Hmm? I would very much like to hear your opinions! PLEASE REVIEW or vote for this story in my profile poll to see it updated faster! Oh! And if one more person were to come from the future, who would you choose? Vote now in a review! Laters!
-Wind