Hey peoples! I don't have any announcements today, so right to the chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Percy's POV
So there we were, Annabeth and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. Rain was pouring down on us to top it all.
Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."
Honestly, I could care less about the three Kindly Ones. What I was really thinking about was that girl we saw in that car.
Annabeth tugged us along, "Come on! The further away we get the better."
We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. Then I saw a little girl with long wavy brown hair. She looked about six years old and was staring at us. When she saw that I noticed her, she started to run away, deeper into the woods.
I opened my mouth to tell her to wait, but Annabeth grabbed my arm. "Look, I appreciate you saving me back there."
I looked back into the woods to try to find the girl again, but she was long gone. Instead, I turned to Annabeth, "No problem. It is what I do best, Wise Girl."
I think she smiled, but I wouldn't know because I don't have night vision. We then heard a shrill toot-toot-toot like the sound of an owl being tortured.
"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"
He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.
Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head. "Ow." I moaned.
After tripping and cursing, and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.
We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and 1 open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.
That was when we stumbled upon the long and low warehouse of Medusa. I wanted to just turn around and walk away, but I was so hungry that I couldn't resist even if I knew that Medusa was in there. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.
"What the heck does that say?" I asked.
"Um . . . I don't know."
Grover translated, "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."
The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.
"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"
Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman—at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well manicured and elegant.
Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"
"They're ... um ..." Annabeth started to say.
"We're orphans." I said.
"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"
"Um, we lost our circus caravan. The ringmaster said to meet us at the gas station if we got lost, but we didn't know which one. Now we are lost and hungry." I said.
"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."
We thanked her and went inside.
Annabeth muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"
"Always have a strategy, right?" I winked.
"Your head is full of kelp."
Aunty Em led us to the dining area. "Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.
"Awesome," I said.
"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."
Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."
"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.
Medusa disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.
I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.
Annabeth slurped her shake.
Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.
"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.
I listened, but didn't hear anything. Annabeth shook her head. It was probably the snakes hidden underneath Medusa's headdress.
"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."
"I take vitamins for my ears."
"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."
Aunty Em sat forward, interlaced her fingers, and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our host. Maybe I could try to get us out of this predicament.
"So, you sell gnomes?" I asked trying to sound interested.
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And, people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?" I was starting to forget that Medusa was a bad person. She sounded miserable when she spoke and I felt bad for her.
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
"Well, we better get going." I stood up groggily.
"Yeah, our ringmaster will be waiting." Annabeth stood up.
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
"Um, no. We really have to find our ringmaster! Bye!" Annabeth grabbed my arm and started to tug me out the door.
I mumbled to Annabeth, "We can stay, take a picture, and then go. It's the least we can do for her. She fed us and all." Annabeth looked at me as if I was bonkers.
"Yes, one quick photo. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children." The old lady smiled.
I could tell Annabeth didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.
Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."
"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."
"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear." She still had no camera in her hands.
"Percy—" Annabeth said.
Some instinct warned me to listen to Annabeth, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old woman's voice.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."
"Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.
"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.
I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.
I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Annabeth in another. I crawled in the other direction, but stopped because I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.
I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"
More rasping—the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.
I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens— a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents. That kick started my memory.
"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."
"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"
"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."
"No," I muttered. I crawled away from her, but she kept coming.
"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."
"Percy!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"
I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"
Knowing Grover, he would miss Medusa completely and nail me. I dove to one side.
Thwack!
At first, I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.
I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.
Ker-whack!
"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.
Right next to me, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!"
I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"
Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off."
"Why do I have to do it?" I said.
"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You—you've got a chance."
"Liar! You want me to do it cause you're scared."
"That's not true!" Annabeth said.
"Yeah, okay."
Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—"
"Would you speak English?"
"I am!" She tossed me the glass ball. "Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly."
"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"
"Roooaaarrr!"
"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.
"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."
I took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand. I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.
I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.
Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Oomph!"
Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"
I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.
But she let me approach—twenty feet, ten feet.
I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely, it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."
I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass—the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.
From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"
Medusa cackled. "Too late."
She lunged at me with her talons.
I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening schlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern—the sound of a monster disintegrating.
Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snakeheads tugging at my shoelaces. I started to gag.
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."
Annabeth came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."
Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.
"Oh, that's just gross." I said frowning and shaking my head.
Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green Rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.
"I thought we said no flying sneakers." Annabeth said.
"It doesn't matter right now. Grover you did well." I said.
He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part was fun. But crashing into a bear. Not fun.
He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse.
We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.
I remembered something I was supposed to do, and got up. "I'll be back."
"Percy," Annabeth called after me. "What are you—"
I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.
In the cash register, I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.
I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:
The Gods
Mount Olympus
600th Floor,
Empire State Building
New York, NY
With best wishes,
PERCY JACKSON
"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."
I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!
"I am impertinent," I said.
I looked at Annabeth who now knew what I got up to do. She smiled and shook her head. I stuck my tongue out at her.
"Come on," she said. "We need a new plan."
We took some food and blankets from Aunty Em's. We marched outside in the mushy ground. It stopped raining, but we all still felt completely miserable.
