Chapter 55: Chapter 55
We were pretty miserable that night.
We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a
marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The
ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.
We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare
light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided
enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else.
We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.
Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head
hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a
tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.
"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."
He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."
"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"
"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground.
"And the sky. You can't even see the stars.
They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."
"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."
He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast…ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate
things are going, I'll never find Pan."
"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"
"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you
think I want a searcher's license for?"
A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering
the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers
and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly
I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.
"Tell me about the search," I said.
Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making
fun.
"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told
me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out
from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans
heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever
since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and
the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every
generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search
the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden,
and wake him from his sleep."
"And you want to be a searcher."
"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle
Ferdinand…the statue you saw back there—"
"Oh, right, sorry."
Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad.
But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."
"Hang on—the first?"
Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come
back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."
"Not once in two thousand years?"
"No."
"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"
"None."
"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think
you'll be the one to find Pan?"
"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that
keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world.
I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."
I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover
could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?
"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean,
what chance do we have against a god?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were
searching her office? Annabeth was telling me—"
"Oh, I forgot. Annabeth will have a plan all figured out."
"Don't be so hard on her, Percy. She's had a tough life, but she's a good
person. After all, she forgave me.…" His voice faltered.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"
Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago.
Annabeth has been at camp five years. She wasn't…I mean, your first
assignment that went wrong—"
"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested
he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's,
Annabeth and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest.
Something isn't what it seems."
"Well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades
took."
"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were
sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy…why did she wait
so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as
they could've been."
"They seemed plenty aggressive to me."
Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it?
Where?'"
"Asking about me," I said.
"Maybe…but Annabeth and I, we both got the feeling they weren't
asking about a person. They said 'Where is it?' They seemed to be asking
about an object."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we
only have nine days to find the master bolt.…" He looked at me like he was
hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.
I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods.
What lay ahead of me was worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight
with you," I told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to
the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."
Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you
sure that's the only reason?"
"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care
about him."
Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart
as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading
emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you,
and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's
head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."
"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human
emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks."
Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Percy. Whatever."
"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got
out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."
Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem.
"How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."
I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I
turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I
was asleep.
In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist
creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow
knew were the spirits of the dead.
They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to
walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.
Looking down made me dizzy.
The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be
bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.
Weekly Power Status
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