Percy Jackson

There was no way in hell Grover believed me, but it was the truth.

After that, Gabe was quieter, which was almost scarier. It was worrying, without a doubt, he's always been a loud person, so for him to barely say a word during dinner...

Maybe he was just trying to be civil since Grover was here, and the only way he could do that was by being quiet. I don't know.

I didn't miss the tension, though. I'd be shocked if Grover didn't tell Mr. Bruner about this by the end of the week and we'd find out by a CPS showing up.

Hopefully they'd just court order him to get treatment but... You never know.

And I'm not willing to risk what I don't really know.

After dinner, I walked Grover back to the nearest station in mostly silence, having accepted that if we ever hang out again, it won't be at the apartment.

If.

I had a feeling it wouldn't happen.

"Th— thanks for having me over and letting me walk you home." Grover said once we got to the station. "Your uh... Your mom makes really good... Food. She's a good cook, though I don't know why it was blue?"

I cracked a smile.

"It's a long story." I insisted. "Um, sorry that you had to be introduced to Gabe like that. If you ever want to hang out, though, you know where to find me."

"Uh— yeah!" But he seemed nervous, and I couldn't tell if it was from what I said or because he was about to have to take the subway. "I'll see you around! Have fun with your mom this weekend."

And with that, he was gone, so I went home. Where Gabe was griping and groaning about losing my mom— more like her cooking— for three whole days and about also losing the '78 Camaro that he can almost never drive anyways because of how much he drinks.

"Not one scratch, brain boy." He warned me as I put mom's suitcase in the back seat, as if I'd be the one driving.

Spoiler alert: I wouldn't be. Because I'm 12.

Not that that mattered to Gabe. A seagull could poop on the car and it'd probably be my fault.

What does he have against Montauk anyways?

He used to love it.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it after Gabe sauntered back to the apartment.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded cur-tains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place. We'd been going there since I was a baby, and my mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I had a feeling it was special to her for more reasons than just family tradition.

I'm pretty sure it's where she met my dad.

The deadbeat, not Gabe.

As we got closer to Montauk, the years always seemed to slip away from her, looking younger and happier than she ever is at home.

We got there not long after sundown, opened all of the windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. After that, we walked around the beach, feeding blue corn chips to seagulls while we munched on blue jellybeans and blue taffy.

I should probably explain the blue thing, huh?

When I was little, my mom and Gabe had a really stupid spat about the fact that, as Gabe claimed, blue wasn't a naturally occurring color in food. Blueberries weren't even blue, after all.

After that, she started bringing home blue foods almost like a joke. Some taffy, maybe chips. She'd make cake and cookies blue. For new years she'd buy Blue Curacao for her and Gabe and get me blue Hawaiian punch. For a while, he'd just roll his eyes and act humored by my mom's rebellious streak.

And then one day, not even immediately after he started drinking, but a year later, he suddenly didn't find it funny anymore.

She still does it because no man has ever stopped my mom, and I love that she still does it because it's our thing, but now it's just our thing.

Once it was dark, we made a fire and had roasted a few marshmallow. Mom told me stories from when she was a kid— what she remembered from before her parents died and when she lived with her uncle after that. Meeting Gabe as a kid and starting a book that she wants to finish writing when she has enough money to quit the candy shop. How many books she would write if she could. The amount of times her and Gabe used to bounce ideas off of each other because he'd always wanted to be a comic book writer, apparently, so they always talked about mom writing the story and Gabe drawing it.

She smiled as she talked about it, which she doesn't always do when she talks about him anymore.

So I asked my mom the question that I was always afraid of asking at home.

"Why won't he go to treatment?"

Her shoulders dropped with the rest of her expression, and I was reminded of the fact that, even though she deserves the world and then some, my mom still loved Gabe.

Her eyes glazed over, but she didn't cry when she met my gaze.

"I— I don't know, sweetheart." Mom answered, handing me a smore. "I think that maybe he's afraid of what might happen if he stops because it's been so long now— maybe he's worried that he'll feel worse if he's sober, but I don't know. I don't know if he knows, either, kiddo, I just know that I can only push him to do so much."

"I know, I just... Wish he would."

For a moment, a blanket of silence fell over my mom and I before I got the courage to ask the question that I'd been curious about for most of my life.

I asked about my biological dad.

Mom smiled, but it was a different smile than the one she'd used moments before talking about her husband. It was more nostalgic.

"He was kind, Percy. Tall, dark, handsome, and powerful," Mom told me, which wasn't exactly new, but different than the usual script she'd told me before. "But he was also gentle. You have his black hair, you know. And his green eyes."

Mom fished for some blue jelly beans. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He'd be so proud."

Because there was a lot to be proud of, right?

I didn't understand how she could say that. My sperm donor was probably some rich or elusive sailor who had tons of other kids that he also didn't care to return to. How can a dyslexic, hyperactive kid who's gotten kicked out of every school he's ever gone to make their deadbeat dad proud?

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean... When he left?"

Looking at me, mom's expression turned from nostalgic to confused.

She looked at the flames.

"He was only with me for one winter, Percy." Mom told me. "Right here at the beach, at the cabin."

"But... He knew me as a baby."

"No, honey," she broke the news to me, which somehow made my father both a better and worse person. "He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never met you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to reason with that, despite the fact that I could swear I remembered his warm glow, but... Maybe not.

I always assumed he'd known me as a baby. Mom had never said outright, obviously, but I figured that had to be the case.

But no. Now, being told that he's never seen me...

I felt angry at my father.

Maybe it's stupid, but I hated him not for going on the ocean voyage, but for never coming back from it. For not having the guys to marry my mom like the queen mom said that he treated her like. For not even sending us help to compensate for the fact that he abandoned us.

It made me mad, but it also made me want to cry because what sick person gets somebody pregnant, knows that their partner is pregnant, and then just vanishes?

Like he didn't want the responsibility.

Like he didn't want me.

"Are you going to send me away again?" It wasn't the best topic change in hindsight, but I didn't want to talk about my sperm donor anymore. "to another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." She admitted. "I think... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?"

Did I regret the words as soon as they left my mouth? Mostly.

It was a shitty thing to say to my mom, especially seeing her eyes tear up after the fact. She took my hand and squeezed it right.

"Oh, no, no, Percy," Mom pleaded. "I— I have to, honey, for your own good. I have to send you away."

It was a line that hadn't bothered me when she said it last year, but now it sounded a little too similar to what Mr. Bruner told me after my last day in his class. That it was for the better, me leaving Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal." I recalled from a conversation my mom didn't even know about yet.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever
happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers
threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

 "Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

Now I don't know about you, but as somebody who was never been to summer camp both because I didn't care about summer camp unless it was a skateboarding summer camp and also because we couldn't afford it, this piece of information felt extremely odd.

But if it's so important, like she said it is, why only mention it now?

"I'm sorry, Percy, I... Can't talk about it," she told me, noticing my growing confusion. "I couldn't send you to that place, it might... It might mean saying goodbye to you. For good."

"For good?" I questioned. "But if it's just a summer camp..."

Looking back at the fire, Mom's expression was more than enough to tell me that she couldn't answer anything else tonight.

I had a really weird dream that night. A very vivid one, at that.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, "No!"

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There were no horses or eaglesnon the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

On one hand, I wanted to insist that no, even in early June, that was crazy. New York never got hurricanes this early in the summer, if we ever got any.

But like the last six months, the weather seemed to have forgotten about that.

A sound much closer than the storm grabbed my attention, though— the sound of mallets in the sand immediately followed by a frantic voice outside, somebody pounding on the door.

Jumping out of bed, Mom raced to the door and threw open the door, where my best friend stood against the backdrop of the storm, but he wasn't...

He wasn't exactly Grover.

"I... Searching all night..." He gasped for air. "what were you thinking?"

My mother looked back at me in terror— not of me, but of why Grover came.

Which I didn't know for sure, but I could take a few guesses.

"Percy," she said, having to shoot over the rain. "what happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was still frozen, though, looking at Grover. I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at.

"O zeu kai alloi theoi!" He yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I was too shocked to realize that I understand that not only had Grover cursed in Ancient Greek, but that I'd also understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover got here in the middle of the night or how he knew where to find us, because where his pants would be... Where his legs should be...

"Percy!" Mom said over the rain in a tone I'd never heard before— stern and loud. "tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies and the fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds as my mom stared at me, her complexion deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

Towards the end of my stammering, she grabbed her purse, threw me my rain jacket, and told both of us to get in the car.

Grover ran for the Camaro, and I took off after, but he wasn't exactly running. He was trotting, his furry hindquarters shaking, and suddenly his story about a muscular disease started to make sense. I could understand how he could run so fast but still limped when he walked.

It wasn't because of s muscular disease.

It was because, where his feet should be, there weren't any. There were cloven hooves.

Getting into the car, my mother has never driven more wrecklessly. Especially in a car that wasn't even hers.

Gabe would never forgive me for any damage done to his car.

We tore through the night along dark country roads, and while it felt like a miracle that mom could see the road at all, she kept her foot on the gas. Meanwhile, every time lightning flashed to allow me to see better, I'd wonder if Grover was wearing some weird kind of fur pants, but the smell of lanolin mixed with the actual hooves I saw running to the car helped proved that I might not be completely insane.

Just, you know, a little.

All I could think to ask is if Grover knew my mom before today— there's no other way he'd know where our cabin was at Montauk, after all.

Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no other cars on the road (reasonably so).

"Not exactly." He told me. "I mean, we'd never met in person, but she knew that I was watching you."

"W— watching me?"

Is my best friend a stalker?

"Keeping tabs on you." He corrected, which wasn't any better. "Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added with sternness. "I am your best friend."

The fact that he still wanted to be my friend after this afternoon was reassuring, at least. I cracked a nervous smile before pointing out the barnyard animal in the room.

"What uh..." But there's no way to ask without it sounding rude. "What are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"That doesn't matter!?" I repeated back to him so he'd understand how ridiculous that sounded. "from the waist down my best friend has the legs of a donkey!"

Grover let out a sound that I'd always assumed to be a weird laugh, but more started to realize was a more irritated bleat.

"Goat!" He cried.

"What?"

"I'm half goat!"

"You just said it didn't matter!"

"Blaahaha, there's satyrs who would trample you for an insult like that!"

"Woah, woah, woah, wait." I said, slowing the conversation down because this was the kind of talk I got called crazy for all year. "A satyr? Like... Your mean from Mr. Bruner's myths?"

But instead of just giving me s straight answer, Grover felt the need to be s smartass, which...

It's why we're friends, but I didn't need it right now.

"We're the old ladies at the fruit stand myths, Percy?" My best friend questioned. "Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you admit she exists?"

"Of course she exists!"

"Then why—"

"The less you knew, the better." Grover answered as if that made sense. "It meant you'd attract fewer monsters. We shielded the mortals eyes with the Mist hoping you'd forget about it or... Or just... But it didn't work because you started to realize who you are, which isn't your fault it just attracts more monsters and when you start to realize who you are..."

"Wait, hold on." I stopped his ramblings. "What do you mean by that?"

A weird bellowing noise came from behind the car, closer than it was when we'd left. Whatever it was, it was on our tail and gaining on us.

"Percy," Mom insisted, looking back at me through the mirror for a moment. "There's too much to explain and too little time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety?" I asked, now a lot more worried about whatever was chasing after us. "from that? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said in a sarcastic tone. "just the Lord of the Dead and some of his bloodthirstiest minions."

"Grover!" Mom said.

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson, can you drive a little faster?"

Mom made a hard left, swerving onto a narrower road with a sign that said Pick your own strawberries!

If only we had the time.

They weren't my favorite, but Grover really likes strawberries.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight, trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"As in the place you didn't want me to go?"

"Please, dear," my mother begged, taking a breath. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn?"

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

And sure, I'd seen Mrs. Dodds. Sure, Grover had goat legs right now, but it wouldn't compute that the Fates...

When you're...

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me. "

"I meant you,  like 'someone.' Not you, you."

"Boys!" my mom interrupted, steering hard to the right just in time for me to notice what she was trying to avoid— a dark silhouette that was almost lost in the storm.

A silhouette that was a lot bigger than us.

"What was that?"

"We're almost there," Mom said to herself, ignoring my question. "Just another mile, just one more mile. Please. Please."

I had no idea where there was, but I still found myself leaning forward in anticipation, hoping to see some sort of change from the rain and storming outside that might indicate where our destination was. The countryside suggested the northern tip of Long Island, but I wasn't sure.

Suddenly, Mrs. Dodds flashed in my mind again, and I realized that maybe I wasn't psychotic or hallucinating after all, and she did actually intend to kill me.

That thought brought me to Mr. Bruner and the pen he threw that suddenly was a sword in my ha—

Before I could ask Grover about it, there was a blinding flash, a rattling sound, and a car explosion.

Our car.

Gabe wasn't going to let me live to turn 13 if he ever saw me again.

I just remember feeling weightless, as if I was being crushed, hosed down, and fried all at the same time.

"Ow," I managed as I peeled my forehead from the back of the driver's seat.

"Percy!" Mom shouted, sounding panicked (which in hindsight, is fair).

"I'm okay..." I responded as I tried to shake off my daze.

I wasn't dead, which was good. The car hasn't actually exploded, but we did swerve into the ditch. The driver's door was wedged into the mud and the roof had cracked like an eggshell. There was rain starting to pour in.

It must've been a blast of lightning that drove us off the road. That's the only reasonable explanation.

To my left, Grover was laying slumped over in his seat. He was passed out and I felt a surge of oanic go through me when I noticed a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth.

"Grover!" It was my turn to yell as I grabbed him by the shoulders thinking to myself. "Grover please, even if you are half barnyard animal, you're still my my best friend, please..."

Twitching a little, Grover murmured something about enchiladas and I've never been more relieved to hear about the Mexican dish.

"Percy," my mom placed a hand on my own shoulder. "we have to..."

Her voice faltered as lightning flashed, letting us see the silhouette of the thing chasing us again. Tall, very muscular, and possibly wearing a blanket on his head. His raised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed. "Who is—"

"Percy," my mom's voice was deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

"Wh—"

There was no simple way to do that, though. Neither of our doors budged, and the roof would've caused me so many cuts I would've bled out.

After getting the back passenger door open, I had to spend multiple seconds to convince her to come with because I'm just going to leave my mom behind to die and I also wasn't leaving Grover, who I couldn't get to the pine tree (what was so special about it? I don't know) on my own.

Once we were out of the car, everything became a blur. It didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't a person that followed us, but rather a... A monster, literally, that followed us.

It was the Minotaur.

I remembered getting separated from my mom because she said she'd distract it, and then I remember it grabbing her and she...

And then she was gone.

After that, everything turned red. Somehow, I ended up with it's horn in my hand as Grover started waking up again, and after talking my mother, I gave it the treatment it deserved and stabbed it with it's own horn before the adrenaline started to wear off. I vaguely recall hearing Bruner's voice and a girl talking about somebody being "the one", but I was too far gone to know if it was actually Bruner or just a voice similar to his.

I don't remember making it to the pine tree, but Grover must've gotten us there. The next place i came to in was a room with other cots, but I was separated from most other beds by a sheet. I could only see one other bed, which Grover had been laying in.

Before I could process where I was, a voice interrupted my thoughts.

"You droll in your sleep."