riley doesn't like the flying shoes

we followed the spirits up a path.  

i was definitely not expecting what i saw. it looked like a cross between airport security and the jersey turnpike.

there were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said 'you are now entering erebus'. each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like charon.

the howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but i couldn't see where it was coming from. the three-headed dog, cerberus, who was supposed to guard hades's door, was nowhere to be seen. although, i was okay with that. i preferred not to run into three-headed dogs in the underworld.

the dead queued up in the three lines, two marked 'attendant on duty', and one marked 'ez death'. the 'ez death' line was moving right along. the other two were crawling.

"what do you figure?" percy asked us.

"the fast line must go straight to the asphodel fields," annabeth said. "no contest. they don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"there's a court for dead people?"

"yeah." i said, "three judges. they switch around who sits on the bench. king minos, thomas jefferson, shakespeare — people like that. sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward — the fields of elysium. sometimes they decide on punishment. but most people, well, they just lived. nothing special, good or bad. so they go to the asphodel fields."

"and do what?"

grover said, "imagine standing in a wheat field in kansas. forever."

"harsh," percy said.

"not as harsh as that," grover muttered. "look."

a couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. the face of the dead man looked familiar.

that's when i remembered who he was. 

"he's that preacher who made the news, right?" percy asked.

grover responded, "yeah. that's him.

i'd seen him on tv a couple of times back home in malibu. he was this annoying televangelist from upstate new york who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. he'd died in a police chase when his 'lamborghini for the lord' went off a cliff.

percy said, "what're they doing to him?"

"special punishment from hades," i guessed. "the really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. the fur — the kindly ones will set up an eternal torture for him."

"but if he's a preacher," percy said, "and he believes in a different hell... "

grover shrugged. "who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? humans see what they want to see. you're very stubborn — er, persistent, that way."

we got closer to the gates. the howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, but i still couldn't figure out where it was coming from. then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster. i hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. 

until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. only its eyes and teeth looked solid. and it was staring straight at us. cerberus, hades' three-headed guard dog.

"he's a rottweiler," was percy's only comment.

the dead walked right up to him — no fear at all. the 'attendant on duty' lines parted on either side of him. the 'ez death' spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"i'm starting to see him better," percy muttered. "why is that?"

"i thin..." annabeth moistened her lips. "i'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

the dog's middle head craned toward us. it sniffed the air and growled.

"it can smell the living," percy said.

"but that's okay," grover said, trembling. "because we have a plan."

"right," annabeth said in a small voice.

"a plan," i muttered.

we moved toward the monster. the middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.

"can you understand it?" percy asked grover.

"oh yeah," he said. "i can understand it."

"what's it saying?"

"i don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."

percy took the big stick out of his backpack — a bedpost he'd broken off crusty's safari deluxe floor model. he held it up.

"hey, big fella," percy called up. "i bet they don't play with you much."

"growwwllll!"

"good boy," percy said weakly.

he waved the stick. the dog's middle head followed the movement. the other two heads trained their eyes on him, completely ignoring the spirits. he had cerberus's undivided attention. 

"fetch!" he threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. i heard it go ker-sploosh in the river styx.

cerberus glared at percy, unimpressed. his eyes were baleful and cold.

so much for the plan.

cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his three throats.

"um," grover said. "percy?"

"yeah?"

"i just thought you'd want to know."

"yeah?"

"cerberus? he's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice. after that... well... he's hungry."

i prayed to all the gods, and goddesses i could think of. even the minor ones. anything that would get us out of here alive.

"wait!" annabeth said. she started rifling through her pack.

"five seconds," grover said. "do we run now?"

annabeth produced a red rubber ball the size of a grapefruit. it was labeled 'waterland, denver, co.' 

she raised the ball and marched straight up to cerberus.

i would never be able to do that.

she shouted, "see the ball? you want the ball, cerberus? sit!"

cerberus looked as stunned as we were.

all three of his heads cocked sideways. six nostrils dilated.

"sit!" annabeth called again.

i thought we were going to die, but instead, cerberus licked his three sets of lips, shifted on his haunches, and sat, immediately crushing a dozen spirits who'd been passing underneath him in the 'ez death' line.

the spirits made muffled hisses as they dissipated, like the air let out of tires, or balloons.

annabeth said, "good boy!"

she threw cerberus the ball.

he caught it in his middle mouth. it was barely big enough for him to chew, and the other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy.

"drop it," annabeth ordered.

cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at her. the ball was wedged between two of his teeth like a tiny piece of gum. he made a loud, scary whimper, then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at annabeth's feet.

"good boy." she picked up the ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it. 

i cringed, watching her.

she turned toward us. "go now. 'ez death' line — it's faster."

percy tried to inteject, "but—"

"now.'" she ordered, in the same tone she was using on the dog.

i grabbed grover, and percy and we inched forward warily.

cerberus started to growl.

"stay!" annabeth ordered the monster. "if you want the ball, stay!"

cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.

"what about you?" percy asked annabeth as we passed her.

"i know what i'm doing, percy," she muttered. "at least, i'm pretty sure...."

"don't die, wise girl," i ordered. "i have no idea how i'm going to keep these two alive without you."

she smiled, "i'll try my best."

we walked between the monster's legs.

'please, annabeth', i prayed. 'don't tell him to sit again.'

we made it through. cerberus wasn't any less scary-looking from the back, i'll tell you that. if anything i was more terrified now.

annabeth said, "good dog!"

she held up the tattered red ball, and probably came to the same conclusion i did — if she rewarded cerberus, there'd be nothing left for another trick.

she threw the ball anyway. the monster's left mouth immediately snatched it up, only to be attacked by the middle head, while the right head moaned in protest.

while the monster was distracted, annabeth walked briskly under its belly and joined us at the metal detector.

"how did you do that?" percy asked her, amazed.

"obedience school," she said breathlessly, and i saw the tears in her eyes. "when i was little, at my dad's house, we had a doberman... ."

"never mind that," grover said, tugging at percy's shirt. "come on!"

we were about to bolt through the 'ez death' line when cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. annabeth stopped.

she turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at us.

cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet.

"good boy," annabeth said, but her voice sounded melancholy and uncertain.

the monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried about her.

"i'll bring you another ball soon," annabeth promised faintly. "would you like that?"

the monster whimpered. i didn't need to speak dog to know cerberus was still waiting for the ball.

"good dog. i'll come visit you soon. i — i promise." annabeth turned to us. "let's go."

grover and percy pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights.

"unauthorized possessions! magic detected!"

cerberus started to bark.

annabeth and i ran after them. we burst through the 'ez death' gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the underworld.

a few minutes later, we were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup from the furies.

grover murmured, "well, percy, what have we learned today?"

"that three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"

i rolled my eyes.

"no," grover told him. "we've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

imagine the largest field you've ever seen. a giant wasteland.  

now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine there is no noise, no light, nothing.

whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

if you can picture that, you have a pretty good idea what the fields of asphodel looked like.

the black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. a warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. poplars, black trees, grew in clumps here and there.

the cavern ceiling was so high above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. 

i tried not to imagine they'd fall on us at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. i gulped. i guess the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets. 

we tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls.

i looked at the faces of the spirits of asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. their faces shimmer. they all look slightly angry or confused. they will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away.

the dead aren't scary. they're just sad.

i saw one spirit, who looked me, dead in the eye. i don't know why, but i had a feeling she knew more than the other dead. her eyes peered into me. they looked a pale yellow-ish grey, as if being in the fields of asphodel for so long made them dull. she may have realized that i was alive, but then she looked away, and wandered off.

we crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read: 

'judgments for elysium and eternal damnation
welcome newly deceased!'

out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

to the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the fields of punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. even from far away, i could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. i could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. and i saw worse tortures, too — things i don't want to describe.

the line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. this one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls — a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the underworld. beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, roman villas and medieval castles and victorian mansions. silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. the grass rippled in rainbow colors. i could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.

elysium.

in the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the bahamas. the isles of the blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved elysium.

i saw percy looking at the place with a certain determination, as if that's where he wanted to go after he died. and that's the whole point of all of this. 

elysium.

"that's what it's all about," i said, to him. "that's the place for heroes. the reason we put up with this crazy world."

we left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the asphodel fields. it got darker. the colors faded from our clothes. the crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.

after a few miles of walking, we began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. above the parapets swirled three dark bat-like creatures: the furies.

"i suppose it's too late to turn back," grover said wistfully.

"we'll be okay." percy said.

"maybe we should search some of the other places first," grover suggested. "like, elysium, for instance..."

"let's go, goat boy." i grabbed his arm.

grover yelped. his sneakers sprouted wings and his legs shot forward, pulling him away from me. he landed flat on his back in the grass.

"grover," annabeth chided. "stop messing around."

"but i didn't—" he yelped again. his shoes were flapping like crazy now. they levitated off the ground and started dragging him away from us.

i reached out for him, but he kept flying away.

"maia!" he yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect. "maia, already! nine-one-one! help!"

he was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled.

we ran after him.

annabeth shouted, "untie the shoes!"

it was a smart idea, but it's not so easy when your shoes are pulling you along feet-first at full speed. grover tried to sit up, but he couldn't get close to the laces.

we kept after him, trying to keep him in sight as he ripped between the legs of spirits who chattered at him in annoyance.

i was sure grover was going to barrel straight through the gates of hades's palace, but his shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.

the slope got steeper. grover picked up speed. annabeth, percy, and i had to sprint to keep up. the cavern walls narrowed on either side, and we'd entered some kind of side tunnel. no black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above.

"grover!" percy yelled, his voice echoing. "hold on to something!"

"what?" he yelled back.

he was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down.

the tunnel got darker and colder. it felt evil. i got flashes of things. blood spilt on the ground.  they eyes of a murderer. my hairs stood on edge.

then i saw what was ahead of us, but i couldn't stop.

the tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city block.

grover was sliding straight toward the edge.

i saw percy had skidded to a stop.

"come on, percy!" i yelled, grabbing his wrist. i pulled him along.

"but that's—"

"i know!" i shouted. "the place we dreamed! but grover's going to fall if we don't catch him." 

that got him moving again.

grover was yelling, clawing at the ground, but the winged shoes kept dragging him toward the pit, and it didn't look like we could possibly get to him in time.

what saved him were his hooves.

the flying sneakers had always been a loose fit on him, and finally grover hit a big rock and the left shoe came flying off. it sped into the darkness, down into the chasm. the right shoe kept tugging him along, but not as fast. grover was able to slow himself down by grabbing on to the big rock and using it like an anchor.

he was ten feet from the edge of the pit when we caught him and hauled him back up the slope. the other winged shoe tugged itself off, circled around us angrily and kicked our heads in protest before flying off into the chasm to join its twin.

"ow," i muttered rubbing the spot where the shoe kicked my head.

we all collapsed, exhausted, on the obsidian gravel.

grover was scratched up pretty bad. his hands were bleeding. his eyes had gone slit-pupiled, goat style, the way they did whenever he was terrified.

"i don't know how..." he panted. "i didn't..."

i put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

"wait," percy said. "listen."

i didn't want to listen. a few seconds later i spoke, "percy, this place—"

"shh." he stood.

that's when i listened. i hear a voice, a muttering, evil voice from far, far below us. coming from the pit. i looked at annabeth. she heard it too.

grover sat up. "wh — what's that noise?"

i felt a chill go down my spine, and i spoke, "tartarus. the entrance to tartarus." 

percy uncapped anaklusmos.

the bronze sword expanded, gleaming in the darkness, and the evil voice seemed to falter, just for a moment, before resuming its chant.

i could almost make out words now, ancient, ancient words, older even than greek. curses, and spells. terrifying things.

"magic," percy said.

"we have to get out of here," annabeth said.

nobody argued.

together, we dragged grover to his hooves and started back up the tunnel. my legs wouldn't move fast enough. the voice got louder and angrier behind us, and we broke into a run.

not a moment too soon.

a cold blast of wind pulled at our backs, as if the entire pit were inhaling. for a terrifying moment, percy lost his ground, his feet slipping in the gravel. i grabbed his arm, and yanked him along.

if we'd been any closer to the edge, we would've been sucked in.

we kept struggling forward, and finally reached the top of the tunnel, where the cavern widened out into the fields of asphodel. the wind died. a wail of outrage echoed from deep in the tunnel. something was not happy we'd gotten away. and i had a good idea of what that something was.

"what was that?" grover panted, when we'd collapsed in the relative safety of a black poplar grove. "one of hades's pets?"

i could hear the tremble in his voice. the thing in that pit left me shaking and trembling. i pulled aurora's hoodie on, and shoved my hands in my pockets to stop the trembling.

annabeth and i looked at each other. we were thinking the same thing. i turned my head, and met percy's eyes.

he could probably see the fear in my eyes. i silently pleaded for him not to ask me anything. thankfully he didn't.

he capped his sword, put the pen back in his pocket. "let's keep going." he looked at grover.

"can you walk?"

he swallowed. "yeah, sure. i never liked those shoes, anyway."

with that, we made out way to hades' palace.

REY WRITES !

thanks for reading !!

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