Chapter Text
Let me preface this by saying that nightmares for demigods typically suck. Most demigod dreams suck, but our nightmares are a different breed. This particular nightmare started on a deserted street.
I was standing in the middle of said deserted street in some small tourist beach town, the kind where the souvenirs are overpriced and cheaply made. My twin brother Percy appeared right next to me. We glanced at each other and sighed. Sharing dreams was a curse as much as it was a blessing in disguise. Percy and I each tended to notice things in dreams the other didn’t just for us to only understand their significance at strangely convenient times or right before we were about to be killed.
It appeared to be in the middle of the night here and a storm was blowing away everything not nailed down. The wind and rain ripped and tore at the palm trees lining the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings had their windows boarded up warding off the flying debris. Either the street had been evacuated in response to the hurricane or it was truly abandoned. There wasn’t any point in trying to figure out which it was though. Just a block away, past some hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned and pounded the shore.
My brother looked just as confused as I was at why we were staring at a deserted street in Florida. That’s when we heard hooves clattering against the pavement.
Turning, we saw our friend Grover running for his life, and yes, I did say hooves. That wasn’t a typo. You see, Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzz goatee and a bad case of acne. He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch him with his drawers down, you’d never know he was a satyr. A helpful tip for you: don’t catch juvenile satyrs without pants. It’s just awkward for everyone involved. Baggy jeans and Styrofoam shoe inserts hide the fact that Grover’s got furry hindquarters and hooves.
Grover had been Percy’s and my best friend in sixth grade. He’d gone on this adventure with us and a girl named Annabeth when we sought to save the world, but we hadn’t seen him since last July, when he’d set off alone on a dangerous quest to find the lost god Pan—a quest no satyr had ever returned from.
Anyway, in the dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the way he does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the little tourist shops and surfboard rental places. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground.
Grover was absolutely terrified of whatever was behind him. He must’ve just come from the beach. Wet sand was caked in his fur. He’d escaped from somewhere. He was trying to get away from... something.
A bone-rattling growl cut through the storm. Behind Grover, at the far end of the block, a shadowy figure loomed. A massive arm swatted aside a streetlamp, which shattered into a shower of sparks.
Grover stumbled, whimpering in fear. He muttered to himself, Have to get away. Have to warn them!
I couldn’t see what was chasing him, but I could hear it muttering and cursing as it fumbled around in the dark. The ground shook as it got closer. Grover dashed around a street corner and stumbled to a stop. He’d run into a dead-end courtyard full of shops and there was no time to back track. Luckily, the nearest door had been blown open by the storm. The sign above the darkened display window read: ST. AUGUSTINE BRIDAL BOUTIQUE.
Grover dashed inside and dove behind a rack of wedding dresses.
The monster’s shadow passed by the front of the shop and the smell hit me like a sledgehammer. The monster reeked of a gut-churning combination of wet barnyard animal, rotten meat, and the distinctive sour body odor only real monsters have, like a skunk mixed with rotten chilis.
Grover hunkered down, trembling behind the wedding dresses. The monster’s shadow passed on leaving the shop in silence except for the rain. Grover took a deep breath. Maybe the thing was gone.
Then lightning flashed. The entire front of the store exploded, and a monstrous voice bellowed: “MIIIIINE!”
I woke up only to slam face-first into the ground. During my nightmare, I’d thrashed out of bed. My back was drenched in sweat. Percy was sitting bolt upright in his own bed.
“Ow.” I groaned.
“You do know flying isn’t one of our powers, right?” Percy snickered. I flipped him off from my new position on the floor.
There was no storm raging outside. No monster smashing through glass. Just warm morning sunlight filtering through the bedroom window.
A knock on the door pulled my attention from my brother and the nightmare. Our mom called through the door: “Percy, Penny, you’re going to be late.”
A shimmering shadow flashed past the window that briefly looked human-shaped—and then it disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. It must have been a pigeon or something because there was no way anyone could have been outside the fifth-story window, even with the old fire escape.
“Come on, you two,” my mother called again. “Last day of school. You both should be excited! You’ve almost made it!”
“Coming,” Percy replied.
“Just a few minutes!” I called back. “Stupid demigod dreams! We just woke up!”
“You both okay? Do you want to talk about it?” Mom called back.
“No. We’re fine. Just need to change.”
Percy frowned at me. “Why’d you tell her?”
I just rolled my eyes and pushed up from the floor. “We promised to be more honest about when we have dreams, remember? Plus, she’s helpful in interpreting them.”
My brother just huffed. He knew I was right, but he still hated making Mom worry. He reached under his pillow and pulled out Anaklusmos, still in its ballpoint pen form. He slept with it under his pillow every night. I did the same with my trident. Some habits were hard to break, especially after the quest last year when monsters could have attacked at any moment.
“Want to spar on the roof after school?” I asked.
After an incident with a misjudged javelin swing that took out the china cabinet, Mom had made us promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment. We’d taken to practicing on the roof. Not the most glamorous place to practice, but it was generally private and there were no china cabinets in sight up there.
As I got ready, I kept thinking about what Grover had been saying. ‘Have to get away. Have to warn them!’
I had a bad feeling about what he was wanting to warn us about. Percy seemed to be on the same train of thought as me. He made a three-fingered claw over his heart and pushed outward—an ancient gesture Grover had once taught us for warding off evil. Hopefully, the dream wasn’t real. The only problem was that if being a demigod had taught me anything, then the dream was real and our friend was in trouble.
Today was the actual last day of school though. Mom was right, we should be excited. For the first time ever, we’d almost made it an entire year without getting expelled. No weird incidents with monsters or magic, well except for one, but that had turned out okay. We hadn’t had any fights in the classroom and all our teachers had been purely mortal, no monstrous talons or hidden tails. Tomorrow, we’d be on our way to our favorite place in the world—Camp Half-Blood.
Just one more day. Surely, we couldn’t mess that up.
As usual, the universe decided to show me just how wrong I could be.
Mom had made blue waffles and eggs for breakfast. She’s funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. It’s her way of saying anything is possible. Penny and Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles and eggs can be blue. Little miracles like that. I did have to admit that the eggs were more green than blue but I wasn’t going to complain.
We ate at the kitchen table while Mom washed up the pans. She was dressed in her work uniform—a starry blue skirt and a red-and-white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail.
The food was delicious, but Percy wasn’t wolfing down his food with his usual gusto. Our Mom’s motherly instincts must have alarmed because she looked over and frowned. “Percy, are you all right?”
“Yeah... fine.”
But she could always tell when something was bothering us. She dried her hands and sat down across from us. “School, or...”
She didn’t need to finish. We all knew what she was asking.
“I think Grover’s in trouble,” Percy said, and we told her about our dream. She frowned in thought.
Even trying to live normally, we’d gotten used to the more immortal aspects being involved in our lives. Grandmother visited us regularly, we primarily spoke Greek at home (even Mom), and there was now an altar to the gods in the living room. It had a few small statues of the specific deities we regularly give offerings to. Dad was proudly displayed and I’d gotten a statue of Hestia too. We’d gotten one of Grandmother. Its presence led to her giving us tight hugs and a ton of food when she saw it. There was one of Hermes since he’d hosted us in his cabin and even one of Mr. D too. At first, I’d put the Mr. D statue there only to annoy my brother, but eventually we’d come to give him offerings regularly too. Mom even offered prayers and offerings of grape-flavored candies to him as thanks for being a god that cared about his children and helped protect the camp, which included us when we were there. Grandmother had told us that offerings were something that went directly to the individual deities themselves and that any alcohol offered to Mr. D through the altars wouldn’t be taken from him even with his punishment and restrictions.
I’d sent some Iris Messages to some of the campers I was closer to about that particular aspect of the offerings. Apparently, Mr. D. had been a little less irritable this summer, no doubt from the alcoholic offerings the older campers and some parents made. That didn’t mean that he stopped complaining about being stuck at Camp Half-Blood though.
“We can ask your Yaya the next time she visits if she’s heard anything. Try not to worry too much. Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I’m sure we would’ve heard from... from camp...” Mom’s shoulders tensed as she said the word camp.
“What is it?” Percy asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. This afternoon we’ll celebrate the end of school. I’ll take you two and Tyson to Rockefeller Center—to that skateboard shop you like Percy. And Penny, we can go to that Mythomagic shop there too.”
Now that was tempting. Money was always something we had to watch super closely. Between our mom’s night classes, our school tuitions, and the rent, we could rarely afford to do special stuff like shop for a skateboard for Percy or let me get something at the Mythomagic store.
Something in her voice bothered me though. Percy must have been picking up on the same thing.
“Wait a minute,” Percy said. “I thought we were packing up for camp tonight.”
She twisted her dishrag. “Ah, dear, about that... I got a message from Chiron last night.”
My heart plummeted. Chiron wouldn’t contact Mom unless something serious was happening at camp.
“What did he say?” Percy asked.
“He thinks... it might not be safe for either of you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone.”
“What? Why?” I cried.
“Postpone? Mom, how could it not be safe? We’re half-bloods! It’s like the only safe place on earth for us!”
“Usually, dear. But with the problems they’re having–”
“What problems?”
“What’s happening at camp? We could be helping!” I was close to tears. The thought of something making the camp unsafe was like a dagger to my heart.
“Percy... Penny... I’m very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can’t explain it all now. I’m not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly.”
My thoughts whirled around my head. How could we just not go to camp? There were a million questions I wanted to ask, but the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.
Our mom looked almost relieved. “Seven-thirty. You both should head on. Tyson will be waiting.”
“But–” Percy protested.
“Percy, we’ll talk this afternoon. Go on to school.”
That was obviously the last thing either of us wanted to do, but our mom had this fragile look in her eyes—a kind of warning, like if we pushed her too hard, she’d start to cry. Besides, she was right about Tyson. We had to meet him at the subway station on time or he’d get upset. He was scared of traveling underground alone, not that I blamed him. The subway could be a dangerous place, even if you just considered the mortal dangers.
Percy and I gathered up our stuff, but Percy stopped in the doorway. “Mom, this problem at camp. Does it... could it have anything to do with our dream about Grover?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes or mine. “We’ll talk this afternoon. I’ll explain... as much as I can.”
Reluctantly, we told her goodbye and jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train. None of us knew it at the time, but none of us would ever get to have that afternoon talk. In fact, neither Percy nor I would be seeing home for a long, long time.