CHAPTER SEVEN
( lost in the woods somewhere in new jersey )

TO EVERY OTHER mortal out there, our latest events would've been seen as the worst luck you've ever had, but when you're a half-blood, you are just thankful that you're still breathing and in one piece. The biggest difference to me is that at least we know that someone is in fact messing with you from above. So there we were, Percy, Annabeth and Grover and I, walking through the woods on the New Jersey riverbank with the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us and the reeking smell of the Hudson filling our noses. I did my best to keep up with the other's pace, but my lungs felt like they were on fire. Maybe running out of the monster's grasp wasn't the brightest idea for me, but I pushed myself forward. I couldn't be seen as the weak link in the group.

Grover was shivering, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. My arms were wrapped around my figure due to the cool weather, but Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The further away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," Percy came to the realization. "Our food and clothes. Everything.'

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight – "

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."

"Shut up, goat boy," Annabeth snapped.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like my cabin after a long week of not doing laundry. Annabeth walked a far distance in front of us to guide the way, even if she didn't know where she was taking us to.

I don't know what came over me, but since I sensed some tension between the group, I fell into step beside Percy, taking in a deep breath before speaking, "Look, what Annabeth tried to say. . ." my voice faltered. "That was really brave of you, to come back for us."

"We're a team, right?"

I stayed silent after his words since I couldn't figure out what to say. "If you died, besides the fact that it would be terrible for you, it would mean that we failed the quest. This may be Annabeth and I's only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Percy, only glimpses of the lighter streaks of his hair. If I hadn't been standing beside him before the light went out, I wouldn't have a clue where he was standing.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" he asked me.

"No. . . only short field trips. My mom – "

"Your mortal mom."

"Yeah. . ." I paused to collect myself. I figured we weren't that close for me to share my family problems, besides, why would he care?  "I couldn't live there anymore. Camp Half-Blood is my home." I repeated that last sentence like a mantra, as if I was reassuring myself. "At camp you train. For a very long time. But outside is where you know whether you are good or not."

"You're pretty good with that bow," he said.

I didn't know if he was sarcastic or not. "You think so?"

"Anybody who can shoot a Fury in the neck is okay with me."

I was glad that he couldn't see me smile. "You know, maybe I should tell you... Something funny back on the bus. . ."

My words were interrupted by my own ragged breaths. Breathing normally through the nose wasn't helping enough, so I stopped walking and tried to breathe in from the mouth. It surely was a sight to see – me with my hands over my knees doing my best in composing myself.

"Maia – " Annabeth must've heard this because she raced back toward us. "Your inhaler? Where's your inhaler?"

"My – pocket – " I managed to wheeze out.

If I wasn't too busy gasping for air, my cheeks would've flushed red in embarrassment. The only thing I wanted to avoid during the whole quest happened not even a day in. I reached out to the pocket of my pants for my inhaler and visibly relaxed when I felt in between my fingertips. Annabeth smoothed a hand on my back as I placed the inhaler to my lips and took a puff from it. It was still complicated for my chest to heave and fall back to its normal rhythm, but the difficulty of getting air to my lungs disappeared.

"You're asthmatic?" Percy dumbly asked..

"No," I snapped. "I just like filling my lungs with medicine for fun."

I tried taking another puff, but no aerosol came out. I pressed down on it one more time and the disappointing sound of the container pressing against the metering valve rang in my ears. I cursed in Ancient Greek. Annabeth frowned with worry. "What?"

"That was my last puff. It's empty now."

"Let me guess, the other was on the bus."

My eyes snapped to Percy. Once I started to think he wasn't so bad, he said stuff like this.

"Yes."

"Okay. . ." Annabeth tried to think of something. "Let's take it slow from now on."

I shook my head. We weren't going to slow a quest with a due date because of me. "No. We'll figure something out."

Annabeth's eyebrows were furrowed in concentration. Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill, repetitive toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried, oblivious to the previous conversation. "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.

We didn't argue and followed after him. Instead of finding a path, I heard the sound of a thud nearby and turned around to find Percy slammed against a tree. As much as I wanted to laugh, I winced at the size of the knot on his head. After several other incidents – which I would not like to mention due to sworn confidentiality – and generally feeling miserable for another mile, I swore I could light up ahead: the colors of a supposed neon sign.

Then came the smell of food. It had been a terribly long time since I've smelt the typical American fried and greasy food, but I could distinguish the scent from a good distance. We kept walking until we saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side of the road was a closed-down gas station, a raggedy billboard for a 1990s movie and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn't the restaurant I had pictured in my mind. It was one of those weird roadside shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, and that's when I remembered then that it had been a while since I've read anything in English.

To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROIUM.

"What the heck does that say?" Percy asked on behalf of us.

"I don't know," Annabeth admitted. She loved reading so much, but she was dyslexic, too.

Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium." Thank gods for him.

Near the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, stereotypically bearded and tiny, creepily smiling as if they were about to get their picture taken. Percy unexpectedly crossed the street, probably following the smell of the food.

"Hey. . ." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."

"Snack bar," Percy said wistfully.

"Snack bar," I agreed.

"Snack bar." Annabeth repeated.

"Are you three crazy?" Grover protested. "This place is weird."

We ignored him. The front garden 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!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," Percy reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are. . .looking at me."

Before he could plead his case even further, the door creaked open and standing in front of us was a tall woman. She was wearing a pale pink vintage dress that covered her arms and was long enough to cover her knees. She also wore a 40s style hat with a birdcage veil that covered the front of her face. Her lips were painted in a beautiful red color, which really stood out when she smiled. Her hands looked old, but well manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had the pleasure of still being relatively beautiful.

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,"  Percy cut her off.

"Orphans?" the woman repeated. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"

"We got separated from our caravan," he continued with the lie. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"

I shook my head. There was absolutely no way she could fall for –

"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."

I was not expecting that. Not at all. But the sound of my stomach rumbling rang in my ears and reminded me that I was hungry, so I didn't protest against the idea of welcoming us in. We quietly thanked her and went inside.

Annabeth muttered to us, specifically toward Percy, "Circus caravan?"

"Always have a strategy, right?"

"Maia's right, your head is full of kelp."

The warehouse was filled with more statues – people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. It was crazy to say the least, since all the statues were life-sized. All my senses were distracted with the idea of receiving food, especially some that I hadn't had in a long time, so I saw nothing wrong with this. The aroma was so intoxicating and addicting that it made all my worries disappear for a few minutes. Call me exaggerated if you want, but if you're like me and hadn't eaten a burger for five years, you'd understand me. I barely paid attention to Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.

Finally, Aunty Em led us to the dining area.It was at the back of the long warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater and a nacho cheese dispenser. There were a few picnic tables set too, with the red and white checkered tablecloths you see in movies.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said kindly.

"Awesome,"Percy exclaimed.

"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."

Aunty Em shook her head, "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.

Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly. I flickered my gaze from my friend to the woman several times, trying to see if it had actually happened or it had been part of my imagination. 

"Quite all right, Annabeth," she answered. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child."

Sure, I was numb with hunger, but I wasn't distracted enough to not notice how Aunty Em knew her name even though we'd never told her. Our hostess 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.

Annabeth slurped her shake. Percy dug into the cheeseburger, eating like a starved man and forgetting to breathe in the process. Grover and I picked at the fries, although he eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but still looked too nervous to eat. I dipped each fry on the ketchup, savoring the salty flavor in my taste buds.

"What's that hissing noise?" Grover asked out of the blue.

I listened in full concentration, but couldn't hear anything. Percy and Annabeth shook their heads.

"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 didn't eat anything. She hadn't taken off her hat despite the fact that we were inside, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. I grew a little uncomfortable at the thought of someone staring at me, especially when I was eating, but there was nothing but a smile on her cherry red lips.

"So, you sell gnomes," Percy tried to make small talk, trying to sound interested.

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em replied. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"A lot of business on this road?"

"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."

Percy turned around and I gazed at what he was so concentratedly staring at, and it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, resembling the ones you saw in the old statues stuck in museums. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?' he asked.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company."

Annabeth nudged me with her foot underneath the table. I knew that was her way to get my attention, so I discreetly raised my head to catch her eyes. She nodded her head toward Aunty Em, as if she suspected something, so I leaned forward and stopped eating. Something about her last words sounded oddly familiar.

Annabeth sat forward and questioned, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said with sorrow. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a woman, punished me, long ago, when I was young. I had caught the interest of this. . .man, you know, and I believed he loved me. He made these advances toward me, ones that I rejected. And this woman, she. . .punished me for it. Instead of him. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I am a survivor, but at a price. Such a price."

I tensed in my seat. The gears inside my head started searching for the pieces in the puzzle to click in place. Aunty Em. Aunty 'M'. How could I be so stupid?

"Percy?" Annabeth shook his shoulder to grab his attention. "Maybe we should go."

"Yeah," I backed her up, and started to get off my seat. "The ringmaster should be looking for us."

Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but Aunty Em didn't say anything.

"Such beautiful purple eyes," Aunty Em was now focused on me. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen violet eyes like those."

She reached out as if to stroke my cheek, but I swatted her fragile hand away. Annabeth stood up abruptly. "We really should go."

"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."

I grew more nervous with every second we spent in this place. If I remembered my mom's words correctly, I should never let a stranger take a picture of me. It felt like the perfect advice for now.

I couldn't even see Aunty Em's eyes but I knew they were glaring down at me. "I don't think so, ma'am."

"Sure we can," he argued. "It's just a photo, Maia. What's the harm?"

"Yes, Maia," the woman purred. "No harm."

Neither of us liked it, but we couldn't just leave without Percy and leave him defenseless. I didn't like the way she said my name, it was creepy to say the least. Aunty Em led us back out the front door, into the garden of statues. She directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr.

"Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girls in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."

"There's not enough light for a photo," I noted, swallowing my nerves.

"Oh, enough," Aunty Em responded. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"

"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 called once more

He still didn't find anything odd about the whole situation, whatever effect Aunty Em had on him, it worked well.

"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em told us.

"Percy, something's wrong," I tried to tell him this time.

"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to take off her hat. "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 on to her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed the rest of us off the bench. I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandalled feet.  I could hear a strange, hissing sound above me. I didn't have to look up to know what that sound was and a chill ran down my spine. I rolled out of the way, hoping that she wouldn't follow after me. I was too scared to look back or even raise my head from staring at the ground, but someone else didn't think so.

Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"

More rasping – the sound of tiny snakes. Just the mere thought of them made me want to gag.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.

"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she spoke soothingly. Her sweet act was up. There was no reason to shy away from her true self anymore. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. "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 could hear Percy mutter.

I did my best to drag myself out of Medusa's way, especially now that she was distracted with Percy. I spotted the tall statue of what seemed to be a truck driver, his face forever carved with a horrified look. I had no choice but to use the statue and the other surrounding it as a hiding spot, my knees touching the floor underneath me. From this angle, right between the gap of the man's arm and the rest of his body, I could see the way Percy was still in the same spot from before.

"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!" I could see Grover in the night sky, his hands carrying a tree branch tightly. His eyes were closed, trusting his other senses to guide him. He yelled, "Duck! I'll get her!"

I tried not to wince at this. Knowing Grover, he'd probably miss and hit Percy accidentally. I bit my bottom lip as I tried to think of something, but at that very moment, I felt a tap to my shoulder. I knew it was Annabeth, but that didn't stop me from letting out a small squeal of surprise. She removed the cap off her head and became visible, already wearing her infamous thinking face.

"Okay," Annabeth faced me and knelt down on the ground on my side. "You have a perfect aim, right? You can just. . .shoot her with an arrow."

"Annie, I don't know if you've noticed. . ."  I gestured to my empty hands. "But I don't have my bag! My bow and arrows are gone! Poof! Gone!"

"All right." She gave me a tired look.

"We have to cut her head off, right?"

"Exactly. Percy can do it. He has the better weapon."

"Well, then, let's tell him the plan."

Medusa suddenly roared with rage at the same time. Apparently, Grover did manage to hit her with the tree branch. My eyes scanned the area for the last member of the group, and that's when I heard his frantic footsteps running in between the statuary.

"You miserable satyr," Medusa snarled a few feet away. "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!' Grover yelled back.

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing.

Percy was making our way to us, although he had no idea. He kept running while turning his head back to see how Grover was doing, too distracted to see what came across his path. Annabeth and I got up to our full height, and when Percy got close enough, I whisper-yelled a call of his name loud enough for him to hear.

He jumped so high that his feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"

Annabeth didn't waste any more time. "You have to cut her head off."

"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."

"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."

"What? I can't – "

"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"

She pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster. Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal.

"A polished shield would be better." She said, referring to the original story. 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 him 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!"

A roar followed his sentence.

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"Hurry up," I told him and nudged him forward. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."

He took out the same pen from the bus and uncapped it. The bronze blade elongated in his hand. He kept his eyes locked on the gazing ball so he would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, just like Annabeth had planned. 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 sound of distress.

Medusa was about to lunge at him when Percy yelled, "Hey!"

He advanced on her, which looked awkward since he was holding the sword and a glass ball. He'd have a difficult time defending himself if she charged. Strangely enough, she let him get close – ten meters, five meters. I watched the whole scene between my fingers, too scared of what was going to happen – don't tell him I said that.

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."

That made him halter his movements. He seemed to be engrained in the reflection he saw on the glass ball.

From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"

Medusa cackled. "Too late."

She lunged with her talons. Percy moved the sword at the same time that I moved my head to the side, not wanting to see what happened next. But only a strange sound followed after that, too weird for me to put into words. A hiss was heard, quite different from the snake's – the sound of a monster disintegrating. What I hoped to be Medusa's head fell to the ground with a thud. It took all my willpower not to look. Annabeth and I took this as a sign to leave our hiding spot, careful not to bump into each other since we weren't looking toward the ground.

"Oh, yuck," Grover groaned. I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming and was as disgusted as I was. "Mega-yuck."

Annabeth's eyes were fixed on the sky and held a cloth she had found on the floor. "Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in the cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice. Oh, that made me lose my entire appetite, I kid you not, it's in my top five grossest things I've ever seen.

"You okay?" I asked worriedly, careful not to gag.

"Yeah,"  he replied. "Why didn't. . .why didn't the head evaporate?"

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," Annabeth explained. "Same as your Minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

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.

"The Red Baron," Percy told him. "Good job, man."

He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."

He snatched his shoes out of the air. Together, the four 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 tired to speak.

Finally, Percy broke the silence. "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"

Annabeth flashed him an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, became the three gorgons."

"Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."

As much as I wanted to stay out of this fight, I couldn't help but feel irritated and allow him to blame us for something he pretty much caused. I imitated his voice with a roll of my eyes, sneering, "'It's just a photo, Maia. What's the harm?'"

"Forget it," he snapped. "You're impossible."

"You're intolerable."

"You're – "

"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"

I hesitantly stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic and I resisted the urge to scream just at the sight of it. Snakes and I did not get along well. I decided to focus my attention on the words printed on the side of the bag that said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

"I'll be back."

"Percy," Annabeth called after him. "What are you – "

He stood up from the table and walked away without another word. I sighed, deflated and tired of all our chaos today. If we already were attacked by monsters twice today, who knew what awaited us during the rest of the quest? I played with my fingers to distract myself as we waited for Percy to return from who knows where, my mind thinking back to what Medusa had commented about my eyes. 'It has been a long time since I've seen violet eyes like those' I knew violet eyes were extremely rare, but just. . .the tone she said it in was so strange that I couldn't quite wrap my head around it.

Before I knew it, Percy returned to the picnic table, a cardboard box tucked underneath his arm. He wordlessly packed up Medusa's head inside it, 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."

Percy poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. A sound similar to a cash register was heard as soon as he closed it. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!

"I am impertinent," he cheekily grinned.

I had a feeling he did not know what that meant. He looked back at Annabeth and I, as if he was waiting for either of us to criticize his actions. I was too tired to argue and Annabeth just let out a sigh. I felt like I should give up and accept the fact that he thrived on pissing off the gods.

"Come on," Annabeth muttered. "We need a new plan."

author's note !
i changed the book's description of medusa to the one we see on the show because it was weird ngl. i also did my best to change her story, but i don't know if i did her justice or not.

don't shy away from commenting on the book, i love it when i have readers like that :)

-see you soon, bex <3