Percy Jackson The Complete Collection (99 page)

‘You’re not coming?’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

I was a little nervous, but I leaned down to Mrs O’Leary’s ear. ‘Okay, girl. Uh, can you take me to Westport, Connecticut? May Castellan’s place?’

Mrs O’Leary sniffed the air. She looked into the gloom of the forest. Then she bounded forward, straight into an oak tree.

Just before we hit, we passed into shadows as cold as the dark side of the moon.

I don’t recommend shadow-travel if you’re scared of:

a) the dark
b) cold shivers up your spine
c) strange noises or
d) going so fast you feel as if your face is peeling off.

In other words, I thought it was awesome. One minute I couldn’t see anything. I could only feel Mrs O’Leary’s fur and my fingers wrapped around the bronze links of her dog collar.

The next minute the shadows melted into a new scene. We were on a cliff in the woods of Connecticut. At least, it looked like Connecticut from the few times I’d been there – lots of trees, low stone walls, big houses. Down one side of the cliff, a highway cut through a ravine. Down the other side was someone’s backyard. The property was huge – more wilderness than lawn. The house was a white colonial-style two-storey. Despite the fact that it was right on the other side of the hill from a highway, it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I could see a light glowing in the kitchen window. A rusty old swing set stood under an apple tree.

I couldn’t imagine living in a house like this, with an
actual yard and everything. I’d lived in a tiny apartment or a school dorm my whole life. If this was Luke’s home, I wondered why he’d ever wanted to leave.

Mrs O’Leary staggered. I remembered what Nico had said about shadow travel draining her, so I slipped off her back. She let out a huge toothy yawn that would’ve scared a T-rex, then turned in a circle and flopped down so hard the ground shook.

Nico appeared right next to me, like the shadows had darkened and created him. He stumbled but I caught his arm.

‘I’m okay,’ he managed, rubbing his eyes.

‘How did you do that?’

‘Practice. A few times running into walls. A few accidental trips to China.’

Mrs O’Leary started snoring. If it hadn’t been for the roar of traffic behind us, I’m sure she would’ve woken up the whole neighbourhood.

‘Are you going to take a nap, too?’ I asked Nico.

He shook his head. ‘The first time I shadow-travelled, I passed out for a week. Now it just makes me a little drowsy, but I can’t do it more than once or twice a night. Mrs O’Leary won’t be going anywhere for a while.’

‘So we’ve got some quality time in Connecticut.’ I gazed at the white colonial-style house. ‘What now?’

‘We ring the doorbell,’ Nico said.

If I were Luke’s mom, I would not have opened my door at night for two strange kids. But I wasn’t
anything
like Luke’s mom.

I knew that even before we reached the front door. The
sidewalk was lined with those little stuffed beanbag animals you see in gift shops. There were miniature lions, pigs, dragons, hydras, even a teeny Minotaur in a little Minotaur diaper. Judging from their sad shape, the beanbag creatures had been sitting out here a long time – since the snow melted last spring at least. One of the hydras had a tree sapling sprouting between its necks.

The front porch was infested with wind chimes. Shiny bits of glass and metal clinked in the breeze. Brass ribbons tinkled like water and made me realize I needed to use the bathroom. I didn’t know how Ms Castellan could stand all the noise.

The front door was painted turquoise. The name
CASTELLAN
was written in English and below in Greek:

Nico looked at me. ‘Ready?’

He’d barely tapped the door when it swung open.

‘Luke!’ the old lady cried happily.

She looked like someone who enjoyed sticking her fingers in electrical sockets. Her white hair stuck out in tufts all over her head. Her pink housedress was covered in scorch-marks and smears of ash. When she smiled, her face looked unnaturally stretched, and the high-voltage light in her eyes made me wonder if she were blind.

‘Oh, my dear boy!’ She hugged Nico. I was trying to figure out why she thought Nico was Luke (they looked absolutely nothing alike) when she smiled at me and said, ‘Luke!’

She forgot all about Nico and gave me a hug. She smelled like burnt cookies. She was as thin as a scarecrow, but that didn’t stop her from almost crushing me.

‘Come in!’ she insisted. ‘I have your lunch ready!’

She ushered us inside. The living room was even weirder than the front lawn. Mirrors and candles filled every available space. I couldn’t look anywhere without seeing my own reflection. Above the mantle, a little bronze Hermes flew around the second hand of a ticking clock. I tried to imagine the god of messengers ever falling in love with this old woman, but the idea was too bizarre.

Then I noticed the framed picture on the mantle, and I froze. It was exactly like Rachel’s sketch – Luke around nine years old, with blond hair and a big smile and two missing teeth. The lack of a scar on his face made him look like a different person – carefree and happy. How could Rachel have known about that picture?

‘This way, my dear!’ Ms Castellan steered me towards the back of the house. ‘Oh, I told them you would come back. I knew it!’

She sat us down at the kitchen table. Stacked on the counter were hundreds – I mean hundreds – of Tupperware boxes with peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches inside. The ones on the bottom were green and fuzzy, like they’d been there for a long time. The smell reminded me of my sixth-grade locker – and that’s not a good thing.

On top of the oven was a stack of cookie sheets. Each one had a dozen burnt cookies on it. In the sink was a mountain of empty plastic Kool-Aid pitchers. A beanbag Medusa sat by the faucet like she was guarding the mess.

Ms Castellan started humming as she got out peanut butter and jam and started making a new sandwich. Something was burning in the oven. I got the feeling more cookies were on the way.

Above the sink, taped all around the window, were dozens of little pictures cut from magazines and newspaper ads – pictures of Hermes from various company logos, pictures of the caduceus from medical ads.

My heart sank. I wanted to get out of that room, but Ms Castellan kept smiling at me as she made the sandwich, like she was making sure I didn’t bolt.

Nico coughed. ‘Um, Ms Castellan?’

‘Mm?’

‘We need to ask you about your son.’

‘Oh, yes! They told me he would never come back. But I knew better.’ She patted my cheek affectionately, giving me peanut-butter racing stripes.

‘When did you last see him?’ Nico asked.

Her eyes lost focus.

‘He was so young when he left,’ she said wistfully. ‘Third grade. That’s too young to run away! He said he’d be back for lunch. And I waited. He likes peanut-butter sandwiches and cookies and Kool-Aid. He’ll be back for lunch very soon …’ Then she looked at me and smiled. ‘Why, Luke, there you are! You look so handsome. You have your father’s eyes.’

She turned towards the pictures of Hermes above the sink. ‘Now there’s a good man. Yes, indeed. He comes to visit me, you know.’

The clock kept ticking in the other room. I wiped the peanut butter off my face and looked at Nico pleadingly, like
Can we get out of here now?

‘Ma’am,’ Nico said. ‘What, uh … what happened to your eyes?’

Her gaze seemed fractured – like she was trying to
focus on him through a kaleidoscope. ‘Why, Luke, you know the story. It was right before you were born, wasn’t it? I’d always been special, able to see through the … whatever they call it.’

‘The Mist?’ I said.

‘Yes, dear.’ She nodded encouragingly. ‘And they offered me an important job. That’s how special I was!’

I glanced at Nico, but he looked as confused as I was.

‘What sort of job?’ I asked. ‘What happened?’

Ms Castellan frowned. Her knife hovered over the sandwich bread. ‘Dear me, it didn’t work out, did it? Your father warned me not to try. He said it was too dangerous. But I had to. It was my destiny! And now … I still can’t get the images out of my head. They make everything seem so fuzzy. Would you like some cookies?’

She pulled a tray out of the oven and dumped a dozen lumps of chocolate-chip charcoal on the table.

‘Luke was so kind,’ Ms Castellan murmured. ‘He left to protect me, you know. He said if he went away, the monsters wouldn’t threaten me. But I told him the monsters are no threat! They sit outside on the sidewalk all day, and they never come in.’ She picked up the little stuffed Medusa from the windowsill. ‘Do they, Mrs Medusa? No, no threat at all.’ She beamed at me. ‘I’m so glad you came home. I knew you weren’t ashamed of me!’

I shifted in my seat. I imagined being Luke, sitting at this table, eight or nine years old, and just beginning to realize that my mother wasn’t all there.

‘Ms Castellan,’ I said.

‘Mom,’ she corrected.

‘Um, yeah. Have you seen Luke since he left home?’

‘Well, of course!’

I didn’t know if she was imagining that or not. For all I knew, every time the mailman came to the door he was Luke. But Nico sat forward expectantly.

‘When?’ he asked. ‘When did Luke visit you last?’

‘Well, it was … oh goodness …’ A shadow passed across her face. ‘The last time, he looked so different. A scar. A terrible scar, and his voice so full of pain …’

‘His eyes,’ I said. ‘Were they gold?’

‘Gold?’ She blinked. ‘No. How silly. Luke has blue eyes. Beautiful blue eyes!’

So Luke really had been here, and this had happened before last summer – before he’d turned into Kronos.

‘Ms Castellan?’ Nico put his hand on the old woman’s arm. ‘This is very important. Did he ask you for anything?’

She frowned as if trying to remember. ‘My – my blessing. Isn’t that sweet?’ She looked at us uncertainly. ‘He was going to a river, and he said he needed my blessing. I gave it to him. Of course I did.’

Nico looked at me triumphantly. ‘Thank you, ma’am. That’s all the information we –’

Ms Castellan gasped. She doubled over and her cookie tray clattered to the floor. Nico and I jumped to our feet.

‘Ms Castellan?’ I said.

‘
AHHHH.
’ She straightened. I scrambled away and almost fell over the kitchen table because her eyes – her eyes were glowing green.

‘
My child
,’ she rasped in a much deeper voice. ‘
Must protect him! Hermes, help! Not my child! Not his fate – no!
’

She grabbed Nico by the shoulders and began to shake him as if trying to make him understand. ‘
Not his fate!
’

Nico made a strangled scream and pushed her away. He gripped the hilt of his sword. ‘Percy, we need to get out –’

Suddenly Ms Castellan collapsed. I lurched forward and caught her before she could hit the edge of the table. I managed to get her into a chair.

‘Ms C?’ I asked.

She muttered something incomprehensible and shook her head. ‘Goodness. I … I dropped the cookies. How silly of me.’

She blinked, and her eyes were back to normal – or, at least, what they had been before. The green glow was gone.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘Well, of course, dear. I’m fine. Why do you ask?’

I glanced at Nico, who mouthed the word:
Leave.

‘Ms C, you were telling us something,’ I said. ‘Something about your son.’

‘Was I?’ she said dreamily. ‘Yes, his blue eyes. We were talking about his blue eyes. Such a handsome boy!’

‘We have to go,’ Nico said urgently. ‘We’ll tell Luke … uh, we’ll tell him you said hello.’

‘But you can’t leave!’ Ms Castellan got shakily to her feet and I backed away. I felt silly being scared of a frail old woman, but the way her voice had changed, the way she’d grabbed Nico …

‘Hermes will be here soon,’ she promised. ‘He’ll want to see his boy!’

‘Maybe next time,’ I said. ‘Thank you for –’ I looked down at the burnt cookies scattered on the floor. ‘Thanks for everything.’

She tried to stop us, to offer us Kool-Aid, but I had to get out of that house. On the front porch, she grabbed my wrist and I almost jumped out of my skin. ‘Luke, at least be safe. Promise me you’ll be safe.’

‘I will … Mom.’

That made her smile. She released my wrist, and as she closed the front door, I could hear her talking to the candles: ‘You hear that? He will be safe. I told you he would be!’

As the door shut, Nico and I ran. The little beanbag animals on the sidewalk seemed to grin at us when we passed.

Back at the cliff, Mrs O’Leary had found a friend.

A cosy campfire crackled in a ring of stones. A girl about eight years old was sitting cross-legged next to Mrs O’Leary, scratching the hellhound’s ears.

The girl had mousy brown hair and a simple brown dress. She wore a scarf over her head so she looked like a pioneer kid – like the ghost of
Little House on the Prairie
or something. She poked the fire with a stick, and it seemed to glow more richly red than a normal fire.

‘Hello,’ she said.

My first thought was: monster. When you’re a demigod and you find a sweet little girl alone in the woods – that’s typically a good time to draw your sword and attack. Plus the encounter with Ms Castellan had rattled me pretty badly.

But Nico bowed to the little girl. ‘Hello again, Lady.’

She studied me with eyes as red as the firelight. I decided it was safest to bow.