by Rick Riordan
Annabeth’s voice called, ‘Miss C.C.?’
C.C. cursed in Ancient Greek. She plopped me into the cage and closed the door. I squealed and clawed at the bars, but it was no good. I watched as C.C. hurriedly kicked my clothes under the loom just as Annabeth came in.
I almost didn’t recognize her. She was wearing a sleeveless silk dress like C.C.’s, only white. Her blonde hair was newly washed and combed and braided with gold. Worst of all, she was wearing makeup, which I never thought Annabeth would be caught dead in. I mean, she looked good. Really good. I probably would’ve been tongue-tied if I could’ve said anything except reet, reet, reet. But there was also something totally wrong about it. It just wasn’t Annabeth.
She looked around the room and frowned. ‘Where’s Percy?’
I squealed up a storm, but she didn’t seem to hear me.
C.C. smiled. ‘He’s having one of our treatments, my dear. Not to worry. You look wonderful! What did you think of your tour?’
Annabeth’s eyes brightened. ‘Your library is amazing!’
‘Yes, indeed,’ C.C. said. ‘The best knowledge of the past three millennia. Anything you want to study, anything you want to be, my dear.’
‘An architect?’
‘Pah!’ C.C. said. ‘You, my dear, have the makings of a sorceress. Like me.’
Annabeth took a step back. ‘A sorceress?’
‘Yes, my dear.’ C.C. held up her hand. A flame appeared in her palm and danced across her fingertips. ‘My mother is Hecate, the goddess of magic. I know a daughter of Athena when I see one. We are not so different, you and I. We both seek knowledge. We both admire greatness. Neither of us needs to stand in the shadow of men.’
‘I-I don’t understand.’
Again, I squealed my best, trying to get Annabeth’s attention, but she either couldn’t hear me or didn’t think the noises were important. Meanwhile, the other guinea pigs were emerging from their hutch to check me out. I didn’t think it was possible for guinea pigs to look mean, but these did. There were half a dozen, with dirty fur and cracked teeth and beady red eyes. They were covered with shavings and smelled like they really had been in here for three hundred years, without getting their cage cleaned.
‘Stay with me,’ C.C. was telling Annabeth. ‘Study with me. You can join our staff, become a sorceress, learn to bend others to your will. You will become immortal!’
‘But –’
‘You are too intelligent, my dear,’ C.C. said. ‘You know better than to trust that silly camp for heroes. How many great female half-blood heroes can you name?’
‘Um, Atalanta, Amelia Earhart –’
‘Bah! Men get all the glory.’ C.C. closed her fist and extinguished the magic flame. ‘The only way to power for women is sorcery. Medea, Calypso, now there were powerful women! And me, of course. The greatest of all.’
‘You … C.C. … Circe!’
‘Yes, my dear.’
Annabeth backed up, and Circe laughed. ‘You need not worry. I mean you no harm.’
‘What have you done to Percy?’
‘Only helped him realize his true form.’
Annabeth scanned the room. Finally she saw the cage, and me scratching at the bars, all the other guinea pigs crowding around me. Her eyes went wide.
‘Forget him,’ Circe said. ‘Join me and learn the ways of sorcery.’
‘But –’
‘Your friend will be well cared for. He’ll be shipped to a wonderful new home on the mainland. The kindergartners will adore him. Meanwhile, you will be wise and powerful. You will have all you ever wanted.’
Annabeth was still staring at me, but she had a dreamy expression on her face. She looked the same way I had when Circe enchanted me into drinking the guinea pig milkshake. I squealed and scratched, trying to warn her to snap out of it, but I was absolutely powerless.
‘Let me think about it,’ Annabeth murmured. ‘Just … give me a minute alone. To say goodbye.’
‘Of course, my dear,’ Circe cooed. ‘One minute. Oh … and so you have absolute privacy…’ She waved her hand and iron bars slammed down over the windows. She swept out of the room and I heard the locks on the door click shut behind her.
The dreamy look melted off Annabeth’s face.
She rushed over to my cage. ‘All right, which one is you?’
I squealed, but so did all the other guinea pigs. Annabeth looked desperate. She scanned the room and spotted the turn-up of my jeans sticking out from under the loom.
Yes!
She rushed over and rummaged through my pockets.
But instead of bringing out Riptide, she found the bottle of Hermes’s multivitamins and started struggling with the cap.
I wanted to scream at her that this wasn’t the time for taking supplements! She had to draw the sword!
She popped a lemon chewable in her mouth just as the door flew open and Circe came back in, flanked by two of her business-suited attendants.
‘Well,’ Circe sighed, ‘how fast a minute passes. What is your answer, my dear?’
‘This,’ Annabeth said, and she drew her bronze knife.
The sorceress stepped back, but her surprise quickly passed. She sneered. ‘Really, little girl, a knife against my magic? Is that wise?’
Circe looked back at her attendants, who smiled. They raised their hands as if preparing to cast a spell.
Run! I wanted to tell Annabeth, but all I could make were rodent noises. The other guinea pigs squealed in terror and scuttled around the cage. I had the urge to panic and hide, too, but I had to think of something! I couldn’t stand to lose Annabeth the way I’d lost Tyson.
‘What will Annabeth’s makeover be?’ Circe mused. ‘Something small and ill-tempered. I know … a shrew!’
Blue fire coiled from her fingers curling like serpents around Annabeth.
I watched, horror-struck, but nothing happened. Annabeth was still Annabeth, only angrier. She leaped forward and stuck the point of her knife against Circe’s neck. ‘How about turning me into a panther instead? One that has her claws at your throat!’
‘How!’ Circe yelped.
Annabeth held up my bottle of vitamins for the sorceress to see.
Circe howled in frustration. ‘Curse Hermes and his multivitamins! Those are such a fad! They do nothing for you.’
‘Turn Percy back to a human or else!’ Annabeth said.
‘I can’t!’
‘Then you asked for it.’
Circe’s attendants stepped forward, but their mistress said, ‘Get back! She’s immune to magic until that cursed vitamin wears off.’
Annabeth dragged Circe over to the guinea pig cage, knocked the top off, and poured the rest of the vitamins inside.
‘No!’ Circe screamed.
I was the first to get a vitamin, but all the other guinea pigs scuttled out, too, and checked out this new food.
The first nibble, and I felt all fiery inside. I gnawed at the vitamin until it stopped looking so huge, and the cage got smaller, and then suddenly, bang! The cage exploded. I was sitting on the floor, a human again – somehow back in my regular clothes, thank the gods – with six other guys who all looked disoriented, blinking and shaking wood shavings out of their hair.
‘No!’ Circe screamed. ‘You don’t understand! Those are the worst!’
One of the men stood up – a huge guy with a long tangled pitch-black beard and teeth the same colour. He wore mismatched clothes of wool and leather, knee-length boots, and a floppy felt hat. The other men were dressed more simply – in breeches and stained white shirts. All of them were barefoot.
‘Argggh!’ bellowed the big man. ‘What’s the witch done t’me!’
‘No!’ Circe moaned.
Annabeth gasped. ‘I recognize you! Edward Teach, son of Ares?’
‘Aye, lass,’ the big man growled. ‘Though most call me Blackbeard! And there’s the sorceress what captured us, lads. Run her through, and then I mean to find me a big bowl of celery! Arg
gggh!’
Circe screamed. She and her attendants ran from the room, chased by the pirates.
Annabeth sheathed her knife and glared at me.
‘Thanks…’ I faltered. ‘I’m really sorry –’
Before I could figure out how to apologize for being such an idiot, she tackled me with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. ‘I’m glad you’re not a guinea pig.’
‘Me, too.’ I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt.
She undid the golden braids in her hair.
‘Come on, Seaweed Brain,’ she said. ‘We have to get away while Circe’s distracted.’
We ran down the hillside through the terraces, past screaming spa workers and pirates ransacking the resort. Blackbeard’s men broke the tiki torches for the luau, threw herbal wraps into the swimming pool and kicked over tables of sauna towels.
I almost felt bad letting the unruly pirates out, but I guessed they deserved something more entertaining than the exercise wheel after being cooped up in a cage for three centuries.
‘Which ship?’ Annabeth said as we reached the docks.
I looked around desperately. We couldn’t very well take our rowboat. We had to get off the island fast, but what else could we use? A sub? A fighter jet? I couldn’t pilot any of those things. And then I saw it.
‘There,’ I said.
Annabeth blinked. ‘But –’
‘I can make it work.’
‘How?’
I couldn’t explain. I just somehow knew an old sailing vessel was the best bet for me. I grabbed Annabeth’s hand and pulled her towards the three-mast ship. Painted on its prow was the name that I would only decipher later: Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Argggh!’ Blackbeard yelled somewhere behind us. ‘Those scallywags are a-boarding me vessel! Get ‘em, lads!’
‘We’ll never get going in time!’ Annabeth yelled as we climbed aboard.
I looked around at the hopeless maze of sail and ropes. The ship was in great condition for a three-hundred-year-old vessel, but it would still take a crew of fifty several hours to get underway. We didn’t have several hours. I could see the pirates running down the stairs, waving tiki torches and sticks of celery.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the waves lapping against the hull, the ocean currents, the winds all around me. Suddenly, the right word appeared in my mind. ‘Mizzenmast!’ I yelled.
Annabeth looked at me like I was nuts, but in the next second, the air was filled with whistling sounds of ropes being snapped taut, canvases unfurling and wooden pulleys creaking.
Annabeth ducked as a cable flew over her head and wrapped itself around the bowsprit. ‘Percy, how…’
I didn’t have an answer, but I could feel the ship responding to me as if it were part of my body. I willed the sails to rise as easily as if I were flexing my arm. I willed the rudder to turn.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge lurched away from the dock, and by the time the pirates arrived at the water’s edge, we were already underway, sailing into the Sea of Monsters.
13 Annabeth Tries to Swim Home
I’d finally found something I was really good at.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge responded to my every command. I knew which ropes to hoist, which sails to raise, which direction to steer. We ploughed through the waves at what I figured was about ten knots. I even understood how fast that was. For a sailing ship, pretty darn fast.
It all felt perfect – the wind in my face, the waves breaking over the prow.
But now that we were out of danger, all I could think about was how much I missed Tyson, and how worried I was about Grover.
I couldn’t get over how badly I’d messed up on Circe’s Island. If it hadn’t been for Annabeth, I’d still be a rodent, hiding in a hutch with a bunch of cute furry pirates. I thought about what Circe had said: See, Percy? You’ve unlocked your true self!
I still felt changed. Not just because I had a sudden desire to eat lettuce. I felt jumpy, like the instinct to be a scared little animal was now a part of me. Or maybe it had always been there. That’s what really worried me.
We sailed through the night.
Annabeth tried to help me keep lookout, but sailing didn’t agree with her. After a few hours’ rocking back and forth, her face turned the colour of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock.
I watched the horizon. More than once I spotted monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper spewed into the moonlight. A row of green spines slithered across the waves – something maybe thirty metres long, reptilian. I didn’t really want to know.
Once I saw Nereids, the glowing lady spirits of the sea. I tried to wave at them, but they disappeared into the depths, leaving me unsure whether they’d seen me or not.
Sometime after midnight, Annabeth came up on deck. We were just passing a smoking volcano island. The sea bubbled and steamed around the shore.
‘One of the forges of Hephaestus,’ Annabeth said. ‘Where he makes his metal monsters.’
‘Like the bronze bulls?’
She nodded. ‘Go around. Far around.’
I didn’t need to be told twice. We steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind us.
I looked at Annabeth. ‘The reason you hate Cyclopes so much … the story about how Thalia really died. What happened?’
It was hard to see her expression in the dark.
‘I guess you deserve to know,’ she said finally. ‘The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told you that once?’
I nodded.
‘Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops’s lair in Brooklyn.’
‘They’ve got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?’ I asked.
‘You wouldn’t believe how many, but that’s not the point. This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Percy. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at time. Thalia thought she was running to save Luke. Luke thought he heard me scream for help. And me … I was alone in the dark. I was seven years old. I couldn’t even find the exit.’
She brushed the hair out of her face. ‘I remember finding the main room. There were bones all over the floor. And there were Thalia and Luke and Grover, tied up and gagged, hanging from the ceiling like smoked hams. The Cyclops was starting a fire in the middle of the floor. I drew my knife, but he heard me. He turned and smiled. He spoke, and somehow he knew my dad’s voice. I guess he just plucked it out of my mind. He said, “Now, Annabeth, don’t you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.’ ”
I shivered. The way she told it – even now, six years later – freaked me out worse than any ghost story I’d ever heard. ‘What did you do?’
‘I stabbed him in the foot.’
I stared at her. ‘Are you kidding? You were seven years old and you stabbed a grown Cyclops in the foot?’
‘Oh, he would’ve killed me. But I surprised him. It gave me just enough time to run to Thalia and cut the ropes on her hands. She took it from there.’
‘Yeah, but still … that was pretty brave, Annabeth.’
She shook her head. ‘We barely got out alive. I still have nightmares, Percy. The way that Cyclops talked in my father’s voice. It was his fault we took so long getting to camp. All the monsters who’d been chasing us had time to catch up. That’s really why Thalia died. If it hadn’t been for that Cyclops, she’d still be alive today.’
We sat on the deck, watching the Heracles constellation rise in the night sky.
‘Go below,’ Annabeth told me at last. ‘You need some rest.’
I nodded. My eyes were heavy. But when I got below and found a hammock, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept thinking about Annabeth’s story. I wondered, if I were her, would I have had enough courage to go on this quest, to sail straight towards the lair of another Cyclops?
&
nbsp; I didn’t dream about Grover.
Instead I found myself back in Luke’s stateroom aboard the Princess Andromeda. The curtains were open. It was nighttime outside. The air swirled with shadows. Voices whispered all around me – spirits of the dead.
Beware, they whispered. Traps. Trickery.
Kronos’s golden sarcophagus glowed faintly – the only source of light in the room.
A cold laugh startled me. It seemed to come from miles below the ship. You don’t have the courage, young one. You can’t stop me.
I knew what I had to do. I had to open that coffin.
I uncapped Riptide. Ghosts whirled around me like a tornado. Beware!
My heart pounded. I couldn’t make my feet move, but I had to stop Kronos. I had to destroy whatever was in that box.
Then a girl spoke right next to me, ‘Well, Seaweed Brain?’
I looked over, expecting to see Annabeth, but the girl wasn’t Annabeth. She wore punk-style clothes with silver chains on her wrists. She had spiky black hair, dark eyeliner around her stormy blue eyes and a spray of freckles across her nose. She looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Are we going to stop him or not?’
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t move.
The girl rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Leave it to me and Aegis.’
She tapped her wrist and her silver chains transformed – flattening and expanding into a huge shield. It was silver and bronze, with the monstrous face of Medusa protruding from the centre. It looked like a death mask, as if the gorgon’s real head had been pressed into the metal. I didn’t know if that were true, or if the shield could really petrify me, but I looked away. Just being near it made me cold with fear. I got a feeling that in a real fight, the bearer of that shield would be almost impossible to beat. Any sane enemy would turn and run.
The girl drew her sword and advanced on the sarcophagus. The shadowy ghosts parted for her, scattering before the terrible aura of her shield.
‘No,’ I tried to warn her.
But she didn’t listen. She marched straight up to the sarcophagus and pushed aside the golden lid.
For a moment she stood there, gazing down at whatever was in the box.
