Working With The Thief (Percy Jackson)

Chapter Five: A Horse and a Goat Walk Into A Bar

Percy Jackson

One other time that I woke up, the girl who told me I droll in my sleep asked about something being stolen and the summer solstice and what would happen, but I didn't have much of s response before I fell back asleep.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, just that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a chair on a huge porch that overlooked a meadow. The smell of strawberries cut through the air, and with a blanket over my legs and a cushion behind my neck it felt nice, but my mouth felt like the Mojave Desert.

On a table next to me was a glass filled with a drink that looked like apple juice  with a green straw and one of those paper umbrellas. At first I wondered if it was a beer, but it didn't smell like any kind of alcohol.

When I went to grab it, my hand was so weak that I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Woah! Careful," a familiar voice said.

Looking in the direction of the sound, I saw Grover standing against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm he had a shoe box, and he was wearing normal clothes. Blue jeans, converse, and an orange shirt that said Camp Half Blood. Just plain old Grover, not the goat boy.

And if Grover wasn't a goat, then maybe it was all a dream after all, right? If Grover was still just Grover, then my mom would still be alive and that thing would've never chased us and it just...

It was just a really bad nightmare.

"You saved my life," Grover said, which was a little bit of an exaggeration in my opinion. It's not like any of the kids at Yancy would've killed him. "I... Well I, uh... I figured the least I could do... I went back to the hill and I uh— I thought you might want this."

Even though it wasn't close to my birthday and he didn't even know my shoe size, Grover put the box in my lap, so I opened to see what kind of shoes there were and it wasn't...

It was a horn. The tip of which was stained with blood.

So it wasn't a nightmare.

"The Minotaur."

"Um, Percy, I wouldn't—"

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, right?" I felt bad for cutting him off, but in my defense it was a lot to process after waking up. "The Minotaur? Half man, half bull."

He shifted, visibly uncomfortable.

"You've been out for two days," but next to everything else, losing two days to sleeping was the least of my worries. "How much do you remember?"

It started to come back, though.

"My mom," and even though I was holding proof that it happened, I was hoping it wasn't true. "is she really...?"

Looking down, Grover's silence spoke volumes.

Looking across the meadow, I saw groves of trees around a winding stream that gave way to acres of strawberry fields under a brilliant blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, the tallest of which held a huge pine tree. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

It made me angry.

My mother was gone. The world should've looked cold and gray. It wasn't supposed to be this beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I— I'm the satyr out there, I should've been able to..."

Losing his voice, Grover moaned and stomped his foot so hard his foot came off. Or, his converse came off to expose the goat hooves that I remembered seeing on the beach at Montauk and in the car on the way here.