The Nature of a Demigod

The World Down Under

[Percy's POV]

Suddenly I was home. Nico and I were sitting on the couch in my mom's apartment on the Upper East Side. That was the good news. The bad news was that the rest of the living room was occupied by Mrs. O'Leary.

I heard a muffled yell from the bedroom. Paul's voice said, "Who put this wall of fur in the doorway?"

"Percy?" my mom called out. "Are you here? Are you all right?"

"I'm here!" I shouted back. "WOOF!" Mrs. O'Leary tried to turn in a circle to find my mom, knocking all the pictures off the walls. She's only met my mom once before (long story), but she loves her.

It took a few minutes, but we finally got things worked out. After destroying most of the furniture in the living room and probably making our neighbors really mad, we got my parents out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where we sat around the kitchen table.

Mrs. O'Leary still took up the entire living room, but she'd settled her head in the kitchen doorway so she could see us, which made her happy. My mom tossed her a ten-pound family-size tube of ground beef, which disappeared down her gullet. Paul poured lemonade for the rest of us while I explained about our visit to Connecticut.

"So it's true." Paul stared at me like he'd never seen me before. He was wearing his white bathrobe, now covered in hellhound fur, and his salt-and-pepper hair was sticking up in every direction. "All the talk about monsters, and being a demigod... it's really true."

I nodded. Last fall Y/N and I had explained to Paul who we were. My mom had backed us up. But until this moment, I don't really think he believed us.

"Sorry about Mrs. O'Leary," I said, "destroying the living room and all." Paul laughed like he was delighted. "Are you kidding? This is awesome! I mean, when I saw the hoofprints on the Prius, I thought maybe. But this!"

He patted Mrs. O'Leary's snout. The living room shook, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, which either meant a SWAT team was breaking down the door or Mrs. O'Leary was wagging her tail. I couldn't help but smile. Paul was a pretty cool guy, even if he was my English teacher as well as my stepdad.

"Thanks for not freaking out," I said.

"Oh, I'm freaking out," he promised, his eyes wide. "I just think it's awesome!"

"Yeah, well," I said, "you may not be so excited when you hear what's happening." I told Paul and my mom about Typhon, and the gods, and the battle that was sure to come. Then I told them Nico's plan.

My mom laced her fingers around her lemonade glass. She was wearing her old blue flannel bathrobe, and her hair was tied back.

Recently she'd started writing a novel, like she'd wanted to do for years, and I could tell she'd been working on it late into the night, because the circles under her eyes were darker than usual.

Behind her at the kitchen window, silvery moon lace glowed in the flower box. Y/N had previously explained to me that a magic girl named Calypso from a magic island named Ogygia had asked him to plant a garden for her in Manhattan. With my mom's green thumb, the plant had flourished alongside the entire garden.

I knew he was dead in love with Annabeth, but the way he described Calypso and the island, I'd be hard pressed to imagine he wouldn't have just stayed if Annabeth didn't love him back just as much. (I'd almost say more.)

Y/N made her sound like something out of a fairy tale. And I mean extra emphasis on fairy tale. A cursed princess waiting for her knight in shining armor.