¹On This Spring Day, percy jackson & the olympians

005.

ON THIS SPRING DAY
━━━━━ chapter five

━━━━━ PERCY THOUGHT HE knew enough of the whole freaky Underworld power stuff from Violet. He didn't. And he was learning he knew practically nothing at all. But he realized many things very quickly—it was dark ( of course ), he had suddenly become really cold for the middle of August, strange noises were a lot more abundant, and he felt like his face was peeling off from the muscles.

In other words, it was totally awesome. He didn't get why Violet talked about it like it was something gross.

One minute Percy couldn't see anything. He could only feel Mrs. O'Leary's fur and his fingers wrapped around the bronze links of her dog collar. The next minute, the shadows melted into a new scene. He and the hellhound were on a cliff in the woods of Connecticut. At least, it looked like Connecticut from the few times Percy had passed through—lots of trees, low stone walls, big houses. Now that he thinks about it, most of the fifty states could say they have big cliffs, low stone walls, and big houses. So, it could easily be Colorado.

Down one side of the cliff Percy was overlooking was a highway cut through a ravine. Down the other side, someone's backyard. The property was huge—more wilderness than a lawn. The house was a white colonial-style two-story. Even though it was right on the other side of the hill from a highway, it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. He could see a light glowing in the kitchen window. A rusty old swing set stood under an apple tree. He couldn't imagine living in a house like this—a house with a yard.

Percy had lived in tiny apartments or a school dorm his whole life. If this was Luke's home, it made him wonder why Hermes's son ever wanted to leave. But Percy realized how stupid that was—he had met both Annabeth and Violet's mortal parents. By all accounts, Dr. Chase and Ms. Beaumont seemed like totally awesome people, but both of their children had also run away. And he knew exactly why both Annabeth and Violet ran away—Dr. Chase refused to believe spiders were attacking Annabeth every night, and Ms. Beaumont wanted to tie Violet down to a regular mortal life knowing monsters could easily find them. ( And the whole lie about our Greek legacy, too. )

Mrs. O'Leary staggered suddenly, nearly tossing Percy off her back. He quickly slipped off, remembering what Nico said—shadow traveling would drain the hellhound to pure exhaustion. 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.

From the shadows—literally—Violet and Nico tumbled. It was like the shadows puckered up and spit them out. Violet rolled across the ground, groaning loudly as Nico leaned against a tree. Percy watched them warily, wondering if he should say anything; "What happened to you guys?"

"Nico's fault," Violet croaked, waving her hand at the son of Hades.

He threw her a nasty look. "You just wouldn't listen to me—"

"—You wouldn't listen to me!"

Nico turned to Percy. "We ended up in East-port, Maine. 'Cause Violet wouldn't listen to me."

"Not true!" She stood up, looking woozy. "You kept arguing with me as we started to shadow travel. That's why we ended up in Eastport. Then, I had to shadow travel us both back to West-port, Connecticut."

"Okay ..." Percy spread his hands. He grabbed Violet by the arm, ignoring the way she glanced at him. He hated when she and Nico started bickering like this—they would never stop if no one intervened. "But ... how did you do it? Shadow travel, I mean."