The Alchemy | Apollo !

9

THALIA GRIPPED THE WHEEL SO TIGHT HER KNUCKLES TURNED WHITE. She looked like she was going to be sick. 

 "What's wrong?" I asked her. 

 "Nothing," she said shakily. "N-nothing is wrong."

She pulled back on the wheel. It tilted, and the bus lurched upward so fast I fell back and crashed against Apollo.

He shot me a smile and wrapped an arm around me, not at all being bothered.

 "Ow" Grover said to Percy who fell against him.  

"Sorry."

 "Slower!" Apollo said. 

 "Sorry!" Thalia said. "I've got it under control!"

I casually stayed in Apollo's arms, not at all minding. Looking out the window, I saw a smoking ring of trees from the clearing where we'd taken off. 

"Thalia," I said, "lighten up on the accelerator." 

 "I've got it, Nora," she said, gritting her teeth. But she kept it floored.

 "Loosen up," Percy told her.

"I'm loose!"Thalia said. She was so stiff she looked like she was made out of plywood. 

"We need to veer south for Long Island," Apollo said. "Hang a left."

 Thalia jerked the wheel and again threw Percy into Grover, who yelped. Apollo tightened his arm around my waist when I was about to crash into Percy.

 "The other left," Apollo suggested.

I made the mistake of looking out the window again. We were at airplane height now—so high the sky was starting to look black. 

 "Ah..." Apollo said, and I got the feeling he was forcing himself to sound calm. "A little lower, sweetheart. Cape Cod is freezing over."

Thalia tilted the wheel. Her face was chalk white, her forehead beaded with sweat. Something was definitely wrong. I'd never seen her like this. 

 The bus pitched down and somebody screamed. Maybe it was me. Now we were heading straight toward the Atlantic Ocean at a thousand miles an hour, the New England coastline off to our right. And it was getting hot in the bus.

Apollo suddenly pushed me against Percy's chest who steadied me by holding my shoulders, and he got  thrown somewhere in the back of the bus, but he started climbing up the rows of seats.

 "Take the wheel!" Grover begged him. 

 "No worries," Apollo said. He looked plenty worried. "She just has to learn to—WHOA!"

I saw what he was seeing. Down below us was a little snow-covered New England town. At least, it used to be snow-covered. As I watched, the snow melted off the trees and the roofs and the lawns. The white steeple on a church turned brown and started to smolder. Little plumes of smoke, like birthday candles, were popping up all over the town. Trees and rooftops were catching fire.