The Forbidden Daughter | PJO Book One

seven

POODLES?

They were pretty miserable that night.

Camping out in the woods, a hundred metres from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for a party only gave them a certain amount of hope.

Littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers the ground wasn't very comfy. They have taken some food and blankets from Aunty Ems but none of them dared to light a fire to fry their damp clothes.

The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.

The group decided to sleep in shifts. Percy volunteered to take first watch. Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground.

Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

Ariana too didn't make a move to sleep. She didn't think she could, her back was turned from the others, her head rested near Annabeths.

"Go ahead and sleep." She heard Percy tell Grover. "I'll wake you if there's trouble?"

"It makes me sad Percy." Ariana could practically hear the frown on his face.

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?'"

"No. This makes me sad." And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist"

"Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan!"

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" Grover cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's licence for?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods.

"Tell me about the search." Percy said.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago." He spoke "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, "Tell them that the great god Pan has died!" When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died."

"In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden and wake him from his sleep." Grover continued

"And you want to be a searcher?" Asked Percy

"It's my life's dream." he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand... the statue you saw back there -"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on - the first?"

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"