The Sea of Monsters(19)

“Don’t say that.”

“It is okay. I will be a good monster. Then you will not have to be mad.”

I didn’t know what to say. I stared at the ceiling and felt like I was dying slowly, right along with Thalia’s tree.

“It’s just… I never had a half-brother before.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking. “It’s really different for me. And I’m worried about the camp. And another friend of mine, Grover … he might be in trouble. I keep feeling like I should be doing something to help, but I don’t know what.”

Tyson said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “It’s not your fault. I’m mad at Poseidon. I feel like he’s trying to embarrass me, like he’s trying to compare us or something, and I don’t understand why.”

I heard a deep rumbling sound. Tyson was snoring.

I sighed. “Good night, big guy.”

And I closed my eyes, too.

In my dream, Grover was wearing a wedding dress.

It didn’t fit him very well. The gown was too long and the hem was caked with dried mud. The neckline kept falling off his shoulders. A tattered veil covered his face.

He was standing in a dank cave, lit only by torches. There was a cot in one corner and an old-fashioned loom in the other, a length of white cloth half woven on the frame. And he was staring right at me, like I was a TV program he’d been waiting for. “Thank the gods!” he yelped. “Can you hear me?”

My dream-self was slow to respond. I was still looking around, taking in the stalactite ceiling, the stench of sheep and goats, the growling and grumbling and bleating sounds that seemed to echo from behind a refrigerator-sized boulder, which was blocking the room’s only exit, as if there were a much larger cavern beyond it.

“Percy?” Grover said. “Please, I don’t have the strength to project any better. You have to hear me!”

“I hear you,” I said. “Grover, what’s going on?”

From behind the boulder, a monstrous voice yelled, “Honeypie! Are you done yet?”

Grover flinched. He called out in falsetto, “Not quite, dearest! A few more days!”

“Bah! Hasn’t it been two weeks yet?”

“N-no, dearest. Just five days. That leaves twelve more to go.”

The monster was silent, maybe trying to do the math. He must’ve been worse at arithmetic than I was, because he said, “All right, but hurry! I want to SEEEEE under that veil, heh-heh-heh.”

Grover turned back to me. “You have to help me! No time! I’m stuck in this cave. On an island in the sea.”

”Where?”

“I don’t know exactly! I went to Florida and turned left.”

“What? How did you—”

“It’s a trap!” Grover said. “It’s the reason no satyr has ever returned from this quest. He’s a shepherd, Percy! And he has it. Its nature magic is so powerful it smells just like the great god Pan!

The satyrs come here thinking they’ve found Pan, and they get trapped and eaten by Polyphemus!”

“Poly-who?”

“The Cyclops!” Grover said, exasperated. “I almost got away. I made it all the way to St. Augustine.”

“But he followed you,” I said, remembering my first dream. “And trapped you in a bridal boutique.”

“That’s right,” Grover said. “My first empathy link must’ve worked then. Look, this bridal dress is the only thing keeping me alive. He thinks I smell good, but I told him it was just goat-scented perfume. Thank goodness he can’t see very well. His eye is still half blind from the last time somebody poked it out. But soon he’ll realize what I am. He’s only giving me two weeks to finish the bridal train, and he’s getting impatient!”

“Wait a minute. This Cyclops thinks you’re—”

“Yes!” Grover wailed. “He thinks I’m a lady Cyclops and he wants to marry me!”

Under different circumstances, I might’ve busted out laughing, but Grover’s voice was deadly serious. He was shaking with fear.

“I’ll come rescue you,” I promised. “Where are you?”

“The Sea of Monsters, of course!”

“The sea of what?”

“I told you! I don’t know exactly where! And look, Percy … urn, I’m really sorry about this, but this empathy link … well, I had no choice. Our emotions are connected now. If I die …”

“Don’t tell me, I’ll die too.”

“Oh, well, perhaps not. You might live for years in a vegetative state. But, uh, it would be a lot better if you got me out of here.”

“Honeypie!” the monster bellowed. “Dinnertime! Yummy yummy sheep meat!”

Grover whimpered. “I have to go. Hurry!”

“Wait! You said ‘it’ was here. What?”

But Grover’s voice was already growing fainter. “Sweet dreams. Don’t let me die!”

The dream faded and I woke with a start. It was early morning. Tyson was staring down at me, his one big brown eye full of concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His voice sent a chill down my back, because he sounded almost exactly like the monster I’d heard in my dream.