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"How!" Circe yelped.
A
Circe howled in frustration. "Curse Hermes and his multivitamins! Those are such a fad! They do nothing for you."
"Turn Percy back to a human or else!" A
"I can't!"
"Then you asked for it."
Circe's attendants stepped forward, but their mistress said, "Get back! She's immune to magic until that cursed vitamin wears off."
A
"No!" Circe screamed.
I was the first to get a vitamin, but all the other guinea pigs scuttled out, too, and checked out this new food.
The first nibble, and I felt all fiery inside. I gnawed at the vitamin until it stopped looking so huge, and the cage got smaller, and then suddenly, bang! The cage exploded. I was sitting on the floor, a human again—somehow back in my regular clothes, thank the gods—with six other guys who all looked disoriented, blinking and shaking wood shavings out of their hair.
"No!" Circe screamed. "You don't understand! Those are the worst!"
One of the men stood up—a huge guy with a long tangled pitch-black beard and teeth the same color. He wore mismatched clothes of wool and leather, knee-length boots, and a floppy felt hat. The other men were dressed more simply—in breeches and stained white shirts. All of them were barefoot.
"Argggh!" bellowed the big man. "What's the witch done t'me!"
"No!" Circe moaned.
A
"Aye, lass," the big man growled. "Though most call me Blackbeard! And there's the sorceress what captured us, lads. Run her through, and then I mean to find me a big bowl of celery! Arggggh!"
Circe screamed. She and her attendants ran from the room, chased by the pirates.
A
"Thanks…" I faltered. "I'm really sorry—"
Before I could figure out how to apologize for being such an idiot, she tackled me with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. "I'm glad you're not a guinea pig."
"Me, too." I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt.
She undid the golden braids in her hair.
"Come on, Seaweed Brain," she said. "We have to get away while Circe's distracted."
We ran down the hillside through the terraces, past screaming spa workers and pirates ransacking the resort. Blackbeard's men broke the tiki torches for the luau, threw herbal wraps into the swimming pool, and kicked over tables of sauna towels.
I almost felt bad letting the unruly pirates out, but I guessed they deserved something more entertaining than the exercise wheel after being cooped up in a cage for three centuries.
"Which ship?" A
I looked around desperately. We couldn't very well take our rowboat. We had to get off the island fast, but what else could we use? A sub? A fighter jet? I couldn't pilot any of those things. And then I saw it.
"There," I said.
A
"I can make it work."
"How?"
I couldn't explain. I just somehow knew an old sailing vessel was the best bet for me. I grabbed A
"Argggh!" Blackbeard yelled somewhere behind us. "Those scalawags are a-boarding me vessel! Get 'em, lads!"
"We'll never get going in time!" A
I looked around at the hopeless maze of sail and ropes. The ship was in great condition for a three-hundred-year-old vessel, but it would still take a crew of fifty several hours to get underway. We didn't have several hours. I could see the pirates ru
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the waves lapping against the hull, the ocean currents, the winds all around me. Suddenly, the right word appeared in my mind. "Mizzenmast!" I yelled.
A
A
I didn't have an answer, but I could feel the ship responding to me as if it were part of my body. I willed the sails to rise as easily as if I were flexing my arm. I willed the rudder to turn.
The Queen A
THIRTEEN
ANNABETH TRIES
TO SWIM HOME
I'd finally found something I was really good at.
The Queen A
It all felt perfect—the wind in my face, the waves breaking over the prow.
But now that we were out of danger, all I could think about was how much I missed Tyson, and how worried I was about Grover.
I couldn't get over how badly I'd messed up on Circe's Island. If it hadn't been for A
I still felt changed. Not just because I had a sudden desire to eat lettuce. I felt jumpy, like the instinct to be a scared little animal was now a part of me. Or maybe it had always been there. That's what really worried me.
We sailed through the night.
A
I watched the horizon. More than once I spotted monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper spewed into the moonlight. A row of green spines slithered across the waves—something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian. I didn't really want to know.
Once I saw Nereids, the glowing lady spirits of the sea. I tried to wave at them, but they disappeared into the depths, leaving me unsure whether they'd seen me or not.
Sometime after midnight, A
"One of the forges of Hephaestus," A
"Like the bronze bulls?"
She nodded. "Go around. Far around."
I didn't need to be told twice. We steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind us.
I looked at A
It was hard to see her expression in the dark.
"I guess you deserve to know," she said finally. "The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told you that once?"
I nodded.
"Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops's lair in Brooklyn."
"They've got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?" I asked.
"You wouldn't believe how many, but that's not the point. This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Percy. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at a time. Thalia thought she was ru