So I hit the books.
I found five different collections of Greek mythology. I looked through all of them. I even remembered there was a thing called an index in the back. I checked those for gods or monsters whose names might sound even a little bit like Gary.
Geryon again. Gray Sisters. I remembered learning about some Norse wolf named Garm, but I wasn’t the Mighty Thor, so I didn’t want to cross that particular Rainbow Bridge. I had enough to worry about on the Greek side.
Finally, I set the mythology books aside. I pulled out my textbooks and tried to study.
My foot wouldn’t stop shaking. My head wouldn’t stop buzzing. I felt like I was watching myself trying to study rather than actually studying.
I cared about graduating. I cared about going to New Rome with Annabeth. But I didn’t care about science or American literature or persuasive essays. And although I knew that those things were connected to my overall goal, I had trouble making myself believe it.
I couldn’t focus on my reading.
I wrote one sentence of an essay: In this persuasive essay I will persuade you . . .
Okay. Half a sentence.
I stared at my science textbook.
I thought about Gray Sisters and gray wolves and scary Garys in Washington Square Park. But the image that kept floating in my mind was Ganymede’s face when he’d talked about his nightmares. He looked like a classmate of mine in freshman year who’d gotten mugged on his way to school: eyes like empty windows, a face that had forgotten how to make expressions.
Elisson had looked like that after I made his river explode. I still felt terrible about it. Ganymede had a bigger, eternal tormentor in his life: Zeus, a guy I tried very hard never to be like. I didn’t know the full story between the two gods. As usual, the myths basically only told Zeus’s side of the story. But it was obvious that Ganymede wasn’t doing so great in the mental-health department.
I tried to imagine having my life shattered like Ganymede’s—kidnapped as a teenager and hauled up to Mount Olympus because Zeus thought I made nice eye candy, then being stuck in that situation forever. Never aging. Never growing. Never getting sick. Never healing.
I realized why I was trying so hard to find answers. I wasn’t seeing this quest as just an inconvenience anymore. I wanted to help Ganymede. If I could’ve taken the guy to Hebe Jeebies and done ancient Greek songs on the karaoke machine with him until he was able to reverse his life and become mortal again, I would’ve done it.
Since I couldn’t, I had to get his chalice back.
At last, I gave up on the library work. I felt like a failure as I headed home, worried that Monday morning I would be totally unprepared for whatever we faced. Maybe I’d at least catch enough z’s the night before.
Turned out, I couldn’t even do that.
After an uneventful weekend, Annabeth broke into my room at 4:30 A.M. Monday morning, which sounds a lot more exciting than it actually was.
I’d been having this weird nightmare about the gods. The Olympians were all sitting around my family’s dining table announcing that they were pregnant. Hera was pregnant. Aphrodite was pregnant. Hephaestus was pregnant. Apollo was pretty sure he was having twins. After every announcement, Zeus would raise his Himbo Juice to-go cup and yell, “A toast!” Then all the gods would throw burnt toast at me like we were at a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I woke to the sound of Annabeth’s knife blade sweeping across the lock of my bedroom window. She could have just knocked, but I guess she liked the challenge. She slid the bottom pane up and climbed in from the fire escape.
“But soft,” I said, “what light through yonder window breaks?”
She flashed me a smile. “I’m impressed you can quote Shakespeare.”
“I can quote SparkNotes.” I rubbed my eyes. I still had the smell of burnt toast in my nose. I was really glad I’d woken up before Dream Poseidon could show me his baby bump.
Then I looked down and started to feel self-conscious about the ratty T-shirt I was wearing. I wondered if I had saliva crusted on my chin. As Annabeth had often told me, I drool when I sleep.
“Uh, what’s the occasion?” I asked.
Annabeth was wearing cargo pants, a tank top, her backpack, and a pair of running shoes, which made me suspect this wasn’t just a social call.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Figured we might as well get a head start.” She slung her backpack from her shoulder and produced Iris’s vial of glowing golden liquid.
“That stuff freaks me out,” I said. “It looks like radioactive honey.”