“Oh, you can call me June.” The old lady’s eyes sparkled as if she’d made an excellent joke. “It is June, isn’t it? They named the month after me!”
“Okay…Look, I should go. Two gorgons are coming. I don’t want them to hurt you.”
June clasped her hands over her heart. “How sweet! But that’s part of your choice!”
“My choice…” Percy glanced nervously toward the hill. The gorgons had taken off their green vests. Wings sprouted from their backs—small bat wings, which glinted like brass.
Since when did they have wings? Maybe they were ornamental. Maybe they were too small to get a gorgon into the air. Then the two sisters leaped off the apartment building and soared toward him.
Great. Just great.
“Yes, a choice,” June said, as if she were in no hurry. “You could leave me here at the mercy of the gorgons and go to the ocean. You’d make it there safely, I guarantee. The gorgons will be quite happy to attack me and let you go. In the sea, no monster would bother you. You could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery that is in your future.”
Percy was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like the second option. “Or?”
“Or you could do a good deed for an old lady,” she said. “Carry me to the camp with you.”
“Carry you?” Percy hoped she was kidding. Then June hiked up her skirts and showed him her swollen purple feet.
“I can’t get there by myself,” she said. “Carry me to camp—across the highway, through the tunnel, across the river.”
Percy didn’t know what river she meant, but it didn’t sound easy. June looked pretty heavy.
The gorgons were only fifty yards away now—leisurely gliding toward him as if they knew the hunt was almost over.
Percy looked at the old lady. “And I’d carry you to this camp because—?”
“Because it’s a kindness!” she said. “And if you don’t, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed. Of course, you wouldn’t remember them, so I suppose it won’t matter. You’d be safe at the bottom of the sea.…”
Percy swallowed. The gorgons shrieked with laughter as they soared in for the kill.
“If I go to the camp,” he said, “will I get my memory back?”
“Eventually,” June said. “But be warned, you will sacrifice much! You’ll lose the mark of Achilles. You’ll feel pain, misery, and loss beyond anything you’ve ever known. But you might have a chance to save your old friends and family, to reclaim your old life.”
The gorgons were circling right overhead. They were probably studying the old woman, trying to figure out who the new player was before they struck.
“What about those guards at the door?” Percy asked.
June smiled. “Oh, they’ll let you in, dear. You can trust those two. So, what do you say? Will you help a defenseless old woman?”
Percy doubted June was defenseless. At worst, this was a trap. At best, it was some kind of test.
Percy hated tests. Since he’d lost his memory, his whole life was one big fill-in-the-blank. He was ____________________, from ____________________. He felt like ____________________, and if the monsters caught him, he’d be ____________________.
Then he thought about Annabeth, the only part of his old life he was sure about. He had to find her.
“I’ll carry you.” He scooped up the old woman.
She was lighter than he expected. Percy tried to ignore her sour breath and her calloused hands clinging to his neck. He made it across the first lane of traffic. A driver honked. Another yelled something that was lost in the wind. Most just swerved and looked irritated, as if they had to deal with a lot of ratty teenagers carrying old hippie women across the freeway here in Berkeley.
A shadow fell over him. Stheno called down gleefully, “Clever boy! Found a goddess to carry, did you?”
A goddess?
June cackled with delight, muttering, “Whoops!” as a car almost killed them.
Somewhere off to his left, Euryale screamed, “Get them! Two prizes are better than one!”
Percy bolted across the remaining lanes. Somehow he made it to the median alive. He saw the gorgons swooping down, cars swerving as the monsters passed overhead. He wondered what the mortals saw through the Mist—giant pelicans? Off-course hang gliders? The wolf Lupa had told him that mortal minds could believe just about anything—except the truth.
Percy ran for the door in the hillside. June got heavier with every step. Percy’s heart pounded. His ribs ached.
One of the guards yelled. The guy with the bow nocked an arrow. Percy shouted, “Wait!”
But the boy wasn’t aiming at him. The arrow flew over Percy’s head. A gorgon wailed in pain. The second guard readied her spear, gesturing frantically at Percy to hurry.
Fifty feet from the door. Thirty feet.