THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.
THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.
THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.
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I sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. I looked at my arms, sure that they would be<br />
hideously scarred, but they seemed fine.A little pinker than usual, but not bad. I was wearing a white<br />
cotton T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants that weren’t mine. My feet were bare. In a moment of panic, I<br />
wondered what happened to Riptide, but I felt my pocket and there was my pen, right where it always<br />
reappeared.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t onlythat but the Stygian ice dog whistle was back in my pocket, too. Somehow it had followed me.<br />
And that didn’t exactly reassure me.<br />
With difficulty, I stood. The stone floor was freezing under my feet. I turned and found myself staring into<br />
a polished bronze mirror.<br />
“Holy Poseidon,” I muttered. I looked as if I’d lost twenty pounds I couldn’t afford to lose. My hair was<br />
a rat’s nest. It was singed at the edges like Hephaestus’s beard. If I saw that face on somebody walking<br />
down a highway intersection asking for money, I would’ve locked the car doors.<br />
I turned away from the mirror. The cave entrance was to my left. I headed toward the daylight.<br />
The cave opened onto a green meadow. On the left was a grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge<br />
flower garden. Four fountains gurgled in the meadow,each shooting water from the pipes of stone satyrs.<br />
Straight ahead, the grass sloped down to a rocky beach. The waves of a lake lapped against the stones. I<br />
could tell it was a lake because…well, I just could.Fresh water. <strong>No</strong>t salt. The sun sparkled on the water,<br />
and the sky was pure blue. It seemed like a paradise, which immediately made me nervous. You deal<br />
with mythological stuff for a fewyears, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.<br />
The girl with the braided caramel hair, the one who’d called herself Calypso, was standing at the beach,<br />
talking to someone. I couldn’t see him very well in the shimmer from the sunlight off the water, but they<br />
appeared to be arguing. I tried to remember what I knew about Calypso from the old myths. I’d heard<br />
the name before, but…I couldn’t remember. Was she a monster? Did she trap heroes and kill them? But<br />
if she was evil, why was I still alive?<br />
I walked toward her slowly because my legs were still stiff. When the grass changed to gravel, I looked<br />
down to keep my balance, and when I looked up again, the girl was alone. She wore a white sleeveless<br />
Greek dress with a low circular neckline trimmed in gold. She brushed at her eyes like she’d been crying.<br />
“Well,” she said, trying for a smile, “the sleeper finally wakes.”<br />
“Who were you talking to?” My voice sounded like a frog that had spent time in a microwave.<br />
“Oh…just a messenger,” she said. “How do you feel?”<br />
“How long have I been out?”<br />
“Time,” Calypso mused. “Time is always difficult here. I honestly don’t know, <strong>Percy</strong>.”<br />
“You know my name?”<br />
“You talk in your sleep.”<br />
I blushed.“Yeah. I’ve been…uh, told that before.”