THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.

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“I can’t,” I told her.
She looked down sadly.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” I said, “but my friends need me. I know how to help them now.
I have to get back.”
She picked a flower from her garden—a sprig of silvermoonlace . Its glow faded as the sunrise came up.
Daybreak is a good time for decisions, Hephaestus had said. Calypso tucked the flower into my
T-shirt pocket.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the forehead, like a blessing. “Then come to the beach, my
hero. And we will send you on your way.”
The raft was a ten-foot square of logs lashed together with a pole for a mast and a simple white linen
sail. It didn’t look like it would be very seaworthy, orlakeworthy .
***
“This will take you wherever you desire,” Calypso promised. “It is quite safe.”
I took her hand, but she let it slip out of mine.
“Maybe I can visit you,” I said.
She shook her head. “No man ever findsOgygia twice, Percy. When you leave, I will never see you
again.”
“But—”
“Go, please.” Her voice broke. “The Fates are cruel, Percy. Just remember me.” Then a little trace of
her smile returned. “Plant a garden in Manhattan for me, will you?”
“I promise.” I stepped onto the raft. Immediately it began to sail from the shore.
As I sailed onto the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn’t
help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her. She
would always be my biggestwhat if .
Within minutes the island ofOgygia was lost in the mist. I was sailing alone over the water toward the
sunrise.
Then I told the raft what to do. I said the only place I could think of, because I needed comfort and
friends.
“Camp Half-Blood,” I said. “Sail me home.”
THIRTEEN