I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.
“Grover won’t get in too much trouble, will he?” I asked Chiron. “I mean…he was a good protector. Really.”
Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse’s back like a saddle. “Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill.”
“But he did that!”
“I might agree with you,” Chiron said. “But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I’m afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there’s the unfortunate…ah…fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover’s part.”
I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover’s fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn’t given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.
“He’ll get a second chance, won’t he?”
Chiron winced. “I’m afraid that was Grover’s second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He’s still so small for his age.…”
“How old is he?”
“Oh, twenty-eight.”
“What! And he’s in sixth grade?”
“Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Quite,” Chiron agreed. “At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career.…”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?”
Chiron looked away quickly. “Let’s move along, shall we?”
But I wasn’t quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother’s fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.
“Chiron,” I said. “If the gods and Olympus and all that are real…”
“Yes, child?”
“Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?”
Chiron’s expression darkened.
“Yes, child.” He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now…until we know more…I would urge you to put that out of your mind.”
“What do you mean, ‘until we know more’?”
“Come, Percy. Let’s see the woods.”
As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.
Chiron said, “The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed.”
“Stocked with what?” I asked. “Armed with what?”
“You’ll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?”
“My own—?”
“No,” Chiron said. “I don’t suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I’ll visit the armory later.”
I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn’t seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.
“Sword and spear fights?” I asked.
“Cabin challenges and all that,” he explained. “Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there’s the mess hall.”
Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.
“What do you do when it rains?” I asked.
Chiron looked at me as if I’d gone a little weird. “We still have to eat, don’t we?” I decided to drop the subject.
Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I’d ever seen.
Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).
In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.
The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
“Zeus and Hera?” I guessed.
“Correct,” Chiron said.
“Their cabins look empty.”
“Several of the cabins are. That’s true. No one ever stays in one or two.”
Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.
Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?
I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.
It wasn’t high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that!”
Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Come along, Percy.”
Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.