The Battle of the Labyrinth

memories.
    Chiron plunged into the woods. Nymphs peeked out of the trees to watch us pass. Large shapes rustled in the shadows—monsters that were stocked in here as a challenge to the campers.
    I thought I knew the forest pretty well after playing capture the flag here for two summers, but Chiron took me a way I didn’t recognize, through a tunnel of old willow trees, past a little waterfall, and into a glade blanketed with wildflowers.
    A bunch of satyrs were sitting in a circle in the grass. Grover stood in the middle, facing three really old, really fat satyrs who sat on topiary thrones shaped out of rose bushes. I’d never seen the three old satyrs before, but I guessed they must be the Council of Cloven Elders.
    Grover seemed to be telling them a story. He twisted the bottom of his T-shirt, shifting nervously on his goat hooves. He hadn’t changed much since last winter, maybe because satyrs age half as fast as humans. His acne had flared up. His horns had gotten a little bigger so they just stuck out over his curly hair. I realized with a start that I was taller than he was now.
    Standing off to one side of the circle were Annabeth, another girl I’d never seen before, and Clarisse. Chiron dropped me next to them.
    Clarisse’s stringy brown hair was tied back with a camouflage bandanna. If possible, she looked even buffer, like she’d been working out. She glared at me and muttered, “Punk,” which must’ve meant she was in a good mood. Usually she says hello by trying to kill me.
    Annabeth had her arm around the other girl, who looked like she’d been crying. She was small—petite, I guess you’d call it—with wispy hair the color of amber and a pretty, elfish face. She wore a green chiton and laced sandals, and she was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “It’s going terribly,” she sniffled.
    “No, no.” Annabeth patted her shoulder. “He’ll be fine, Juniper.”
    Annabeth looked at me and mouthed the words Grover’s girlfriend .
    At least I thought that’s what she said, but that made no sense. Grover with a girlfriend? Then I looked at Juniper more closely, and I realized her ears were slightly pointed. Her eyes, instead of being red from crying, were tinged green, the color of chlorophyll. She was a tree nymph—a dryad.
    “Master Underwood!” the council member on the right shouted, cutting off whatever Grover was trying to say. “Do you seriously expect us to believe this?”
    “B-but, Silenus,” Grover stammered. “It’s the truth!”
    The Council guy, Silenus, turned to his colleagues and muttered something. Chiron cantered up to the front and stood next to them. I remembered he was an honorary member of the council, but I’d never thought about it much. The elders didn’t look very impressive. They reminded me of the goats in a petting zoo—huge bellies, sleepy expressions, and glazed eyes that couldn’t see past the next handful of goat chow. I wasn’t sure why Grover looked so nervous.
    Silenus tugged his yellow polo shirt over his belly and adjusted himself on his rosebush throne. “Master Underwood, for six months— six months —we have been hearing these scandalous claims that you heard the wild god Pan speak.”
    “But I did!”
    “Impudence!” said the elder on the left.
    “Now, Maron,” Chiron said. “Patience.”
    “Patience, indeed!” Maron said. “I’ve had it up to my horns with this nonsense. As if the wild god would speak to . . . to him .”
    Juniper looked like she wanted to charge the old satyr and beat him up, but Annabeth and Clarisse held her back. “Wrong fight, girlie,” Clarisse muttered. “Wait.”
    I don’t know what surprised me more: Clarisse holding somebody back from a fight, or the fact that she and Annabeth, who despised each other, almost seemed like they were working together.
    “For six months,” Silenus continued, “we have indulged you, Master Underwood. We let you travel. We allowed you to keep your searcher’s license. We waited for you to bring proof of your preposterous claim. And what have you found in six months of travel?”
    “I just need more time,” Grover pleaded.
    “Nothing!” the elder in the middle chimed in. “You have found nothing.”
    “But, Leneus—”
    Silenus raised his hand. Chiron leaned in and said something to the satyrs. The satyrs didn’t look happy. They muttered and argued among themselves, but Chiron said something else, and Silenus sighed. He nodded