The Lightning Thief

my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision.
    And then: Flaaa-boooom!
    A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.
    But my impact with the water hadn’t hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me.
    At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn’t even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.
    Second realization: I wasn’t wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.
    I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.
    No way, I thought.
    I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.
    I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.
    But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.
    I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should’ve been dead. The fact that I wasn’t seemed like . . . well, a miracle. I imagined a woman’s voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: Percy, what do you say?
    “Um . . . thanks.” Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. “Thank you . . . Father.”
    No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water’s surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.
    Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I’d gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Those poor people in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn’t protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.
    Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat’s paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.
    There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.
    I heard that woman’s voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn’t in my head. I wasn’t imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.
    “Where are you?” I called aloud.
    Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.
    A lump formed in my throat. I said, “Mom?”
    No, child, only a messenger, though your mother’s fate is not as hopeless as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica.
    “What?”
    It is your father’s will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Percy, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence.
    “But . . .” I was sure this woman was my mother, or a vision of her, anyway. “Who—how did you—”
    There was so much I wanted to ask, the words jammed up in my throat.
    I cannot stay, brave one, the woman said. She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress. You must go to Santa Monica! And, Percy, do not trust the gifts. . . .
    Her voice faded.
    “Gifts?” I asked. “What gifts? Wait!”
    She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was my mother, I had lost her again.
    I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.
    Your father believes in you , she had said.
    She’d also called me brave . . . unless she was talking to the catfish.
    I waded toward Riptide and grabbed it by the hilt. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, fat mother, waiting to finish me off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If