The Titan's Curse

in the attic, as if she might sit by this creek for a hundred years.

SEVEN

EVERYBODY HATES ME BUT THE HORSE
    The least the Oracle could’ve done was walk back to the attic by herself.
    Instead, Grover and I were elected to carry her. I didn’t figure that was because we were the most popular.
    “Watch her head!” Grover warned as we went up the stairs. But it was too late.
    Bonk! I whacked her mummified face against the trapdoor frame and dust flew.
    “Ah, man.” I set her down and checked for damage. “Did I break anything?”
    “I can’t tell,” Grover admitted.
    We hauled her up and set her on her tripod stool, both of us huffing and sweating. Who knew a mummy could weigh so much?
    I assumed she wouldn’t talk to me, and I was right. I was relieved when we finally got out of there and slammed the attic door shut.
    “Well,” Grover said, “that was gross.”
    I knew he was trying to keep things light for my sake, but I still felt really down. The whole camp would be mad at me for losing the game to the Hunters, and then there was the new prophecy from the Oracle. It was like the spirit of Delphi had gone out of her way to exclude me. She’d ignored my question and walked half a mile to talk to Zoë. And she’d said nothing, not even a hint, about Annabeth.
    “What will Chiron do?” I asked Grover.
    “I wish I knew.” He looked wistfully out the second-floor window at the rolling hills covered in snow. “I want to be out there.”
    “Searching for Annabeth?”
    He had a little trouble focusing on me. Then he blushed. “Oh, right. That too. Of course.”
    “Why?” I asked. “What were you thinking?”
    He clopped his hooves uneasily. “Just something the manticore said, about the Great Stirring. I can’t help but wonder . . . if all those ancient powers are waking up, maybe . . . maybe not all of them are evil.”
    “You mean Pan.”
    I felt kind of selfish, because I’d totally forgotten about Grover’s life ambition. The nature god had gone missing two thousand years ago. He was rumored to have died, but the satyrs didn’t believe that. They were determined to find him. They’d been searching in vain for centuries, and Grover was convinced he’d be the one to succeed. This year, with Chiron putting all the satyrs on emergency duty to find half-bloods, Grover hadn’t been able to continue his search. It must’ve been driving him nuts.
    “I’ve let the trail go cold,” he said. “I feel restless, like I’m missing something really important. He’s out there somewhere. I can just feel it.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to encourage him, but I didn’t know how. My optimism had pretty much been trampled into the snow out there in the woods, along with our capture-the-flag hopes.
    Before I could respond, Thalia tromped up the stairs. She was officially not talking to me now, but she looked at Grover and said, “Tell Percy to get his butt downstairs.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Did he say something?” Thalia asked Grover.
    “Um, he asked why.”
    “Dionysus is calling a council of cabin leaders to discuss the prophecy,” she said. “Unfortunately, that includes Percy.”
    The council was held around a Ping-Pong table in the rec room. Dionysus waved his hand and supplied snacks: Cheez Whiz, crackers, and several bottles of red wine. Then Chiron reminded him that wine was against his restrictions and most of us were underage. Mr. D sighed. With a snap of his fingers the wine turned to Diet Coke. Nobody drank that either.
    Mr. D and Chiron (in wheelchair form) sat at one end of the table. Zoë and Bianca di Angelo (who had kind of become Zoë’s personal assistant) took the other end. Thalia and Grover and I sat along the right, and the other head councilors—Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, and the Stoll brothers—sat on the left. The Ares kids were supposed to send a representative, too, but all of them had gotten broken limbs (accidentally) during capture the flag, courtesy of the Hunters. They were resting up in the infirmary.
    Zoë started the meeting off on a positive note. “This is pointless.”
    “Cheez Whiz!” Grover gasped. He began scooping up crackers and Ping-Pong balls and spraying them with topping.
    “There is no time for talk,” Zoë continued. “Our goddess needs us. The Hunters must leave immediately.”
    “And go where?” Chiron asked.
    “West!” Bianca said. I was amazed at how different she looked after just a few days with the