The Titan's Curse

struggling. All I could see was the bristly tip of its back. It was wedged completely in the snow like Styrofoam packing. It didn’t seem to be hurt, but it wasn’t going anywhere, either.
    I looked at Thalia. “You’re afraid of heights.”
    Now that we were safely down the mountain, her eyes had their usual angry look. “Don’t be stupid.”
    “That explains why you freaked out on Apollo’s bus. Why you didn’t want to talk about it.”
    She took a deep breath. Then she brushed the pine needles out of her hair. “If you tell anyone, I swear—”
    “No, no,” I said. “That’s cool. It’s just . . . the daughter of Zeus, the Lord of the Sky, afraid of heights?”
    She was about to knock me into the snow when, above us, Grover’s voice called, “Helloooooo?”
    “Down here!” I shouted.
    A few minutes later, Zoë, Bianca, and Grover joined us. We stood watching the wild boar struggle in the snow.
    “A blessing of the Wild,” Grover said, though he now looked agitated.
    “I agree,” Zoë said. “We must use it.”
    “Hold up,” Thalia said irritably. She still looked like she’d just lost a fight with a Christmas tree. “Explain to me why you’re so sure this pig is a blessing.”
    Grover looked over, distracted. “It’s our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?”
    “Fun,” I said. “Like . . . pig cowboys.”
    Grover nodded. “We need to get aboard. I wish . . . I wish I had more time to look around. But it’s gone now.”
    “What’s gone?”
    Grover didn’t seem to hear me. He walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. Already the boar was starting to make some headway through the drift. Once it broke free, there’d be no stopping it. Grover took out his pipes. He started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar’s nose, and the boar went nuts, straining to get it.
    “Automatic steering,” Thalia murmured. “Great.”
    She trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of us.
    Zoë and Bianca walked toward the boar.
    “Wait a second,” I said. “Do you two know what Grover is talking about—this wild blessing?”
    “Of course,” Zoë said. “Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong . . . I never thought I would sense that presence again.”
    “What presence?”
    She stared at me like I was an idiot. “The Lord of the Wild, of course. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan.”

THIRTEEN

WE VISIT THE JUNK YARD OF THE GODS
    We rode the boar until sunset, which was about as much as my back end could take. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day. That’s about how comfortable boar-riding was.
    I have no idea how many miles we covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert.
    As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.
    “This is as far as he’ll go,” Grover said. “We need to get off while he’s eating.”
    Nobody needed convincing. We slipped off the boar’s back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then we waddled away as best we could with our saddle sores.
    After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.
    “It likes the mountains better,” I guessed.
    “I can’t blame it,” Thalia said. “Look.”
    Ahead of us was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn’t been open since before Zoë Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW , ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills . . . but then I noticed they weren’t regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.
    “Whoa,” I said.
    “Something tells me we’re not going to find a car rental here,” Thalia said. She looked at Grover. “I don’t suppose you got another wild boar