This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

―xii. jammed signal

AS THEY APPROACHED THE STORE, Naomi feared that rainbow would make a reappearance and vaporize them. Luckily, the building stayed dark. The snakes Polybotes had dropped seemed to have vanished...

Spoke too soon. 

They were twenty yards from the porch when something hissed in the grass behind them. 

"Go!" Frank yelled. 

Percy stumbled. While Naomi and Hazel helped him, Frank turned and engaged with the super-deadly snakes. 

"Frank!" Hazel yelled once they reached the porch. "Come on!" 

The snake sprang at him, sailing through the air so fast that Frank only had time to swing his bow and smack the monster down the hill like a baseball. 

It spun out of sight, wailing, "Screeee!" 

Frank's bow disintegrated into dust from the snake's venomous skin.

Frank ran for the porch as two more snakes hissed farther downhill. Hazel and Naomi pulled him up the steps and away from the advancing snakes. The monsters started circling in the grass, breathing fire and turning the hillside brown with their poisonous touch. They didn't seem able or willing to come closer to the store. 

"We'll never get out of here," Frank said miserably.

"Then we'd better go in." Hazel pointed to the hand-painted sign over the door: RAINBOW ORGANIC FOODS & LIFESTYLES. 

As they stepped through the door of the store, lights came on. Flute music started up like they'd walked onto a stage. The wide aisles were lined with bins of nuts and dried fruit, baskets of apples, and clothing racks with tie-dyed shirts and gauzy Tinker Bell dresses. The ceiling was covered in wind chimes, and the walls were decorated with displays of crystal balls, geodes, and macramé dreamcatchers. Incense must have been burning somewhere, like a burning honeysuckle bush. Naomi fought a grimace. 

"Fortune-teller's shop?" Frank wondered aloud. 

"Hope not," Hazel muttered. 

Percy leaned heavily against Naomi. He looked worse than ever, like he'd been hit with a sudden and brutal flu. His face glistened with sweat. "Sit down..." he muttered. "Maybe water." 

"Yeah," Frank said. "Let's find you a place to rest."

The floorboards creaked under their feet. Frank navigated between two Neptune statue fountains. 

A girl popped up from behind the granola bins. "Help you?" 

Frank jumped, knocking over one of the fountains. A stone Neptune crashed to the floor, and the sea god's head rolled off. Water spewed out of his neck, spraying a rack of tie-dyed man satchels. 

"Sorry!" Frank bent down to clean up the mess. He almost goosed the girl with his spear. 

"Eep!" she said. "Hold it! It's okay!"

Frank straightened slowly. Percy turned a sickly shade of green as he stared at the decapitated statue of his dad. 

The girl clapped her hands. The fountain dissolved into mist, the water evaporating. She turned to Frank. "Really, it's no problem. Those Neptune fountains are so grumpy-looking, they bum me out." 

The girl looked relatively harmless, which didn't mean anything in Naomi's experience. She was short and muscular, with lace-up boots, cargo shorts, and a bright yellow t-shirt that read R.O.F.L. Rainbow Organic Foods & Lifestyles. She looked young, but her hair was frizzy white like a cloud on top of her head. Her eyes were the strangest things about her—her irises shifted color from gray to black to white and then back again.