Ethereal

Chapter XII

We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny.

Even with Percy's lion-skin coat, I was freezing by the time we got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As we walked, I told Percy and Grover about my conversation with Apollo the night before—how he'd told Percy to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

"He told me that too, he said that I'll know who he is." Percy nodded. "However I don't know what he means by that."

"I thought it might have something to do with your parentage?" I suggested.

"Possibly."

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

I tried not to get too depressed about our chances. I didn't want to send Grover into a panic, but I knew we had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. The General had said Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a sacrifice. I didn't like the sound of that at all.

We stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.

"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover.

"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good."

"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."

Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get us some food. Percy, Lia, and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."

We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Grover looked a bit uncomfortable with going with both of the Hunter girls, but he did anyway.

Inside the store, we found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car.

"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars."

The clerk looked so lonely, Percy bought a rubber rat and I brought a chocolate bar. Then we headed back outside and stood on the porch.

"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has any suggestions."

"But the clerk said—"

"I know," she told me. "I'm checking anyway."

I let her go. I knew how it felt to be restless. All half-bloods had attention deficit problems because of our inborn battlefield reflexes. We couldn't stand just waiting around.

Also, I had a feeling Thalia was still upset over our conversation last night about Luke. Percy and I stood together awkwardly. I mean... I was never very comfortable talking one-on-one with boys anyway, and I'd never been alone with Percy before. I wasn't sure what to say, especially after my conversation with my dad yesterday.

"Nice rat," I said, at last trying to break the silence.

Percy set it on the porch railing. 

I looked at him weirdly. "Why have you sat on the railing anyway?"