LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . pjo

IV.

THEY WERE PRETTY miserable that night.

They camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

They'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but they didn't dare light a fire to dry their damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.

They decided to sleep in shifts. Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky. Percy sat in a relatively clean area, awake and staring ahead.

And Mia tried going to sleep, but she couldn't. She couldn't sleep without a mattress under her. So, naturally, she overheard Percy and Grover's conversation as she tried to sleep.

"Go ahead and sleep," Percy told Grover. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

"It makes me sad, Percy," Grover sighed.

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. This makes me sad." Grover paused. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

"Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast . . . ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

Mia tried not to laugh at this.

"Pan!" Grover cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

"Tell me about the search," Percy said.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," Grover explained. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," Grover said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand . . . the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on — the first?"

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," Percy said, amazement in his voice. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."