Clotho - Percy Jackson

We Get Advice From a Poodle

Percy pov

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 to light a fire. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else. Lottie had done the same spell she had when she removed the blood from the hoodie to dry their damp clothes, Percy had tried to get her to leave it as she swayed on her feet but the girl was too stubborn for her own good.

They decided to sleep in shifts. He volunteered to take the first watch.

Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Lottie settled down next to him and she pulled on her stolen hoodie for warmth, she closed her eyes and curled up on her side but he was sure she hadn't fallen asleep. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, out his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

Percy glanced at Lottie. "Are you okay?" he asked. She had been mostly quiet since they left Aunty Em's. Her eyes stayed closed but she snorted. "I guess I should have figured that."

"What you said," he said, not really sure how to bring it up. "About your mother."

"It's true," she said, her voice was steady no hitch in her words they were delivered with a matter-of-fact tone. But her shoulders curled in just a bit and her knees rose higher. "She dumped me on my father's porch as soon as I was born, and didn't bother to name me. My grandmother Mary did."

"Grandmother?"

"Yeah. When my father found me, he brought me to her. She wasn't home at the time, he left me on the porch just like mother dearest," she sighed. "She, her girlfriend, and their friends raised me."

"What happened to your father?"

"I had to move back in with him after my grandmothers died last summer. I lived with him for three weeks before he shipped me off to Yancy." she frowned.

Percy remembered what his mother had said. "Maybe he sent you away to protect you?"

"No, Perc," he has never heard her voice was so small, so broken. Percy glanced at Grover who watched the girl, even in the dark he could see his sadness. "I don't think so."

In an effort to cheer her up, Percy said. "Tell me about them, your grandmothers."

Her eyes opened, and she watched him for a moment. "They were so cool, you two would have loved them. Grandma Mary was the one that insisted we lived on the beach, saying 'it was good for the soul.' Grandma Thia, her girlfriend liked to remind her that it was salt water that was good for the soul and that Lake Erie was fresh water." she laughed, sounding a bit brighter.

"What about the others?" He asked.

"Well, Grandma Deb rocked leather jackets and drove a Harley." She grinned and Percy whistled. "And Grandma Ruthie, she was just so kind, a romantic too spent a lot of time telling anyone who would listen about how important love was. I think she was so in love with Grandma Deb and she wanted other people to feel the same." She paused, her eyebrows furrowed. "Now I wonder if she was a daughter of Aphrodite."

"I miss them," she said after a moment of silence. "I was there when it happened." Her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. "We were on our way home from the movies. I-I was in the back seat with Grandma Deb and Grandma Ruthie, a truck blew through a red light and t-boned us. All I remember is the flash of headlights, the crunch of metal, feeling cold and then I blinked and I was standing on the sidewalk."