¹ON THIS SPRING DAY. p. jackson

010.

ON THIS SPRING DAY
━━━━━ chapter ten

━━━━━ THEY HAD ARRIVED on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled into 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 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 her lion-skin coat, Violet was freezing by the time they got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As they walked, she and Percy told Grover about their conversation with Apollo the night before—how he'd told Percy to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

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

Violet tried not to get too depressed about their chances. She didn't want to send Grover into a panic, but she knew they 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 the General said something about a sacrifice. Violet didn't like the sound of that at all.

The six of them stopped in the middle of town. Pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafés, 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," Zoë agreed. "Coffee is good."

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

"Hot chocolate," Violet mumbled, rubbing her arms. She sent the café a wistful look.

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

They agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes.

Predictably, the café was empty. Violet didn't expect much else. Besides the two workers behind the granite counter, there was only one other customer. He sat away in the far corner, ducked behind a whirring laptop, looking to be around his early twenties. A college student home for winter break, she figured. And the two workers looked to be high schoolers; one was a boy not-so-discreetly playing on his phone from behind the cash register, and the other was glaring down at an old coffee brewer as if it had personally offended her and called her names.

When the worker noticed the three, he stood taller and tucked away his phone. He gave them a smile, but his tone was incredibly bored; "Welcome, what can I get you today?"

"Could we get a few more minutes?" Violet asked.

The worker shrugged and started clicking through his phone. Zoë sneered at his careless attitude. Before the Hunter could say anything, Violet dragged her over to the sweets placed out in a glass case.

"Oo!" Grover said, peering at the sweets offered. "They have banana bread!"

"And madeleines!" said Violet, pointing at the small, sponge cakes placed inside white wrappings. "I love madeleines!"

Zoë looked down at the desserts the daughter of Eros was pointing at. "You've had madeleines?"

Violet shrugged. "My mom would make them for me all the time as a kid, especially when we lived in France."