Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They were pretty miserable that night.
The four kids 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 had taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but they didn't dare light a fire to dry our 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. Percy volunteered to take first watch.
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. Marlowe sighed, sliding down the trunk of a tree next to Percy.
"Go ahead and sleep," Percy told them. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."
Marlowe leaned her head on Percy's shoulder, staring at the horizon.
Grover nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."
"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"
"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "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."
He glared at Percy. "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?"
Marlowe giggled, and Percy felt his body tense.
"Pan!" Grover cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"
A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly Percy was nostalgic for something he'd never known.
"Tell me about the search," Percy said.
Grover looked at him cautiously, as if he were afraid he was just making fun.
"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told Percy. "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."
