The Children of the big three

Chapter 8

I don't own anything!

Piper POV

We camped out in the woods, a hundred metres from the main road. The clearing was mushy and the local kids had obviously been using it for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers. Even though I am the least girly Aphrodite girl, I can tell you that I would not sleep there. Luckily there was a trash can not far away, so we threw away all the rubbish. Percy blasted the ground with water and Jason wind-dried it, so it was clean.

We'd taken some blankets from Aunty Em's but we didn't need anything else. Percy provided the food, having Hestia's blessing. We didn't dare light a fire, as it would attract monsters, but the weather was warm enough. I had a
Feeling it was because Leo was with us. When Jason had told Medusa our tents were in the woods, we had thought he was lying, but it turns out he had nicked three from the camp store. Annabeth ranted at him for about half an hour for it, but at least we had some shelter in case it rained.

We decided to sleep in shifts. Percy, me and Grover got first watch. The rest curled up in the tents. We sat on the blankets out side the tent, looking at the sky.

"This makes me sad," Grover sighed.

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

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at the garbage in the trash can. "And the sky. You can't see the stars. The sky is polluted. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh yeah. I guess you'd be an Environmentalist." Percy answered.

Grover glared at him. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast... Never mind. At this rate, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?" Percy asked. I sighed. That was the worst question you could ask a satyr.

"Pan!" He yelled. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! Why do you think I want a searcher's licence?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing. It brought the smell of berries and wild flowers and clean rainwater, like what might have once been the woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I've never known.

"What's the search like?" Percy asked. I sat up straighter. That was something I wanted to know.

Grover looked at us cautiously, like he was afraid we were teasing him.

"Pan, the god of wild places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told us. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a voice crying out from the shore, 'The great God Pan is dead!' When the humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom since. But for us satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild. We refuse to believe he died. In every generation, the bravest and best satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, looking through all the wild places, hoping to find Pan and wake him."

"And you want to be one of them." Percy summed up.

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My Father was one. So was Uncle Ferdinand... You saw him back there-"

"Oh... Sorry."

Grover sighed. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to come back alive."

"Wait a minute- the first?" I asked.

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