The Son of Neptune

idea.

‘I’ll explain,’ she promised. She clawed through her pack. Stupidly, she’d forgotten to bring a water bottle. ‘Is … is there anything to drink?’

‘Yeah.’ Percy muttered a curse in Greek. ‘That was dumb. I left my supplies down at the boat.’

Hazel felt bad asking them to take care of her, but she’d woken up parched and exhausted, as if she’d lived the last few hours in both the past and the present. She shouldered her pack and sword. ‘Never mind. I can walk …’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Frank said. ‘Not until you’ve had some food and water. I’ll get the supplies.’

‘No, I’ll go.’ Percy glanced at Frank’s hand on Hazel’s. Then he scanned the horizon as if he sensed trouble, but there was nothing to see – just the lighthouse and the field of grass stretching inland. ‘You two stay here. I’ll be right back.’

‘You sure?’ Hazel said feebly. ‘I don’t want you to -’

‘It’s fine,’ said Percy. ‘Frank, just keep your eyes open. Something about this place … I don’t know.’

‘I’ll keep her safe,’ Frank promised.

Percy dashed off.

Once they were alone, Frank seemed to realize he was still holding Hazel’s hand. He cleared his throat and let go.

‘I, um … I think I understand your blackouts,’ he said. ‘And where you come from.’

Her heartbeat stumbled. ‘You do?’

‘You seem so different from other girls I’ve met.’ He blinked, then rushed on. ‘Not like … bad different. Just the way you talk. The things that surprise you – like songs, or TV shows, or slang people use. You talk about your life like it happened a long time ago. You were born in a different time, weren’t you? You came from the Underworld.’

Hazel wanted to cry – not because she was sad, but because it was such a relief to hear someone say the truth. Frank didn’t act revolted or scared. He didn’t look at her as if she were a ghost or some awful undead zombie.

‘Frank, I -’

‘We’ll figure it out,’ he promised. ‘You’re alive now. We’re going to keep you that way.’

The grass rustled behind them. Hazel’s eyes stung in the cold wind.

‘I don’t deserve a friend like you,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what I am … what I’ve done.’

‘Stop that.’ Frank scowled. ‘You’re great! Besides, you’re not the only one with secrets.’

Hazel stared at him. ‘I’m not?’

Frank started to say something. Then he tensed.

‘What?’ Hazel asked.

‘The wind’s stopped.’

She looked around and noticed he was right. The air had become perfectly still.

‘So?’ she asked.

Frank swallowed. ‘So why is the grass still moving?’

Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel saw dark shapes ripple through the field.

‘Hazel!’ Frank tried to grab her arms, but it was too late.

Something knocked him backwards. Then a force like a grassy hurricane wrapped around Hazel and dragged her into the fields.

XIX Hezel

HAZEL WAS AN EXPERT ON WEIRD. She’d seen her mother possessed by an earth goddess. She’d created a giant out of gold. She’d destroyed an island, died and come back from the Underworld.

But getting kidnapped by a field of grass? That was new.

She felt as if she were trapped in a funnel cloud of plants. She’d heard of modern-day singers jumping into crowds of fans and getting passed overhead by thousands of hands. She imagined this was similar – only she was moving a thousand times faster, and the grass blades weren’t adoring fans.

She couldn’t sit up. She couldn’t touch the ground. Her sword was still in her bedroll, strapped to her back, but she couldn’t reach it. The plants kept her off balance, tossing her around, slicing her face and arms. She could barely make out the stars through the tumble of green, yellow and black.

Frank’s shouting faded into the distance.

It was hard to think clearly, but Hazel knew one thing: She was moving fast. Wherever she was being taken, she’d soon be too far away for her friends to find her.

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the tumbling and tossing. She sent her thoughts into the earth below her. Gold, silver – she’d settle for anything that might disrupt her kidnappers.

She felt nothing. Riches under the earth – zero.

She was about to despair when she felt a huge cold spot pass beneath her. She locked onto it with all her concentration, dropping a mental anchor. Suddenly the ground rumbled. The swirl of plants released her and she was thrown upward like a catapult projectile.

Momentarily weightless, she opened her eyes. She twisted her body in midair. The ground was about twenty feet below her. Then she was falling. Her combat training kicked in. She’d practised dropping from giant eagles before. She tucked into a roll, turned the impact into a somersault, and came up standing.

She unslung her bedroll and drew her sword. A few yards to her left, an outcropping of rock the size of a garage jutted from the sea of grass. Hazel realized it was her anchor. She’d caused the rock to appear.

The grass rippled around it. Angry voices hissed in dismay at the massive clump of stone that had broken their progress. Before they could regroup, Hazel ran to the rock and clambered to the top.

The grass swayed and rustled around her like the tentacles of a gigantic undersea anemone. Hazel could sense her kidnappers’ frustration.

‘Can’t grow on this, can you?’ she yelled. ‘Go away, you bunch of weeds! Leave me alone!’

‘Schist,’ said an angry voice from the grass.

Hazel raised her eyebrows. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Schist! Big pile of schist!’

A nun at St Agnes Academy had once washed Hazel’s mouth with lye soap for saying something very similar, so she wasn’t sure how to respond. Then, all around her rock island, the kidnappers materialized from the grass. At first glance they looked like Valentine angels – a dozen chubby little Cupid babies. As they stepped closer, Hazel realized they were neither cute nor angelic.

They were the size of toddlers, with rolls of baby fat, but their skin had a strange greenish hue, as if chlorophyll ran through their veins. They had dry, brittle wings like cornhusks, and tufts of white hair like corn silk. Their faces were haggard, pitted with kernels of grain. Their eyes were solid green, and their teeth were canine fangs.

The largest creature stepped forward. He wore a yellow loincloth, and his hair was spiky, like the bristles on a stalk of wheat. He hissed at Hazel and waddled back and forth so quickly, she was afraid his loincloth might fall off.

‘Hate this schist!’ the creature complained. ‘Wheat cannot grow!’

‘Sorghum cannot grow!’ another piped up.

‘Barley!’ yelled a third. ‘Barley cannot grow. Curse this schist!’

Hazel’s knees wobbled. The little creatures might have been funny if they weren’t surrounding her, staring up at her with those pointed teeth and hungry green eyes. They were like Cupid piranhas.

‘Y-you mean the rock?’ she managed. ‘This rock is called schist?’

‘Yes, greenstone! Schist!’ the first creature yelled. ‘Nasty rock.’