Hopeful - Luke Castellan [1] - 3 ~ Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

"But... he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born." I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember, something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I couldn't help but feel angry at him. However, given Greek mythology was possibly here then the gods were real. I hoped that he cared. "Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand and squeezed it tight. "Oh, Addy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?" She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Addy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp." I was so confused. Why did my father care where I went if he had left me as a child? "I'm sorry, Addy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..." She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream. It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse, and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I was drawn to the horse and I tried to stop the eagle from killing the horse or tried to get there to protect the horse from the eagle myself. However, I saw the eagle dive down and I knew I was too late, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No! I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. Lightning crackled and waves pounded on the beach. With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

Then someone knocked on the door and my mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover so I found myself staring with wide eyes. "Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror. "Addy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?" I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. "O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I was less shocked that he spoke in Ancient Greek and more stunned that I somehow understood it. I was also so shocked and my eyes had widened to the size of saucers because he had no pants on and where his legs should be ...

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Addy. Tell me now!"

I gave and told mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me in horror, her face turned deathly pale as I had been talking. She suddenly grabbed her purse and said frantically, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go! "

Grover ran for the Camaro or more accurately trotting on his shaggy legs. Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

Hopeful - Luke Castellan [1] - 3 ~ Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants - Page 4 (2024)