Percy v Medusa

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn’t taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when | couldn’t see her face, but | was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy…

They faded away. | alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price.’
| wasn’t sure what she meant, but | felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?

Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. ‘Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?’
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, ‘That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand.’
‘Grover,’ Aunty Em chastised, ‘look this way, dear.’
She still had no camera in her hands.
‘Percy -’ Annabeth said.
Some instinct warned me to listen to Annabeth, but | was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady’s voice.
‘| will just be a moment,’ Aunty Em said. ‘You know, | can’t see you very well in this cursed veil...’

Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face,’ she told me soothingly. ‘Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up.’
| fought the urge to obey. Instead | looked to one side and Saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens - a gazing ball. | could see Aunty Em’s dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.
Aunty Em.
Aunty ‘M’.

The Grey-Eyed One did this to me, Percy,’ Medusa said, and she didn’t sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. ‘Annabeth’s mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this.’
‘Don’t listen to her!’ Annabeth’s' voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. ‘Run, Percy!’
‘Silence!’ Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. ‘You see why | must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy’s daughter. | shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer.’
‘No,’ | muttered. | tried to make my legs move.
‘Do you really want to help the gods?’ Medusa asked. ‘Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain.’
‘Percy!’ Behind me, | heard a buzzing sound, like a ninetykilogram hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, ‘Duck!’
| turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o’clock with his winged shoes fluttering - Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.
‘Duck!’ he yelled again. ‘I’ll get her!’
That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, | was sure he’d miss Medusa and nail me. | dove to one side.

Medusa was about to lunge at him when | yelled, ‘Hey!’
| advanced on her, which wasn’t easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.
But she let me approach - ten metres, five metres.
| could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn’t really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.
‘You wouldn’t harm an old woman, Percy,’ she crooned. ‘I know you wouldn't.’
| hesitated, fascinated by the face | saw reflected in the glass - the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.
From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, ‘Percy, don’t listen to her!’
Medusa cackled. ‘Too late.’
She lunged at me with her talons.
| slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern - the sound of a monster disintegrating.
Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. | could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.

TLT ch.11