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Forever, Nick decided after an hour, was a really long time . . . especially with no hummus. He glanced at his phone, debating if he should call Mom. But he was supposed to be hiding . . .
Nick dreaded the morning. He knew that Sue would be in to feed, and what would she see but a once-thin Nick blown up to the size of The Rock? She’d probably scream and call the cops, and that would be the end: no school, no college, no job, just a record as some kind of felon. He’d be even more of an outcast, forced to find work on the docks.
C’mon, Nick told himself, you’re going over the edge. But who wouldn’t, when you’d heard a Bird Babe talk and your mom confirm that your dad was really a centaur? Mom might be a little out there when it came to things Greek, but he knew she wasn’t a liar.
Nick pored over his options: he couldn’t go back to school without being laughed out; couldn’t run away, since his only “job” was feeding oats to equines. What else was there? That Delph, or Mythland, or whatever Chiron had said. In a world of monsters and weirdos, maybe he wouldn’t stand out. And maybe his dad, who’d been gone all this time, would be there to help and guide him and just maybe he and Nick could get to know each other . . .
“Okay,” Nick told Sophie, picking up that crazy spear he’d placed beside a shovel. “Think I got what it takes to be some kind of hero?” The old mare tried to eat Nick’s hair, which he took as an answer. “Yeah, me neither. But I can’t keep hiding out here.”
Nick went out the barn’s back door which opened onto a pasture. Here, high on a cliff, there were no L.A. lights, and the stars were clear and bright. The moon, waxing or waning (he could never remember which) showed only half its face, but this was unclouded and sliced with knifelike precision. As Nick looked around, he saw that all the horses had joined him, standing in a half-circle on the smooth wet grass. Johnny and Sophie came forward, prodding him with their soft noses. Blackie emerged from the darkness and stomped his front feet.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Guess I got the message. I’ll be a hero. Yay.”
His words—not too stirring—must have been enough, since a slab of grass rippled under him. It rose to form a sort of hedge, and, through it, he could see stars and the moon, both bent like a wave.
“Hey!” he yelled, as he was lifted and slammed through, but felt no pain: it was like swimming through light.
“Oof,” Nick grunted, landing on solid ground in a perfect push-up position. Good thing his arms were jacked! At first, his vision was blurred, like when the eye doctor switches lenses. But then, his pupils focused, and he managed to roll to his feet.
Whoa. For sure, this wasn’t P.R.: not California, or even America. What he saw made him gasp with wonder—and, in the same breath, dread.
