“You’re Dionysus,” I said. “The god of wine.”
Mr. D rolled his eyes. “What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, ‘Well, duh!’?”
“Y-yes, Mr. D.”
“Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson ... Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?”
“You’re a god.”
“Yes, child.”
“A god. You.”
We must’ve been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn’t process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that ... looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun . In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover’s were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings .
She had been wondering if she owed something to the world --some sense of when to stop, to find her limits--but fuck it. What had the world ever done for her?