Medusa is a monster with snakes for hair; she can turn people who look her in the eye to stone. To pass in the mortal world, she poses as Aunty Em, a woman who wears a veil, which conveniently covers her face and snakes. She runs a small hamburger joint and sculpture garden a few miles outside of New York City. However, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover quickly discover that this isn’t as innocent of an endeavor as it might seem at first—Medusa’s food is laced with a sedative, and she appears to regularly take sedated patrons into her sculpture garden for a “photo.” The photo, they realize, petrifies the sitter into stone; her sculptures are all of petrified patrons. Percy manages to behead Medusa and he ships her head to Mount Olympus. After Percy completes his quest, he returns home to Mom’s house to find the box containing Medusa’s head waiting for him. Mom uses the head to petrify Smelly Gabe and sell the resulting sculpture for enough money to pay for her first term of college.
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Medusa/Aunty Em Character Timeline in The Lightning Thief
The timeline below shows where the character Medusa/Aunty Em appears in The Lightning Thief. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11
...ornaments. It smells like fried food, though. He can’t read the sign, so Grover translates: Aunty Em ’s Garden Gnome Emporium. Percy and Annabeth approach, but Grover insists that the place is...
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...size, but Percy is too focused on food to care about Grover’s whimpers or that Aunty Em locks the door. In the dining area, Annabeth admits that they don’t have money. Aunty...
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...He looks to the side and sees Aunty Em’s reflection in a glass sphere: she’s Medusa.
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Percy tries to think of how Medusa died in the Greek myth, but he’s too groggy. He thinks that she was asleep...
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...war—but it can still petrify people. Percy congratulates Grover on his bravery, and they carry Medusa’s head into the warehouse. They sit around the head for a while, and then Percy...
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...have to do something with the head. Percy feels angry about the quest. He finds Medusa’s account books, locates the address for the Underworld—it’s in an L.A. recording studio—and fills out...
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Chapter 19
...and Grover walk through the gates and a courtyard filled with poisonous plants, jewels, and Medusa’s statues. They pass a grove of pomegranate trees and Annabeth says they have to keep...
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