If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If a tree “falls” in a forest and no one is around to see it, does it still move?
If you can see it fall but do not hear a sound, and your friend can hear it fall but does not see it move, who is right and who is wrong?
Both. Now try the same thing, but with a tooth and with an eye.
Oh, those lovely Graeae…

……

A typical major city street, crawling with yellow cabs, pedestrians, and rats. Car horns honk in frustration as another green light turns to red and traffic remains where it has sat for the past three lights.

Lost among the crowds, a child stands on the edge of the sidewalk and mutters what sounds like gibberish to passerby. “Stêthi, Ô hárma diabolês!” At the same time, the child, who looks no older than twelve, flips a large golden coin into the air, allowing it to hit the ground. But…where did it go? It was almost as if the coin melted straight into the tarmac! But this is no ordinary child, nor is that a regular golden coin. And that muttering? It was actually ancient Greek for “Stop, Chariot of Damnation!“ But before anyone has time to take a second glance as the not-ordinary child, they disappear into nothingness. At least, to a mortal’s eye.

When the coin sunk into the tarmac, it didn’t melt. It was absorbed into the ground. And when the child disappeared from sight, it was through a similar method used by the thousands of people rushing by the same spot: the child entered a cab. Why couldn’t anyone see the cab, then? Well, for one thing, it certainly wasn’t your typical big city yellow cab. And as for a driver, this cab has three very special ladies.

Look at the scene from the child’s perspective. You need to get out of the city, and fast. You can’t take mortal transportation because monsters can track you easier that way. You can’t walk because that will take too long, and you are most likely not a child of Hades, so you can’t shadow travel. That leaves mythical methods, and the choices are few. You only option at this point is the Gray Sisters’ Taxi. Faaaaantastic. Especially after your last ride, when they almost split you in half when (again) the cab…ugh, never mind. Maybe another time.

As soon as you say those words and that coin reaches the ground, you feel the rumbling before you can hear or see the cab. The ground at your feet turns to molten tar and begins to bubble in sickening shades of red. Suddenly, a car erupts from the ooze. Not just a car, but a taxi. A smoky gray car that looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. The doors read GRAY SISTERS. Accustomed to the dismal appearance and the following back door swinging opening on its own, you slide into the back seat, close the door behind you, and ignore the chain seat belts. You shudder just looking at the black rusted “seat belts”. The sisters must have had them since their last vehicle, which was a…prison wagon? Who can keep track anymore.

You say nothing as you sit on the back seat that hardly seems stable enough to even LOOK solid, let alone BE solid. An old woman sticks her head into the back, asking where you’d like to go, her voice mumbling and hard to distinguish, like she’d just taken a large dose of a drug. You give her the location, not making eye contact. Truthfully, the Gray Sisters freak you out. The three of them, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her face, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress. The one driving floors the accelerator, and your head slams against the backrest as you steel yourself for the remainder of the ride.

The city blurs past as the taxi bumps over curbs, runs through red lights, and swerves through both sides of traffic. No one outside of the taxi notices the erotic and death-defying driving habits, which is probably for the best. The sister in the middle, now holding the coin that had previously disappeared into the tarmac, hold the coin greedily in her gnarled hand. The sister on the right smacks her and says, “Give me the coin, Wasp, I want to bite it! Plus, I have the tooth!”

“No, Anger, you bit it last time! It’s my turn” As Wasp and Anger argue over the coin and whose turn it was to have the tooth, Tempest continues to accelerate the cab. Tempest also currently has the eye, but when Anger gives up arguing with Wasp, she reaches over and grabs the eye from her sister. Now sightless, Tempest stumbles at the wheel for a moment. A large mailbox jumps out of the way to avoid being hit by the swerving cab.

“Give it back, sister! I need the eye to see where I’m driving!”

“But you’ve had it since lunchtime!”

“So? Unless you want to end up DEAD, give me back the eye! You already have the tooth, you can’t have both!”

As the three sisters continue to argue, you just sit in the back of the racing cab and pray to the gods that you’ll make it through this torturous drive again. To distract yourself, you read a sign on the back of the front seat: “Hold on to your jail -ell-chain-seat-belt demigod, this is guaranteed to be a mind-blowing ride (literally!)” No kidding. You just hope they don’t split the cab in half like last time.

You continue to sit quietly in the back of the death trap of a taxi as three blind and toothless sisters argue in the front seat over a single shared eye and tooth. The only comfort you feel during the ride comes from knowing that they haven’t made any weird predictions during the ride or rambled on about that Drakon/Dragon battle that ended in both beasts killing themselves by mistake.

None too soon, the cab screeches to a halt. You pay the sisters the remaining fare of drachmas, and gladly step out onto firm ground again before they can start making predictions on the next competition between the Hekatonkheires and Telchines. As you turn to slam the door, the annoying recording that plays after every ride pierces the air: “Thank you for choosing to ride on the Chariot of Damnation! We hope you ride with us again!”

No. Thank. You.