The Cassandra Curse Read online

  As smart as she was, Maya was in trouble. Clio had only given me one job. Be a friend, she’d said, and it was now or never. I rushed out of my seat. “Calm down, Maya, you know what to do,” I said, touching her shoulder. Then it happened. The tingly, hair-raising, crying feeling. It scared me, because I knew something was going to happen next, but I didn’t know exactly what.

  Maya looked at me. She said, “Oh. I do.” Her hands steadied, and just like that she popped open a section of the motor, and thrust her fingers inside. The water stopped sloshing and the pump whirred smoothly to life. Water poured out of the tank and into the pail, without a single splash.

  “The problem of sea level rise is a Goliath. And while this is one possible solution—a David, if you will—we’ll need to develop many others. Not to mention cut back on carbon production immediately. If we’re creative, and hopeful, we may just be able to hold back the sea,” Maya said. She was composed, her voice at just the right volume.

  Hold back the sea, Maya had said. I thought of Clio’s mirror, of the submerged city I’d seen. I took in Maya’s wild outfit, and started picturing her in a lab coat, her hair dyed in rainbow colors.

  Finished with her presentation, Maya said, “My apologies for the little mishap earlier.” I peered at Maya and noticed that her teeth were somehow . . . straighter. Was I imagining that? Then to Ms. Rinse, Maya said, “I don’t know what happened.”

  “I know what happened,” Violet said loudly, wringing her skirt. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Come on, Violet,” Raquel said from the back of the room.

  Violet turned around and glared at Raquel.

  I heard Raquel clear her throat. She didn’t do confrontations well. “You don’t have to be so mean all the time,” she said softly.

  The class went “Ohhh,” and Violet’s cheeks began to turn pink.

  “That’s enough,” Ms. Rinse said, but Violet ignored her.

  “If you think I’m so mean, why did you want to hang out this morning?” Violet said to Raquel. “What a poser you are. You can’t even sing and your hair is stupid.”

  The room felt chilly all of a sudden, as if Ms. Rinse had turned down the AC a couple notches. I turned to stare at Violet. What was the matter with her, anyway? Hadn’t she and Raquel been chatting this morning, all buddy-buddy?

  Raquel crumpled for a moment. I’ll admit I felt a little vindicated. What was Raquel thinking, hanging out with Violet?

  “You’re so rude, Violet. Leave Raquel alone,” Maya said. Her lisp was utterly gone. Did I do that? This is so bananas, I thought. I rubbed my hands together, the feeling slowly coming back to my fingers.

  Violet made a shocked little sound. Then she threw her pencil at Maya, who dodged it with a quick side step. Everyone gasped.

  Maya, the nerdball genius, was suddenly a lot cooler than she’d been five minutes ago.

  “What the—” I started to say. Raquel was on her feet, a balled-up piece of paper in her hand, aimed right at Violet’s head. I wanted to cheer on my best friend, or hug her, or both.

  Finally, Ms. Rinse was standing, stalking to the front of the room, her eyes narrow and full of purpose.

  A pencil hit me on the chest and Violet grinned at me like a murderous clown.

  “Girls, listen to me,” Ms. Rinse warned, but it was too late. I’d dipped my hand into Maya’s tank, cupped some water, and splashed it onto Violet’s face.

  Clearly in shock, Violet said nothing, only sat there, dripping.

  Ms. Rinse also said nothing. Instead, she slammed her hand against the security call button beside the door. Someone from the main office piped in through the PA system. “Ms. Rinse, do you need help?” came the tinny voice.

  “I do,” Ms. Rinse said. “Please send school security. They need to escort three errant young ladies from my class.”

  “Three? What about Maya?” Violet argued, but Ms. Rinse gave her the look, and she didn’t say another word.

  The security guard, a woman we all knew simply as Ms. Rosa, was at the door at once.

  “Callie. Raquel. Violet, off you go,” Ms. Rinse said, exiling us from class for the day.

  We don’t need to go into everything Principal Jackson said to us. He was disappointed. He called our parents. Then he assigned us detention in the afternoon. I wasn’t listening too closely. Instead, I was thinking about IT.

  IT had happened again.

  I hadn’t meant to do IT, to inspire Maya in any way, but there was no doubting what I’d felt, and how Maya had been able to turn things around.

  The problem was, I didn’t know how to turn IT on. Would I just be randomly inspiring people for the rest of my life? And what if I was the one who needed inspiration? Was this . . . magic or power, or whatever it was, sucking me dry? Is that why Tia Annie had gotten sick?

  Raquel was a mess all day worrying about detention. And I could tell that she was still upset about what Violet had said to her. While I didn’t like the whole detention thing, I did like the fact that Raquel was being plain old Raquel again—worried about getting in trouble at school and talking my ears off. We walked down the hall together to Ms. Salvo’s language arts class. Every so often, someone would stop us and say something to Raquel about the show. “Good luck,” some kids said, or “You’re so lucky!” But it didn’t help Raquel’s mood.

  We quietly took our seats in language arts. Violet and Max sat two rows away, but we could hear them talking about what had happened in science. On top of that, Violet had somehow gotten her hands on the biggest Band-Aid ever made, and had taped it to her forehead. She turned toward me, pointing at it. “Twinsies,” she said, laughing so hard she snorted.

  I put my head down on my desk.

  A moment later, I overheard Violet complaining to Max. “Detention, can you believe it? It’s all that Maya’s fault. Such a horrible dork.”

  Maya walked in then, her feet dragging. She was still wearing her tutu and orca hat, but it all seemed sort of sad now.

  “She’s not so bad,” I heard Max respond, his eyes following Maya as she sat.

  “Yeah, right,” Violet said.

  Ms. Fovos walked in, and I fumbled with my pencil. Fovos was a tall, thin woman with long, blond hair. She resembled a lizard, one of those long-faced anoles that were everywhere outside. Her pale skin even seemed to have a greenish tint to it under the fluorescent lights. She was the school’s permanent substitute teacher.

  I heard a student at the back say, “Oh no,” at the sight of her. Ms. Fovos whipped her head around, trying to figure out who said it, but we all kept our heads down. Not making eye contact with Fovos was always the best approach.

  “Your language arts teacher, Ms. Salvo, seems to have come down with food poisoning,” Ms. Fovos said. “Please avoid the salad bar at lunch.” Then she began to hand out photocopies of an essay. “It’s an informative essay. Let’s do some popcorn reading,” she said.

  It took a while for everyone to quiet down. Ms. Salvo always read to us, and she would perch on her desk like a kid while she did it. Ms. Fovos was a walker—snaking her way around the desks as she spoke. Popcorn reading went like this: everyone took a turn reading a few sentences, and then you would say the name of someone who would read next.

  I went first, reading the title of the essay out loud: “Cassandra, Princess of Troy.”

  I gasped. Clio’s homework assignment! I’d forgotten to do it, which seemed to be a theme with me lately.

  Ms. Fovos interrupted me. “I hate this kind of stuff,” she said, waving the handout a bit. “Myths, and gods, and curses. It’s all so dramaaaatic.”

  “Like a telenovela,” Letty, one of the triplets, said, and then the class got derailed again as people started talking about the latest episode of Soñar Despierto, the new telenovela on TV.

  “Martinez-Silva, read on,” Ms. Fovos said at last, once she got the class quiet again.

  The essay was about the Trojan War, and a princess named Cassandra who could tell the futur
e, but the god Apollo cursed her, so that nobody ever believed anything she said. She tried to warn her family about the war, but it was useless. They cast her aside in disbelief. It made me so sad to read about this Cassandra, especially now that I knew it was probably a true story.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t just Cassandra’s sad fate making me feel this way. I wondered why Clio wanted us to know about her. I stopped reading. Usually, I picked Raquel during popcorn reading. This time I called out, “Maya,” who was so shocked to hear her name called—nobody ever called Maya’s name during popcorn reading—that she stumbled over the first few words.

  I made my way to detention in a fog of overthinking. Raquel was beside me, chattering away nervously, but I wasn’t listening. Suddenly, detention seemed like too minor a detail in my complicated life.

  Detention was held in the music room and was overseen by, who else? Ms. Fovos. During the day, she was a substitute teacher, but in the afternoon, she lorded it over detention like an evil queen. Cell phones were confiscated without her batting an eye, and silence was mandatory. She even yelled at a student for sneezing once. Or so I’d heard. I didn’t end up in detention often. Or ever, really. Neither did Raquel, who sat in the seat in front of me with tears in her eyes.

  The classroom was freezing and we shivered while Fovos took attendance. When she called Violet’s name, she smiled warmly. Then she summoned her over to her desk. Violet pulled up a stool, and the two of them chatted in whispers. Sometimes, they would both glance out, their eyes landing on me for some reason. Fovos licked her teeth when she looked at me. It was unnerving, to say the least.

  I scribbled a note and passed it to Raquel when Fovos and Violet were chatting. It read: F keeps staring at me. Am I imagining things?

  Raquel read the note, then hid it under her thigh. I watched as she watched Fovos.

  After a few minutes, Raquel scratched the back of her head and flashed me a Y in sign language.

  Yes, she’d noticed it. No, I wasn’t going crazy.

  Meanwhile, Violet and Fovos were still chatting, like old friends. Evil likes evil, I scribbled onto a note that I passed to Raquel.

  Maybe they’re related. Like Fovos is her aunt or cousin or something, Raquel scribbled back. That made sense. In fact, I saw a resemblance. They were laughing now, Fovos and Violet, as Fovos showed her something on her cell phone.

  Just then Maya walked into detention. She was soaked to the bone, her tutu limp, her orca hat in her hand.

  Soggily, she handed a slip of paper to Fovos, who read it and actually smiled.

  “Over there,” she said, pointing to a seat by the AC unit blasting chilled air.

  “I’m wet and cold. Can I sit somewhere else instead?” Maya asked.

  Fovos frowned, then shook her head. “Sit,” she said. I swear, it sounded like “Ssssssit.”

  I watched as poor Maya shivered in her seat. She put her head down. I’m pretty sure she started to cry. But detention was over soon after. Raquel and I waited for Maya by the door.

  “What happened?” Raquel asked her.

  “I was taking my science project home and my tank fell over. Principal Jackson was standing nearby. You can guess the rest,” she said. Then, Maya walked away from us, leaving wet footprints in her wake.

  “Poor Maya,” Raquel said. “And how bizarre was Fovos? She was definitely fixating on you.”

  “Beyond bizarre,” I said.

  Raquel brightened a little. “Hey, I’m sorry I was short with you earlier. Things are so crazy, they’re getting to me. Do you want to come over and see my audition footage? I have so much to tell you, Callie,” she said, gripping my hands.

  “Yes, I’d love—” I started to say, but the bracelet Clio had given me began to heat up.

  Thalia wasn’t kidding. This wasn’t warm. This was hot.

  “Ouch,” I said, and pulled my hands out of Raquel’s.

  “You okay?” Raquel asked.

  “Yes,” I said, spinning the bracelet to cool it off. “But I gotta run. I’ll watch the audition tape some other time, okay?”

  “Oh. All right,” Raquel said. I left her, and ran down the hall, out the doors, and down the street as fast as I could.

  I juggled the keys to the front door of my house, the bracelet burning all the time. I tried to take it off on the way, but my mother’s superglue trick had worked. That sucker was on permanently. “Ow, ow, ow,” I muttered as I opened the door, closed it behind me, and ran to my room.

  “Where are you going?” Mario asked. He and Fernando were in the kitchen, devouring bowls of cereal. My brothers had breakfast at every meal, and for snacks in between.

  “Nap!” I shouted as I ran past them.

  I heard Fernando say, “You don’t look tired, but whatever,” as I closed my bedroom door and slid under the bed like a baseball player diving to base.

  I closed my eyes and counted until I felt the chill of the museum.

  I sighed. The bracelet had stopped burning, but I was freezing cold again.

  Chapter 11

  The Rest of Them

  “Listen up, Miami girl, you’re going to catch pneumonia coming to headquarters dressed like that. Also, why are you trying to call me in the middle of the day? Not cool. There are rules, you know.”

  I was wearing my short-sleeve uniform polo shirt and khaki shorts. Goose bumps prickled my skin. Nia was crouched on all fours, staring at me under the Great Bed. She thrust another cloak from the dress-up room at me. This one was wine colored.

  “It worked? You heard me?” In my excitement, I tried to sit up and smashed my head.

  “Hey, that bed’s a priceless treasure. Watch it,” Nia said, reaching out a hand. I took it, and she pulled me out.

  “Right,” I said, rubbing my head. I hoped I didn’t bust a stitch. I was going to have permanent brain damage before I got the hang of this muse thing.

  “Yes, I heard you. So did my dad. He checked the whole house, thinking we were under surveillance. He’s retired CIA. He’s, um, antsy sometimes,” Nia said, her dark eyes wide and full of meaning.

  “Sorry,” I said, putting on the robe and feeling instantly warmer.

  “No worries,” Nia said, but I’m not sure she meant it. “How about your mom? Is she suspicious yet? I know she’s at the dentist’s office all day and . . .”

  “How do you know my mom is a dental hygienist?” I asked. It was like they’d been briefed on me or something.

  “We were briefed,” Nia said.

  “Well, I haven’t been . . . briefed on . . . hardly anything. And now I get this—this call,” I said, holding up my wrist and jiggling the bracelet, “which burns, by the way, and I’m supposed to just come running.”

  “Which you did. Because you trust your instincts. Above all else, a muse trusts her instincts,” Nia said. I noticed she was wearing a NASA T-shirt, this one reading, IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. OH WAIT. YES IT IS!

  “What is that, rule number two?”

  “Rule number one, actually.”

  “I give up,” I said.

  Nia gave me a reassuring squeeze, and I followed her down the stairs and around a bend, into a small, dark theater. It was just like a movie theater, with plush mustard-colored seats and a big screen.

  We sat down and I took an aisle seat. “We’re about to be briefed on something.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You know the message you got? On your bracelet? It’s like Morse code. There’s a pattern to the heat that tells you what you’re in for. When it’s intense like that, you’ll know it’s important, like a serious briefing. When it’s just training we’re coming in for, it gets a little warm in short bursts, on and off. When it feels like you might literally catch fire, then come running, and pray that the V and A is still standing when you get here.” Nia said this last bit in a whisper, but I wasn’t sure if it was because she feared a call like that, or because she had actually experienced one.

  Before I could ask, I heard
voices in the hall.

  Three women came in. One was pushing a fourth in a wheelchair. The other muses! I recognized some of them from the photograph Clio had shown me. The woman in the wheelchair extended both hands toward me. She was very old, her dark skin papery, her black eyes glittering. Her hair was gray and cropped short. I took her hands. “Greetings, Calliope,” she said, in a lilting accent I didn’t quite recognize. Normally, I correct people who call me Calliope, but one look at this woman told me I shouldn’t.

  “My name is Etoro,” she said. “Muse of love.”

  Etoro held my hands and I felt it all at once—my mother’s love, my brothers’, my father’s, and my stepmother’s. Shocked, I pulled my hands away. Gently, Etoro reached for them again, and there it was, Tia Annie’s love. Raquel’s love. I felt the love of my dog, Lola, and my cat, Misu. It was overwhelming. My eyes filled with tears.

  “How blessed you are, girl,” Etoro said, then released my hands. The sensation dimmed a little, but didn’t go away entirely. “What you do for the world, you do for them. Keep them in your mind’s eye, always,” the old woman said. Then, she rolled her chair into the wheelchair space at the front of the theater.

  Another of the women pushed forward. She was my height, and her hair was dark. When she spoke, it was in Spanish. “Paola, musa de lo sagrado. Bienvenida, divina,” she said.

  Even though I mostly understood Spanish, I had a hard time speaking it, a fact that disappointed my mother to no end. “Muse of the sacred?”

  “Sí,” Paola said.

  “Colombia?” I asked. Sometimes, you can tell where a Spanish speaker is from just from their accent.

  Paola smiled. “Yes,” she said in English. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. She put her hand on my forehead and closed her eyes as if in prayer, then she found her seat.

  The remaining women greeted me together. They were younger than the other two, and both wore their dark hair in high ponytails. The first introduced herself as Elnaz, Muse of music, and the other as Tomiko, Muse of dance. They took turns asking me how I was doing, expressed awe about the Great Bed of Ware, and asked questions about Miami. Turns out they were from Istanbul and Tokyo, respectively, both college students and performing arts majors. “We spent last summer with Etoro in Nigeria,” Tomiko said.