by Holly Hook
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
There's More!
About Holly Hook
Cursed Academy
First Year
By Holly Hook
Chapter One
The messenger stood against the row of lockers as if he belonged there.
Which he did not. Dressed in a white toga uniform--a sure sign he was a student of Olympian Academy—he kept his arms folded over his muscular chest and stared straight ahead as I rounded the corner and spotted him for the first time.
A messenger. In Colton Corners High School, also known as BF Nowhere.
My heart leapt into my chest and I froze, art supplies clinking in my pack. He was the only guy in the hallway, it being after school, and my presence didn't turn his head. Figured. The guy must be a year or two older than me at the most, maybe a senior, with dark hair and a very stoic expression. He looked as if someone had brought a Greek statue to life. With clothing, of course.
I caught my breath. The guy was hot. That was probably why he wasn't looking at me. And some geeky, clumsy art girl wouldn't find out she was a god descendant headed to the Academy anytime soon. I couldn't even tie my shoes right.
But logic flew out the window and a tingle swept over me.
Messengers could sense magic in people and there were only eight of us in the After School Art Geeks Club. Yeah, we admitted our geekiness, and the others must have made it to the meeting room already. That made me the late one, as usual. Therefore—
"H...hey," I forced, throat dry. "Are you looking for someone?" My heart raced. What was I doing? Most god descendants—people whose bloodlines went centuries back to the Greek deities themselves—seemed to be celebrities' and politicians' kids. They didn't come rust belt towns lacking a single traffic light.
The messenger, shockingly enough, snapped his gaze to me.
I about fainted, swaying on my feet. He had the most perfect cheekbones and a powerful chin. Yeah, he was chiseled. Probably a descendant of Hermes, the messenger god. Made sense for a messenger.
"I thought I was," he said with a hint of disgust. Even so, the guy's voice was deep, resonant, and melt-worthy. "Been standing here for an hour waiting for something to happen. The oracle had to have screwed up. And I'm not even old enough to visit the bar." He punctuated his sentence with a shrug.
Jerk. I backed off as if slapped, disappointment deflating the hope building in my chest. Of course, hope wasn't logical either. Messengers didn't just find people to take to Olympian Academy, where they could learn to hone their godlike powers.
There was the other place, too.
And that got my heart pumping adrenaline. Maybe I should just walk away. Yes, Giselle. Just leave. But instead, I opened my mouth again. "What do you mean, you don't know yet?"
"I mean that I don't know yet," he repeated. "Let me recite to you the meaning of each word. 'I' refers to myself, and 'don't' is a contraction of 'do not'—"
Okay, he was going from a Level 3 Jerk to raging asshole. "I realize. Can't messengers sense when someone's magic awakens?"
The guy grinned at me but there was nothing nice in it. "We can. But there's no magic here."
Ouch. Major ouch. Pain constricted the back of my throat. Stupid hope. Dumb imagination. I wanted to tell him off but messing with a god descendant was never a good idea. They taught you that in the first grade. People learned that after a powerful earthquake in Greece woke the gods twenty-five years ago, after they had been sleeping for millennia. Then their presence on Earth accidentally woke a bunch of latent powers in people who turned out to have the gods or some ancient monsters in their family trees.
"There you are." A pair of hands seized my shoulders from behind and squeezed, almost to the point of pain. "Who's this guy?"
"Randy," I said, struggling to pull out of his grasp. "I didn't hear you coming up behind me."
"Maybe you should pay attention?" the messenger asked. "It helps when you're, say, crossing the street. Of course, who could resist a hot bod like this?" He flexed his muscles.
And Randy tightened his grip on my shoulders.
"Randy!" I whirled to face him, pulling out of his grasp. Randy forced a grin as he stuffed his hands in his permanently grass-stained jeans. He worked in his parents' landscaping business whenever he wasn't in school and he was going to landscape until the day he died, damn it. Besides art, it was his favorite conversation topic. We'd gone out to school dances a couple of times and he even kissed me at the last one. His lips felt like rubber.
"What you hanging out with this guy for?" he asked, butting me playfully with his chest. A few grass clippings hugged his plaid shirt.
Behind Randy, the messenger stayed silent. He watched my friend with intent and I could no longer read his expression.
"He was just standing here?" I said, which was the truth.
Randy snorted. "Well, he's in the wrong school. Come on. We're late." He nudged me with his chest again. As he did, I felt all his muscles tensing.
"Randy!" His words crushed what little hope I had of getting out of this town. But he was right. The oracle who sent him must have made an error. It didn't matter that I didn't know my parents and the mystery always beckoned. And not being the chosen wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Not everyone with magic came from the gods. Some came from the ancient monsters. And Cursed Academy existed to take them.
I glanced back at the messenger, against all that made sense.
He was staring after us. But once he caught me looking, he resumed observing the wall.
"Keep looking straight ahead," Randy ordered, putting his hand on my head and manually turning it.
"What am I? Two?" I held back the urge to elbow him. Didn't he see how mind blowing a messenger just being here was? Randy never acted like this.
"It's all a mistake." Randy playfully pushed me down to the main art room, where six other people already sat. Yep. Late. People shifted on their stools as my best friend, Carmen, rose from hers and shuffled over just as Randy released me.
"Is he still there?" she whispered, leaning really close to me.
"The messenger?"
Carmen slapped her hands over her purple lips and squealed. She ran back to the other members of the Junior Art Club, all girls, and slapped her hands down on the table. "It's one of us. It has to be."
"Really?" Jasmine asked, letting a marker roll across the table.
Belle looked between Donnae and Serena. "Well, if he hasn't left yet, what other explanation is there?"
"Calm it down, ladies," Randy said, maintaining his place between me and the door. "He's not here for any of us. Let's get to business. I'm running this meeting today."
"Business? Are you sure you're an art geek?" Carmen asked. She pulled at her striped sleeve with impatience.
"Someone stole the real Randy and replaced him today," I said. A flare of anger flashed through me like a dark, lashing snake, and that didn't happen often. Hint, hint, Randy. Lighten up.
Randy held up his hand, unmoving. "We should really start the meeting. By the time we're done, he'll be gone. I guarantee you all. We need to figure out what the banner is going to look like. We h
ave only a month."
The banner. For the very uncreative Fall Dance. We'd just be drawing leaves and pumpkins. When there was a freaking messenger in the school.
"You want to work on the banner?" Carmen asked. "We should take a vote. Who wants to do that?"
Randy, of course, thrust his hand up and nodded. "What is the deal? It's just a guy." He spread his arms again, holding both sides of the door frame.
"Now what?" I asked.
Carmen eyed the other girls, a gleam in her eye. Her gaze shifted over to the display of peacock feathers Mrs. Piero kept on her desk.
"Girls," she said. "We know what to do."
Uh, oh.
"You're not serious," Randy said as everyone except me ran over to the display, ripped out the feathers, and commenced a tickle attack. "Hey! Cut it out! I swear!"
But it worked. Randy stepped over to me as the other girls dropped their feathers and bolted into the hall, exchanging hushed whispers. My feet tingled and I peeled them from the floor to follow, but Randy blocked the way.
"Giselle. I can't believe you."
I stopped. It was just us in the art room now. Don't tell me he's jealous.
"Come on. This is a once in a lifetime thing. Don't you want to see who the chosen is?"
But Randy gripped my upper arm, gentle at first, and then he slowly tightened his grasp.
“Let go,” I said.
“You don't need to be spying on that weirdo out there,” he said. "You're a lot more level than Carmen."
I considered grabbing one of those feathers but all were out of my reach. So I went to blabbing instead. “Look, if you're worried someone will get sent to Cursed Academy, just say it. But you'd be contradicting yourself. So what's the deal?"
“That white tunic is an Olympian Academy getup. Most of them are god descendants. We don't want to cross them." His serious gaze bore into me.
“Some are descended from nymphs or other creatures.” I pulled against Randy, but he held my arm up over my head, shaking his.
I'd had enough. My limbs tensed and my pulse quickened. Why was he treating me like his child?
Randy scanned the room, which remained empty. Silence dragged out.
“Giselle, we've been friends for a long time and maybe more. I never got the chance to say this before. I'm always so busy mowing lawns that we never had the chance to be, you know, together.”
"We have?" Randy and I hung out sometimes, but usually with the group, and with the exception of those two not-so-serious dances—the kiss was a new years eve experiment—we hadn't gone beyond that. Now wasn't the time to have this super awkward conversation. Especially since he was holding me here.
“We went out like, twice, but.” I paused there, trying to find the right words. “Stop distracting me. Let go of my hand. There's this thing called consent.” I yanked, but he maintained his grasp.
“You go a little crazy sometimes, Giselle,” he said.
I tried to say something, anything, but my throat locked up. Really? This wasn't real. We stood there, facing each other. Fear pooled in my chest, making my heart race. This wasn't Randy. The one I knew wrote stupid stories in that orange spiral notebook. He drew comics about our horrible teachers. And he laughed with us.
“Randy,” I tried, but my voice came out muffled.
“What do you say?” He lowered his voice to a purr as if this could turn me on. Then he pulled me close to his body, uncomfortably close, and rocked his hips against mine.
Something dark and angry burst to life in my chest, pushing aside all the fear. A roar from deepest pits of time filled my ears and a dark strength flowed into my limbs, electrified and icy. I gasped as I pulled my free hand back. What was happening?
A sucking sound followed. Randy's hair blew to the side. Then his gaze turned and his pupils widened. Loosening his grasp, he backpedaled into the art table and left me alone.
And then I saw why.
A rip had opened across the room, hanging in thin air like an opening to pure darkness, a space outside the universe. Five feet from tip to tip, the jagged opening held a swirling space darker than black. With a loud, horrific whine, it sucked in air, peacock feathers, and a few papers. As each object struck the surface, it flashed purple before snapping out of existence.
"What is happening?" Randy shouted, gripping the table with both arms. He leaned over it, fighting the wind that tried to pull him into the maw.
"What?" The whole room fluttered around me as I stood there. Pencils rolled towards the deadly opening. A bin of markers tipped off a shelf, sending its contents into violet annihilation.
But the wind did not push me.
In fact, I couldn't feel it.
I held my breath as sheer terror coursed through me and panic won, paralyzing me.
Randy.
He slipped further and further off the table, fingers grasping the surface, shirt whipping against his skin.
"No!" I shouted as my terror shoved away the icy darkness within. "I don't know what's—"
"Help!" Randy glared at me, digging grass-stained fingernails into the table's edge.
I begged myself to move, to grab him before the darkness consumed him. The cold, dark sensation vanished. I leapt at Randy, seizing his wrist.
And then the portal snapped shut. The whining and the wind died. Randy let out a breath as a few rogue markers rolled across the floor, settling in a floor crack.
"Giselle, what did you do?" Randy asked, lifting his head off the table. The deadly seriousness in his eyes made him look like he'd been joking a few minutes ago.
"I..." I managed. "I didn't do anything."
His jaw dropped and the reality hit me like a brick. The darkness that filled me...
Magical things only happened to god descendants.
Or the descendants of monsters.
The messenger was here for me.
And whatever I had just done wasn't a good omen.
Chapter Two
“Um...” I eyed the door, half-expecting the messenger to be standing there, having sensed my magical awakening. The law said he had to take me away. Society didn't want untrained god descendants or monsters wreaking havoc. This was why.
But he wasn't, so I bolted out of the exit, backpack bouncing as I threw open the closest double doors and fled across the parking lot.
"Giselle! Come back!" Randy crashed into the doors behind me as they closed.
I should have expected disaster. God descendants got to learn to be models, actors, businesspeople, commanders. Not me. Monster descendants and those unfortunate enough to come from the darker gods learned to kiss the feet of their betters and stay out of sight. And after what I'd done, I'd be in the latter category for sure.
"Giselle!" Randy had entered the parking lot.
I was sixteen. The right age for powers to start manifesting.
And by the time I was twenty I could be a full monster. Whatever I'd done was dark. There would be no Olympian Academy for me.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap. I pumped my legs faster and ran along the bus shed. What if I wound up a snakehead, or a werewolf, or one of those people with perfect singing voices who had a hunger for human flesh? Taking in gasping breaths, I turned the corner to cut across the baseball diamond.
And managed to trip on my shoelaces.
I went down to my knee, pushed myself up, and kept running.
“I'm screwed. I'm so screwed.” Like an idiot, I repeated that line to myself as I ran off the school grounds, ignoring the weight of my art supplies. My breaths came in ragged gasps. I checked behind me, but the messenger must still have been inside Colton Corners High, cornered by art geeks. None of them would have stayed undiscovered for long.
I bolted through downtown and its one intersection. Boarded-up stores and a couple of good old boys stared after me. Almost tripping over a pothole, I turned the corner and bolted down the mechanic's alley and leaned against the brick building.
I was due for the nearest sorting temple
. And if I didn't go, the cops could arrest me. Nobody wanted untrained freaks out in the wild.
"Crap." I stared at a stack of tires. Maybe I could hide in those for the rest of my life. What god or monster summoned voids, anyway?
After standing there for a little while, I decided I had to get home and face the music. The tires looked appealing, but not that appealing.
“Grandma,” I said as soon as I got in the door of our small house. As my father's mother, she might know if I had some family history things I needed to know about. Best to get the worst done.
“Yes, Giselle?” she called from the living room. She yawned.
Grandma had two modes in life: Gramp's Convenience Store and TV. Right now, she was in TV mode, watching a talk show. Grandma flipped through channels, frowning, as I stood in the doorway of our tiny living room. The air seemed to darken as I gathered my courage.
I took a breath. “Were either of my parents god descendants? I saw a messenger at school today.”
The words fell to the floor as Grandma worked her jaw, pulled at her old flowered sleeve, and changed channels yet again. Now a news anchor was interviewing some politician. Uplifting. Then she slowly turned her head to me.
"No. That doesn't happen here." Her cigarette almost fell from her lips as Grandma frowned. I didn't think I'd ever seen her smile. “If either of your parents fit the bill, they wouldn't have had to run away to the city. Your father sure didn't."
"One of them must have been something. Grandma, I did something at school. A guy was bothering me, and I felt weird, and this hole opened up on the other side of the room."
Her expression stayed blank. My heart raced. She puffed on her cigarette, which lit for the longest few seconds on my life.
"You must have been seeing things," she said. "Our family came from a long line of small town people. Small workers. People like us never escape. That's our reality and it will continue to be our reality. You're going to work at the store, just like me." She went back to the TV. "And by the way, don't forget to do the dishes before you get to your homework."
I didn't know whether to feel relieved or angry. Grandma always said the same thing. I would have a nothing life here in Colton Corners, just like her. My parents were the lucky ones and she hated them for leaving.
