“How did she lock the curse away?” I asked.
“Some say that she uttered a truth that she’d been afraid to tell even herself, and so she was cured and the curse was trapped again.” Clio ran her hands along the empty spot on the shelf, leaving a clear line in the dust that had settled there. “The box went missing last week. We had just discovered the threat when Callie showed up here unannounced.”
I took a tiny step backward. No wonder Clio had looked so frazzled that day.
“I believe a siren took it,” she said, then drew a single red feather from a pocket in her suit.
At the sight of the feather, Mela let out a little squeal, but otherwise she held it together.
A thought tickled the back of my mind. I don’t know how else to explain it really. But there was something about these boxes . . .
“Follow me,” Clio said, and we did, all the way to her office, where a fresh plate of brownies was waiting for us.
We took up seats in the four chairs in front of her desk. Clio cleared her throat before beginning. “Now, Nia, Thalia, and Mela—as you know, Maya is your first assignment. It’s early in your training as junior muses and—”
“Muse Squad, ma’am,” Thalia interrupted. We all glared at her. Clio’s nostrils flared a little.
“As I was saying, though it is early in your training, the incident at Callie’s school with the Fated One named Maya Rivero is of the utmost significance.”
“How are we supposed to help her?” I blurted. “Maya is a nobody at our school. She’s smart, yeah, but weird. So weird. She doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t hang out with anyone, like ever, and, and . . .” I stopped myself. I remembered how weird I was sometimes, and how Tia Annie in my dreams had told me to “let go.” And I remembered my mother’s words: If you are loved, Callie, you’ll be okay.
Suddenly, I knew what we were supposed to do. I took a deep breath and said, “Maya is not loved. At least, not by many people. Not at school. And she needs to be okay, right, Clio? She’s Fated, and if she isn’t loved, well then, she’ll go off track.”
Clio smiled. For the first time ever, I saw her teeth. They were very nice teeth.
“Maya Rivero is very important to us all. The choices she will make in her life are vast and far-reaching. Do you remember the mirror I showed you? The flooded cities, the destruction? There may be a chance to stop that future, and Maya could hold the key. But now that I know for sure that sirens are involved, your mission is far more urgent.” Clio stared at each of us in turn. “And Callie is right. Maya Rivero is not loved. Yet. You will all help.”
“But how? Maya is all the way in Florida,” Mela said.
“Miami!” Thalia said, then made a “whoop, whoop” sound.
“It’s not all beaches and coconut drinks,” I muttered.
“How?” Nia asked, all business as usual.
“I cannot hold time back home for each of you for this particular assignment. It’s too lengthy, and would disrupt the planet’s timeline. Thus, your parents will be informed of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the three of you to travel to Florida for an exceptional academic experience this semester. They will not be opposed,” Clio said. I shuddered. Just how powerful was she? My mother would never let me leave home. I wasn’t even allowed to go to slumber parties. “It’s a Cuban thing,” my mom always said, and my dad and stepmom backed her up. Thank goodness, this particular problem wasn’t mine. Nia, Mela, and Thalia would be coming to my town.
“Callie,” Clio said, turning to me, “your mother will be thrilled to accept three exchange students.”
“Roomies!” Thalia shouted, and tried hugging us all at once.
I wiggled out of that most awkward hug. “My house is tiny!” I protested. Not that I didn’t think it would be fun, but we had only one bathroom.
“Now to the mission at hand. Thalia, Maya will need your expertise in socializing. Smiling. Making friends. Tender-hearted Mela, you’ll know what to do. Nia, you’ll find in Maya a kindred spirit and a like-minded scientist. Keep her on track.” Nia nodded solemnly. “Now, Callie, Maker of Heroes, you’ve already done what you need to do twice now, inspiring Maya to stand up for herself.”
I shook my head. “No, just that one time before she got detention.”
“Incorrect,” Clio said. “Maya stood up for Raquel before, at her audition.” That’s right! Maya had gotten on her feet and shouted out that goofy SAP war cry, or whatever it was she called it.
“I did that?” I asked, knowing the answer.
Clio rose to her feet. “If Maya is going to grow up to be the person humanity needs her to be, she needs—”
“Friends,” I said.
“Yes. And more than that. She needs protection. I’m afraid that whoever stole the Cassandra Curse means to use it on Maya Rivero,” Clio added. “Sirens can take many forms, but they often work in threes. I believe the sirens are in Miami, sticking close by, watching for an opportunity to strike.”
My hands balled up into fists at my sides at the thought of monsters in my hometown.
“Sirens love chaos. They are pulled to it the way bugs are drawn to light. So keep calm. Find the three, break the curse, and save the future. This job will take the four of you, working together. You four can do what no single muse can, understand?” Clio finished.
“The Muse Squad is on it,” Thalia said.
The rest of us only took a deep breath before Clio tried to dismiss us.
“But—” I began. Clio stared hard at me. I steadied myself. “But I don’t know how to do it. The muse magic. I don’t know how.” My cheeks felt hot.
“That’s something we can work on,” Clio said. “Come with me.”
Chapter 14
Muses in Training
Clio chatted as she walked, leading us through the museum until we stopped in the courtyard with the pool again. I spotted the Tycho grave out of the corner of my eye. It was cold and raining outside, but the dress-up cloak helped. “Wait here,” Clio said, then disappeared into the museum again.
“Now what?” I asked, but the others didn’t respond. The lights were off in the café across the pool. They switched on suddenly, the door opened, and there, under a pair of bright red umbrellas, were Paola, Muse of the sacred, and Elnaz, Muse of music.
“Greetings,” Elnaz called out, smiling at us, perfectly dry under her umbrella. She looked like any other college kid, except that her left eye was brown, and her right eye was blue. “It’s a lovely day for training, don’t you think?” She and Paola walked around the pool, reaching us quickly.
Water dripped off the tip of my nose. Lovely, my butt. At least it wasn’t one of those torrential Miami rainstorms.
“Don’t tease them, Elnaz,” Paola chastised, and handed each of us a plastic poncho with the V and A logo emblazoned on the back. Cheesy, but it would do. I slid it on and the plastic immediately stuck to my thighs. Paola’s long skirt was soaking up water. At her waist was a thin chain composed of silver hoops, from which hung tiny silver bells. She jingled as she watched us. The wrinkles around her eyes deepened whenever she smiled, and she smiled a lot.
“It’s one thing to inspire a Fated One. We use different methods. We talk to them. We encourage them. We get to know them so that we understand what makes them afraid, or reluctant. Inspiration, girls, is easy,” Elnaz said.
“But we can’t inspire a siren to be good,” Paola said. “Just like you can’t inspire a minotaur not to lower his horns and attack. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I couldn’t picture Paola—so old, tiny, and sweet—facing off against a mythic monster.
Elnaz cracked her knuckles. “Today, you’ll learn to fight.”
Paola cleared her throat. “And later, we inspire,” she said softly, catching Elnaz’s eyes. The younger muse bit her lip, and gave Paola some room.
“Mela, Nia, and Thalia have all had some training already, haven’t you, girls? Consider this a refresher,” Elnaz said.
The three girls nodded beside me. Great, I thought. I was further behind than I’d realized.
“Pair up as so,” Paola said, and turned at once to face Elnaz, as if they were about to dance or box. “Mela,” Paola said, “you know what to do.”
I felt Mela grab my arm and watched as Nia and Thalia stood off to one side.
“You’re stuck with me, I’m sorry,” she said.
I opened my mouth to ask why she was apologizing when Mela’s hands flew up before her face, fluttering her fingers, her eyes closed.
Tia Annie’s face filled my mind. The day she’d died, she’d told me, You’ll make the whole world spin, Callie. It didn’t make any sense. Her voice was like a foot crunching gravel. Her nails, usually perfectly manicured, had weakened and split. She was pale. She was dying. I remembered holding on to Mami, who shook and held me tight. I remembered the heartbeat monitor slowing down, the beeping stopping, stopping, forever silent, stopping . . .
“Stop!” I cried out. My face was wet, not from rain but from tears, and I was on the ground, my dress-up cloak soaked through. Mela’s arms went around me at once, and she was going, “Shh, shh, forgive me, my friend.”
When I looked up, everyone was a bit misty-eyed, but no one had faced the brunt of Mela’s powers like I just had.
Elnaz cleared her throat. Her voice was shaky. “Mela has such strong control of her power because she has mastered her kódikas.”
I looked at the other girls. Nia’s brow was furrowed, but Thalia and Mela both nodded in understanding.
“We say ‘kódikas’ in Greek, the word the first Muses used. ‘Códico,’ en español. ‘Code’ in English. A secret code. A gesture. One that helps her tap into her powers, the way a key unlocks a door,” Paola said slowly, mostly to me. “Así,” she said, and began to hum.
Paola’s voice was not strong. It was an old woman’s voice, but she carried a lovely, lilting tune. The bells at her waist accompanied her song. Suddenly, everything seemed so . . . important. The hydrangea bushes around us, the way the leaves clung damply to the thin branches, and the people in the buildings beyond the museum, I worried about them so much. Should I go to them? My feet took a step toward the exit, just as I remembered the grass beneath my feet. We were trampling it. Was it okay? A beetle scurried over my shoe. I bent down to pet its mottled, shiny back.
“Sacred things,” Paola said, her song ending. “You have felt what is sacred in all living things, and you have felt the desire to protect them.” Thalia had her cheek pressed to a patch of dirt. Nia and Mela were hugging Elnaz, who scowled at them both. “My song is my kódikas,” Paola said.
Elnaz shrugged off Mela and Nia, and clapped her hands. “Let’s move on then,” she said. “Thalia, why don’t you try to focus your magic? Pick your target.” Thalia closed her eyes and pointed at Mela, who began to say, “Don’t you dare, Thalia Berry,” when Thalia launched into a laugh, one so infectious and sudden that Mela was soon clutching her sides and wiping happy tears off her cheeks.
“My kódikas is laughter, and it’s hilarious,” Thalia said.
“And powerful, mi niña,” Paola added.
A bird chirped in a nearby tree, and I jumped at the sound. How was any of this going to help us fight sirens?
“What about you, Elnaz?” Mela asked, interrupting my train of thought.
Elnaz smiled, and drew a small silver instrument from within her sleeve. It was a flute of some kind. “Tin whistles. Portable instruments. My favorite is the cello, but you don’t want to carry that around.” She held it to her lips and paused. “Ever get a song stuck in your head and think it will drive you crazy?” We nodded. “I can play one for you. One that will dig its way into your brains, consuming your every thought until you drop,” she said, her mouth popping on that final P, her expression deadly serious.
Oh, I thought. That’s how she’d fight a siren. She’d break their brains with a killer earworm. Got it.
No thanks. We all shook our heads vigorously. Elnaz slowly lowered her flute.
“Good,” she said, and put the tin whistle away. “How about you, Nia? Have you figured out your kódikas yet?”
Nia looked down at her sneakers. “I’m working on an app.”
“An app? Like on your teléfono?” Paola asked, her brow furrowed.
Nia nodded. “Something like that. Closed source. Just for me. It measures the placement of the stars, whether anything is in retrograde, the likelihood that any move I make will be successful, that sort of thing. Descendant of Urania, right? Goddess of the stars?” Nia didn’t seem too confident as she spoke.
“I don’t know what I’m doing either,” I said, feeling as if I should speak up and come to Nia’s rescue somehow. “Except for this tingly feeling all over. I can’t control it. But when I feel it, I know that muse stuff is about to happen.”
“You control your kódikas, not the other way around,” Elnaz said.
“But—”
“But nothing, Callie. Your will must be stronger than your magic,” Elnaz said firmly. “As for you and that app, Nia—” she began to say, but halted at the sight of Tomiko and Etoro, waving us over from inside the gift shop.
Paola cleared her throat. “We must end things here, queridas. But remember that a muse must never use her magic against her sister. Never. Today was for training only.”
“Rule number three,” Nia said. “Got it.”
“Good. It’s time for your next lesson,” Elnaz said, winking her blue eye at us. We peeled off our ponchos and handed them to Paola, then went to the gift shop.
Chapter 15
What Not to Do
Once inside the store, I resisted the urge to jump into a mountain of stuffed animals—teddy bears with glitter eyes called out to me in their fluffy adorableness. Nia trailed her fingers along some colorful geodes on a shelf, while Thalia stopped at a bin full of rubber bouncing balls and had to be dragged off by Mela. Finally, we reached Tomiko and Etoro, who were in the back of the gift shop, in front of the most tantalizing display of candy I’d ever seen. There were gummy bears the size of my head, and a chocolate Great Bed of Ware, and bundles of lollipops. I wanted to eat it all.
Despite the candy, my stomach felt all jumpy. Paola and Tomiko had complained when Clio had announced that Maya was our assignment. Their lack of confidence in us made me even more nervous. If the other muses didn’t believe in us, how could we?
“Welcome,” Etoro said. A colorful blanket rested over her legs. Her right hand was very still upon it.
“Your lesson begins here,” Tomiko said. She was wearing a crisp white sweater and khaki cargo pants. Her hair was dyed bright orange, and she reminded me of a living flame. Tomiko walked over to the shelf that held the giant gummy bear, her glossy, fiery ponytail bouncing against her back.
I caught a glimpse of the price tag. I didn’t get enough birthday cash last year to cover the cost of it. When she picked it up, I thought Tomiko was going to buy it for us. The gummy ear alone would fill me up for hours. Then she said:
“If you were to choose, you could each use your magic to take anything in this store for yourselves,” she said. Tomiko put back the gummy bear. “You, Thalia, could make a cashier laugh so long and so hard that he forgets to breathe. As for Mela, grief kills as well. A person consumed by sadness without any relief is capable of doing terrible things out of desperation. In an instant, you could bring everyone in this museum to their knees. Nia could drive a guard to distraction with a curious thought, making her think she should test her own powers of flight off the top of the building.” Here Tomiko paused. I felt a shudder that started at my shoulders and made its way down to my toes. I risked a glance out a nearby window, imagined a body falling, falling . . .
I suddenly lost my appetite.
“And, Callie,” Tomiko said at last, “you hold within you the power of self-confidence. Too much of it leads to arrogance, and therein is the first ingredient in making an egomaniac, a monster, and an unstoppable force for
selfishness.”
“These would be wicked deeds,” Etoro said, rolling toward us. “A muse lives her life in the service of others. Not just the Fated Ones. All of humanity is in need of inspiration. Service is derived from love. We do not inspire anything in a person that does not have love at the source.”
“What about self-defense?” Nia asked.
“Well, loving yourself matters, too,” Etoro said.
“We won’t practice the things we talked about here, not on each other, not ever,” Tomiko said. “Temptation will always be part of this job,” she added softly. “And temptation is what the sirens do. It’s what they embody. We are the opposite of that.”
“We are love. We are sacrifice,” Etoro said, her voice a deep purr. “There have been other muses,” Etoro continued. “Ones who have given in to the longing that sometimes accompanies our powers. For them, there have been no second chances.”
The four of us waited for Tomiko and Etoro to speak again, but they were quiet for a long time before Etoro put her hands on the wheels of her chair and moved out of the gift shop. “Come on then,” she said, and we followed her out.
She wheeled up to a window that overlooked the city. “London. It’s a big city, like my Abuja in Nigeria, like your Chicago, your New Delhi, your Miami, your Tokyo,” she said, talking to us all in turn. “It is a rare thing, you know, that all nine muses are city women.” Etoro took a deep breath that seemed to fill her up entirely.
I thrilled at the word—“women.” Maybe before all this muse stuff happened, I would have hated it, would have protested, “I’m a kid!” But it really did feel like I’d grown up a lot in the last few days. Maybe I wasn’t a woman yet, but one day I would be. I suddenly felt a lot more confident than I had before, threw my shoulders back, and stood a little straighter.
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