Cursed Academy (Year One)

by Holly Hook

  “Was that a subtle insult?” I whispered to Mikey.

  “Maybe.” He got out a notebook from his pack, handing me an extra.

  As if rehearsed, Mrs. Allenson pulled up a presentation running off her laptop. Basically, a it was a collection of her own notes about the Awakening, scanned into the computer.

  I tried to listen to the lesson because maybe, just maybe, it could give me some clues on why I opened a void that swallowed Wendy's coveted sword.

  “Let me do a recap of yesterday's lesson," the teacher said. "As we all know, the primordial gods first formed at the beginning of the universe. They came from the creative force of Chaos. There was Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, Nyx, and Hemera. These gods are as old as the universe itself. Then these gods gave rise to the Titans, many monsters, and even other gods. Eventually, the Titans gave rise to the gods that we know today."

  All around me, people scribbled in notebooks. I struggled to keep up. We all learned the convoluted family trees of the immortals starting in junior high. I was eager for the other stuff.

  Mrs. Allenson briefly discussed how Zeus and the gods banished Kronos and some of the other titans to Tartarus and how they deserved their punishment. “Now. The Awakening. The Olympians and many other gods were worshipped by the ancient Greeks and later, the Romans, though under different names. However, with the spread of modern religions, humans turned away from the gods, and the prevailing theory states that this caused them to become dormant somewhere in ancient Greece. That's when a massive earthquake twenty years ago woke many of them from their resting place. Scientists are still not sure how exactly this happened.”

  Mrs. Allenson changed the slide to show a collage of various natural disasters around the world. A coast in Asia, inundated by a tsunami. A drought in the Midwest with withered crops. Buildings collapsed by earthquakes in Italy. Bodies lying on the ground from a sudden war in Africa. I gulped. The Awakening had been a turbulent time, and though they talked about it in high school, they didn't show you the pictures of what happened.

  People shifted around me. The air in the room thickened.

  “The gods' Awakening had consequences for the world that year,” Mrs. Allenson said quickly, as if she didn't want to linger on these pictures. “The gods, who were disoriented when they woke, did not realize the effects their presence had on the planet and on civilization. Nor did they realize that humanity had multiplied to numbers they hadn't thought possible. Natural disasters went out of control for several months and wars broke out before the gods came to their senses. Even my ancestor, Athena, had an unfortunate effect on the world.” Mrs. Allenson tapped the war picture and clicked the mouse with the other hand, changing the slide to more notes. “When the gods woke, their energy woke dormant magic in people around the world, people descended from those that gods...and monsters...paired with in the ancient days.” Mrs. Allenson eyed the class. I didn't miss the meaning. “While many people discovered beneficial abilities, others turned into monsters and the descendants of dark gods gained dreadful powers. The immortals realized they had caused another problem. They therefore got together and made the Division Oath, where they swore on the River Styx that they would not war with one another and would divide and educate those who found themselves with magic. They would work together to keep the world from falling apart.”

  This wasn't helping. I raised my hand, gulping at the same time. Wow, I didn't even have the sense to not draw any more attention to myself. But I had to ask.

  Mrs. Allenson nodded to me. “Question?”

  “Did all of the gods awaken, or just some?” I asked. That was a safe start, right? Maybe I came from an immortal no one knew about.

  The teacher turned her attention on me and spoke with impatience. “Many of the gods awakened, including several titans who were never banished to the underworld. Many remain unaccounted for. This is especially true for the primordial gods. Now, start a new page for your notes, everyone. We will discuss the gods' achievements since they integrated into modern society."

  People turned pages all around me. I was getting no closer to finding answers. I eyed the books on the shelves, all very new and bearing the symbol of a shield. Wisdom Publishing, Athena's company. They cranked out books like crazy and many of their authors were her descendants. They even wrote our Magical History textbooks for school. I read the spines. Banished to Tartarus. Divine Punishment. Legends of the Olympians. I shuddered.

  Mrs. Allenson went on to talk about how Zeus started a power company, International Power and Light, while Athena started her publishing company (Mrs. Allenson spent a long time on this, so long that people quit writing.) I was starting to nod off as she moved on to how Poseidon took over the fishing industry and how Aphrodite started a modeling empire. The only Olympian she didn't mention was Hades, and I didn't dare turn to see Wendy's reaction to that.

  “The gods continue to provide a boon for humanity,” Mrs. Allenson finished. “Jobs have increased. International wealth has reached a new high. Most of you will work for them once you graduate. No matter what you become, they will find a place for you."

  Another question hit me, and like a moron, I raised my hand again.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Allenson didn't even ask my name.

  “Where does Prometheus fit into all this? The principal?” All I'd ever heard about him in Magical History back home was that he was a titan, once punished for crossing the gods and challenging Zeus's authority. They never said how.

  Mrs. Allenson flicked her gaze to the closed door and slowly let out a breath, like she was debating. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  Mikey let his jaw drop at me. Other students eyed me and the back of my neck prickled. Maybe I should just shut up.

  But when I stayed silent, Mrs. Allenson nodded, pleased. “That will be the end of class for today.” She avoided my gaze, instead collecting her stack of Wisdom Publishing volumes and exiting the room.

  Maria got up. “Mrs. Allenson doesn't like questions. She likes to hear herself speak and feel all smart instead.”

  “I got that idea,” I said. “What's the point of being a teacher? Aren't we supposed to ask questions? I just wanted some clues, you know? And I want to know who's running this campus."

  Maria waved us out of the room once the other first years had exited. Percival shuffled quickly away from Mikey. Then I eyed the books on the shelves.

  “Don't bother with those,” Maria told me.

  “They're all written by the cool kids,” Mikey adds.

  “I know that,” I say, running my finger down the spine of a green book titled Gods and Wars. “There has to be something in them about what I can am, though.”

  “It might be a blessing to not know for a while longer,” Mikey said. He exchanged a nod with Maria.

  We left the room behind, and by then the hallway was empty. Classes were done for the day.

  “You know, there used to be much older books on magical history you can't find anymore,” Maria said. “They called it mythology back then because no one believed the gods were real. It would be cool to get a hold of some. My mom's a collector of old books. She says they had a lot of cool stories. One of them might give you an idea.”

  “Would it be any different than what we have here?” I asked. opened and closed my fists.

  “You'd probably have to go on the dark web to find any now,” Mikey said. “They'd be super used and people don't want to let them go from what I've heard. So good luck.”

  I sighed. “Do we have a library?”

  Maria frowned. “You just saw it. But I heard Olympian Academy has one. They keep it locked after hours and you need a note to get inside.”

  “That's all the books we have? Even Colton Corners had a bigger library than that. Yeah, it was a bunch of worn down romance books, but still. We need something better. Something forbidden.” I checked the hall to make sure no one else was around.

  We stopped at the corner, near a very ordinary-looking water fountain
. “Would the Olympian library have better things we could look at?” If I couldn't find Ronin again for a while, this was our next bet. Besides, even if I did find Ronin, he'd just be a jerk to me, wouldn't he? And why would he know about my powers?

  The way he'd driven me from the sorting temple and looked at me after today's Combat Training refused to leave.

  Maria leaned on the fountain. “Wait. Are you proposing a dangerous mission?”

  “Things are already dangerous for me,” I said. “I say we try to get into that library. You have the strength. I can make things disappear. Mikey, you've got the, um...”

  “Suave?” he asked, leaning back against the wall. At least he was smiling again.

  “Well, I want to know what I'm dealing with,” I said. “Let's meet up by my room tonight and then we'll go from there.”

  Chapter Eight

  Turned out I didn't set the alarm right when I left my room that morning. Prometheus was waiting in front of my door after dinner, dressed in his wrinkled suit. As I approached, he adjusted his spectacles and eyed me with those green-flecked irises. If he were younger, and human, he might have been attractive to me, but not as much as Ronin, of course.

  And he had still pulled me into Cursed when I could have gone to Olympian.

  "Just a pointer," he said with a friendly smile. "Lock the door every time you leave."

  "You checked?" I asked.

  "Well, you're new, so yes," he said. "Until we know what your powers are, it's best if you stay safe. Other students can be a bit of a threat."

  He must have noticed Wendy earlier. Well, after he marked me, he should be on the lookout. At least there was that.

  "I had a technician come out and upgrade your security system," he said, handing me a keycard. "All you have to do is insert the card to unlock the door, and it will automatically lock every time it closes. Your room should be extra safe now."

  Great. It was something I could lose. I took the card, which had a barcode and was decorated in purple and black stripes. My palms tingled as I thought back to Mrs. Allenson's lecture. What had Prometheus done back in the day? He didn't seem like a horrible guy, even if he had marked me before Zeus could have a say. "Thanks. Wow, that must be expensive, giving everyone a keycard like this." Hint, hint.

  The air heated.

  "Actually, only you have gotten one of these so far," Prometheus said. "Keep it safe."

  I couldn't take it anymore. "Why do I get a room different from the other students? I mean, all I do is trip and lose stuff. Is that a good idea?"

  There. I said it. Great job, Giselle.

  The air went from warm to hot. Sweat started forming on the back of my neck. The principal worked his jaw and squeezed the corners of his eyes, like he was trying to figure out what to say. "We haven't had a student like you before, and I think it's just a good idea to give you some extra security, if you know what I mean." His tone was final.

  "But I don't know what you mean. What am I? Or what am I going to turn into?"

  But Prometheus's eyes flashed with impatience. "We don't know yet, as you've heard already. You're a curiosity at the very least. That might be a rough thing to deal with."

  He left me with that warning as he walked down the hallway and down the stairwell, old shoes clacking against linoleum. I stood there as he vanished, turning the keycard over in my hands.

  I needed answers and no one could give them to me.

  Then I faced the door. Someone had specially built this dorm long before I got here.

  I put the card in upside down at first (typical Giselle move, but at least Ronin wasn't here) and entered my room. Now the door beeped when I closed it. While I was gone, someone had stocked my now-open closet with Cursed Academy first year uniforms. I looked around for my old backpack with its art supplies, but it was still gone, sacrificed to Grandma during my escape.

  I flopped down on the bed, and the light got dimmer outside as night approached. Someone knocked, and I peeked out to realize it was Maria and Mikey. At least they could help me get answers.

  "Hey," Mikey said, raising a hand. "We've got to check out the digs."

  "I've seen them already. Jealous," Maria said.

  I let them in, and we hung out, listening to music Mikey brought while we waited for midnight. "You know, I'm going to be tired tomorrow," I said. "And if we have sparring again, I'll screw it up for sure."

  "Well, you won't suck anyone into a black hole," Maria said, painting her pinky in a bright blue polish.

  "Or maybe I will," I said, heart racing. "Prometheus got me a key card for this room. What if he knows something's up? Does this mean people are after me?"

  "He got you a key card?" Mikey asked, whirling in my desk chair so fast that it squeaked. "The rest of us settle for putting our chairs against our doors for keeping people like Wendy out. And some of the fourth years have problems, too. I heard that last year, a werewolf went crazy on the full moon and tried to attack a second year who was in his dorm, minding his own business."

  "That's nice," I said. What if I did kill someone? And yesterday, I was worried about getting killed. That was still a possibility, of course. "Look. It's close to midnight. We should start sneaking over to the library."

  When we left my room, Maria had to remind me to take my key card. After stuffing it into my pocket, I let her and Mikey lead the way, since they'd been in Cursed for longer than me and knew the way around.

  It was dark by now and most of the students in this dorm building seemed to be asleep, though faint music came out from under a few doors. Only a few lights were on inside and no one came out to bother us.

  "We're not supposed to leave after midnight," Maria whispered in my ear. "Well, the first and second years can't."

  That just made a shudder race down my spine. "No one told me the rules." I just figured that was the case from all the security. "They worried we'll accidentally kill people?"

  "Well, yes," Mikey said, letting his tone drop to the center of the earth. "We could all accidentally kill people. Prometheus hires guards to stand out front at night."

  "That's great." I'd already come close to that. Twice.

  We walked through the main building next, and Mikey opened a classroom door and waved us inside. We walked through a room with a bunch of easels and looms, some of which had amazing tapestries on them, but before I could salivate over the artwork, Mikey opened the window. It didn't go out very far.

  "Hurry. This room is where descendants of Arachne train, and I don't like being in here," Maria said.

  "That's pleasant," I said. Her descendants usually ended up as spider shifters. Yeah. They could shift into giant spiders. Shuddering, I climbed into the night.

  It was super dark out here except for the town of Marchamp in the distance, which cast a faint glow on the low clouds. But my eyes adjusted to the trees and the lack of starlight, and I held onto Maria's and Mikey's shoulders as they led me away from the Academy building, into the woods, and down a trail. Mikey used his phone flashlight once we entered the woods, revealing a narrow trail that had cigarette packs, beer cans, and old lighters on the ground. A crappy party site. Or just a place where students came to blow off some steam.

  The night was cold, even in my uniform which covered pretty much my whole body. I shuddered as my breath spiraled in front of my face. The trail widened and revealed a small clearing where clearly some partying happened, judging from all the chip bags, smashed cigarettes, and cheap wine bottles. We hurried through.

  "Olympian Academy is another half mile away," Maria explained. "We could cut through the arena, but they have guards there too at night. They don't want people like Wendy nabbing weapons and attacking their classmates."

  "Isn't that a good thing?" I asked as we came up on a fence. I stopped and eyed it, and it was tall and covered in vines like it had been standing here for twenty years. Which it likely was. The Academies had all opened a couple of years after the Awakening and the Division Oath.

&nb
sp; Somewhere in the distance, people laughed and loud music played. A party at Olympian. They must have lived it up there. Of course.

  Maria found a hole in the fence, really just a rusted spot that we had to crawl through, and once through, we followed an even narrower trail. Light filtered through the trees ahead. Olympian Academy. My heart raced. This was where Ronin lived and slept, and even though I wasn't about to see him, I was about to get a peek at his life.

  Stupid, Giselle. He was still a jerk, even if he had his non-jerk moments.

  "Wow," Mikey said as he stepped out of the trees.

  That was an understatement. Olympian Academy spread out, white and grand like I expected, with not one but three entrances into the main building. Instead of ugly faces to remind the students of their place, Olympian had heroes carved on the doors, a vast fountain out front that had colored lights inside, and spotlights shining all over the entrance. No guards stood out front, but the light itself must serve as a deterrent. Or magic. Who knew what Olympian had guarding it?

  The music and laughter floated from somewhere behind the main building. A party for sure, probably in a dorm. It seemed to be coming from a big, long building with rows of fancy windows, one of which was open. I hoped they couldn't see us from here.

  "They always have awesome parties over here," Maria said. "Let's get to the library, steal a book, and get out. I'm sure it's locked, and I've heard it's over on the other side of all this. Follow me."

  We stuck to the edge of the grounds. Turned out Olympian Academy had a wrought iron fence around it, keeping undesirables out, though the very front gate was open as if to allow some late-night visitors. Or maybe the god descendants and oracles could even leave. They didn't have any urges to hunt people. The three of us crept over a well-lit, concrete driveway and followed the fence to another building tucked behind the main one. It wasn't a dorm, but rather a long structure that looked like the sorting temple, with closed wooden doors that clearly had big, iron locks on them. Great.