Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa

by Michelle Madow

  “As tempting as that sounds, I think it’s best that I do this myself,” I finally said. “They’re my family, and they should hear it from me. But I’m really glad that you offered. It means a lot.”

  “Of course,” he said with a smile, warming my heart with how much he meant it. “Anything for you. Just promise me one thing.”

  I looked at him to continue, not wanting to make a promise before knowing what it was.

  “If anything goes wrong, or if you change your mind and want me there for support, call me,” he said. “I don’t care what time it is—I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Of course,” I told him. “And after I’m done talking with them, I’ll call you no matter what. To tell you how it went.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  He dropped me off at home and gave me one last kiss, wishing me luck before I made my way inside.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When I walked into the living room, my mom was already there waiting for me. She had a pencil in hand and was focused on drawing, but the moment she heard me come in, she put down her sketchpad and smiled at me. I knew what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth.

  “How was the big date with Blake?” she asked, twirling the pencil around with her fingers.

  I hadn’t dated anyone in Georgia, much to my mom’s dismay. None of the guys had ever asked me. They had no problems asking out the other girls, but around me they seemed completely disinterested. My mom always claimed that I intimidated them. I’d thought that was silly. But since moving to Kinsley and learning that I’m a demigod, I suspected she was right. Witches and demigods intimidate humans. There’s a mystical quality about us that makes humans realize we’re different from them, even though they don’t quite understand why. At Kinsley High, the humans at school rarely talked to the witches unless one of us spoke to them first. I’d had a few friends at my old school, but only because I put forth the effort. With guys, you could forget about it. I was completely not on their radar.

  So, this date with Blake was a big deal. Because it was my first date ever.

  “It was great,” I said, since it was the truth. The actual date part was fantastic. And I wished that I could give my mom the girly, gossipy detailed conversation that she wanted—I would have, if the night had played out as expected. But given the current circumstances, I didn’t have time for that, so I got straight to the point. “Where are Dad and Becca?”

  Technically, Jerry was my step-dad, but he married my mom before I was born and had helped her raise me, so I called him my dad. My mom rarely talked about Aidan—who was actually Apollo—but in the rare times that she did, she referred to him as my “bio-dad.” Because up until recently, that’s all he’d been. Someone who happened to share genetic material with me.

  I had no idea how much that genetic material would affect my life until now.

  “Becca went to the movies with some friends tonight,” she said. “Dad’s picking her up now. They should be back soon.”

  “Good,” I said, dropping my bag onto the couch. “Because once they’re back, there’s something important I need to tell you.”

  * * *

  While we waited, I kept my mom entertained by telling her about my date with Blake. But I could tell she was worried about what I needed to say that required the entire family here to listen. She tried coaxing the information out of me, but I refused to budge. It was going to be hard enough to say it all once. I had to wait until everyone was here.

  Luckily, Dad and Becca were back in twenty minutes. Becca was chit-chatting away as they walked to the door. Dad followed behind, listening attentively. Becca could talk forever as long as someone was there to listen.

  “Hey.” Mom stood up when they walked in, and Becca stopped talking when she saw the alarm in Mom’s eyes, freezing in place. “I’m glad you’re back. Nicole has something important she needs to tell us, and she refused to tell me what it was before you were both home.”

  “What happened?” Dad asked. “That boy you were out with tonight didn’t do something we need to worry about, did he?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I said quickly. “The date was great. Blake’s amazing. I need to talk with you about … something else.”

  “How mysterious.” Becca raised her eyebrows and situated herself on the armchair, watching me and waiting for me to continue.

  Once I told them the truth, would she remember when the harpy had kidnapped her two months ago? Darius had wiped her memory of the event, and up until now, I’d been grateful for that. I hadn’t wanted her to live in fear.

  But it was time for her—and for my parents—to understand what was at stake.

  Dad sat down next to me, and they all watched me expectantly. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and took a deep breath—it was now or never. But I stared down at my shoes, having no idea where to begin. They were going to think I was crazy. That’s what I thought when I walked into homeroom on my first day at Kinsley High and Darius told me the truth of what I was.

  It was probably best to get it all out there as quickly as possible, like Darius did when he told me. Once they saw what I could do, they would have to believe me. They couldn’t deny what they saw in front of their eyes.

  “You’re never going to believe what I’m about to tell you,” I said slowly, rubbing my hands over my legs. “It’s best that I just show you. But you have to promise that you won’t freak out, okay?”

  “Okay,” my mom said, nodding for me to continue.

  I reached into my boot, pulling out the knife that I kept there at all times. It had become second nature to put it there while getting dressed in the morning, and to sleep with it under my pillow at night. I only removed it while at school, because weapons weren’t allowed inside the building, and it would set off the metal detector.

  Mom and Becca gasped when they saw it.

  “What are you doing with that?” Dad asked, his voice raised in alarm.

  “I’m about to show you.” I did my best to remain calm, not wanting them to panic more than they already were. “But remember—don’t freak out. I know what I’m doing.”

  With that, I ran the knife along the inside of my arm, slicing it deeply enough to draw blood.

  “What are you doing?” Mom shrieked, jumping up to stop me. She tried to wrangle the knife from my hand, but I was faster than her. Before she could blink, I was standing on the coffee table, holding the knife out of her reach. “Jerry—call 911, now!” she screamed. He reached for his cell phone, but then stared at me and back at the screen, as if hesitant to dial.

  “Don’t call anyone,” I said as I pressed my hand over the cut, using white energy to heal it. “I asked you not to freak out. Remember?”

  “That was before you took a knife out of your boot and sliced your arm open!” Mom said, the words coming out in a jumbled panic. She wrung her hands around each other and took a few deep breaths, looking at me as if I were a crazy person. “We need to get you help,” she said, calmer this time. “Just… leave the knife here, and come with us to the hospital. The doctors will stitch that up for you, and then… you’ll need to get help. Okay?” She spoke hesitantly, as if afraid that one wrong word would set me off.

  “There’s nothing to stitch up.” I removed my hand from my arm and showed it to them, my gaze calm and steady. The blood was still there, but the skin was smooth. “ Because t he cut’s gone. I healed it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  My parents reached for my arm and examined it, searching for the cut. Becca remained in her chair, dazed, and watched us in complete silence.

  “There are no signs of injury,” my dad confirmed, finally dropping his hold on my arm. “Is that a trick knife? The kind you buy in magic stores? Because let me tell you—that was one crazy stunt you just pulled.” He chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. “You actually had me believing that cut was for real for a few seconds.”

  “Because it was for real,” I to
ld him. “This isn’t a trick. I cut myself with the knife, and then I used magic to heal it.”

  “Funny.” Mom chuckled as well, and she eyed up the knife. “How does it work? Is there a button you press to let out the fake blood? It’s pretty realistic looking blood, by the way. You had me fooled as well.”

  “It’s realistic because it is real,” I said. “Want me to show you again?” I raised the knife, ready to make another slash on my arm. This time, I would wait before healing it—give them a few seconds to check out the cut first and understand that it was real.

  “No.” My mom held her hand out, stopping me. She bit her lip, her eyes searching mine. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really believe that you can use magic to heal yourself?”

  She sounded like she thought I was losing my mind.

  “Yes,” I said. “I know I can. I can heal other people, too. As long as they’re still alive, I can heal them.”

  “Okay.” My mom nodded. “Then give me the knife.”

  I held the knife closer, eyeing her skeptically. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to use it to cut myself. And then you’re going to heal it.”

  “What?” My dad’s eyes bulged, and he stepped closer to her, pulling her back toward him. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “It’ll just be a small cut,” she said. “Nothing that a Band-Aid won’t be able to fix.”

  “You won’t need a Band-Aid,” I told her. “Because I’ll heal it.”

  “You’re right—she won’t need a Band-Aid,” my dad said. “Because I’ll be the one with the small cut—not her.” He looked at the knife, his eyes hard with resolve. “Nicole, give the knife to me,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Do you promise you’re not going to take it from me and call 911?” I asked.

  “I promise,” he said slowly. “If I were going to call 911, I would have done it already. Right now, I think we all need to watch what’s about to happen for ourselves.”

  By the way he was speaking to me—as if I were a patient at a mental hospital—he clearly thought he knew what was about to happen. He thought he was going to cut himself, and I would try to heal him, but that I would fail.

  I knew that wouldn’t happen. So I handed the knife to him, trying to keep my hand from shaking. “Here,” I said, letting go as he slid it out of my grip. “But just a small cut, okay? I don’t want you to hurt yourself any more than necessary.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. Then he held the knife over his palm, took a deep breath, and traced a small line at the base of his thumb.

  “Is that real blood?” Mom asked, leaning forward to get a closer look. “The knife isn’t a fake one, like they would sell in a magic store?”

  “It’s real,” he confirmed. He held his hand out to me, watching me with what seemed like sadness. He thought this would prove that I was crazy.

  But I knew otherwise. So I lowered my hand over his, my palm covering the cut, and focused on the white energy. As always, I sensed it around me, and I called it into my body, the tingling warmth of it flooding my veins. Then I sent it out of my hand and onto the cut. It barely took any energy, since the injury was so small. Within seconds, the tingling stopped, the job complete.

  I lifted my hand and looked at his palm. The cut was gone.

  He stared at it as well, his eyes wide, his mouth open in disbelief. “How…?” he finally said, looking back and forth from me to where the cut had been. “How did you do that?”

  “I already told you,” I said, dropping my arm back to my side. “Magic.”

  “Are you serious?” Mom asked, looking to Dad for confirmation. “She was actually able to heal you? You aren’t just playing along with a trick?”

  “I’ve never been so serious about anything in my life.” He remained focused on me, his face pale, as if bewildered that I’d been able to do as I’d claimed I could.

  “Why don’t we all sit down?” I said, backing up toward my spot on the couch. “Because now that you’ve seen what I can do, there’s a lot I need to tell you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  It took about two hours for me to tell the entire story. There were a few parts that I purposefully left out—for instance, I didn’t mention how the harpy had kidnapped Becca and brought her to the cave. I didn’t want to terrify my sister more than she already must be feeling. I also didn’t mention that I was a demigod. My family believed that I was a witch, like the others, who had been gifted with powers over the elements. Telling my mom that Aidan was actually the Olympian god Apollo would be too much for her to process right now. And, most importantly, I downplayed the danger of our fights against the monsters, and I left Rachael out of the story entirely. It would scare them too much to know that she’d died.

  By the time I finished catching them up on everything, it was almost midnight. But despite having to wake up early the next morning, sleep was the last thing on our minds.

  “So you’re here tonight to ask permission to go on this journey to Antarctica, and then wherever you need to go to behead Medusa?” my mom asked once I’d finished. “Medusa,” she repeated before I could answer, shaking her head in wonder. “I can’t believe that I just mentioned her as if she actually exists.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “I had a hard time believing it all at first, too. But I learned about all of this before the night of the comet, so our powers hadn’t physically manifested yet. After that night, it was impossible not to believe anymore.”

  “I don’t think this is right,” my dad finally chimed in. “You and the others with these elemental powers—you’re only teenagers. Your focus needs to be on school. This fight that you’ve been thrown into should be handled by adults.”

  “I agree with your dad,” my mom said. “From what you told us, there are plenty of adult witches in the world. They should be the ones dealing with all of this—not you.”

  “They’re not nearly as powerful as we are.” I clenched my fists, frustrated that they didn’t understand this after everything I’d just told them. “The five of us—me, Blake, Chris, Kate, and Danielle—we were chosen by the gods. Our powers make us stronger than any witches known in history. This is our responsibility.”

  “No.” My dad shook his head. “As your father, I cannot allow you to go on this mission. Your safety is our prime concern.”

  “I agree,” my mom said. “You can’t just leave whenever you please and put yourself in danger.” She paused for a second, and then added, “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around all of this, but if what you said is true, can’t you leave this fight up to the gods? I understand that the five of you have these abilities that make you unique, but aren’t the gods much stronger?”

  “The gods are helping us,” said. “They gave us our powers so that we can fight. And Nyx has foreseen that the five of us can stop this war.”

  “But like you said, that’s only one future out of many,” my mom said gently. “There’s also a chance that you might fail.”

  I sat back, unable to believe it. My mom always told me that if I put my mind to something, I could accomplish it. She encouraged me to be the best I could be. Believe in yourself, and you will succeed, she always said.

  This mission was more important than anything else in my life. Why didn’t she believe in me now?

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t do it,” Becca chimed in for the first time since I’d finished telling the story. “It sounds scary. You could get hurt. You could die.”

  It was true, but I forced myself to smile, not wanting to worry her. “I have the power to heal, remember?” I reminded her. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I think we should move,” my dad said suddenly.

  “But we just got here,” my mom said. “Your job is here.”

  “It’s not healthy for Nicole to be here,” he said. “These people are messing up her priorities. Ever since she moved here, she’s been distracted. She rarely spends t
ime with us—her family—anymore, and she’s so busy with this training that she barely spends any time studying.”

  “I don’t need to spend much time studying,” I reminded him. “I can harness yellow energy to help me focus and get my work done faster than I ever could before. My grades haven’t dropped at all. I promise.”

  “They might not have dropped, but if what you say is true, imagine how much you could excel if you spent more time on your schoolwork,” he said. “You could get straight A’s. You could even have a shot at getting accepted into an Ivy League school!”

  I had no idea how to tell him that worrying about what college I might get into was not high on my list of priorities anymore. He’d always wanted the best for me, and I knew that part of the reason why he was happy about moving to a town so close to Boston was because he thought it might make me interested in one of the great colleges in the area—maybe even Harvard.

  Unfortunately, college was the last thing on my mind. But… perhaps I could get him to support my decision by appealing to his concerns.

  “If we lose this war and the Titans escape from Kerberos, then it’s likely that there won’t be any more colleges for me to apply to,” I said. “How about this—let me work with the others to seal the portal. Once we succeed, then I’ll spend more time studying. Maybe I’ll get my grades high enough to be considered by Harvard. Deal?”

  His eyes lit up the moment I said the name of the school. “You’re going to apply to Harvard?” he asked.

  “If you let me do this, then sure,” I said. “I might not get in, but I’ll try.”

  “Don’t lose focus of the problem, Jerry,” my mom said to him. “We can’t allow her to go on this mission to Antarctica tomorrow morning.” She turned to me, her eyes brimming with concern. “I hope you understand,” she said, softer now. “You’re our daughter, and we love you. It’s our job to protect you and keep you safe. We can’t let you put yourself in danger like this.”