The Cassandra Curse

by Chantel Acevedo

  A couple of groans from the afterschool kids snapped Mr. Gomez out of it. “Okay, Violet. Sing your song,” he said, and sat down beside me. He pressed Play on his phone, the music started, and Violet sang.

  I hate to admit it, but Violet really does have a nice voice. It’s the kind of voice you expect from a princess—lilting and nonthreatening. It’s a voice that’s nothing like her personality.

  Halfway through the song, Maya tapped Mr. Gomez on the shoulder, asking, “Can the narrator audition be next? I have a SAP meeting.” He ignored her. Maya glanced at her watch. “I suppose I can be a few minutes late to SAP,” she whispered, except she pronounced it “THAP.” Then, she sat back down again.

  “Sap?” I asked. What kind of club calls itself Sap, I ask you?

  “Scientists Are People,” Maya said very seriously. “It’s an anti-science world, Callie. We’re fighting a good fight.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course,” I said.

  Violet was curtsying again, her song finished. It was Raquel’s turn next. Violet faced the wings of the stage and said, “You can all go home now,” before relinquishing the spotlight.

  “Come on, Raqui!” I shouted, jumping up and down. Mr. Gomez gave me a look, so I sat again.

  Raquel emerged from the shadows slowly. I watched as Violet passed Raquel. Violet’s yellow-slippered foot reached out to trip Raquel, who fell in slow motion, her hip hitting the stage floor first, her face crumpling.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I said in my head, because Raquel was close to bawling, I could tell. Lazily, Mr. Gomez asked, “Are you okay?” from where he sat. Raquel sat up and dusted off her legs and butt. She blinked pathetically, looking like a lost kitten with a double eye infection.

  That was my best friend up there. She was bombing her audition in a big way and here I was, powerless to help. I was so mad, my skin started to buzz, like I might explode.

  Suddenly, Maya stood and shouted, “Fight the good fight, Raquel!” Everyone turned to look at her—quiet, mousy Maya, with bared teeth and her hand raised in a fist. My mouth dropped open, making me look like a stunned fish.

  Everyone got quiet. Violet snickered.

  “It’s our SAP rallying cry,” Maya whispered, sitting down.

  Raquel was on her feet again, eyes dry. She set her jaw and took a deep breath. In the wings, Violet was swishing her voluminous dress skirt back and forth, mouthing the word loser in Raquel’s direction, in time with her dress swishing.

  Lo-ser, swish-swish, lo-ser, swish-swish.

  That’s when IT happened. The more Violet swished, the stronger the feeling got, too—every single strand of hair on my ponytail lifted up a little bit, sort of like when someone rubs a balloon on your head and the static electricity makes your hair go all frizzy. Like that, but more. My fingertips and toes tingled, too, like when your limbs fall asleep. And finally—this is the worst part—I wanted to cry. My throat felt thick and my eyes prickled. I hate crying.

  All those sensations surprised me at first, but then I remembered that I’d felt this on the Metrorail. Maybe the feelings were a reaction to fear? Except this time, I wasn’t afraid. I was angry at Violet for having tripped Raquel. I shook my hands to try to get some feeling back into them.

  Then, boom. All those feelings went away at once, as if they’d been washed off somehow. I looked up and Raquel was suddenly . . . beautiful. I mean, she’s always been my beautiful best friend, with long dark curls and big brown eyes, and freckles on her nose. But this was different. She was glowing a little. Her cheeks were pink. Her lips looked like she’d just refreshed her lip gloss. She was . . . taller. How could that be? And when she opened her mouth to sing . . .

  “You’re an angel!” Mr. Gomez shouted. In his excitement, he fist-pumped the air, accidentally punching the inflatable turkey, which folded in half with a whoosh before filling up again.

  The afterschoolers went quiet, dropping their board games and leaving their homework behind. They surged forward, hugging the stage like fans at a concert. Raquel sang and sang. Maya, beside me, was transfixed. Even Violet leaned against a wall and gazed dreamily at Raquel, who was, at the moment, utterly stealing the lead role right out from under her.

  What was happening? My scalp tingled again, just a little this time. The prickling in my eyes started up again. I touched my fingertips and found that they were numb once more. Raquel went for the high note of the song, which she lengthened and stretched as if the music were Play-Doh. Louder and louder she sang, the note rising, rising.

  I don’t remember what happened after that, because my world turned black, and when I woke up, I was somewhere familiar—and a little frightening.

  Chapter 5

  A Visit from History

  Douglas Hospital is actually just down the street from where I live in Miami, off Calle Ocho in Little Havana. So it was a pretty convenient place to end up with a head injury.

  Mr. Gomez told my mom that Raquel’s high note shattered the light fixture above my head, and that the whole contraption came crashing down right on me, knocking me out, and that it was Maya Rivero who applied pressure to the gash on my forehead to stem the bleeding.

  That’s about the gist of what I knew. When I woke up, my mom was there, still in her dental hygienist scrubs. Mario and Fernando were standing in the doorway. Mario was clutching Scumby, my teddy bear. Fernando had my phone and charger.

  Mami rushed toward me as soon as I opened my eyes. She touched my face gently, and called me “mi amor,” and “sweetheart,” and “mi niña,” which was all well and good, but ow, my head hurt.

  “Fifteen stitches,” my mom announced. Then her cell phone rang. It was Papi. “Toma,” she said, handing me the phone.

  “Callie girl, what happened?” he asked.

  “Hi, Papi. Freak accident,” I said, my voice low. My brothers were watching me. I gestured silently to the phone, and they shook their heads, as if to say, “No, we don’t want to talk to him.”

  “Do I need to go down there? Speak with the principal about the condition of that school?” he asked, his own voice rising.

  “No, Papi. It’s fine. I’m fine,” I said. In the background I could hear my stepmother, Laura, asking how I felt.

  “My head hurts,” I said.

  “You poor thing,” Laura said when she got on the phone, then added, “Feel better, muñeca.” She always called me that—a doll. Honestly, I didn’t know how I felt about it, though sometimes, when she said it, I imagined Laura picking me up and putting me on a shelf to gather dust. We said goodbye and hung up. I handed the phone back to my mom.

  My brothers stepped forward. “Here’s Scumby,” Mario said, handing me the tattered bear that I’d had since I was a baby. “Now you look as beat up as he does,” he said, patting my knee.

  “Your phone, dummy,” Fernando said. I clicked it on and noticed that he’d made my screensaver a picture of himself flexing a muscle, but that he’d also charged it for me.

  Everyone stayed through dinnertime—my brothers breaking off to bring fast food for us. We were crowded in there, and one of the nurses kept telling us all to be quiet, but it was no use.

  We were a big Cuban family, and we weren’t loud.

  That’s just how we talked.

  My head started feeling better after I ate a cheeseburger and a milkshake. When a doctor showed up to tell me I could go home in the morning, my mood improved even more.

  My brothers finally left the hospital after sunset. My mom stayed with me. A nurse rolled in a cot for her, with a pillow and blanket. We turned down the lights. She watched television, while I texted Raquel.

  Hey.

  Are you okay?

  Concussion. Your audition nearly killed me. What happened to you?

  I don’t know! It was so crazy.

  I’ve never sung like that. I’ve never FELT like that.

  Me neither.

  ???

  Nothing. Just a weird feeling before your audition. My skin got
tingly.

  Hmm. I felt confident. Like, SUPER CONFIDENT.

  Like I could do anything, say anything, and it would be okay. Better than okay. It would be PERFECT.

  I knew you had it in you!

  I didn’t.

  Hey, are you . . . taller now?

  It took a minute for Raquel to text me back. I figured she was measuring herself.

  Callie. What in the world happened to me today?

  I take that as a yes.

  I’m an inch taller. Pretty sure my hair is longer too. What is this? Mega Puberty?

  I didn’t text back for a while. The truth was, Raquel wasn’t “super confident” about much. She got excellent grades, yes, but she was afraid of roller coasters, nervous about ordering pizza delivery on the phone, and honestly, had never, ever sung like that before. And people didn’t just sprout an inch in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t help but think of that tingly sensation—my hair, my fingers and toes, and the lump in my throat—I’d felt it all before IT, whatever IT was, began. I remembered my dream with Tia Annie and those statues. Maybe they were trying to portend IT.

  My head was throbbing again, so I slowly made my way to the bathroom and took a peek beneath the bandage. It was gruesome now, but I knew it wouldn’t be so bad once it healed. The scar would lie right alongside my hairline. Aside from the stitches, I was still the same Callie, though. Whatever had affected Raquel had made no change in me.

  When I came out of the bathroom, my mom was asleep, lightly snoring. I turned off the TV and lay in bed, my phone charging beside me. Raquel had texted while I’d been in the bathroom.

  Goodnight, Cal. Thanks for cheering me on. I’m sorry about your head. Love you, bestie.

  I thought of something my mom always said. Callie, you are loved, and if you’re loved, you’ll be okay. Something weird was definitely going on, but Mami was right. Everything would be okay.

  This is what I told myself when I closed my eyes for ten seconds.

  I was woken up with a nudge by a tall doctor with white hair and golden eyes. Her name tag read DR. CLIO ZAZAS, and she was flashing a light at my face.

  “Calliope?” the doctor said.

  “Nobody calls me that. It’s Callie,” I said, squinting like crazy at the light.

  “I’m Clio. Everyone calls me that,” she said, tucking away her small flashlight. Tiny golden trumpets dangled from her ears. They glimmered, even though the light in the room was dim.

  My mother stirred. “Oh, Doctor. Is everything all righ—” She stopped. No, it was more like she froze. Her hand stayed in the air in greeting, her mouth stuck mid-speech. My scalp was tingling again.

  “What happened?” I shrieked.

  “Shush,” Clio said. “Scoot over.” And when I didn’t budge, she moved me with her hip and plopped into bed beside me. She smelled like brownies.

  “What’s wrong with my mom?” I yelled.

  “Are you always this loud?” Clio asked.

  That shut me up. “What did you do to her?” I said, in a whisper this time. I was leaning far away from the woman now, too scared to move.

  “I’ve relegated your mother to history. She’s now in the time before this. Just a little before. And only temporarily,” she said, chuckling to herself. “Get it? Temporarily? The Latin root ‘tempus,’ meaning time? Oh, never mind.”

  My mouth must have hung open. I had no idea what Clio was talking about. I was in the presence of some sort of witch and my mind had gone utterly blank.

  Clio sighed. “They don’t teach you anything at school anymore. All the new muses need so much remedial study. Listen carefully, Calliope, you—”

  “Callie,” I said.

  Clio took a deep breath. She smoothed her white hair with her hand. “Callie. I am Clio, Muse of history. Do you know what a muse is?”

  Clio was looking at me skeptically, but I actually did know. “My mom has a small statue of a muse on her dresser back home. She told me once that she was a goddess of inspiration.”

  “Yes, that’s right. There are nine muses.”

  “N-nine?” I stuttered, my head swimming. Nine muses, nine statues, was I dreaming again?

  “Yes, nine. I’m one. And so are you, Callie.”

  I laughed outright. “I’m not a goddess, and I’m not inspiring anyone,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Clio asked, and then, my phone started to buzz. It was Raquel. I answered it.

  “CALLIE!” she screamed into her phone. “I’m dying. I’M DYING, CALLIE.”

  “Oh my God, what’s happening? Call nine-one-one!” I said, panicked. I’d gripped Clio’s forearm, forgetting all about my pounding head, this muse business, my dreams, my frozen mother.

  Raquel laughed. “No, not literally. I’m dying because someone uploaded a video of my audition and it has, like, two thousand views already.”

  “What! How?”

  “This is how people get famous, right?” Raquel asked. I put her on speakerphone and searched for her video. There it was. Raquel singing her head off. The views counter ticked up and up even as I watched.

  “Raquel, I’m watching it now. Do . . . do you see me when I—?” I started to ask.

  “No, the video cuts out before you got hurt. Hey, Cal, gotta go, I’ve got another call,” she said, then hung up on me.

  Clio was smiling without showing her teeth.

  “I . . . I did that?”

  “You did that. You inspired her.”

  “All I did was give her a pep talk,” I said.

  Clio shook her head. “That bit was important, yes. But you did more than that. You brought forth Raquel’s hero within. The star you always see in her? You just made it easier for others to see and hear it, too.”

  I thought of my tingling scalp, and my numb fingers and toes, and ugh, that crying feeling. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” I muttered.

  “No. But you’ll learn how,” Clio said. She touched the top of my head, and there was the tingling again, lighter this time, but everywhere.

  “The people on the Metrorail? When the doors were closed?”

  “Now you’re understanding.”

  “Actually, I don’t understand any of this,” I said, and Clio nodded, unsurprised.

  “When you are ready to know more,” she said, “go to the place where you always find the answers.”

  “What does that—”

  “Oh, and dress warmly,” Clio added. She got up from the bed and walked to the door. The moment her foot crossed the threshold of my room, my mother unfroze.

  Mami was blinking rapidly. She smacked her lips, which had gone dry. “I must have had a dream,” she said, confused and sleepy. “You okay, Callie?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Goodnight.”

  “Buenas noches, mi amor,” she said, and fell back asleep at once.

  I rubbed my head softly, wiggled my toes. The shadows in the room seemed to lengthen, and I decided that it was time to put this day behind me. I closed my eyes, but the path to sleep was longer and steeper than it had ever been, and I didn’t really nod off until the dawn turned rosy.

  Chapter 6

  A Great (and by Great I Mean Big) Bed

  I was home the next day by lunchtime. It was Wednesday, and I had the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving ahead of me. Plenty of time for the swelling on my forehead—the one that made me look like a messed-up unicorn—to go away. While my mother made me some “welcome home/get well arroz con pollo,” I went to “the place where you always find the answers.”

  The internet.

  I got 3,360,000 hits on “the Muses” in 0.85 seconds.

  And none of them were very useful.

  I learned that I actually shared a name with one of the muses—Calliope, Muse of epic poetry—which, whatever, what did that even mean? She certainly wasn’t the Muse of getting your best friend famous on social media, which is apparently what I’d done.

  There was Clio, Muse of history, represented in statues and paintings, in mosai
cs and even in that Disney movie about Hercules. None of the Clios looked like the one who had come to visit me. Where was her toga? Her elaborate hairdo? What about the other muses? Could I expect visits from them too, like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future?

  I watched television for a bit, and tried texting Raquel, but she didn’t answer. What gives, I thought. School was out for Thanksgiving. What could she be doing, anyway? And why wasn’t she here, visiting me? After all, I was injured because of her voice. Or maybe, if Clio was right, it was because of me.

  I got up to stretch my legs, and ended up in my mom’s room. It smelled like her vanilla perfume in there. Her bed was always made, her dresser cluttered with picture frames. There, between my first-grade photo and Fernando’s soccer team photo, was Calliope herself.

  She was a nine-inch alabaster statue. I’d played with it a thousand times when I was little. I picked it up. She was all white, her face full-cheeked and peaceful. In one hand she held a scroll, and in the other, a small stick of some sort. An ancient kind of pen, maybe? Her robes were long and flowy, and the toes of her right foot peeked out from under them. I had a horrifying thought as I looked at it—what if the statue looked back like the one in the dream did? I put the statue down at once and turned it around.

  “Your aunt gave her to me when you were born,” my mom said just behind me, adjusting the statue so that it faced forward again.

  “Oh,” I said, startled. We didn’t speak of Tia Annie very often, because it always made my mother cry. She’d been very beautiful and kind, and besides being an English teacher, she was also a poet.

  My brain went click.

  “Calliope is the Muse of epic poetry! No wonder Tia Annie liked her,” I said, thinking of the slender volume of poems my mother kept at her bedside, the only book anyone in the family had ever written. She’d titled it Tycho, which I didn’t even know how to pronounce. But we were all proud anyway. Tia Annie had dedicated it to my mother and to me: To my sister, who inspires me more than she will ever know, and to my niece. May she read this and find her way.