The Cassandra Curse

by Chantel Acevedo

  “Then what happened?”

  “I turned her in to Clio, and her muse magic was stripped from her and returned to the searchlights. She became a Lost Muse.”

  I watched the lights. They were soft, not glaring. When I looked at them, I felt peaceful, like whatever I did next would be the right thing to do.

  “Seems unfair,” I said.

  Tia Annie’s eyebrows scrunched together, the way they always had when she was trying to figure something out. “What do you mean?”

  “The lights,” I said. “Why can’t everyone have them?”

  Tia Annie smiled, drawing me into a hug. “Human inspiration is infinite, but inspiration derived from magic? That’s a limited resource. There’s enough to power the muses and then some. But if the lights burn out because someone has abused their power, then it’s gone forever. That’s the deal.”

  “Bum deal,” I said.

  Tia Annie nodded. Once more, she touched the water, and there was Ms. Rinse, standing on a beach somewhere at dusk, her arms raised to the sky. Hovering over her were three creatures—half human, half bird, with very familiar teeth.

  “In vengeance, Wendy called up the sirens,” Tia Annie said.

  “How did she do that?” I asked.

  “Her magic was gone, but not her knowledge. She knew the ways a person could summon the sirens, and she knew that the sirens couldn’t resist. It’s a game to them, to see how much chaos they can sow.”

  I remembered how Ms. Rinse had resisted my magic at Sea-a-Rama, and how she’d done it again at the county science fair.

  “Tia Annie, I tried my magic on Ms. Rinse,” I said, explaining what had happened when I’d tried to “inspire” her. “But it didn’t work.”

  “You can’t force a person to be good if they don’t want to be, deep down. Plus, she knew what you were up to, so it gave her an advantage.” Tia Annie seemed very sad. “She’ll be coming here next to retrieve her magic.” Tia Annie looked all around—at the sky, the water, the searchlights. “I’ll protect the lights, but first, we have to take care of you,” she said.

  I felt the Rubik’s Cube, still in my shirt. I pulled it out and showed Tia Annie. “Cassandra, she talked to me. She tried to help me.” The cube felt light. I put it up to my ear, but heard nothing.

  Tia Annie held the cube. “She isn’t in here, if that’s what you’re wondering. She’s there, past the water, where the heroes go when they die,” she said, gesturing to a far-off point across the lake, one that I couldn’t make out. “That’s where the muses go too, when their time on earth is over.”

  “Then why aren’t you there?” I asked.

  “I struck a deal,” she said.

  “A deal? With who?” If there was a place for heroes, and Tia Annie wasn’t there, then none of this made sense. She was the most heroic person I knew.

  Tia Annie waved her hand about. “Oh. You know. The ones who make decisions around here.” She tapped on the Rubik’s Cube with her fingernail, her face settling thoughtfully. “Maybe a little bit of Cassandra survived within the curse. A part of her that stayed behind to try to help others.” Tia Annie sighed. “She wasn’t a muse. But she could have been. Cassandra was a brave girl. Like you are, Callie.”

  “Tia Annie, nobody believes me.” Cassandra might have been brave, but I’ll bet she was heartbroken, too. That’s how I felt.

  My aunt looked sad. She reached out and touched my hair. “I know,” she whispered. “I can see that curse all over you. Like slime.”

  “Cassandra told me to tell the truth,” I said. “But I don’t know what she meant.”

  Tia Annie’s brow furrowed. She swirled her hand in the dark water. “Cassandra had a hard time of it, if I recall,” she said. She was gazing out over the water, off to some distant shore I couldn’t see.

  I remembered something Clio had said when she’d shown us the boxes of curses in the museum stores. “A truth she’d been afraid to tell even herself,” I whispered. “That’s what Cassandra spoke, and it’s what trapped the curse again.”

  Tia Annie gave the Rubik’s Cube back to me. Picking up the oars, she rowed for a while, getting closer to the searchlights. They warmed my face. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Tia Annie. I’m afraid of a lot of things,” I said, cradling the toy in my hands.

  Tia Annie rowed the boat out a little farther. “Do you know what hubris is?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s pride. In all the old stories, it’s the one thing the heroes mess up. They get too proud. Too stubborn,” she said. “And because of it, they suffer a downfall.”

  “But I haven’t been. I’m not,” I said. My eyes stung a little. “I’m not a hero. And I don’t have anything to be proud of anyway.”

  “Hm,” Tia Annie said. She dipped her hand in the water, and an image of Raquel onstage appeared. Then I saw myself, holed away in my bedroom while my brothers watched Raquel on TV. She swirled the water again and there I was at Frosty’s, turning away from Raquel just as Jordan Miguel was tugging her toward a ride she didn’t want to go on.

  “Oh,” I said. Sure, Raquel had gotten swept up in America’s Next Star, but I had gotten jealous, just like she’d said. “Hubris,” I repeated. “Did I make Raquel . . . hubristic?”

  “That is indeed the adjectival form of hubris!” Tia Annie said, clapping her hands together.

  “Don’t get excited,” I said. “It was a lucky guess.” Tia Annie pursed her lips, and I got serious again. “Did I do that to Raquel? Did I break her with my magic?” My heart was fluttering in my chest. It was one thing to help your best friend. It was another to be the cause of her downfall.

  “No, querida. If Raquel was feeling a little full of herself, she did that on her own.”

  “But I made her taller, Tia Annie. I made Maya’s teeth straighter. And I don’t know how I do that sometimes, or why it doesn’t happen other times. Sometimes, I look in the mirror and I wish . . . I just wish.” I stopped.

  Tia Annie pulled me into another hug, longer and fiercer this time. “Mi vida, you are perfect the way you are. I know it’s hard to believe sometimes, but I know you will understand that someday.” She gave me a loud kiss on the cheek, then said, “Do you know, the first time I tried to inspire a hero, she fell out of a tree and broke her leg? She climbed a big old banyan tree back home trying to rescue a baby raccoon stuck on a branch.”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  “It is when you also manage to change her bad eyesight to twenty-twenty. The world looked so crisp and clear for the first time that she got dizzy and lost her balance,” Tia Annie said.

  Tia Annie had done it, too! She’d used muse magic to change a person without meaning to. And she’d made a mess of it. “I shouldn’t laugh. Broken leg, and all,” I said, but I couldn’t stop myself from giggling.

  Tia Annie rubbed my back in small circles. “We all make mistakes. But perhaps there’s one you haven’t admitted to yet, huh? A truth you’ve been afraid to tell even yourself? It’s not Raquel’s excessive pride I’m worried about.”

  I nodded. I had wanted credit for Raquel’s success, hadn’t I? And I didn’t stop to think that while I’d given her a nudge, she’d already had those gifts inside her. I lifted the Rubik’s Cube to my lips and whispered, “I haven’t been a good friend to Raquel. I was proud. I was jealous, and I was mean. And I’m sorry about that.”

  The cube trembled in my hand, then began reshuffling itself. I felt cold all over. Really cold. Colder than the museum in the wintertime when you are wearing are shorts and flip-flops. Colder than the blast of air from the freezer when I open it back home to pull out some ice cream. For a moment, it felt so cold that my skin hurt. I heard a whisper coming from the cube again, muttering in a language I didn’t understand. Faster and faster the voice spoke. I recognized it from before. Cassandra!

  “Is she okay, Tia Annie?” I asked, the cube still twitching in my hand as the puzzle r
earranged itself.

  “I think so. A part of Cassandra stayed behind in the curse, remember? To help people like you. Another part of her crossed over,” Tia Annie said. “I think she’s probably glad you figured out how to shake the curse.”

  Finally, the cube went still and quiet.

  “Slime’s all gone,” Tia Annie said.

  I warmed up quickly and felt a little lighter, now that I’d faced the truth about how I’d handled things with my best friend.

  “You are a bundle of love, mi niña. Rule number two, ‘muse magic is just love, concentrated.’ And I love you very much, Callie.”

  “I love you, too, Tia Annie. And I miss you,” I said.

  Tia Annie smiled, and then her smile grew sad. “Don’t come looking for me again, Callie. This place is not for you. You belong out there, where they need you.” I heard a shout as if very far away, then another, and another. “You’d better go,” Tia Annie said, looking past me and toward Tycho’s open tomb. “Remember, the sirens’ power is in their song. You don’t have to listen to it.” She lifted my hands and put them over my heart. “You have your own song, in here. Focus on that.”

  I started to get out of the boat when I remembered something. “Clio said you went to Mount Olympus. She thought it might have something to do with me, with my powers. They aren’t like the others’.”

  Tia Annie sat up very straight, and I could imagine her in front of a classroom, the whole room silent and in awe of her. “The world as it is needs the kinds of heroes it hasn’t had in a long time. And it needs the muses to help them along. I knew my time was ending. And I knew you would be ready, Callie. So I asked.”

  “You . . . asked?”

  “Yes. Like I said. I struck a deal. I went to the seat of the gods, and I asked. And the world received. You have been given a gift the world has not known in an age. You’re stronger than I ever was. You don’t know it yet, but you will. Oh, mi niña. The world is in good hands,” she said, and cupped my cheeks.

  I gave my aunt another hug, one so big I would never forget it.

  “Mmm,” Tia Annie said, relishing the embrace. Then she stopped and took hold of my wrist. “Where’s our bracelet? Don’t tell me you lost it,” she said.

  I looked down at my bare wrist. “Oh no!” I searched all around.

  “Why didn’t you put glue on the clasp?” Tia Annie asked, and I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh.

  “You’re just like Mami,” I said, chortling, and Tia Annie laughed.

  “What can I say? It’s a family thing,” she said.

  “I love our family,” I said.

  “Me too. Now go, Callie-Mallie.” I stepped out of the boat and took a few steps forward. I turned around for one more goodbye, but Tia Annie was gone and the boat was empty. The searchlights continued to sweep back and forth.

  Ahead, Tycho’s tomb stood open. I walked toward it.

  But just before I climbed in, three angry faces appeared on the other side, blocking my way.

  Chapter 31

  Battle at the V and A

  “You discovered a portal to somewhere supercool and didn’t tell us?” Nia asked.

  “Some kind of friend you are,” Thalia added.

  Mela tsked and shook her head.

  Laughing in relief, I crawled out of the little tomb. Nia and Mela each took one of my hands and pulled, and I plopped out onto the grass.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  One by one, the girls showed me their communications items. Each had a massive grin on her face.

  “Found mine in my left sneaker,” Nia said, dangling her globe necklace.

  “Clio must have sent them back. I thought my pocket was on fire before I realized my ring was in it,” Mela said.

  Thalia rubbed her jaw like she had a toothache. “Why did Clio have to sneak mine into the scone I was eating?” Then she winked to let us know she was only kidding.

  “I’m glad we’re back. I missed you so much,” I said, trying to hug them all at once.

  When I turned to look into the grave, it was dark again, the back panel in place.

  “Rest in peace, Tycho,” I whispered, and put the plaque in place again. I turned to the others and pulled the Rubik’s Cube out from under my shirt. “Cassandra Curse. Locked and loaded.”

  “In there?” asked Thalia. She slapped her forehead.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was cursed briefly, and then . . .” I faced Tycho’s grave and gave silent thanks to Tia Annie. “Let’s just say I was un-cursed.”

  We heard a loud crash coming from inside the museum. “Sounds like the party started without us,” Mela put in.

  “All right, Muse Squad. We’ve got three sirens and a Lost Muse to get rid of. Let’s go,” I said.

  But Nia held up a hand. “Houston, we have a problem.” Her eyes cut toward the fountain. I followed her gaze and saw Maya Rivero standing in the middle of the water, drenched and sobbing, her rainbow backpack on her back and her hands balled up into fists.

  “Um, she’s not supposed to be here. We just got our powers back, and now Clio is going to take them away again, isn’t she?” Thalia asked, staring.

  I ran toward Maya, sloshing through the water. “Maya? How did you get here?” I asked quietly.

  Slowly, Maya opened one of her fists. Inside was my bracelet.

  “You dropped it in the fountain. I saw you disappear. I saw you do it in the slide at the Sea-a-Rama, too,” Maya said, handing it to me.

  Another shout.

  “Hurry!” Nia yelled.

  I had to send Maya back to Miami. I pinched my nose and dragged her down into the water with me. I held my breath as long as I could, then came up for air, Maya gasping next to me.

  We were still very much in London. I kicked at the water, sending up a splash.

  “You okay?” Maya asked.

  “The Great Bed of Ware then,” I said, not answering her. But we had to get up there first. And that meant fighting our way to the third floor.

  “Callie, listen to me,” Maya demanded before she would take a step out of the pond. “Ms. Rinse lied. She told the judges I cheated. And they disqualified me. Why would she do that?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. After everything we’d been through, Ms. Rinse was actually going to derail Maya’s destiny? “You didn’t win the county science fair,” I said.

  “That’s what disqualified means, sort of.”

  So we already failed, I thought. I took a deep breath. Whatever happened, Maya still needed me.

  “That doesn’t matter right now,” I said. “We have to get you somewhere safe. Come with me.”

  Maya took a big step backward, her hands up. “Where am I? And why did you steal my Rubik’s Cube?”

  That’s when I realized I was still holding it. “I didn’t steal it. I’ll explain it all later, I promise,” I said. Maya didn’t move. “Just, trust me. Please,” I added.

  Maya’s eyes were wide, but she dropped her hands. “Fine. I trust you,” she said, and followed me out of the water and toward the others.

  “Game plan?” Nia asked. Everyone was looking at me.

  Okay. I was Calliope, First of the Muses, Annie Martinez’s niece. I could do this. I bounced a little on my feet. I looked across the pond and into the Tea Room, where museum guests were running to and fro, using their food trays to strike the walls, which were covered in intricate mosaics.

  Chaos. Siren song. It had to be.

  “First. Earplugs,” I said, and we dug into our pockets and bags for them.

  “What about Maya?” Nia asked.

  “Got it,” Mela said, giving her headphones to Maya, plugging them into her phone first. “Put these on, please,” she said, and Maya did. Then Mela hit Play, and Maya jumped. We could all hear a loud, twangy voice through the headphones.

  Mela beamed while Maya winced.

  “You’re into country music?” I shouted, and Mela grinned broadly.

  “Listen, eve
ryone. It’s Ms. Rinse. Ms. Rinse is making this all happen,” I yelled so that they could hear me.

  “That nice teacher? I mean, she made us do all those anagrams but . . .” Thalia put in.

  “Anagrams! Of course. ‘Rinse’ is an anagram for siren,” Nia said.

  “But she isn’t one. She only summoned the sirens. Rinse is a Lost Muse, stripped of her powers because she thought she was better than the Fated Ones,” I said.

  Nia swallowed hard. The others looked away. I know what they were thinking. We all could have been lost, too.

  “Okay, then,” I said, speaking as loudly as I could. I took a deep breath. “Let’s make things right. Mela, you head to the Tea Room. Give them something to do other than destroy the café.”

  Mela bounded away, and as she ran, we could already see some of the guests dropping their trays and blinking away sudden tears.

  “The rest of us will go through the gift shop,” I said. But first, I unzipped Maya’s backpack and dropped the Rubik’s Cube into it. The curse now secured, we ran, with Maya trailing behind us, headphones on. We reached the doors when a pair of tourists waltzed past us. A girl performed a perfect pirouette in the distance, while two little boys breakdanced in the center of the gift shop. The shop itself was in shambles—toys and souvenirs littered the floor, and art books sat splayed open, their pages torn. Tomiko and Elnaz stood in the center of it all.

  “You brought a guest. How nice,” Elnaz said, indicating Maya.

  “Glad you could make it,” Tomiko shouted.

  “Glad we could make it?” I asked. “Why weren’t you at the county science fair?”

  Elnaz raised an eyebrow at Tomiko. “Go on. Tell them,” she said.

  Tomiko rolled her eyes. “We were there. Ended up chasing a trio of suspicious-looking ducks in the parking lot.”