by H. K. Varian
“A tribal language,” the professor told her. “It hasn’t been spoken since ancient times, and there was never a written alphabet. But parts of it did evolve into many modern languages. The impundulu I met with is one of the few beings who still knows how to speak it.”
Seeing Fiona’s confusion, Professor Zwane added one last detail. “I recorded the impundulu’s words using the Latin alphabet.”
Darren stifled a groan. He could tell that Fiona was about to ask another question about the ancient language, and Fiona’s intellectual curiosity would appeal to the professor. That could easily turn into a long discussion about the evolution of language, and Darren didn’t want to take the time for a lecture right now. He wanted to hear about the spell.
Gabriella must have had the same thought. She jumped in before Fiona had the chance to ask another question.
“This spell will protect Darren from Sakura?” Gabriella asked. She bounced on the balls of her feet the same way she did when she was on the soccer field, impatiently waiting for the ball.
“This spell draws on the power of all of Darren’s ancestors to guard and protect him,” the professor said.
“We think it will protect him from Sakura’s mind control,” Mr. Kimura added.
Darren couldn’t help but see the sadness and worry in the man’s eyes. “So we can start looking for Mack again,” he said.
Mr. Kimura nodded. “Yes, so we can resume our search for Makoto.”
Yara handed a jar of something terrible-smelling to Professor Zwane. “I have the blue whale’s milk you asked for,” she said.
I hope she didn’t have to milk a whale, Darren thought.
Sefu gave the professor what looked like a dried spice. “Red sand from the deserts of Babylon,” he said.
Ms. Therian produced a rare savanna herb.
Finally, Mr. Kimura handed the professor an ivory bowl covered in ancient runes.
Darren had thought they were just going to learn about the spell. The idea of actually doing it was suddenly overwhelming. Like everything else in the Changer world, things were moving just a bit too fast for him.
“We’re doing it now?” he asked. “Right now?”
Are all of my ancestors going to appear? he wondered. Am I going to be surrounded by a bunch of impundulu ghosts?
Yara clapped Darren on the shoulder. “The sooner the better,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before Sakura finds a way through our protection spells.”
“We’ll be in the hall,” Ms. Therian said gently. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Sefu and Mr. Kimura led Gabriella and Fiona out of the room, and Darren was left alone with the professor. He took a deep breath. I hope my ancestors are friendly ghosts, he thought.
The whale’s milk, sand, and herb were combined carefully in Mr. Kimura’s ivory bowl. The smell tickled Darren’s nose, and he had to stifle a laugh when he pictured himself sneezing all over his ghostly ancestors.
Professor Zwane laid two pillows on the floor. He sat cross-legged on one and motioned for Darren to take the other. Then he placed the bowl between them, closed his eyes, and began to chant in a language Darren had never heard before.
A warm glow began to emanate from the bowl. It grew to surround both Darren and the professor. Darren sat bathed in the light for a moment, feeling calm and supported. All his nervousness disappeared. Then he saw people all around him, ethereal and wreathed in light. Men and women were smiling and reaching for him, but nothing about them was frightening. Darren felt reassured in their presence.
The spirits of my ancestors, he thought, here to protect me.
Darren wondered if he should thank them but was afraid to break the spell. He closed his eyes and thought the words.
When he reopened them, he saw his ancestors’ smiles begin to fade. One by one he watched the joy on their faces turn to worry. And then . . . suddenly nothing. Darren’s ancestors disappeared along with the warm glow.
Professor Zwane opened his eyes.
Darren saw concern etched on the professor’s face.
Chapter 2
How to Break a Curse
Fiona stood outside of Professor Zwane’s office with the others, straining to hear something of what was going on inside. The professor chanted words she couldn’t understand in his deep rumble of a voice. Then there was silence and a kind of peaceful glow around the door. After a few moments she heard Darren’s voice, but she couldn’t catch the words.
Finally, Professor Zwane opened the door, his face unreadable. Darren’s expression was clear. He was anxious and upset.
Mr. Kimura broke the silence. “Was there a problem with the spell?” he asked.
The professor nodded, ushering them inside. “Something is blocking his ancestors’ magic, and I think I know what it is.” He turned to Darren, who was just getting to his feet. “Darren, in case you haven’t shared this information with your friends, do you mind if I tell them?”
Tell us what? Fiona wondered as she closed the door behind her and settled in. It’s bad enough that Mack is missing. Is there some kind of terrible secret surrounding Darren, too?
Darren nodded, but he didn’t say a word.
“Darren’s family has been living under a curse,” the professor said. “An ancient and powerful curse.”
“A curse?” Fiona gasped. She couldn’t help but notice that that First Four didn’t seem at all surprised by that news. “What kind of curse? Is Darren in danger?”
“The Spider’s Curse?” Mr. Kimura said knowingly. “It must be. I had my suspicions, especially when I realized Darren had no immediate impundulu relatives.”
Sefu continued. “But when we saw how great Darren’s raw power was, we doubted that a curse could be restraining it.”
Ms. Therian turned to Darren with a sense of wonder. “You are so powerful already. When the curse is broken, you will likely feel your power tenfold.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but what does that mean?” Fiona asked. “What’s the Spider’s Curse?” The expressions around her were all so grim, Darren’s included, that she was getting really scared.
She noticed that Gabriella was twisting the Ring of Tezcatlipoca around and around on her finger.
She’s nervous also, Fiona realized. We lost Mack. We can’t lose Darren to Sakura too.
Professor Zwane quickly brought Gabriella and Fiona up to speed on the anansi-impundulu conflict, and the curse.
“So Darren might have family members right now who are impundulus, but they don’t know it?” Fiona asked.
“That’s certainly possible,” Ms. Therian answered. “The curse keeps those abilities from developing. Only Darren’s powers were strong enough to manifest, despite the curse, though even now, they are still restrained. But yes, there could be even more impundulus in his bloodline. Cousins, aunts—even very distant relatives who Darren isn’t aware of.”
“I know how much Darren would like that,” Fiona said. She smiled at Darren, and he nearly smiled back.
“There’s more to it,” the professor said. “If Darren wants protection from Sakura with this spell, he’ll need to break the curse on his bloodline. His ancestors want to help him, but they can’t. The poison prevents them from reaching him.”
“If he’s able to free the impundulu powers of his ancestors, they will be able to offer him the protection he needs,” Mr. Kimura confirmed.
Sefu sighed. “We stopped breaking the Spider Curses long ago, after it proved disastrous. Too many Changers were coming into their powers at the same time with no explanations and no one to guide them.”
“Think of how scared and freaked out they must have been,” Darren said quietly.
Gabriella shuddered. “I remember the first time I noticed that my eyes had turned yellow,” she said. “The morning of the first day of school, before Ms. Therian told us what we were. I was so scared. I didn’t want to leave my bathroom, but I couldn’t exactly tell my mom that my eyes had suddenly turned in
to cat eyes.”
“I saw electric sparks at my fingertips,” Darren said. “I could’ve hurt someone.”
“Imagine that happening to a few hundred impundulu Changers all at the same time,” Sefu said.
He went on to explain that it had been nearly impossible to trace the lineage of everyone connected to the ancient curse. “Many of the cursed impundulus were brought to the New World in chains, in the bottoms of slave ships. All records of their ancestors were lost. As the curse on each family was broken, people around the world began to develop their abilities without any kind of help from the Changer network.”
“That was especially dangerous for impundulus,” Yara added. “One flick of the wrist at the wrong time could down a power grid or burn a whole city. Not to mention the panic a bird with an enormous wingspan can cause in the middle of a public square.”
“We had to stop efforts to break the curses,” Sefu said.
Fiona winced. She could understand the danger in suddenly freeing a mass of impundulus without any support, but at the same time, the idea of Changers being purposely kept from their powers made her bristle. A Changer’s powers were a part of who he or she was at their very core. Without them, a Changer was incomplete.
These people have to know that something important is missing from their lives, she thought, even if they can’t say exactly what that is.
Fiona reached into the secret compartment of her backpack and stroked her selkie cloak for comfort. She couldn’t imagine being without it. Even before she turned twelve and learned she was a selkie princess, Fiona longed to be a part of the sea. She grew up beside it. The sound of waves lulled her to sleep every night and comforted her when she was sad. The rhythm of the tides and the waves were as familiar to her as the sound of her father’s voice or the beating of her own heart.
What must it be like to be an impundulu who can never spread his or her wings? She hated the very idea of that.
Gabriella must have been thinking the same thing. “So it’s not bad enough that impundulus were enslaved, they had to be denied their powers, too?”
“There is currently a new process in place for breaking the curses,” Sefu said. “It requires the impundulu in question to put together a complete family tree, stemming from the original impundulu who was cursed.”
“All of his or her descendants then have to be mapped, tracked down, and monitored when the curse is eventually broken,” Ms. Therian said. “My network watches for signs of Changer activity so that we can protect and guide the new Changers.”
“That’s if the cursed person knows he or she is an impundulu in the first place,” Gabriella said. “Darren’s an exception, right?”
Ms. Therian nodded. “Not everyone knows, of course.”
“Isn’t this an emergency?” Fiona asked. “Does Darren really have to trace his entire family tree? Surely we can skip this step, if that’s all it takes?”
Yara shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. Cursed impundulus must get forgiveness from the anansi bloodline that cursed them. The anansis are tricky. I don’t think they would allow it, even if we could agree that was the best thing to do. They’ll insist that we trace Darren’s family, from the first impundulu to the present day.”
“But my ancestors were slaves,” Darren said quietly. “How can I make a family tree if there aren’t any records of my relatives from before the Civil War?”
“I can trace some of your roots using magic,” Professor Zwane told him. “It can take a long time to form a complete tree, but I think I can do it.”
“Time is exactly what we don’t have, Sidima,” Mr. Kimura said. “Sakura is on the move.”
“I’m not teaching any summer classes. If I devote all my attention to it, I think I can do most of the work in a month,” Professor Zwane said. “I can call in favors from other influential impundulus. The tree won’t be complete, but we might have enough information to convince the anansi to break the curse.”
Mr. Kimura bowed. “I thank you. This is our best hope of protecting Darren.”
“I’ll do my best, Akira,” Professor Zwane said, bowing in return.
Fiona silently wished him luck. It’s not just about protecting Darren, although that is the most important thing, she thought. I’d really like him to have Changer family members, too. I know that’s important to him.
Fiona had been alone in her powers too until she found out her mother was a selkie. She didn’t realize how much she needed her mother’s teachings and her guidance until she was thrust into her first selkie song lessons. But . . . there was something else Fiona didn’t know she needed: companionship, someone who understood her powers in the ways only another selkie could.
And Darren hated his powers at first, Fiona remembered. He was so afraid of hurting someone by accident. I think discovering that his mother or his brother is an impundulu would be a huge relief to him. He would have someone to share his feelings with.
“What about the curse?” Fiona asked. “Tracing his family tree is just part of it, right? Once you do that, how do we help him break the curse?”
Darren, who had been largely silent since the group learned about his curse, was able to answer Fiona’s question. “I have to find a descendant of the spider who first cursed my family and convince him or her to grant forgiveness to me and my bloodline.”
“There are some anansi families who still hold grudges, centuries after the conflict,” Professor Zwane explained. “Darren will have to be careful in the way he approaches them.”
“Dealings with the anansis right now are especially tricky,” Sefu added. “They haven’t joined Sakura, but they’ve traditionally been suspicious of the First Four. There hasn’t been an anansi member of the First Four for a very long time, and that’s caused some resentment.”
Fiona’s head sometimes spun with confusion and dismay over the old rifts among the Changers. The selkie faction, for instance, had kept themselves separate from the rest of the Changer world for years.
All this fighting is so dumb. I hope that Darren, Gabriella, Mack, and I can bring about peace as the next First Four. We’re in this together, after all.
“How can we find out which anansi family cursed mine?” Darren asked.
“I can perform a spell that will reveal from whom you need to seek forgiveness,” Professor Zwane said. He rummaged through a cupboard for a minute and then came back with a dried flower on a long stem.
“This is dried imphepho, a plant that grows in South Africa,” he explained. “It will show us the face of the anansi who can break your curse.”
“Does everyone need to leave the room again?” Darren asked.
“No, they can stay for this one.” The professor placed the dried plant in the now-empty ivory bowl and held a lit match to it.
Fiona breathed in the sharp smell while Professor Zwane chanted in the same ancient language he had used earlier. She sensed a melody in it, but it wasn’t the songs of the sea. It was something else she couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe the shifting of the clouds in the sky, she thought. Or the rhythm of thunder.
She watched a circle of glowing blue mist rise from the bowl. The mist shimmered for a moment and looked opaque. Then a face appeared—the face of a beautiful young girl. The mist circled her face like a wreath.
Chapter 3
The Anansi Princess
Darren watched the face emerge from the glowing mist. He had been expecting to see a wizened old man, or a grandmother, or someone his mom’s age. This girl caught him off guard. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen, just like him.
More than that, she was the kind of girl who often left Darren feeling embarrassed and tongue-tied. She’s pretty, he thought. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. But it wasn’t just her looks that threw him off guard; it was the sure confidence in her eyes. She’s not a girl who ever gets tongue-tied, he thought.
Professor Zwane’s voice brought him back to the office and reality. “That’s Esi A
kosua,” he said.
The blue mist began to dissipate, and along with it, the girl’s face. Darren almost wanted to call her back. Esi Akosua, he repeated silently to himself. Even her name sounded beautiful.
“That’s more bad news, I’m afraid,” Sefu said. “Esi is the daughter of one of the anansi elders, a man who is arguably their leader. Unfortunately, he’s also one of the First Four’s most outspoken critics. Getting an apology from her family for a youngling under our protection will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible.”
Oh great, Darren thought. This girl and her dad hate me already. Why can’t anything just be easy?
“Kwame might be stern, but he is a reasonable man,” Mr. Kimura said. “I’ll reach out to him and try to arrange a meeting. Even the anansis have to know that these are extraordinary times. Sakura’s reach is already much too far. We have to work together if we’re going to defeat her.”
Professor Zwane cleared his throat. “Akira, I think it would be best if the family didn’t know that the First Four are involved. Let me speak to Esi’s father on Darren’s behalf.”
Darren watched Mr. Kimura catch Ms. Therian’s eye. He could tell they were fighting the urge to object to the professor’s plan. The First Four felt responsible for Darren’s safety. Fiona’s and Gabriella’s, too. They wouldn’t want to trust a meeting this important to anyone else, even someone on their side.
It’s going to be hard for them to let go, especially with Mack still missing, Darren thought. But it sounds like they’re going to have to if they want my curse to be broken.
“Let me speak to Esi’s father on Darren’s behalf,” the professor repeated, more gently this time. “I have a good relationship with him. I’ll go to New York City in person and ask the Akosuas to meet with Darren as a favor to me. They may be more likely to help that way.”
Mr. Kimura looked like he was about to object, but the professor didn’t give him a chance.
“The anansis’ grievances against the First Four go way back, no matter how misguided they may be,” he said. “And Kwame is . . . stubborn. He isn’t one to be told the right path; he has to come to a conclusion on his own.”