There were the papier-mâché bulls standing guard on either side of the doors. But which way was the museum again? I looked in the distance for the rocket but couldn’t see it from where I stood. Meanwhile, my bracelet just got warmer and warmer. “I’m coming!” I whispered into it, hoping Clio heard me.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around.
“Lost?” Ari asked. There were pieces of bright thread stuck in her hair.
“Yeah. Um. I’m meeting a friend at the Hall of Science. Any idea where that is?”
Ari paused before answering. “Two blocks that way, then take a left. You’ll see the rocket straight ahead.” Then Ari walked in the other direction, her long black hair swinging behind her.
I took off running, passing a couple more bodegas on the way. One block, two blocks, then I took the turn, and there was the rocket in the distance. School buses were lined up on the street outside the museum, and kids from various summer camps were loading into them after a busy day at the museum.
Inside, kids were wandering about while their teachers shouted directions, and I managed to sneak past the ticket counter. But now that I’d made it to our new muse headquarters, I didn’t have a clue as to where to go and meet everyone.
Then a tiny voice came through my bracelet.
It was Clio: “Meet in the Great Hall, muses.”
I grabbed a museum brochure, located the Great Hall, and headed that way, without pausing to look at any exhibits. Somewhere, muses were popping into the museum via their entrance points. I was wondering where mine would be, and if I’d ever learn the layout of our new headquarters, when I saw the sign for the Great Hall above a set of boring old double doors.
Missing the V and A, I took a deep breath and pushed the doors open.
Chapter 7
Gross! Gross! Gross!
Once inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The ceiling was high—it had to be over a hundred feet. And there were about a million pieces of blue glass stuck in the walls, which curved gently here and there. I couldn’t spot even a single corner or angle.
It was like being inside a wave at night. Or an alien spaceship.
“Welcome to the Great Hall,” Clio said from the front of the room. Eight beanbags sat on the floor in front of her, and she gestured to them.
I was the first to arrive, obviously, but that didn’t last long. Tomiko and Elnaz strolled in next, and they both gasped at the sight of the room, too. They were followed by Etoro and Paola, who had similar reactions. Clio was smiling without showing her teeth, which was about as happy as she ever looked, and I knew she was feeling pretty pleased with herself for choosing this place for our first meeting. Tomiko, Elnaz, and Paola settled onto beanbags, while Etoro rolled her wheelchair up to the front near Clio.
Feeling anxious, I looked at the door. I heard the rest of the Muse Squad before they came in. Thalia was laughing loudly, and I heard Nia say, “Control yourself, for the love,” when the doors opened up.
“Holy smokes!” Nia said.
“Brilliant!” Thalia said.
Mela was just a few feet behind them, and I watched as she covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide. The three of them sat in the beanbags nearest me. I sighed happily. I mean, Maris was nice, and Ari was, well, Ari. But there was nothing like being with friends who really understood you.
“Welcome, muses, to the Hall of Science, and the Great Hall itself. This will be our meeting room from now on. I hope your entrance points were satisfactory.”
Everyone started talking at once.
“I got the Hall of Mirrors. Like in a fun house! Cheers for that, Clio,” Thalia said.
“I got the rocket! Thanks, Clio!” Nia called out. She was wearing a T-shirt with an otter in an astronaut uniform, the words OTTER SPACE written below. Just about her entire wardrobe was science pun shirts.
“Clio, I’d like to arrange for a change of entrance points,” Mela said. “The preschool playroom is absolutely not going to work.” Then she leaned over to me and said, “Everything in there is sticky,” and made a funny face.
“Where’s yours?” Nia asked.
I shrugged. “Don’t know. I ran here from the summer camp my dad put me in.”
“Look at you, all New York and stuff,” Nia said.
“Hardly. I would have gotten lost if not for Ari.”
“Ari?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered as Clio finally got everybody to quiet down.
It was dark in the Great Hall, illuminated only by the eerie light coming through the blue glass. That’s why I didn’t notice the muse finder clock behind Clio. I squinted and could see that the pointer was still resting on New York. Somewhere out there was the tenth muse, and it was our job to find her. Even if that meant one of us might lose her job. Or worse.
“Recalling our mission,” Clio began solemnly, “Paola and I have been in the city for a few days now and are no closer to finding the tenth muse that the clock has indicated. So we’ll need a new approach.”
Clio switched on an ancient projector, which sputtered to life with a whir. A bright beam of light hit a screen at the front of the room. The image sharpened by the second to reveal an eye dangling from a single slimy strand of eyeball gunk. It spun slowly, the gray iris staring blindly. The white part of the eye was covered in tiny veins, and the hand that dangled it was withered and pale.
Even though my stomach was doing flip-flops, I couldn’t look away.
A second, equally withered hand cupped the eye away from sight. Then a third hand appeared and tried to snatch the eye. Just then, the projection stuttered, and the screen went blank.
“My apologies. The projector is a bit of an antique,” Clio said as she smacked the machine a few times to get it going again.
“What was that all about?” Nia asked, pointing at the screen.
Clio cleared her throat. “I told you, the projector is old.”
“Not the projector,” Nia persisted. “The disgusting eyeball.”
“I was getting to that,” Clio said.
“Can we please not talk about an eyeball?” Mela asked in a quiet voice, her cheeks going a little green.
“Yes, the eyeball is vile,” Clio said. “But maybe not as nauseating as the tooth,” she added, and with another whack, the projector whirred back to life. This time, the withered hand held a black molar in the center of its palm, the nerves still twitching from the tooth’s base, and the long roots sharp like fangs.
“Yikes, there’s nothing funny about that,” Thalia said, “and everything makes me laugh.” Then she tapped her chin, thought for a bit, and giggled. “Oh, never mind. It is funny.”
Clio tapped the projector and a third image appeared. Three ancient women were sitting on a park bench, city skyscrapers in the distance behind them, their heads ducked down over knitting. They seemed to be making one very long pink sock.
“These are the Graeae. They share one tooth and one eye among them,” Clio said.
“Ew!” Nia said. “Hygiene, people.” Nia was meticulous about everything, probably because her dad was ex-CIA.
“They are ancient witches, sometimes known as the Gray Sisters,” Clio said.
“Are they evil?” Mela asked.
“Duh,” Thalia answered.
“Just because they are gross witches who share eyes and teeth—” Mela began.
“An eye and a tooth. Singular,” Nia put in.
“Whatever. That doesn’t mean they are evil,” Mela said, crossing her arms and huffing through her nose.
Clio nodded. “Well. They aren’t exactly good. But Mela is right. They aren’t exactly evil, either. They are neutral, so to speak. That eye gives them the power of sight. They know secrets. And see secrets. Nobody can hide anything from them when they have the eye in their possession.”
“Would they know the answer to my maths tests then?” Thalia asked, and Clio sighed.
“We normally don’t bother with the Gra
y Sisters. They’ve been around a long time and no longer seem interested in anything but sunning themselves at the park. We haven’t had a need for their particular expertise either. But now that the muse finder clock has indicated a new muse, and we can’t seem to find her, our only hope is to try to get the Gray Sisters to help. There are no such things as secrets when it comes to them. We may be able to entice them to help us locate this muse. They live here in Queens, after all.”
I sucked in a breath. The Gray Sisters were in Queens!
“The stubborn sisters, more like it,” Etoro said, huffing and crossing her arms. I took that to mean that Etoro, at least, had dealt with them before.
“They’re capricious,” Paola added. “They’ll offer advice one day, curse you the next. We need to be careful with them.”
“Indeed,” Clio said. “They aren’t always easy to work with. But they are fond of the innocent, like children.” Then she stared at us. I could swear I saw her left eye twitch.
“That’s where the Muse Squad comes in?” Thalia asked, pointing her thumbs at all of us.
Elnaz turned around in her beanbag to look at us. “They are a bit creepy, what with the one eye and one tooth thing. Steel yourselves.”
Tomiko faced us, too. “But don’t stare. Be cool,” she added.
Clio nodded. “Remember, they like children. Adults usually only ask them questions when they want to gain something for themselves.”
“Unlike children, who are less concerned with ambition, and more interested in curiosity for its own sake,” Etoro said, her eyes crinkling kindly at us.
“That means you have an advantage over the rest of us,” said Clio. “You’ll find them in the arboretum of the Queens Botanical Garden tomorrow afternoon at four thirty. Simply introduce yourselves, then state your question about who the tenth muse is, and hopefully, they’ll be in the mood to assist us.”
Suddenly, we heard a scream coming from outside the Great Hall. It sounded like a little kid. Then another screamed, and another, until it seemed like a thousand kids were yelling just beyond the doors.
Elnaz was the first to move, followed by Tomiko. I watched as Elnaz pulled a tin whistle from the pocket of her jeans. Paola was also on her feet, and I could hear a little hum coming from her, as if she was practicing scales with her voice. As for Clio, I could see that she was tugging on her left ear, making her trumpet earring twitch.
As Elnaz slowly pushed open the double doors of the Great Hall, the sound of screaming children grew louder. Mela linked arms with me, and I watched as Nia and Thalia held hands, too. Whatever was happening, we were ready.
Thalia was the first to see it—a tiny spider, crawling over Elnaz’s foot. Beyond the door, kids were running everywhere, shaking their arms as they ran, or stomping the ground.
“Is that a—” Thalia started to ask when I saw another spider, then another, then more and more, all pouring into the Great Hall.
“Ah!” Elnaz shouted, and started stepping on as many as she could find. But they crawled up her legs.
More spiders poured in, a whole wave of them, clambering on top of each other until they started to seem like some other, giant creature altogether. It was like the day with Mario and the van all over again—a million spiders causing chaos. All the while, my mind was racing with one thought: This is my fault! If I’d mentioned the spiders to Clio earlier, maybe this, whatever this was, wouldn’t have happened.
I started walking toward Clio, to try to make things right somehow, but she was shouting, “Muses, clear out! To your entrance points!”
The other muses did as they were told, including Thalia, Nia, and Mela, who ran past me, half yelping, leaping to avoid the crawling piles of spiders forming everywhere.
“So freaky! Ugh,” I heard Nia shout as she ran by.
“I don’t want it, I don’t want it,” Mela repeated as she ran.
Then Thalia took off, and I watched as she picked a spider off her wrist and flung it across the room. I sprinted for the exits. I didn’t even know where my entrance point was in the museum. The only way out was through Queens, down the block, back to the apartment, through thousands—maybe a million—tiny, teeming, definitely not normal spiders.
Chapter 8
Fessing Up
Somebody had called the police, and now three cop cars were parked in front of the museum, their red and blue lights blazing and the sirens going off at full volume. Museum-goers were still running out of the Hall of Science, brushing past the officers, who stood there, dumbfounded, as more and more spiders crawled through the doors, then disappeared into the wooded park surrounding the museum.
I ran to a bench underneath a large tree and tried to catch my breath. My heart was doing somersaults in my chest, and my legs felt like jelly. Every once in a while, I shivered all over.
Whatever this was, the muses were at the center of it somehow. First spiders showed up in Miami and almost caused a car crash. Then there was an attack at the museum.
On top of all that, the Muse Squad was just given a mission to find the Gray Sisters, which was only the start of a bigger mission to find whoever the tenth muse might be. What if it was all connected somehow? The spiders and the tenth muse?
Closing my eyes helped. I knew what I had to do, what I should have done some time ago.
“Clio?” I asked into my bracelet. “We need to talk. I’m outside. On a bench.” I didn’t hear anything in return, but a few moments later, Clio emerged from the front doors of the museum, carrying a lunch bag. She made her way to where I was sitting, and I scooted over a bit to make room.
Clio opened up the lunch bag and gave me a brownie. “Still warm,” she said, and stretched her legs. I noticed a couple of crushed spiders sticking to the soles of her shoes, and I shuddered.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked after I swallowed the bite of brownie I’d taken.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Yes. The spiders. It’s not the first time something, um, spider-y has happened recently.”
Clio listened as I explained about Mario and the van. She didn’t say a word, only listened, and I found myself getting more and more nervous as I spoke. My voice was so shaky.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner, Clio. I really am. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence. But now this? This is bananas.”
Clio hummed in agreement. “It’s the whole fruit salad,” she said. “Apology accepted.”
Clio, making a joke? Everything really was bananas.
“What does it mean?” I asked over a mouthful of brownie.
“I have to say that I don’t know. It seems to me, given the fact that this invasion happened during our first meeting at the new headquarters, that somebody is trying to keep the muses from doing our work.”
“And our work is finding the tenth muse, right?”
Clio thought for a moment. “Yes, at this juncture that’s our most pressing mission.”
“The tenth muse must be really special, I guess,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans, leaving chocolate streaks behind. Laura was going to hate that. “But what’s up with the spiders?”
Clio sighed deeply. “The only thing these creatures,” she said, pointing at the spiders we could still spot here and there, “seem interested in is disruption and chaos.”
The word “chaos” sent a chill through me. Last year, when we’d battled the sirens, chaos had been their weapon of choice. And though the sirens shape-shifted into birds, mainly, they could take any form they wanted, eight legs and all.
“Is it sirens, Clio? Could they be back?”
“I haven’t ruled it out.” A cool breeze moved through the trees. “Mm, that’s nice,” Clio said. She leaned back and shut her eyes.
I closed my eyes, too, but my imagination wouldn’t settle down. The words “the tenth muse” and “spiders” appeared in my head. They were written on cream-colored banners, dancing in the air like gymnasts’ ribbons. Then the muse finde
r clock came into view, chiming its bell.
“Clio, I’m worried,” I said shakily.
She pulled me into a hug. “I know. We all are. I’ll do my best to find the answer to all of . . . this,” she said, gesturing at everything at once. Clio closed the lunch bag and stood. “Go back home, Callie. I have some research to do. In the meantime, the junior muses have three sisters they need to charm.”
“Any tips?” I asked.
“Churros. I hear they like them.” Clio winked and marched back to the Hall of Science.
Chapter 9
Drama at the Bodega
I walked back to the apartment, remembering the path Papi, Laura, and I had taken that morning. The yellow house looked a bit more cheerful in the afternoon sunlight, but my mood didn’t match it.
The fact that Clio didn’t know what was going on with the spiders worried me. If she couldn’t figure it out, what hope did I have?
I could hear Rafaelito crying from the porch. With a deep sigh, I climbed the stairs, opening the door to find Laura, her hair a mess, Rafaelito howling in her arms, and the smell of garlic coming from the kitchen.
“Smells good,” I said, taking my brother into my arms. He stopped crying and started pulling my hair instead. Hard. “Ow, you,” I said, and tickled him a bit to get him to stop.
Laura thanked me for taking Rafaelito and rushed into the kitchen. Two seconds later I heard her say, “Ay! I burned the rice.” She emerged with a scowl on her face, and a five-dollar bill clutched in her hand. “Here, muñeca. Go get some instant rice from the bodega, would you? And get yourself an ice cream, while you’re at it.”
“Okay.” I settled Rafaelito into his playpen, took the money, and put it in my pocket.
Back down the stairs I went and surprised myself by remembering to turn right to get to the Queen of Corona.
It was empty this time. The bodega cat came out to greet me. I bent down to look at its tag, which read YOGURT. “Hey, Yogurt,” I said, scratching behind its ears before walking to the back where the ice-cream counter was.
The Mystery of the Tenth Page 6