The Mystery of the Tenth

by Chantel Acevedo

  Lying down, the sphinx closed his eyes, as if he expected this to take a while.

  Mela groaned, balancing her mask on her fingers. “I hate riddles.”

  “I sort of like them,” Thalia said. “But only when they’re in books, and the main character figures them out, and not when we might actually become part of a sphinx’s digestive system. Muse Squad–flavored hairballs,” she said with a whimper.

  The rest of us watched as Mela and Thalia tried to work out the riddle. The sphinx had said we couldn’t help, and I tried hard to distract myself so that I wouldn’t accidentally use my muse magic. The thing was, it had gotten so easy to use. Just a picture in my head was all it took to inspire someone. I started counting backward from a hundred by sevens.

  “You look like you’re about to break your brain,” Ari whispered.

  Seventy-nine, seventy-two, sixty-five . . . “I think I did,” I said, then had to start counting all over again.

  Mela clapped her hands, and I could tell she’d had an idea. “Thalia, your emblem and mine are both used in the theater, right?”

  Thalia nodded. “Yes, that’s true. Go on.”

  “Well, back home in New Delhi, the youth theater that my mum bought me season passes for calls themselves the Garden Players, because they perform in the Garden of the Five Senses each spring. They work very hard . . .”

  Thalia’s mouth dropped open. “Because they’re players at work, and workers at play, and players is another word for . . .”

  “Actors!” Thalia and Mela said at once.

  The sphinx stood up and lumbered closer to the train until we could hear him breathing. With each riddle answered, he had gotten closer. “Took you long enough,” he purred. “Now it’s Calliope’s turn.”

  I swallowed loudly. So far, everyone’s riddles had something to do with their magic. The clue to the riddle Nia was given was in her emblem. Thalia and Mela, whose magic was inspired by comedy and tragedy, were given a theater riddle. Would my riddle be about poems? I wish Maris was here, I thought sadly. She’d know the answer to any poem-inspired riddle.

  The sphinx crouched, looking like a cat about to spring. His tail whipped the air above his body. “Ready?”

  I nodded.

  “What is always in front of you, but can’t be seen?”

  I tried to concentrate, shutting everyone else out by closing my eyes. But I could hear the sphinx breathing, and somebody fiddling with something metallic on the train, which didn’t help me focus at all, so I opened my eyes again.

  The answer would be something obvious. What was in front of me now? Air? That could work, but what if I was underwater? The answer wouldn’t be right then. What about my nose? It was always in front of me and I couldn’t see it without a mirror. Except when I crossed my eyes, of course.

  I could feel myself getting frustrated, and every little noise around me just sounded louder now. The sphinx started to laugh, low and rumbly, and I wished I could inspire him to go chase his tail for eternity, but my magic didn’t work on mythical creatures.

  Except that gave me an idea!

  The sphinx had said we couldn’t help one another with the riddles, but he didn’t say we couldn’t help ourselves. Slowly, I began to picture myself rising to my feet. I’d open my mouth, and the answer would just fly out. Again and again, I tried to imagine it, but I couldn’t. It was like I could have a hand in everyone else’s future, but I couldn’t see very far into mine.

  I growled in frustration. As always, my own destiny felt like a mystery to me. I could just picture everyone else doing the things they loved to do, changing the world, living up to their muse potential. But me? My future felt like a blank piece of paper.

  The sphinx startled to chuckle, and I lifted my head at the sound.

  “Calliope, full of questions. But she never has any answers,” the sphinx teased.

  “Don’t listen to that dumb cat,” Nia said.

  “I hope you get another hairball,” Thalia shouted.

  I got to my feet. “What did you say?” I asked the sphinx, a thought bubbling in my brain.

  The sphinx arched its back in a long stretch. “I said, you are full of questions, but have no answers. A bit like me actually. Would you like to trade places?”

  The answer to the riddle popped into my brain in bright lights, like fireworks spelling something out in the sky.

  “The future!” I shouted. “That’s the answer! It’s always before me, but I can’t see it.”

  The others clapped, while Ari shouted, “Let us through!”

  Huffing, the sphinx left the tracks without a word, and in one leap bounded up into a little alcove in the ceiling of the tunnel. The train rumbled back to life, and we passed by the sphinx, who peered down at us silently with golden, glowing eyes.

  “I thought I liked cats,” Mela said sadly.

  “You can still like them,” Thalia comforted her. “But maybe not that one.”

  I slumped down to the floor of the compartment. We’d gotten past the sphinx, but we still had no idea where the train was taking us. And while the emblems Aphrodite had given the others were helpful back there, would they be useful up ahead?

  Even worse, the sphinx had confirmed something for me—no matter how hard I tried, my future would be impossible to predict.

  Chapter 25

  A Giant Party

  After a while, the train took a sharp left turn, revealing a light up ahead. I didn’t know if we were still under New York City, or somewhere under Connecticut, or if we’d somehow rolled into another dimension. All I knew was that where the tunnel had been tight, now it was open, and in the distance were shadowy hills.

  We have to be ready for anything, I thought.

  Beside me, Nia, Thalia, and Mela had grabbed on to their emblems, shielding Ari behind them. The train slowed down, screeching as it came to a stop. The tunnel’s ceiling was now high above us, and we found ourselves in an open place, like a station of some kind. The hills in the distance remained in shadows.

  “Okay. Things just got really freaky,” Nia said.

  “Like they haven’t already been?” I asked. Just then, the train wobbled a little, as if something had pushed it.

  “What was that?” Ari asked.

  Before any of us could guess, a huge face appeared at one of the train cab’s windows. The face was so big that only one eye and half a nose was visible.

  “Gah!” Nia exclaimed, and held the star up, as if she was going to throw it at whatever that was.

  “Giant!” Thalia shouted, clutching her trumpet. “My mum was right!”

  “Howdy,” the giant said, her voice low and rumbly. She yawned, and her hot breath blasted over us.

  “Ew. It smells like stale popcorn,” Mela whispered.

  “Thanks for the ride,” the giant said, then she lumbered away toward the hills, calling out, “Momma! I’m back!”

  One of the hills shook, unfolding into another giant, taller than the first. “Harper Ann, you’re out past curfew.”

  Another hill awoke, smaller than the first two. “How was New York City?” he asked. The first giant, Harper Ann, pinched the shorter one’s cheeks.

  “It was big, Jackson. So big! What a city. I explored all the tunnels. But there’s nothing like home,” she said. “Those kids brought me back on the train. I slept the whole way. Awful kind of them.”

  “Can we keep ’em, Momma?” Jackson, the littlest giant, asked.

  The largest giant laughed and hugged the one that had been on our train. “I missed you, darling. And what have you got there?” she asked, pointing at Harper Ann’s pocket.

  Harper Ann dug into her pocket and pulled out the third piece of tapestry. “Momma, this was a gift from Athena herself. I told you New York was full of celebrities, but I didn’t expect to meet one of the Olympian gods.”

  Harper Ann’s mother plucked the tapestry from her daughter’s fingers. “That’s a wonderful gift. We ought to write her a thank-you note.”r />
  “What is it, Momma?” Harper Ann asked. “A scarf?”

  “Handkerchief,” Momma answered, and Harper Ann brought it to her nose and sniffed delicately into it.

  Ari was trembling from head to toe. “Yuck! How are we going to get that back, Callie? How?”

  “We can’t fight them,” Mela said. “They seem so nice.”

  “Maybe we can talk to them,” I suggested.

  Nia cleared her throat. “Excuse me, giant family? Can we talk?” she shouted.

  “Momma, look!” Jackson cried, and came running toward us. He thrust his fingers into the cab, wrapped them around Thalia’s waist, and yanked her out, hoisting her above his head.

  “No!” we all shouted, tumbling out of the train.

  “He’ll crush her!” Ari was saying.

  “Thalia, your emblem!” I shouted.

  Thalia managed to get her arms free from the young giant’s grip and lifted her trumpet to her mouth.

  “HAAAA HAAAAAAA!” she shouted into his face, using the trumpet to laugh so loudly that dust descended from the ceiling high above us.

  Jackson started to chuckle, then guffaw, until his eyes filled with tears and he started to cry and laugh at the same time. I knew the feeling. One time, at dinner, Maya and I started laughing so hard that she fell off her chair, and that made me laugh so hard I started to cry. Jackson dropped to the ground, letting Thalia tumble out of his hands. Once she was on her feet, she ran back to us, breathless.

  Momma’s eyes snapped in our direction. She stomped toward us, each step rattling the train. “My little boy is crying! Y’all weren’t taught any manners at all, that’s clear,” she said, pointing a finger at us.

  “That’s my tapestry!” Ari said, pointing at the cloth Harper Ann was holding up to her nose again. “And now it has boogers in it!”

  “Athena’s handkerchief was a gift to my daughter. How dare you?” Momma asked, her nostrils flaring as if we’d just insulted her outfit, or the way she decorated her house.

  “But I made him happy!” Thalia said. In the distance, Jackson was wailing as he laughed. “Sort of,” Thalia added.

  “Ma’am?” I asked. “Um, I think there’s been a mistake. That is a tapestry, an ancient one—and we need it.”

  “It was a gift!” Momma roared in our faces. “And I’ll not have you ruining Harper Ann’s big day. We are having a party, and giants from all over Jefferson County will be here in ten minutes to welcome her. And she will show off her gift from Athena, you mark my words. You can either go back the way you came, or you can be appetizers. Your call.”

  “We’re in Jefferson County?” Ari whispered. “That’s like five hours away from New York City by car!”

  “How fast was that train moving?” Nia asked.

  “Who cares?” Mela said. “More of their relatives are coming!”

  Ten minutes. In ten minutes, this place would be full of giants.

  And I did not want to become giant party food.

  “Thalia, you take the kid. Mela, Momma is all yours. Nia, can you start up the train again? Good. I’ll work on Harper Ann,” I said.

  “What about me?” Ari asked.

  “Let’s get this party canceled. Seems to me the giants have a bit of an insect problem on their hands.”

  Ari laughed. “You mean arachnids, but I’ve got you.” She sat crisscross on the floor of the train and closed her eyes. Within seconds, a tiny spider had crawled out from under a floorboard and was climbing up onto Ari’s hand. She held it up to her mouth and whispered something to it, and then the spider was off, running as fast as it could to spread the word.

  Thalia had crawled onto Jackson’s lap. She jumped onto his shoulder and started talking in his ear and making him laugh so hard that the tears started up again, this time the good, happy kind.

  As for Mela, she faced off with Momma, who had lowered herself into a crouch, trying to snatch her if she came too close.

  Mela’s mask rested on her face. She cocked her head to the side, and suddenly, Mela was no longer . . . Mela. She grew, filling out, until she was as tall as Momma and looked just like a giant, too.

  “Papa?” Momma asked. Mela lumbered forward and held Momma in a hug. “Oh, Papa, how I’ve missed you,” Momma said, crying softly. “These humans have come to ruin our Harper Ann’s party.”

  “They haven’t,” I heard Mela say in the giant’s rumbly voice. “They are good, like you. Let ’em go.”

  “I don’t want to,” she cried. “And I don’t want to let you go again, either.”

  Mela patted Momma’s head tenderly. “Give ’em what they want, honeybee. And you’ve got to let me go, too. I’m not really here, after all. Be at peace.”

  “I’ve missed you, Papa,” Momma said softly.

  I blinked back tears, reminded of Tia Annie and how she’d told me never to come looking for her again.

  Grief. Waves and waves of it, like Clio said. I hated it.

  Behind me, Nia clattered around on the train, shining her starlight into the dark places. “I think if I can get the boiler going, we can maybe get this thing to head in reverse. I wonder if starlight is hot enough to—”

  Suddenly, the firebox behind me lit up again, and the train whistle blew. I high-fived Nia and jumped down to where Harper Ann stood, clutching the tapestry to her nose.

  “That wasn’t a gift, Harper Ann,” I said gently. “It was a trick. Athena wanted you to have it so that we couldn’t get it back.”

  Harper Ann shook her head. “That’s not true. I’m special. It’s my birthday, you know. This is my birthday gift from Athena.” Her eyes were glittering with tears, and her voice cracked as she spoke.

  “Happy birthday, Harper Ann. You are special. You can be anything you want to be,” I said.

  “I want to be an architect. That’s why I convinced Momma to let me go to New York.” Harper Ann blew her nose again, and the tapestry was starting to look a bit damp.

  “You want to make . . . buildings?” I asked.

  “All kinds!” Harper Ann said. “Skyscrapers, and castles, and rooms without walls, and buildings shaped like food!”

  “Then do it!” I said. At this point, every inch of me was tingling with muse magic. I imagined Harper Ann surrounded by blueprints, her big hands doing delicate work with rulers and sharpened pencils, designing the buildings of her dreams. I’d never been able to use it against anyone who wasn’t human before. Whenever I’d tried, I’d felt the resistance, like my magic hitting a wall. Now the wall was gone. But I didn’t have an emblem like the others. How was I doing it?

  Thalia had Jackson laughing hard, while Mela and Momma were holding hands, conversing, and she was smiling through her tears. Mela may have been the Muse of tragedy, but right now, she was helping Momma feel better. The train shook on its wheels, ready to head back to New York City.

  And Harper Ann?

  Harper Ann was drawing designs into the dust at her feet. They were large, and detailed, and it looked like she was planning a building with three arched entries separated by Greek columns.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A library. It’s modeled after the New York Public Library, in fact. Have you ever been?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Well,” Harper Ann continued, “it’s a wonder. I want to build a library like that here. You should go see it. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for,” she said absently.

  I laid my hand on hers. My whole hand was the size of her pinkie fingernail. “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  Harper Ann bit her lip in concentration as she drew. “Dunno. Just sprung to mind, that’s all.”

  “Hey, Harper Ann? This right here,” I said, pointing at her drawings, “this is what will impress the guests at your birthday party. Not a soggy handkerchief.”

  She was so caught up in her drawings that Harper Ann only nodded, let the tapestry fall at my feet, and kept working.

  I bundled up the wet and st
icky tapestry, gagging a bit, and ran to the train. “Come on!” I shouted to the others.

  But Momma jerked her head up at the last minute, her eyes narrowing. “Athena’s gift!” she shouted, and pushed Mela away. The mask slipped off Mela’s face, and she was Mela-sized again, rolling away to avoid getting stepped on by Momma.

  “Run!” I shouted, while Nia waved us all on board.

  But Momma put her hands on either side of the train, holding it in place. “You return Athena’s gift, young ladies!” she hollered at us.

  “It’s mine!” Ari shouted, and in that moment, about a million spiders poured into the giants’ station.

  “Our party!” Momma cried at the sight of the spiders. “Ruined by an infestation of bugs!”

  “Arachnids!” Thalia shouted through her horn, which made Momma let go of the train.

  We lurched backward, hurtling down the tunnel back to New York City. We watched them until the giants were tiny, and then, they were gone.

  “I hope they’re okay,” Mela said, sniffing.

  “Me, too,” Nia added.

  “That was rotten of Athena to use Harper Ann in such a way,” Thalia said.

  As for Ari, she was holding the third piece of the tapestry with the tips of her fingers. “I can’t believe this has giant boogers on it.”

  I sat in a corner while the train rolled on, thinking about what had just happened. I didn’t even have an emblem, and I’d managed to inspire the giant to follow her dreams. And while the other eight muses all still needed a kódikas, the only thing I had to do was think my magic to me, use my imagination to picture what I wanted to happen, and there it was.

  I watched as Nia, Thalia, Mela, and Ari played hot potato with Nia’s star.

  I imagined: scratch.

  Thalia raked her fingers against her knee.

  I pictured: yawn.

  Mela opened her mouth in a huge, sleepy yawn.

  By then my hands were trembling a little and my stomach was doing backflips. Had my magic really become this easy to use?

  I started to envision: sneeze, but Ari looked up at me, a frown on her face. Slowly, she shook her head. I’d forgotten that Ari could feel our magic. Ashamed, I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my head on them. I sat that way until we got back to the Atlantic Avenue tunnel, and the manhole where we had first stepped down into it.