The Mystery of the Tenth

by Chantel Acevedo

  Maris dabbed a tear from her eye. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Along the walls were shelves and shelves full of books. “I love us,” she said.

  “Us?” I asked.

  Maris beamed. “Yeah, us. Writers and readers. I wouldn’t want to be in any other artist group, would you?” she asked.

  All around us, people were reading and writing. They were concentrating. They were creating whole worlds in their heads. For the first time since I’d set foot at Corona Arts, I felt like I got it. Maybe poets really were special. Maris may not have been as showy as the theater kids, or paint-splattered like the visual artists. Maybe she couldn’t dance or build a massive set. Hers was a quieter kind of gift, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a powerful one.

  “There’s an exhibit I want you both to see in the children’s room. It features displays of children’s poems from World War II. Once you’ve spent time there, please select one of the poems on display, and write a new one in response. Imagine that kid from long ago is your pen pal, and your poem is going to time travel,” Mr. Theo said. “After you’ve seen the exhibit, meet back here in the Rose Reading Room, say in . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes. Good?” We nodded, then Mr. Theo left us, his own notebook tucked under his arm.

  “So where should we go? Exhibit first, or wandering first?” Maris asked.

  I didn’t want to leave the Rose Reading Room just yet. Besides, the other muses hadn’t arrived. Tia Annie said I had to finish Ari’s story. Maris was good at stories. Maybe she could help.

  “Maris, can you help me with a poem?” I asked.

  Maris’s eyes widened. “Yes!” she said, and we sat together at one of the tables. Maris folded her hands, waiting.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay. So let’s say I wanted to write a long poem. An epic one. About righting a wrong.” I stopped and thought for a second. Maris just looked on, listening carefully. “And I want to write about a person who has to defeat someone very powerful.”

  “Sounds like a hero myth,” Maris said.

  “Hero myth?”

  Maris nodded. “Mm-hmm. There’s a pattern to those kinds of stories,” she said. “Heroes are called to action somehow, mostly to correct an injustice. It’s usually a challenge, or a loss of some kind, that gets them going. They find a wise person to guide them. Then they go on a quest. They usually have a magical item that helps them defeat their antagonist.” She ticked off each element with her fingers.

  “This all sounds really familiar,” I said.

  “’Course it is. Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings. They all follow the same pattern.”

  Maris couldn’t know that those movies weren’t why I found it all so familiar.

  The hero’s myth sounded like Arachne’s life.

  And mine.

  “And don’t forget Hercules!” Maris said. “He had to defeat twelve monsters in order to fight off Hera.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Hercules fought Hera—the queen of the gods?” I asked.

  Maris grinned. “Not one-on-one. She sent all these monsters his way, and he beat every last one. He defeated a nine-headed hydra, captured a magical deer! Then there was the boar. And he cleaned some yucky stables!” Maris said. “There was a three-headed dog, I think. And something about some cattle?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Oh! And the lion!”

  I sat up at that. “A what?”

  “The Nemean lion,” Maris said. “That was the first monster he defeated.”

  The moment she said it, I knew. Those lions outside weren’t just statues. The hairs on my arms stood up. The lions were enormous and muscular, and suddenly I felt very small.

  “How did Hercules win?” I asked.

  “Well, he was strong. Mainly, he just overpowered all the monsters,” Maris said, and she flexed her arms with a grin. “Most heroes, though, require help. From friends. There’s more power in numbers than in muscles. And they use their brains most of all.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the Muse Squad making their way into the Rose Reading Room. I jumped up, startling Maris. “Um, thanks. This was super helpful. I think I’ll find a spot to write in. But you should go see the exhibits.”

  Maris looked at me funny, of course. “Oh. Happy to help,” she said a bit gloomily. She rose and turned around. “I am excited to read your poem,” Maris added. Then she left, and headed deep into the library. She had three pens in her hair today, and they bobbed in her bun as she walked away.

  “Hey!” Thalia shouted as soon as she spotted me, earning her a “Shh!” from about twenty different people. She had on a butterfly-shaped backpack, and I could tell that she’d packed her emblem into it. Mela’s mask dangled around her neck, along with her headphones. As for Nia, the left pocket of her sweatpants was glowing.

  I rushed up to greet them. “Thanks for coming. I know where the tapestry is.”

  “Where?” Nia asked.

  “Underneath one of the lions outside the library,” I whispered.

  Mela and Thalia both gasped, then said “Awww” at once, clasping their hands under their chins like I’d just said something adorable.

  Nia and I just stared at them. “What’s wrong with you two?” she asked.

  “They haven’t read it,” Mela said.

  “No, clearly,” Thalia responded.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Mela sighed. “It’s a picture book my mother used to read to me. Katie in London.”

  “My mum read it to me, too,” Thalia said. “A girl named Katie climbs atop a lion statue in Trafalgar Square. The lion comes to life and gives her and her brother a tour of the city. As a reward, Katie gives her shawl to the lion, so that he has something warm to sleep on.”

  “It’s sweet,” Mela said. “You know how I feel about cats. We can’t take the sweet lion’s blanket!” Mela did love cats, but this was taking it too far.

  Nia and I were silent for a moment. I clapped my hands and shouted, “Snap out of it! Focus!”

  More librarygoers went “Shhh,” and I led the Muse Squad out of the Rose Reading Room before we got in bigger trouble.

  We looked at the lion through the window in the library’s foyer. It was as still as ever, and there was the final tapestry piece, completely stuck under the statue, as if it had always been there.

  “Where’s Ari, by the way?” Nia asked.

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve been texting her, but she hasn’t answered.”

  “She’s definitely around here somewhere,” Thalia said, pointing a shaky finger back at the lion.

  We watched as thousands of spiders began crawling up the lion’s pedestal in straight rows. There was an army of them, squeezing in between the lion and the tapestry. Slowly, the lion started to wobble.

  “You think they can just lift it?” Mela asked.

  “There’s more power in numbers than in muscles,” I whispered, repeating what Maris had said earlier.

  The lion tilted to the left a little. I saw a flash of dark hair behind it. Ari! She was sneaking around the back of the statue, her hands reaching out for the tapestry. Her fingers grasped the edge of the cloth, pinching hard and pulling.

  “Come on, Ari!” Nia whispered.

  Ari put her foot up on the pedestal, bracing herself, when suddenly we heard a deep, rumbling roar.

  “Let’s go!” I shouted, and we poured out of the front doors, toward Ari and the lion.

  If you’ve ever heard a lion roar in real life, then you know it sounds as if it’s coming from deep underground. Like the lion has pulled the roar out from some hidden, echoing cavern. It’s a majestic sound, but also a really scary one.

  And this lion, Fortitude, was roaring as if Hades himself had supplied its voice.

  People who had been climbing the stairs to the library stopped and ran, though a few took out their cell phones to record. Ari had her fingers around the tapestry, and her spiders just kept coming, trying to lift the stone lion off its ba
se.

  Another roar, and another after that, filled the air. Now Patience, the other lion, was roaring, too. But neither moved. They were still statues.

  “Give me my tapestry!” Ari was shouting as she tugged on the cloth, her voice drowned out by the noisy, grumbling lions.

  People were gathering at the foot of the stairs.

  “We need to get these people out of here,” I said.

  Beside me, Nia tapped on her phone, read the results of her app, and got to work. Mela’s fingers fluttered before her, sending two nearby men into tears. Thalia pulled her trumpet from her backpack. She giggled into it, and suddenly everyone on the stairs was laughing. A moment later, every cell phone in the vicinity started ringing, and people fetched their phones out of pockets and purses and wandered away from the stairs and the stone lions.

  For a second, I let myself think we had it under control, but that’s when the lions sprang to life, fur, teeth, and all.

  Ari jumped back, a set of massive jaws just missing her hands. The spiders scurried away, as both Patience and Fortitude bounded off their pedestals. Fortitude had the tapestry in its mouth now and was whipping it around like a puppy with a new toy.

  An angry puppy.

  An angry, vicious puppy.

  Snarling, Patience bounded over to us. The fur on its back rose. A long line of spit dangled from its lower jaw. Patience was guarding Fortitude as it played with the tapestry.

  Of course, we lost our concentration then, and we heard shrieks all around us as people started noticing the lions again. I looked in one of the library windows, and there were loads of people with their noses pressed to the glass, their eyes wide.

  How are we going to fix this? I thought desperately.

  What had Tia Annie said last night? She’d said I wasn’t alone. In fact, she’d said, You’ve got a whole squad.

  I lifted my bracelet to my mouth. “Clio, we need help at the New York Public Library.”

  The others heard me, and soon they were talking into their communication items, too.

  Nia cupped the globe on her necklace in her hands, and I could hear her saying, “Mayday, mayday! We’ve got feline trouble!”

  Mela was muttering into her ring, “They’re just big cats, right? Somebody bring some catnip!”

  Thalia was talking into her ring, too: “All right, you lot. We’ve battled enough monsters on our own. And now half of New York is watching!”

  Fortitude lay down, tired from playing at last. Its front paws held down the tapestry while it gnawed on one end. Patience backed up and cuddled with Fortitude. If they weren’t so terrifying, it would have been sort of cute.

  Meanwhile, we tried to keep people away from the stairs. They were laughing, or crying, or staring at their cell phones. I inspired twenty-two people to go get an ice-cream cone two blocks away before I started getting dizzy and had to stop. At one point my eyes locked onto Maris, who was standing at the door to the museum, tugging on the collars of two little boys who were just standing there, mouths wide, pointing at the lions.

  “Come on, kids. Coloring pages in the children’s section. Lots of coloring pages!” I heard her shouting as she yanked the kids back into the library.

  There were people at every one of the library’s windows, crowding around. I thought: epiphany, and suddenly the people jumped out of sight. I was pretty sure they’d be working on poems all afternoon.

  A fire truck parked in front of the library, its lights on and sirens blasting. A firefighter spoke through a megaphone: “Step away from the lions. Step away from the lions.”

  “Over my dead body,” Ari muttered.

  I was afraid she actually meant that.

  That’s when we heard the first stirring notes of a flute filling the air. The firefighter with the megaphone started swaying. Elnaz and Tomiko were standing on one of the lions’ pedestals, conducting New Yorkers, who began dancing away from the library.

  Here and there, people were hugging one another, while couples kissed. I knew Etoro was nearby, and I searched until I found her sitting in the shade of an elm tree.

  The shrieking that had been constant slowed down and stopped, until all was quiet except for the grumbling lions. I saw Paola step out of a taxi, her bells ringing, peacefulness following her wherever she went.

  “That’s everyone but Clio,” Nia said.

  Thalia pointed at one of the library windows. “There she is.” We watched as Clio moved through the rooms. As she passed them, people froze in place. She was holding back time for a little while.

  Paola climbed the steps slowly until she reached us. She observed the lions. “What are you going to do now, muchachitas?”

  “Over here!” Ari called. She’d gone down the steps to the sidewalk and was standing in front of a hot-dog stand. I like a good hot dog as much as anybody, but her timing was terrible.

  “Lunch later!” I shouted at her, not wanting to turn my back on the lions.

  Ari stomped her foot and climbed back up the stairs. “Not for me,” she said. “For the lions. Do your thing with the hot-dog guy and get those dogs.”

  Thalia was the first to snap to it. She lifted her trumpet to her mouth and asked in the hot-dog vendor’s direction, “What did the ketchup say to the hot dog?”

  The vendor, a man with a long, red beard and a topknot, looked up and shrugged.

  “‘Nice to meat you!’ Get it? Nice to meat you?”

  The hot-dog vendor giggled, snorted, and finally started laughing so hard that he wandered away from his cart, wiping his eyes and muttering, “Meat you . . . meat you . . .”

  “Go! Go! Go!” Ari shouted, and the five of us scrambled down the stairs, and together, hoisted the cart up until we were just a few feet away from the lions.

  “Get ’em while they’re hot!” Nia shouted as we tilted the cart onto its side, spilling hot dogs everywhere.

  The lions sniffed the air, their nostrils flaring. Then, they jumped right onto the pile of hot dogs, leaving Ari’s tapestry alone at last. It was their first meal ever, and they purred as they ate.

  “Aw, hungry kitties,” Mela said.

  Ari scrambled forward and grabbed the chewed-up tapestry. The moment it was in her possession, the lions stopped eating. They glanced at one another, then climbed back onto their pedestals. In an instant, they were once again stone lions, guarding the New York Public Library, just as they’d done for over a hundred years.

  “They really do need a blanket,” Thalia said sadly.

  By then, the other muses had managed to get rid of nearly everyone who had been watching the chaos unfold. Clio emerged from the library eventually, having unfrozen everyone from time.

  “Won’t they remember what they saw?” Mela asked Clio when she joined us.

  Clio shook her head. “Sometimes, the way time passes can feel like a dream. They’ll go home, have foggy thoughts about their funny day, and forget it ever happened.”

  There was something I had to say. It was something I should have said long ago. “Clio, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t do what you asked. Athena isn’t going to just change her mind,” I said. I realized that it didn’t matter if Clio approved or didn’t. I turned to look at Ari, who was holding up the final piece of the tapestry to the light. There was a smile on her face, and a look I hadn’t seen there before. It was happiness, I realized. I knew we’d made the right choice.

  “I think you are right,” Clio said softly.

  “Come again?” Nia asked.

  “Yes, please do repeat that. I think I just had a momentary hallucination,” Thalia added.

  “You were right to help Ari,” Clio said. “A muse always trusts her instincts, and you did. But now it’s up to her.”

  We all watched Ari for a moment—all nine muses.

  Ari looked back at us and squared her shoulders. We’d faced a cyclops, a pasta-making Medusa, a family of giants, and two ferocious lions. She smiled at us and mouthed the words thank you.

  Clio stepped fo
rward, her hand reaching out to Ari when, suddenly, a large owl swooped down from the sky, landing right on top of Fortitude’s head.

  I knew that owl.

  The owl fluffed up its feathers and screeched twice. Then, in a single, swirling gesture, the owl transformed into Athena. She slid down Fortitude’s back and came to stand between Ari and the muses.

  “Greetings,” Athena said, wiping her hands on the blue velvet pants she was wearing. She had on a matching top, the color of the sky, and her hair was in a high ponytail. “Poor lions, they only wanted to play,” she said.

  “We’ve completed your quest,” Ari said.

  Athena shook her finger at her. “No, no, no. We still have the contest to hold. Your tapestry against mine. I have to say, mine is in better shape. But perhaps a bit dusty, isn’t that right, Clio?”

  Clio’s face was very serious. It felt like ages ago that she and I had found Athena’s tapestry in Clio’s office.

  “Yes, Dread Goddess. Your tapestry is safe,” Clio said.

  “I’m so glad,” Athena said, smiling at all of us as if this were just a nice little visit. “We should arrange the terms of the contest.”

  Ari was clutching her piece of tapestry to herself. The lion had torn it a great deal, and it looked like little more than scraps of fabric. “Name the terms,” Ari said.

  “Just as before. We will present both tapestries and let the people decide,” Athena said.

  Ari’s bottom lip trembled as she stood there. Courage, I thought desperately, but held my magic back. I knew Ari didn’t like it when I used my magic on her.

  “This time, you’ll honor the people’s vote?” Ari asked.

  “I’ll honor the truth, little spinner,” Athena said.

  Etoro wheeled forward, with Paola right behind her. “That is not an answer.”

  Athena whirled in Etoro and Paola’s direction, anger etched on her face for the first time since she’d arrived. “IT IS THE ANSWER YOU ARE GETTING, MUSES.”

  The elder muses didn’t flinch, even when Athena tried to stare them down.