“Grandma?” I whispered, a bad, bad feeling ballooning up in my stomach. “Is something wrong?”
After a moment, Grandma Frost turned to stare at me. Tears dripped down her cheeks, filling in every single wrinkle in her skin, and she suddenly looked a hundred years old.
I wasn't psychic, not like my grandma was. I couldn't see the future, but somehow, I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“There's been a terrible accident,” Grandma Frost began.
I didn't hear the rest of her words.
I had started screaming again.
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The next few daysâno, the next few weeksâground by in a grief-filled haze. My mom had been in a car wreck on her way home from the police station that night. A drunk driver had come out of nowhere and T-boned her car before driving off. Supposedly, my mom had died instantly. She'd been hurt so badly in the wreck that Grandma Frost refused to let me see her body, and the casket was closed at her funeral.
Really, though, the only thing I could think about was the fact that my mom was deadâand that it was all my fault.
If only I hadn't picked up Paige's hairbrush after gym class, if only I hadn't wanted to know what she was hiding, if only I hadn't wanted to know so badly what her secret was.
If only I'd used Bethany's hairbrush instead, none of this would have happened. I never would have seen what Paige's stepdad was doing to her, and my mom would never have been out so late that night. My mom would have been home with me and not in the path of that stupid drunk driver.
Of course, the flip side was that Paige's stepdad would still have been abusing her and no one would have known about it. No one would have helped Paige.
I didn't know which idea made me sicker: my mom dying because I'd been so damn nosy, or Paige being hurt again and again because I hadn't been. The ugly, guilty thoughts kept spinning around and around in my head, like a crazy carousel that I couldn't stop and couldn't get off, no matter how much I wanted to.
I didn't do much of anything after that. I didn't go back to school. I didn't do homework. I didn't talk to my friends. I barely ate, and I hardly slept. I just stayed in my room at Grandma Frost's house and cried.
And cried and cried and cried some more.
Grandma did everything she could to make me feel better. She cooked me special meals and baked me special desserts and held me when I cried. She told me over and over again that it wasn't my fault, that it was just a quirk of the gods, a cruel twist of fate that even she hadn't seen coming with all her psychic powers. Gods or not, fate or not, nothing she said changed my mind.
My mom's death was my faultâand all the guilt and blame were mine to bear.
Alone. Forever.
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One morning, about three weeks after my mom's funeral, a knock sounded on the front door.
It was early and cold for May, so cold that a layer of frost had coated everything outside with a thin sheet of silver ice. The knock sounded again, but I was too busy staring out my bedroom window at nothing in particular to answer it. Besides, it was probably just one of my grandma's clients, come to get their fortune told. Grandma Frost had started seeing people again this week, saying that she needed to keep busy, that she needed to do something besides sit around and think about the fact that her daughter was dead. She'd tried to get me to do the sameâto do something, anything, to take my mind off things.
Grandma was hurting, too, so I did my best to please her. For starters, I helped Grandma box up everything in my old house and move it over to hers, since I was living with her now. I fixed up my room just the way I wanted it, watched TV, and pretended to read my comic books, although I couldn't remember what happened from one colorful page to the next. And when I cried, I did so in my room late at night, where Grandma wouldn't see or hear me, even though I knew she was doing the same thing in her room down the hall.
But nothing I did eased the ache in my heartâor helped me deal with my guilt over my mom's death.
“Gwen!” Grandma Frost called out several minutes later. “Come downstairs, please!”
So it wasn't one of her clients after all. Otherwise, Grandma would have been busy telling the person her fortune by now. I sighed, wiped the latest round of tears off my face, and plodded down to the kitchen.
To my surprise, two people sat at the kitchen tableâGrandma Frost and the woman she was drinking tea with.
The woman lifted the blue, snowflake-covered teacup to her lips and took a small, precise sip. Then she put the cup back down, positioning it on the table just so, before looking at me. She was short, with a body that looked stocky and strong inside her black pantsuit and white shirt. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and her eyes were a soft green behind her silver glasses.
She stared at me for several seconds, her gaze lingering on my face, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. I couldn't imagine what she saw in my bleary eyes and splotchy, red cheeks that interested her so much. Finally, the woman pushed back her chair, got to her feet, and stretched out her hand in my direction.
“Hello, Gwen,” she said. “I'm Professor Metis.”
I looked at her hand, hovering there in the space between us. Because of my psychometry magic, I had to be careful about touching other people or letting them touch me. I got vivid vibes off objects, but I could get major, major flashes of feeling if I touched another person's bare skin. Sometimes I could see everything a person had ever done, from all the good things she'd accomplished to all the dark, twisted secrets she held close to her heart. As bad as it had been to see what Paige's stepdad was doing to her, the memories, the emotions, and the intensity of them would have been that much worse if I'd grabbed Paige's hand that day instead of her hairbrush.
“Gwen doesn't shake hands, Professor Metis,” Grandma Frost said in what almost sounded like a warning tone.
“Of course not,” Metis said, dropping her hand. “I forgot. My mistake. I apologize.”
Grandma gestured toward the third chair at the table. “Sit down, Gwen. Please.”
I did as she asked. I'd just plopped down when I realized my grandma had used my name instead of calling me
pumpkin
like she usually did. I sneaked a glance at Grandma Frost and realized that her lips were pressed together into a tight, thin line. She was almost always smiling, so why did she look so serious? Even her scarves hung limp and straight around her body, the coins on the fringe still and silent, like they didn't dare jangle together right now.
For the first time since my mom's death, some of the dull, aching, guilty fog lifted from my head, and I started to wonder who Professor Metis was and what she was doing here. For some reason, I didn't think I was going to like the answer.
Grandma Frost looked at me, her violet eyes as serious as the rest of her face. “Professor Metis is here to tell you about your new school, pumpkin.”
I blinked. New school? I had a school alreadyâAshland High Schoolâeven if I hadn't been to class in weeks or given any thought to when I was going back.
“What new school?” I asked in a guarded tone.
Metis smiled at me, her teeth white against her bronze skin. “It's called Mythos Academy. It's where I teach.”
Mythos Academy? That sounded totally pretentious, like some fancy, froufrou private school that rich people sent their spoiled kids to.
“It's up on Cypress Mountain,” Metis continued, sitting back down. “Not too far from here.”
I frowned. I'd actually heard of Cypress Mountain. It was a small community on the outskirts of Asheville, some suburb up in the North Carolina high country that tourists flocked to because it was full of high-end shops and boutiques that sold primo designer goods.
But that wasn't all I'd heard about Cypress Mountain. Last summer, Bethany and her cousin had been to a party with some kids who went to school somewhere up there. Bethany had said that all the kids were loaded, driving expensive cars and wearing designer clothes. She'd also told me that those kids had drunk, smoked, and hooked up more than everyone else at the partyâcombined.
“And it's a boarding school, so you'll be living there on campus, come the fall,” Metis finished.
Panic rippled through me at her words, and my head snapped around to Grandma Frost, who was already shaking her head in anticipation of what I was going to say.
“Now, don't you worry, pumpkin,” Grandma said. “I'll be just fine, and you will, too.”
“But I don't want to leave you. I
can't
.” My words came out in a hoarse, strangled rasp. Tears started burning in the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I can't lose you, too.”
Grandma Frost reached over and clasped my hand. Her soft, warm fingers and the matching feel of her love for me did little to drive away the cold that had suddenly seeped into my body. “You're not going to lose me, pumpkin. I'll be right here in this old house, telling my fortunes like normal. There's a bus that runs from Cypress Mountain down here to Asheville every day, and you'll be able to visit me anytime you want to. Right, Professor?”
Metis shifted in her chair. “Well, actually, students aren't allowed to leave campus during the week, but I'm sure we can arrange some visits on the weekends.”
A spark of anger began to burn in my heart. I was being shipped off to some stupid boarding school, and the Powers That Were thought they were going to keep me away from my grandma? I didn't think so. I'd come visit Grandma Frost any damn time I wanted to. No walls, gates, iron bars, or whatever else they might have at this Mythos Academy would keep me from doing that.
Still, I struggled to be calm. Maybe there was a chance I could get out of going to this stupid academy.
“But why do I have to go to this school?” I said. “Why can't I just go back to my regular school? Maybe in the fall?”
“Because Mythos isn't just any school, Gwen,” Metis said. “It's for kids like you. Kids with magic.”
Magic
. The word hung in the air between us, and for a moment I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. But Metis kept staring at me, and so did Grandma Frost. It hadn't been a mistake or a slip of the tongue. Somehow, Metis knew that I had magic.
“So you know? About my Gypsy gift?” I asked in a small voice.
Metis nodded. “I do. Your grandmother told me about it and the . . . accident that you had with it a few weeks ago. The teachers at Mythos can help you keep that from happening again. We can teach you how to fully harness your psychometry magic, Gwen. Among . . . other things.”
I thought I had a pretty good grip on my magic already. I'd freaked out and started screaming only when I'd touched Paige's hairbrush, because the memories attached to it had been so horrible. But what were these
other things
Metis had mentioned? And why did she look so grim about them?
“What kinds of kids go there?” I asked. “What kind of magic do they have? Are they Gypsies like me?”
Metis looked at my grandma again. “It varies, depending on the student and her background. But the Vikings and Valkyries are very strong, while the Romans and Amazons are very quick.”
Valkyries? Amazons? What was she talking about? Metis sounded like my mom. Next thing you knew, she'd be spouting off about how the gods were real.
Despite my confusion, I focused on her words. “Strong? Quick? What do you mean? Strong like they can bench press a hundred pounds strong? Or strong like Hulk strong?” I gestured at a stack of comic books on the counter.
Metis stared at me. “Hulk strong. Supernaturally strong. Magically strong.”
“Oh.”
That was all I could say. The dull ache that had fogged my brain had burned away, but it had been replaced by a throbbing knot of worryâand more than a little curiosity, too. Even now, even after my mom's death and my guilt over it, some small part of me wondered about these kids who could do things like meâand what kind of magic and secrets they might have.
I noticed that Metis hadn't really answered my question about whether there were other Gypsy students at Mythos Academy, but a dozen other questions had already popped into my head.
“But how and whyâ”
“I'm sorry, Gwen, but it's already been decided.” Grandma Frost cut me off. “I've enrolled you, and Professor Metis has set up your class schedule already.”
Metis reached under the table and pulled out a leather briefcase. She set it on her lap, popped open the lid, and rustled around inside. Then she closed the case and passed me a sheet of paper. I looked at it a second before taking it from her.
I held my breath, but I didn't get any unwanted vibes or flashes off the paper. Just the sense of its having rolled through a laser printer somewhere before Metis put it in her briefcase. No surprise there. Most of the time, I was pretty safe when it came to touching ordinary things that had a specific function, like pens, dishes, or doorknobs. People just didn't think much about those kinds of things or leave many vibes on them. The same was true of stuff that lots of people used every day, like the computers in the library at my school.
My old school now,
I thought.