Thinking of my task from Uncle Barnabas, I pointed to it, raising my brows.
Nell shook her head, writing down on her notebook, Find one we don’t have to steal, you idiot. Then she added, Eleanor isn’t what you think. Try a lizard or frog.
A frog! It was the first time Al had spoken since earlier that morning. His presence had turned into a hum of static in my body. Sometimes it intensified, like he was trying to listen or do something. Other times, it was so quiet I could almost forget he was there at all.
I walked through the day in an overwhelmed daze. I had the weirdest feeling that I was outside my own body, watching myself move through the yellow-tiled hallways and their red lockers. From door to door, class to class, hour to hour.
Second period was language arts, with Ms. Mell—a young, blond teacher who had the nervous habit of lecturing about pronouns to the floor instead of to us.
Then it was off to third period for pre-algebra with Mrs. Johnson, who called on me for every single question, either because she was trying to force herself to learn my name, or just to torture me.
Fourth period was humanities with Mr. Gupta. Redhood Academy had combined language arts and humanities into one class—English—so it was actually kind of awesome when I found out that the class was dedicated to studying all kinds of famous works: writing, poetry, mythology, and actual art. And no boring grammar rules.
Mr. Gupta drummed his hands against his desk. “It’s time…for another round of It’s All Greek to Me! Which team will reign supreme and ascend to the heights of Mount Olympus and feast on the ambrosia of a magnificent pizza lunch?”
Mr. Gupta really loved teaching his Greek mythology unit.
Around me, Nell and the other students were shifting their desks, reluctantly scooting them so there was a clear divide between each side of the room. My team was slumped in their chairs or sneaking looks at their phones in their backpacks.
“We never win,” Nell explained in a whisper. “I know that’ll be a change of pace for you, but try not to sulk.”
A change of pace for me…? The last thing I’d won in life was a Silence Cake–eating contest, and only because the guy next to me barfed in his mouth and was disqualified. But before I could explain that, the trivia battle began.
“Why did Athena and Poseidon compete with one another?” Mr. Gupta asked.
Hey—I knew that one. Dad and I used to pore over this amazing mythology book each night before bed. I started to raise my hand, but the guy from the bus, the one with the baseball cap—now hatless, thanks to school rules—shot his hand up into the air.
What art thou…you doing? Alastor demanded. Answer the man, fool!
Al clearly did not understand the rules of this game, if he understood the concept of “rules” at all.
“Yes, Parker?” Mr. Gupta called.
“When Athens was being founded, they competed to see who the Greeks would choose to name the city after,” he said while his team pounded their desks in approval. “Poseidon could only give them salt water, which isn’t exactly useful. But Athena gave the people an olive tree, which they could use, so they named the city after her instead.”
“That’s correct!” Mr. Gupta said, marking one point for Team Two on the whiteboard. “Next question, my demigods. Who searched for the Golden Fleece?”
That was easy. Jason and the Argonauts.
You must answer the man, Maggot, not bask in your own brilliance! Alastor growled. The other team conquers yours!
The girl beside me, Anna, was quick to answer. “Perseus?”
Ack, no—
“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Team Two?”
It was clear that Parker was the key to their success. He smiled smugly before answering, “Jason and the Argonauts.”
We do not like him. Alastor’s voice was flat and cold. Do not allow him to take your throne of…this…pizza.
A sharp elbow jabbed into my side as I raised my hand to answer Mr. Gupta’s question about Zeus’s wife.
“Hera,” I said. Finally, we were on the board. A boy sitting opposite Nell looked up from where he was knotting and unknotting his sweatshirt strings.
“Holy crap, we have a point,” he said, ignoring Mr. Gupta’s warning: “Language!”
It went back and forth between the two teams. A girl sitting a few seats behind me answered the next one, which sparked another girl into answering the one after that.
“Who completed the Twelve Labors?”
Another point for our team. It volleyed back and forth and back and forth until there was only one question left, and we were, of course, tied.
“And now…for the pizza party,” Mr. Gupta said, deepening his already deep voice. “Who killed the Chimera?”
I knew this one….I knew it….Dad and I had read this story together a few times, but I couldn’t pull the name out, it was on the tip of my tongue. It started with a P—no, with a B, didn’t it? I glanced over at Parker, who was staring at the ceiling, squinting hard in thought.
Come on, come on…
“Someone must know this,” Mr. Gupta said. “Suuuurely you all did your reading?”
There was the sound of uncomfortable shifting. Chairs creaking.
Then the memory rose, floating up like a feather. A voice at the back of my mind whispered the answer. I lifted a tentative hand, swallowing my nerves.
“Yes, Ethan?” Mr. Gupta asked.
Don’t let me mess up… Nell’s eyes bored into the side of my head. Everyone’s did.
“Bellerophon,” I said.
Mr. Gupta was silent for a beat.
Then he grinned. “That’s correct!”
“Yessssssssss!” The kid beside me, Blake, pumped both fists into the air like I’d just won us a gold medal at the Olympics. Blood rushed to my face as my teammates pounded the top of their desks.
“Oh my God, we never win—no one can beat Parker! Good job, Ethan!” a girl—Sara, I think—said. On the other side of the room, Parker scowled in my direction, quickly looking away to stuff his notebook into his backpack.
It is a difficult thing, to lose, Alastor mused with a smirk in his voice, when one is so accustomed to winning. Soon your family will understand that too.
Go away, I thought, irritated. I’m having a moment, here.
“We don’t suck! We don’t suck!” Blake’s friends began to chant.
Each word, each new voice adding to it, jabbed at my own excitement, until it deflated completely. An uneasiness stirred inside of me, a flutter of unhappiness.
Congratulations, Maggot, Alastor said, sounding unusually pleased. It feels rather tremendous, does it not—being a winner?
Winning classroom trivia doesn’t make you a winner, I told him. It just means you’ve read a book.
But he wasn’t wrong. Some part of me—the part that braced myself every time I got a report card, the part of me that learned to tune my family out rather than speak up—felt like it was shining. I leaned back in my seat, releasing a long, deep breath of relief.
“All right, all right,” Mr. Gupta said, clapping to get our attention. “I’ll see Team One back here for lunch. Come hungry!”
The bell rang for the next hour, and we all quickly put the room back in order. On the way out, Nell punched my shoulder lightly.
“Pretty impressive,” she said.
“Yeah, I mean,” I said, keeping my head down. “I guess?”
I wanted to be happy that I’d done something right, for once. But deep down, past that small slice of happiness, hidden beneath the pride, was an ugly truth. A nagging doubt.
Who had really answered that question—me, or Alastor?
Lunchtime arrived, and with it, six steaming, beautiful pizzas oozing with cheese.
I hovered behind Mr. Gupta as he opened the first set of boxes and set them out for the team, darting around to snatch a plate and napkin. While I did the mental math of how many pieces I could take and not be a selfish jerk.
“Will yo
u chill out?” Nell hissed behind me. “You’re acting like you’ve never had a piece of pizza before.”
I was practically bouncing with glee. “I haven’t had one in…five years?”
“What?” Now it was my turn to hush her. A couple of the kids glanced over from down the single file line we’d formed.
“Grandmother forced the one pizza place in town to close. She claimed it was a ‘health hazard,’” I said as we made our way over to two desks in the corner. “And my mom is all about healthy food at home.”
“Not even at school?” she whispered in horror.
I shook my head.
“What did you eat, then? A ton of hamburgers and chicken nuggets?”
“Mostly couscous, bluefin, cozze in bianco…”
“Are you speaking in English right now?” Nell asked. She put one of her slices on top of my pile. “Here, you’d better take this. Cherish the memory forever.”
And what of my food? Alastor asked, but I was way too busy stuffing my face to care.
Nell must have seen the irritation in my face. “What’s going on? What is he saying?”
“He’s hungry,” I muttered. “But I thought he fed only on emotions?”
That is incorrect.
“Fiends replenish their power from sucking out misery from those around them, but they eat spiders and bats to fill their stomachs.”
That is correct.
“What should I do?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Nell whispered. She stiffened. “You two aren’t buddies, and you aren’t his servant. If you give him an inch, he’ll take a hundred miles. It’s like Shakespeare said—one may smile, and smile, and be a villain! Nothing good can come from a fiend, just remember that. And if he starts to act up again, let me know and I’ll put him back in his place.”
Whoa. Her voice had gotten harder and angrier the longer she spoke. “That’s…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the charm you worked the other night, but…if you guys are all magic…magical things, why aren’t you on the same team?”
Nell looked horrified.
“Why?” she demanded. “What has the little worm been saying about me?”
Worm! Al sputtered. That saucy urchin-snouted strumpet!
“He…thinks you are very, uh, special,” I said. That was my mom’s go-to word for whenever a teacher or relative called me something I didn’t understand, like stolid or taciturn.
“Witches are not fiends. Fiends, by definition, are creatures from Downstairs who meddle in our world to better theirs,” Nell said, her voice so low I had to lean in to hear it. “They want servants, but more than that, they want the magic found on earth’s surface to flow down to them. They do that by inflicting misery on us, or managing to get us to inflict misery on ourselves through wars. They can’t create enough magic Downstairs. They have to steal it from us, funnel it down to run their world.”
Al was suspiciously silent throughout her explanation. Which, you know, meant what she was saying was probably true.
“So what are witches, then?”
“Witches are just women who are naturally attuned to magic in our world,” Nell said. “They can manipulate it, when others can’t even sense its presence. Moms pass the gift down to their daughters, ensuring the line continues.”
I was about to ask her why it was only girls, but she barreled on, adding, “Back in the old days—and I mean the ancient days, we’re talking, like, Greeks here—when humans finally figured out that fiends were leading them to needless battles and revenge, they began to gather gifted women into a coven to fight back. The thing you have to understand is, witches and fiends are enemies. It’s our responsibility to ensure that they don’t meddle in the lives of humans—that they stay Downstairs, where they belong.”
I was about to ask her another question, when a voice from across the room interrupted.
“Hey, Ethan! Come sit with us!” Blake jerked his thumb toward the lone empty desk beside him and his friends. An invitation for one. I glanced at Nell out of the corner of my eye, who suddenly seemed very fascinated with her pizza.
“I’m good,” I said. “Thanks, though!”
Even if it hadn’t meant leaving Nell to eat by herself, I wouldn’t have said yes. In my experience, when people were nice to me, it’s because they were planning to lure me close enough to a trash can to drop me into it. But Blake only shrugged and turned back to his friends.
Thou—you are surprised they embrace you? Alastor said. They desire your company, for you have gained that which you desire: acceptance.
All I did was answer a trivia question right, I thought back. I wasn’t about to crown myself the King of Popularity over it.
You gave them something they themselves desired; of course they welcome your company. You would be wise to accept it, should you like to walk an easier path for yourself.
You make friendship sound like a trade-off.
Every relationship is a transaction. Every so-called friendship begins with a promise that must be kept by both parties.
Like your transaction with Honor Redding?
He was silent after that. Silent enough that I could hear the cluster of girls a few seats over that Nell was plainly trying to ignore, even as she kept turning her head slightly to hear them better.
“—glasses are ridiculous, even my mom thinks so—”
“—just so weird that she lives in that house—”
“—and that she wants to play that part—like she ever would have gotten it—”
You know—here’s the thing. If you were to ask Nell what she thought of me, she’d probably say that I was better off dead, or she’d say she wished she could curse me into having a monkey tail for the rest of my days. But it didn’t change the fact that we had at least one thing in common. My Redhood Academy classmates and the kids at her school weren’t exactly falling over themselves to befriend us. If anything, they were tripping over each other to get away.
The kid on the bus had called her that terrible word—freak. I wondered how much of it had to do with any witchy-related rumors about what Nell and her mom could do, and how much was simply because she didn’t look or dress like anyone else. As my own mom said, being different—being simply you instead of what other people wanted you to be—was its own kind of bravery.
Her despair tastes of lemon, was Al’s only comment.
I shook my head. Despair, he’d said. Not simple sadness, or merely being upset. Despair. The point beyond hope and loneliness.
In all the hours I had been at school that day, I had only seen Nell talk to two people besides me: our science teacher and Norton. At home, it was just me, Uncle B, and Toad. Did she have anyone else?
Was she just…alone?
I tipped my chair back, thoughts running laps around my mind. I was only going to be here for less than two weeks. In the end, it didn’t matter what the kids thought of me, so long as they didn’t hate me enough to try stabbing me like my grandmother. But it did matter what they thought of Nell. After I was gone, she would still have to deal with them.
“Those glasses look great on you,” I told her, loud enough to catch the other girls’ attention. “My mom picked them out on Fifth Avenue, at…um…” What was the name of that store Grandmother owned a stake in? “Bergdorf Goodman.”
A piece of pizza fell out of Nell’s mouth. She stared at me like I’d just stripped off my pants and started wandering around the classroom.
“Bergdorf Goodman?” one of the girls said. “Wait—you got those glasses in New York City?”
Nell’s dark brow furrowed. “No, you nit—”
I kicked her shin under the table, leaning back again to look at the table of girls. “Oh yeah. My mom travels there for business and is always finding cool new stuff for Nell to try. She says that it’s hard for the average person to recognize amazing fashion when they see it. Some people are born with taste.” I glanced over at them again. “Others aren’t as lucky.”
Nell actual
ly choked on her food, thumping her chest to dislodge a piece of pizza.
“Are they still for sale there?” the girl asked, a new glint in her eye.
“No, they were made for her by the designer—”
I thanked every lucky star in the sky that the bell rang, interrupting me. Method acting could only take a guy so far when his idea of “fashion” was sometimes wearing patterned socks under his uniform.
“Oh, Ethan?” Mr. Gupta called as I headed for the door. I was almost outside before Nell physically turned me back around with a pointed look.
Right. I was Ethan. Ethan was my name. Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.
“I know you’re only with us for a short time, but I’d still like for you to participate in the midterm project. I get the feeling that you might like mythology…?”
I hesitated a second, saying, “The thing is…I mean…I’m not very creative, you know?”
Mr. Gupta had asked the class to come up with some sort of project that spoke to the idea of storytelling in ancient Greek society, or reinvented the mythology in a modern way. If it had been Mr. Wickworth, he would have assigned us a twenty-page research paper and marked off points if we didn’t get the right punctuation in every footnote.
Do you not claim to be an artist? Alastor said. Do you not spend all of your secret time scratching at paper?
Do you have to say “secret time”? That sounds so creepy.
Not as “creepy” as the ponies, Maggot. You know the ones of which I speak.
The porcelain ponies. My grandmother gave me a new one every single year for Christmas because…well, I don’t know why. I guess that’s what she thinks guys want these days. Even though I pretended to hate them, I actually thought they were painted beautifully and kind of sweet. Nothing creepy about them. But that knowledge would die with me and the fiend.