So far, Professor Metis had been pretty vague about what exactly the Chaos was, and I hadn't exactly been paying rapt attention to all the mumbo-jumbo magic stuff. But I was guessing it involved death, destruction, and blah, blah, blah. I'd much rather read the comic books that I had stashed in the bottom of my messenger bag. At least they had some basis in reality. Genetic mutations could totally happen.
But gods and goddesses duking it out? Using warrior whiz kids to fight some ancient battle today in modern times? With mythological monsters thrown in just for fun? I wasn't sure I believed all that. But everyone here at Mythos did. To them, myths weren't just stories-they were history, facts even, and they were all very, very real.
While Professor Metis droned on once again about how absolutely evil the Reapers were, I stared out the window, looking at my reflection in the glass. Wavy brown hair, a smattering of freckles on my winter white skin, and eyes that were a curious shade of purple, made more so by the hoodie I was wearing.
Violet eyes are smiling eyes, my mom had always said in a teasing voice. Her eyes had been the same color as mine, although I'd always thought they'd made her look beautiful and me just like a freak.
A dull ache flooded my heart. Not for the first time, I wished that I could rewind time and go back to the way things had been before I'd come to Mythos Academy.
Six months ago, I'd been a normal teenager. Well, as normal as a girl with a strange ability could ever be. But the Gypsy gift ran in the Frost family. My grandma, Geraldine, could see the future. My mom, Grace, had been able to tell whether or not people were lying just by listening to their words. And I had the ability to know, see, and feel things just by touching a person or an object. But our Gypsy gifts had always been just that-gifts, small things that we could do-and I hadn't thought too much about them, where they had come from, or if other people had magic like ours.
Until the day that I picked up Paige Forrest's hairbrush after gym class.
We'd been in the locker room changing after playing basketball, which I hated because I totally sucked at it. Seriously, sucked out loud at it. Like, sucked so bad that I'd managed to hit myself in the head with the ball when I was trying to shoot a free throw.
After class, I'd been hot and sweaty and had wanted to pull my hair back into a ponytail. Paige's brush had been lying on the bench between us. Paige wasn't one of my close friends, but we were in the same semipopular circle of smart girls. Sometimes, we hung out when our group got together, so I'd asked her if I could use her hairbrush.
Paige had stared at me a second, a strange emotion flashing in her eyes. "Sure."
I picked it up, never dreaming that I'd feel anything. Despite my psychometry, I usually didn't get much of a vibe off common, everyday objects like pens, computers, dishes, or phones. Things in public places that lots of people used or that had a simple, specific function. I only got the biggies, the deep, vivid, high-def flashes, when I touched objects that people had some personal connection to, like a favorite photograph or a cherished piece of jewelry.
But as soon as my hand had closed around the hairbrush, I'd seen an image of Paige sitting on her bed with an older man. He'd brushed her long black hair exactly one hundred times, just like everyone claims you're supposed to. Then, when he was finished with her hair, the man had unfastened Paige's robe, made her lie back on the bed, and started touching her before he took off his pants.
I'd started screaming then, and I didn't stop.
After about five minutes, I passed out. My friend Bethany had told me that I'd kept right on screaming, even when the paramedics came to take me to the hospital. Everyone thought I was having an epileptic seizure or something.
I think Paige knew, though. About my Gypsy gift and what I could do. Two weeks before, she'd asked me to find her missing phone. I'd walked around Paige's room, touched her desk, her nightstand, her purse, and her bookcases, and eventually seen an image of her little sister swiping the phone so she could snoop through Paige's text messages. Sometimes, I wondered if Paige had put her hairbrush there on the bench just for me to pick up. Just so someone would know, just so someone would feel exactly what she was going through.
I'd woken up in the hospital later that day. My mom, Grace, was there, and I told her what I'd seen. That's what you did when something terrible was happening to one of your friends. And because my mom was a police detective who'd spent her whole life helping people. I wanted to be just like her.
That night, my mom had arrested Paige's stepdad for abusing her. My mom had called when she was at the police station and told me that Paige was safe now. She'd promised to be home in another hour, just as soon as she finished the paperwork.
She never made it.
My mom had been hit by a drunk driver after she'd left the police station that night. Grandma Frost had told me that she'd died instantly. That she'd never even seen the other car swerving toward her or felt the horrible, horrible pain of the crash. I hoped that was how it had happened, because my mom had been so torn up in the wreck that the casket had been closed at her funeral. What I could remember of it, anyway.
I hadn't gone back to my old school after that. My friends had been supernice about everything, especially Bethany, but I hadn't wanted to see anyone. I hadn't wanted to do anything but lie on my bed and cry.
But one day three weeks after my mom's funeral, Professor Metis had shown up at my Grandma Frost's house. I didn't know exactly what Metis had said to her, but Grandma had announced that it was finally time for me to go to Mythos Academy so I could learn how to fully use my Gypsy gift. I thought that I could control my psychometry just fine already, and I'd never really understood what my grandma had meant when she'd said finally, as if I should have been going to Mythos all along or something-
"... Gwen ?"
The sound of my name snapped me out of my memories. "What?"
Metis peered over the rims of her silver glasses at me. "I asked you which goddess was responsible for the Pantheon's victory over Loki and his Reapers?"
"Nike, the Greek goddess of victory," I said automatically.
Professor Metis frowned. "And how do you know that, Gwen? I haven't mentioned Nike yet. Have you read ahead to the next chapter already? That's very industrious of you."
I'd done that very thing last night, mainly because I was bored out of my mind and there hadn't been anything good on TV. Given my lack of friends at Mythos, it wasn't like I had anything else to do to occupy my time here.
I don't think Metis meant it as a jibe, but snickers rippled through the room at her words. My cheeks flamed red, and I sank a little lower into my seat. Great. Now, everyone would think that I was that nerdy Gypsy girl who had nothing better to do than study. It might be true, and I might be insanely proud of my 4.0 GPA, but I didn't want the other kids to know that.