“Why don’t you tell me what you think this says, Ellie?”
“I know what it says,” I answer. “Sort of. Even though I can’t read it, I do know it’s a story about a woman who took care of a wounded cuckoo bird. I don’t know why that’s such a big deal to everyone. I just want to know her name.”
“Her name?” She lifts a brow. “Her name’s right here.” She points to a small word.
“I know that. But whenever I try to say it, or think it, it disappears right out of my head. Do you know why that is?”
“It’s because the enchantments are working, just like they’re supposed to.” She snaps the book closed and gets to her feet. “You know I can’t leave this with you, right?”
“We need it,” I tell her, even as I play her words over in my head. “To win the scavenger hunt. Since Charlie and her friends got involved, we’re only two items away from winning—one, if you count that book.”
“Is that what you want?” she asks shrewdly. “To win the scavenger hunt?”
“We’re so close,” I answer, dodging the question.
“Wow.” She inclines her head. “That nonanswer was worthy of an Athena girl. You sure you’re an Aphrodite?”
“Of course she is!” Fifi answers indignantly. “Ellie is Aphrodite all the way.”
“Is she now?” Calliope looks me over from head to toe. “In that case, I won’t confiscate the book. But I will turn it over to your head teacher. That way she and the other teachers can give you credit for having found it so it’s not just lying around, waiting to cause trouble—although Idon’t have a clue what they were thinking, putting it on the list.”
“Is that what it’s trying to do?” I ask, because I really do want to know the answer. “Cause trouble?”
She and Frankie exchange another look. “Something like that.”
Then she picks up her coffee cup and heads toward the door, my book dangling from her left hand. “Enjoy the pizza,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Wait!” Arjun tells her as she reaches for the door handle. “You still haven’t told us who the woman in the story is.”
She lifts a brow. “I was really hoping you were going to let that go. No such luck, huh?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Fine. Just remember, you asked for it.” Suddenly the hand she’s holding the book in begins to shake, which seems strange, considering she’s never before shown even a drop of nerves. She leans forward, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper as she says, “Her name is Hera.”
“Hera?” I repeat, determined not to forget it.
“Yes, But you should know that some don’t like that we remember her.” She starts to say more, but her voice is drowned out by a sudden burst of thunder rolling across the sky. It’s followed by another torrential downpour like we had this morning, with lightning bursting overhead and rain coming down in literal curtains of water.
“What just happened?” Fifi yelps, crossing to the window to see the sudden storm.
“I told you, some don’t like it when we remember her,” Calliope says.
“Oh, come on,” I tell her. “It’s fall in the Berkshires. You can’t really tell me you think this is anything but regular fall weather?”
“Didn’t you have a weird thunderstorm experience this morning too?” she shoots back.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t talking about this Hera person then.”
“Maybe not. But were you talking about something the gods didn’t like?” Frankie asks.
I shift uneasily, because the last thing I want to do is have to go it alone like I did earlier. All that didn’t happen just because I was feeling bad for Prometheus, did it?
“All we’re saying is now that you know her name, let it go,” Frankie tells us. “It doesn’t matter to you anyway.”
“Don’t you think we should find out about her? Try to figure out why she’s supposed to be forgotten?”
“No!” he and Calliope say at the exact same time.
