December in northwestern Connecticut—orwhat Sophronia Iraklidis affectionately called “The Boonies”
Snow began fallingas Sophie swept the crumbs from the lastBûches de Noëloff the desks in her classroom. Decorating and eating a Yule log was her special treat for her French students as the semester wound down, and the kids who already knew her started talking about it from day one of the school year. They cared more about the sugar rush and being allowed to make a huge mess than about the Christmas dessert’s origins, but if they could read her recipe in French and understand the directions and ingredients by the end of the lesson, she was happy.
Her mom and sister had come over to the saltbox house Sophie had plunged herself into debt for two years ago—in her defense, the little red colonial was irresistible—and helped her with the baking, filling, and rolling. She could make four cakes by herself in a weekend, maybe five, but ten was pushing it. Mom, Xanthe, and she had pulled up their sleeves and listened to old-timey Christmas music as they worked, sang along, and chatted. When Sophie started teaching, it became a holiday tradition for the three of them to “bake the boosh,” as they called it, for Sophie’s high-school French students, and she liked the idea of creating new traditions with her family just as much as she liked creating them in her classroom.
Of course, Mom and Xanthe tried to grill her about her love life. Since it was nonexistent, Sophie tossed the ball back at Xanthe, which her younger sister had appreciated about as much as stepping in dog poop with clean sneakers. Xanthe, at home for the weekend before college finals, might’ve had something juicy and exciting to share, but nope… As usual, her romance prospects were just as abysmal as Sophie’s. For two women who couldn’t deny being lucky in the looks department—they’d somehow inherited all the best parts of their striking, statuesque parents—they sure had trouble finding good boyfriends.
Sophie knew she was too tall, too blonde, too blue-eyed, too athletic, too traditional, too attached to her huge, overbearing family, too…everything. Xanthe was the same. The sisters were convinced they intimidated the hell out of men, which seemed to have one result: the normal ones ran away from them, and the sleazy ones hit on them. As far as Sophie could tell, there was nothing in between, which left her home alone most nights either with a novel in her hands, binge watching something on TV, or grading homework. Usually, a lot of all three.
During the weekend cake-making fest, Mom started talking about “baking the boosh” with grandchildren soon, and Sophie nearly spit out the icing she’d been tasting. The men of Pinebury, Connecticut were going to have to seriously up their game before she got anywhere close to having children.
And she doubted her four brothers, all older than she, got the grandchildren comments from Mom, even though they were always popping in and out of Mom and Dad’s house for something. Like dinner.
But her mother’s half-joking comment had stuck with Sophie into her workweek, and for the first time since finishing her degrees and starting teaching, she almost wished settling down and having a family of her own didn’t seem quite so far off or unrealistic.
Maybe it was her Greek roots—something genetically ingrained in her to crave a big, raucous, affectionate, opinionated family. Her grandparents on both sides had left a lot of their Greekness at the border when they immigrated to the United States, but the family had held on to tons of traditional recipes, a few bizarre superstitions, and unusual first names that had plagued both sisters since childhood. Her brothers got lucky. Alec, Seth, Jason, and Hector. Well, maybe Hector wasn’t so lucky. Poor Xanthe. She had the worst of it. No one ever knew to pronounce theeat the end, like in Persephone.
At school, everyone just called SophieMademoiselle, including most of the other faculty. Sophronia earned her strange looks, and Ms. Iraklidis rolled off the tongue about as easily as cold peanut butter.
Humming “Jingle Bell Rock”—which had been stuck in her head since the weekend—Sophie gave the desks a squirt with the cleaning spray she kept on hand and wiped them down before sweeping the floor of her classroom. Janitor Charlie already had enough work cleaning up after the students without her adding chocolaty fingerprints and powdered sugar to it.
When the kids decorated cakes, it was…an event. They’d had two Yule logs per class and free artistic license. Eating them was somehow even messier. But theBûches de Noëlhad looked so pretty with the dark-chocolate shavings, red-and-green gumdrops, and little sugar-dusted marzipan pinecones. Sophie had taken pictures throughout the day and would add them to herAlbum de l’année, a scrapbook she made every year and kept in her classroom. She had six lined up now and planned on adding a career’s-worth of them.
Finished at school, Sophie snagged her purse along with the two slices of cake she’d saved for her helper elves, Mom and Xanthe. She arrived home at the same time as a delivery person and signed for a package from her friend Aaron in California. He used to live in Michigan, but a big science technology company snapped him up right out of college—Aaron was a total genius—and he’d been there ever since, working for one of thoseI’ll-rule-the-world-someday-mwahahahatypes who scared the shit out of Sophie. They never cared about actual people.
Aaron wasn’t like that, and she had no idea why he’d let himself get swept into an evil machine like Novalight Enterprises.
Sophie set everything on the hallway table and hung her bright-pink parka on the coatrack beside the door before making a quick detour to the kitchen to stick the cake in the fridge and put on the kettle. Curious as heck, she came straight back to the hallway and the package from Aaron, picking up the small, tightly taped-up box with her name on it.
She turned it over in her hands. Aaron and she had started out as pen pals through a middle school writing project and kept in touch over the years. He’d always liked hearing about her odd Greek stuff, like pretend spitting on people to ward off the evil eye and protect loved ones. Their contact had whittled down to holiday cards lately, and even that was pushing it. They definitely didn’t send each other Christmas presents. Or Hanukkah presents—Aaron was Jewish. Or any presents at all. They’d never even met in person.
Sophie split the tape with a letter opener. She dug through some wadded-up yellow notepad paper and found another box, this one about the size of a matchbox, plain but pretty, and made from olive wood. She picked it up and opened it.
Her eyes widened. Inside, a glacial-blue crystal glowed. Brightly. No, itpulsed. And it wascold. Its icy sting blasted over her like a winter wind. Goose bumps rose on her arms, and she shivered.
Confused and a little scared, Sophie set the wooden box on the table and backed away from it. The crystal seemed to shine from within. Was it poisonous? Radioactive? “What the heck, Aaron?” A weird vibration thrummed inside her, keeping her hair on end.
Grabbing the cardboard box the crystal arrived in, she looked through it for a card or note or something. Nothing.
No, wait.She frowned. Was that writing on the yellow notepad paper?
Sophie smoothed out one of the balls of paper and found half a word on it. Leaving the glowing crystal where it was, she took all the yellow papers into her living room and spread them out on the big Oriental rug her parents had given her as a housewarming present. The papers were a puzzle. Aaron had always liked puzzles. Sometimes, mostly during high school, he’d sent her letters in code, and it had taken her weeks to figure them out. This didn’t look nearly as complicated, which meant he’d done it in a hurry.
In the end, heart racing and hands shaking, Sophie pieced together Aaron’s message on the dozens of torn and crumpled pieces of paper. The scribbled writing only made sense to her in one order, and even then, she didn’t understand much of anything.
Don’t let Novalight get the Shard of Olympus. Too much power. Unstoppable. If it glows for you, you’reHeracleidae. I KNOW you are. The Greek gods are REAL. Contact Athena and GIVE THE SHARD BACK TO THE GODS OF OLYMPUS.
Sophie swallowed hard, not wanting to believe a word she was seeing or how much danger Aaron must be in if hestolethis precious, priceless, powerful object from his ambitious and frankly terrifying employer. How much dangershemight be in.
Why would he do this to her? Because she had Greek origins? So did millions of people. Even Aaron, somewhere way back when on his mother’s side. They’d thought it was cool they could both trace ancestors back to the Peloponnesus.
So then why…
She glanced toward the entryway for the millionth time in the past hour. The shard still glowed across the hallway from her, even brighter in the twilight of a December afternoon in New England. She felt the shard’s cold, primordial power deep in her bones and knew that things weren’t at all as they seemed. That maybeshewasn’t.
Sophronia Iraklidis.Her first name meant sensible or wise. Her last name meantson of Heracles. Sure, she was a daughter, but whatever. The name was her father’s. Most people knew the Roman version now—Hercules. TheHeracleidaecould be any of the ancient Greek hero’s children and other descendants. And according to legend, he’d had plenty. Sophie’s father had always insisted it was true, that they descended fromgods, and she’d always thought he was full of it and kind of funny.
She wasn’t laughing now.
