Chapter Text
-Hazel-
I was walking home alone from the riding stables. Despite the cold evening, I was buzzing with warmth and caffeine. Sammy and I had just chugged down a cup of scolding coffee.
My day had been full of several ups and downs. Kids at schools had teased me about my mother, calling her a witch and several other names. Of course, that had already been going on for a long time, but it had been getting worse. Rumors were spreading around about my curse.
The school was called St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians, a name that hadn’t changed in a hundred years. Just like its name, the place masked a whole lot of cruelty under a thin veneer of kindness.
I didn’t understand how the other black children could’ve so cruel. They should’ve known better, since they had to put up with the name-calling and abuse as well. But they yelled at me and stole my lunch, always asking for the famous jewels: “Where’s those cursed diamonds, girl? Gimme some or I’ll hurt you!” They pushed me away at the water fountain, and threw rocks at me if I attempted to approach them on the playground.
Despite how horrible they were, I never gave them diamonds or gold. I didn’t hate anyone that much. Besides, I had one friend—
Sammy—and that was enough.
Sammy liked to joke that he was the perfect St. Agnes student. He was Mexican American, so he considered himself colored and Indian. “They should give me a double scholarship,” he said.
He wasn’t big or strong, but he had a crazy smile and he made me laugh.
That afternoon he’d taken me to the stables where he worked as a groom. It was a “whites only” riding club, of course, but it was closed on weekdays, and with the war on, there was talk that the club might have to shut down completely until the Japanese were whipped and the soldiers came back home. Sammy could usually sneak me in to help take care of the horses. Once in a while they’d go riding.
I loved horses. They seemed to be the only living things that weren’t scared of me. People hated me. Cats hissed. Dogs growled. Even the stupid hamster in Miss Finley’s classroom squeaked in terror when I tried to give it a carrot. But horses didn’t mind. When I was in the saddle, I could ride so fast that there was no chance of gemstones cropping up in my wake. I almost felt free of my curse.
That afternoon, I’f taken out a tan roan stallion with a gorgeous black mane. I galloped into the fields so swiftly, Sammy was left behind.
By the time he caught up, he and his horse were both winded.
“What are you running from?” He laughed. “I’m not that ugly, am I?”
It was too cold for a picnic, but we had one anyway, sitting under a magnolia tree with the horses tethered to a split-rail fence. Sammy had brought me a cupcake with a birthday candle, which had gotten smashed on the ride but was still the sweetest thing I’d had ever seen. We broke it in half and shared it.
Sammy talked about the war. He wished that he was old enough to go. He asked me if I would write him letters if he were a soldier going overseas.
“’Course, dummy,”
He grinned, pouring me a cup of coffee from the thermos.“Happy birthday, Hazel.”
It wasn’t much. Just a cup of burning black coffee. But I felt like I was floating on the ride of sugar and caffeine. I hardly remembered the ride back to the stables, or telling Sammy good-bye. He said, “See you tomorrow,” like he always did. But I knew now that I would never see him again.
By the time I got back to the French Quarter, it was getting dark. As I approached home, the warm feeling faded, replaced by dread.
Me and my mother—Queen Marie, as she liked to be called—lived in an old apartment above a jazz club. Despite the beginning of the war, there was a festive mood in the air. New recruits would roam the streets, laughing and talking about fighting the Japanese. They’d get tattoos in the parlors or propose to their sweethearts right on the sidewalk. Some would go upstairs to my mother to have their fortunes read or to buy charms from Marie Levesque, the famous grisgris queen.
“Did you hear?” one would say. “Two bits for this good-luck charm. I took it to a guy I know, and he says it’s a real silver nugget. Worth twenty dollars! That voodoo woman is crazy!”
For a while, that kind of talk brought Queen Marie a lot of business. My curse had started out slowly. At first it seemed like a blessing. The precious stones and gold only appeared once in a while, never in huge quantities. Queen Marie paid her bills. We ate steak for dinner once a week. I had even got a new dress. But then stories started spreading. The locals began to realize how many horrible things happened to people who bought those good-luck charms or got paid with Queen Marie’s treasure. Charlie Gasceaux lost his arm in a harvester while wearing a gold bracelet. Mr. Henry at the general store dropped dead from a heart attack after Queen Marie settled her tab with a ruby.
Folks started whispering about me—how I could find cursed jewels just by walking down the street. These days only out-of-towners came to visit my mother, and not so many of them, either. Mother had become short-tempered. She gave me constant resentful looks.
I climbed the stairs as quietly as I could, in case mother had a customer. In the club downstairs, the band was tuning their instruments. The bakery next door had started making beignets for tomorrow morning, filling the stairwell with the smell of melting butter.
When I got to the top, I thought that I heard two voices inside the apartment. But when I peeked into the parlor, my mother was sitting alone at the séance table, her eyes closed, as if in a trance.
I had seen her that way many times, pretending to talk to spirits for her clients—but not ever when she was by herself. Queen Marie had always told me her gris-gris was “bunk and hokum.” She didn’t really believe in charms or fortune telling or ghosts. She was just a performer, like a singer or an actress, doing a show for money.
But I knew my mother did believe in some magic. My curse wasn’t hokum. Queen Marie just didn’t want to think it was her fault—that somehow she had made me the way she was.
“It was your blasted father,” Queen Marie would grumble in her darker moods. “Coming here in his fancy silver-and black suit. The one time I actually summon a spirit, and what do I get? Fulfills my wish and ruins my life. I should’ve been a real queen. It’s his fault you turned out this way.”
She would never explain what she meant, and I had learned not to ask about my father. It just made mother angrier.
As I watched, Queen Marie muttered something to herself. Her face was calm and relaxed. I was struck by how beautiful she looked, without her scowl and the creases in her brow. She had a lush mane of gold-brown hair like mine, and the same dark complexion, brown as the wood of a walnut tree. She wasn’t wearing the fancy saffron robes or gold bangles she wore to impress clients—just a simple white dress. Still, she had a regal air, sitting straight and dignified in her gilded chair as if she really were a queen.
“You’ll be safe there,” she murmured. “Far from the gods.”
I stifled a scream. The voice coming from her mother’s mouth wasn’t hers. It sounded like an older woman’s. The tone was soft and soothing, but also commanding—like a hypnotist giving orders.
Queen Marie tensed. She grimaced in her trance, then spoke in her normal voice: “It’s too far. Too cold. Too dangerous. He told me not to.”
The other voice responded: “What has he ever done for you? He gave you a poisoned child! But we can use her gift for good. We can strike back at the gods. You will be under my protection in the north, far from the gods’ domain. I’ll make my son your protector. You’ll live like a queen at last.”
Queen Marie winced. “But what about Hazel...”
Then her face contorted in a sneer. Both voices spoke in unison, as if they’d found something to agree on: “A poisoned child.”
I fled down the stairs, my pulse racing.
At the bottom, I ran into a man in a dark suit. He gripped my shoulders with strong, cold fingers.
“Easy, child,” the man said.
I noticed the silver skull ring on his finger, then the strange fabric of his suit. In the shadows, the solid black wool seemed to shift and boil, forming images of faces in agony, as if lost souls were trying to escape from the folds of his clothes.
His tie was black with platinum stripes. His shirt was tombstone gray. His face—my heart nearly leaped out of my throat. His skin was so white it looked almost blue, like cold milk. He had a flap of greasy black hair. His smile was kind enough, but his eyes were fiery and angry, full of mad power.
I tried to pull away. Even when the man let go, I couldn’t seem to move. His eyes froze her in place.
“Hazel Levesque,” he said in a melancholy voice. “You’ve grown.”
I started to tremble. At the base of the stairs, the cement stoop cracked under the man’s feet. A glittering stone popped up from the concrete like the earth had spit out a watermelon seed. The man looked at it, unsurprised. He bent down.
“Don’t!” I cried. “It’s cursed!”
He picked up the stone—a perfectly formed emerald. “Yes, it is. But not to me. So beautiful… worth more than this building, I imagine.” He slipped the emerald in his pocket. “I’m sorry for your fate, child. I imagine you hate me.”
I didn’t understand. The man sounded sad, as if he were personally responsible for her life. Then the truth hither: a spirit in silver and black, who’d fulfilled my mother’s wishes and ruined my life.
My eyes widened. “You? You’re my...”
He cupped his hand under my chin. “I am Pluto. Life is never easy for my children, but you have a special burden. Now that you’re thirteen, we must make provisions—”
I pushed his hand away.
“You did this to me?” I demanded. “You cursed me and my mother? You left us alone?”
My eyes stung with tears. This rich white man in a fine suit was my father? Now that I was thirteen, he showed up for the first time and said he was sorry?
“You’re evil!” I shouted. “You ruined our lives!”
Pluto’s eyes narrowed. “What has your mother told you, Hazel? Has she never explained her wish? Or told you why you were born under a curse?”
I was too angry to speak, but Pluto seemed to read the answers in my face.
“No...” He sighed. “I suppose she wouldn’t. Much easier to blame me.”
“What do you mean?”
Pluto sighed. “Poor child. You were born too soon. I cannot see your future clearly, but someday you will find your place. A descendant of Neptune will wash away your curse and give you peace. I fear, though, that is not for many years....”
I didn’t follow any of that. Before I could respond, Pluto held out his hand. A sketchpad and a box of colored pencils appeared in his palm.
“I understand you enjoy art and horseback riding,” he said. “These are for your art. As for the horse...” His eyes gleamed. “That, you’ll have to manage yourself. Now I must speak with your mother. Happy birthday, Hazel.”
He turned and headed up the stairs—just like that, as if he’d checked me off his “to do” list and had already forgotten her. Happy birthday. Go draw a picture. See you in another thirteen years.
I was so stunned, so angry, so upside-down and confused that I just stood paralyzed at the base of the steps. I wanted to throw down the colored pencils and stomp on them. I wanted to charge after Pluto and kick him in the groin. I wanted to run away, find Sammy, steal a horse, leave town and never come back. But I didn’t do any of those things.
Above me, the apartment door opened, and Pluto stepped inside.
I was still shivering from his cold touch, but I crept up the stairs to see what he would do. What would he say to my mother? Who would speak back—Mother, or that awful voice?
When I reached the doorway, I heard arguing. I peeked in. My mother seemed back to normal—screaming and angry, throwing things around the parlor while Pluto attempted to reason with her.
“Marie, it’s insanity,” he said. “You’ll be far beyond my power to protect you.”
“Protect me?” She yelled. “When have you ever protected me?”
Pluto’s dark suit shimmered, as if the souls trapped in the fabric were getting agitated.
“You have no idea,” he said. “I’ve kept you alive, you and the child. My enemies are everywhere among gods and men. Now with the war on, it will only get worse. You must stay where I can—”
“The police think I’m a murderer!” Mother shouted. “My clients want to hang me as a witch! And Hazel—her curse is getting worse. Your protection is killing us.”
Pluto spread his hands in a pleading gesture. “Marie, please—”
“No!” She turned to the closet, pulled out a leather valise, and threw it on the table. “We’re leaving,” she announced. “You can keep your protection. We’re going north.”
“Marie, it’s a trap,” Pluto warned. “Whoever’s whispering in your ear, whoever’s turning you against me—”
“You turned me against you!” She picked up a porcelain vase and threw it at him. It shattered on the floor, and precious stones spilled everywhere—emeralds, rubies, diamonds. My entire collection.
“You won’t survive,” Pluto said. “If you go north, you’ll both die. I can foresee that clearly.”
“Get out!” Mother screamed.
I wished that Pluto would stay and argue. Whatever my mother was talking about, I didn’t like it. But my father slashed his hand across the air and dissolved into shadows… like he really was a spirit.
Mother closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. I was afraid the strange voice might possess her again. But when she spoke, she was her regular self.
“Hazel,” she snapped, “come out from behind that door.”
Trembling, I obeyed. I clutched the sketchpad and colored pencils to my chest.
She studied me like I was a bitter disappointment. A poisoned child, the voices had said.
“Pack a bag,” she ordered. “We’re moving.”
“Wh-where?” I asked.
“Alaska,” my mother answered. “You’re going to make yourself useful. We’re going to start a new life.”
The way she said that, it sounded as if they were going to create a “new life” for someone else—or something else.
“What did Pluto mean?” I asked. “Is he really my father? He said you made a wish—”
“Go to your room!” my mother shouted. “Pack!”
I fled, and suddenly I was ripped out of the past.
⋆˚꩜⋆˚
Nico was shaking my shoulders. “You did it again.”
I blinked. They were still sitting on the roof of Pluto’s shrine. The sun was lower in the sky. More diamonds had surfaced around me, and my eyes stung from my tears.
“S-sorry,” I murmured.
“Don’t be,” he said. “Where were you?”
“My mother’s apartment. The day we moved.”
He nodded. He understood my history better than most people could. He was also a kid from the 1940s. He’d been born only a few years after me, and had been locked away in a magic hotel for decades. But my past was so much more tainted than Nico’s. I caused so much damage and misery....
“You have to work on controlling those memories,” he warned. “If a flashback like that happens when you’re in combat—”
“I know,” I wiped my eyes. “I’m trying.”
Nico squeezed my hand. “It’s okay. I think it’s a side effect from...you know, your time in the Underworld. Hopefully it’ll get easier.”
I wasn’t so sure. After eight months, the blackouts seemed to be getting worse, as if my soul was attempting to live in two different time periods at once. No one had ever come back from the dead before—at least, not the way I had. Nico was trying to reassure me, but neither of us knew what would happen.
“I can’t go north again,” I sucked in a shaky breath. “Nico, if I have to go back to where it happened—”
“You’ll be fine,” he promised. “You’ll have friends this time. Annabeth Chase—she’s got a role to play in this. You can sense that, can’t you? She’s a good person to have at your side.”
I remembered what my father had told me long ago: A descendant of Minerva will wash away your curse and give you peace.
Was Annabeth the one? Maybe, but I sensed that it wouldn’t be so easy. I wasn’t sure even she could survive what was waiting in the north.
“Where did she come from?” I asked. “Why do the ghosts call her the Greek?”
Before Nico could respond, horns blew across the river. The legionnaires were gathering for evening muster.
“We’d better get down there,” Nico said. “I have a feeling tonight’s war games are going to be interesting.”