front. I can smell her lavender shampoo and something else.
“I forgot your cousins were joining us, Mr. Hart,” Mr. Van Oppen
says.
Kurt walks in slowly. He sits beside me. He sniffs the air, and by
the subtle growl on his lips, I can tell he smells something he really
doesn’t like. Everything about him, from his shoulders to the way he
balls up his hands into fists, screams tense.
“Where was I? Oh yes, Helen of Troy.” Van Oppen clears his throat
and looks paler than usual. He stands over his desk and rifles through
a stack of papers.
Bracelets jingle all over the class as hands fly up. The girls
know to answer just by the way he looks at them, all Yeah, that’s
right, I’m calling on you.
A girl with purple-rimmed glasses leans forward so hard that I
think she might teeter toward him. “Well, there was this thing on the
History Channel about how this lady was trying to prove Helen of Troy
was really real. But some text is missing. Or was it a building that
was missing? I can’t remember.”
“Ah, yes, the best thing about history is perhaps also the most
frustrating. There are some things you can’t prove. Because the
evidence has crumbled or washed away, or in some cases, it’s been
hidden.”
“So was she real or what?” a girl in the back asks sweetly.
The girl beside her says, “I’d like to think she was. It’s
romantic that they went to war over her.”
“Kingdoms go to war over less,” Kurt says darkly.
“You’re right,” Van Oppen says. He stands in front of Layla and
lifts her chin with his finger. If he weren’t my teacher, I’d shove
him off her. “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, / And
burnt the topless towers of Ilium? / Sweet Helen, make me immortal
with a kiss. / Her lips suck forth my souclass="underline" see where it flies!” He
hands her the handouts to pass along, and I can swear I can hear their
tiny hearts fluttering all over the classroom.
“That wasn’t in the reading,” someone says.
“No, it was written by Christopher Marlowe. This story has
fascinated people so much that they’ve spent their whole lives trying
to prove it could’ve been true. They don’t have much to go on, but
they chase all over the world for clues. Sometimes it’s something as
small as a rumor about a distant island claimed to be the home of the
oracle that warned Menelaus about protecting Helen.”
That’s a thought. I raise my hand. “What do you mean, Menelaus and
the oracle?”
“I’ll forgive the question, since you had a concussion for a few
days. I’ll assume that’s the reason you don’t remember the reading on
it.”
“Uhm, thank you?” I go. “So what did Menelaus do to talk to the
oracle?”
Mr. Van Oppen bares his teeth in a curious smile. “I do not wish
to fill your head with fodder, Mr. Hart. The Greek oracles were girls
chosen for their beauty. It was their burden, but it also was a great
honor. The oracles would sit in a room with burning herbs and stones,
the smoke so potent it would make them hallucinate. This would be
translated as the prediction or sight. Hardly more than a girl’s
delirious ramblings. It’d be like the president taking advice from a
socialite tripping on acid, which, well-never mind.”
“So you believe Helen might be real but not oracles?”
“I did not say that, Mr. Hart. I merely stated what I know about
village oracles in ancient Greece.” I just remembered why I always
fall asleep in his classes or take extended bathroom breaks. “Now, if
you’re asking me about real oracles, that’s a different story.”
Maybe it’s his sharp blue eyes, maybe it’s that he dresses like
something out of a Jane Austen novel, or maybe it’s the slightest
trace of an accent. Whatever it is, the class is transfixed by his
words.
Kurt shakes his head at me. It’s not like I’m going to pull off
clothes to show my Spider Man costume and reveal my true identity or
anything.
Thankfully, Layla asks for me: “Did he just go up to an oracle and
ask?”
“If only it were as easy as that. It’s not the high-school
cafeteria where you ask Lourdes for extra fries and she gives them to
you. You present the oracle with a tribute, and if she’s in a good
mood, then she may give you an answer.”
“What kind of tribute?” I go. And they say you’ll never learn
anything useful in high school.
People start to whisper. He’s so weird. Good thing he’s cute. Can
you believe those are his cousins? I don’t care what anyone says,
green hair is so clichйd.
“Half your herd of cows. Your second wife. The blood of a virgin.
The usual.”
The sharp whistle of microphone feedback slices through the
loudspeaker. A small voice announces that all after-school activities
are canceled. I know we have a meet tomorrow and all, but my head’s
not in it right now.
Just then a sweet, soft hum fills the room. At first we look to
the speakers, because it’s not the first time the announcer has left
on the microphone while he’s jamming to his new-millennium pop
collection. This time it’s different. The temperature in the room
rises. The sound is like a lullaby, a pitch that wraps around you and
leads you wherever it wants.
Van Oppen smacks a book against the desk. “Whoever that is, please
turn it off. Now!”
But it isn’t coming from in here. It’s coming from the hallway.
There’s a hole in my stomach when I fear that somehow Nieve has found
a way to get me, that my dream after I fought Elias is coming true. I
grab my bag for my dagger at the same moment that the door flies open.
My breath is caught in my throat.
I hold on to my desk, because I feel as if I’m trying to wake up
from a nightmare.
She fluffs her messy white-blond hair, stepping into the room in a
slinky black dress under a bright pink motorcycle jacket and heels
that look like they’re made of sequins and glitter.
Elias’s fiancйe.
“Hi.” She leans against the doorframe. Her gray eyes find mine
without even searching the room. “I’m Gwen. Tristan’s cousin.”
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood
of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. -D. H. Lawrence
Gwen.
So that’s her name. So sorry about your future husband, Gwen. It
wasn’t my fault. There’s this sea witch, you see?
“Don’t forget about us.” A sharp soprano voice echoes through the
hallway. Behind Gwen is a cluster of girls, girls I’ve only seen as
mermaids.
The court princesses are at my school. It’s one thing for me to
have this secret I can barely keep from my friends; now I have to deal
with the rest of the school. I’m halfway sitting, halfway standing.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Come, now, Tristan.” Gwen steps forward. “That’s no way to treat
your family.” She hands Van Oppen a piece of paper, along with a smile
that would have most men on their knees pledging their love for her.
Not me, of course.
From where I stand, it’s just a blank piece of paper, but he nods
with a tense smile and tucks it in with his other papers mumbling
something that sounds like “more of them.”
As the princesses walk in, there isn’t a single person who isn’t
staring at them. The glamours may disguise their naturally raw colors
and their flawless faces. But nothing can disguise their hourglass
figures as they move through the desk aisles like snakes in the
desert.