The Emerald Mask Page 2

  “Have you made contact?” Ms. Therian asked evenly.

  “No,” Fiona said, her voice almost a whisper. “I’ve been going down to the shore every day for the last three weeks . . . but I haven’t seen her since the battle.”

  Ms. Therian nodded. “I see. You may continue.”

  Fiona glanced down at her note cards, but she’d already said everything that was written on them. “That’s all,” she said as her cheeks started to burn with embarrassment.

  “Thank you, Fiona,” Ms. Therian said.

  “I’m sorry,” Fiona blurted. “I wanted to do a better job. I spent hours researching—”

  “You did your best,” Ms. Therian cut in. “You know better than any of us how selkies are called by the sea. They spend long stretches in the most remote areas of the ocean. Sometimes when they return to land, generations have passed. But I have confidence that you will learn and master all the selkies’ powers in time.”

  Fiona returned to the bench and stared straight ahead. Ms. Therian’s words had made her feel a little better—and a little curious, too. Who would teach her the selkie songs? An image of the copper-colored selkie flashed through Fiona’s mind. She couldn’t wait to see her again . . . but when?

  “Now that the presentations are out of the way, I have some news to share,” Ms. Therian continued.

  From the tone of her voice, everyone could tell that Ms. Therian’s news was big. The mood in the room changed at once.

  “The First Four have become aware of a potential new threat from Auden Ironbound,” she said. “There is a rare and precious artifact called Circe’s Compass. It is no mere navigational tool; rather, it can point the way to any Changer, anywhere in the world. I’m sure you can imagine why Auden Ironbound would desire to possess Circe’s Compass—at any cost.”

  “But Auden Ironbound—wherever he is—has the Horn of Power,” Mack spoke up, clearly puzzled. “Once it’s repaired, he won’t need to know where the Changers are—he can summon and control them. The adults, anyway.”

  “We’re not worried about adult Changers, Mack,” Ms. Therian said. “We’re worried about you.”

  Chapter 2

  A family Secret

  “Us?” Gabriella asked. She shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench. “But—”

  “Auden Ironbound is many things, but stupid is not one of them,” Ms. Therian interrupted. “He has likely figured out by now that young Changers are immune to the powers of the horn. He knows you were his undoing. In order to achieve his goals, we believe his next move will be to hunt down young Changers, to remove them from his path. The compass will show him the way to young Changers like you.”

  It wasn’t the words so much as the way Ms. Therian said them that made Gabriella flinch.

  “But he doesn’t have Circe’s Compass yet—does he?” asked Fiona, always practical.

  “No,” Ms. Therian said slowly. “At least, we don’t think so. The truth is that Circe’s Compass has been lost for centuries now.”

  “Lost?” Darren exclaimed. “You mean you don’t know where it is?”

  “It is locked in a chest that can only be opened by a Changer,” Ms. Therian said. “But the location of the chest, I’m afraid, is unknown.”

  “It doesn’t matter if Auden Ironbound finds Circe’s Compass,” Gabriella said, sounding braver than she felt. “We beat him before. We’ll beat him again.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better if we find Circe’s Compass first?” asked Fiona.

  “That’s precisely the plan,” Ms. Therian explained. “The First Four have already begun investigating. And, as I’m sure you know, magical objects emit their own signals, a beacon of sorts. They’re not that hard to find—if you know what to look for.”

  “So . . . you’re saying it wouldn’t be hard for Auden Ironbound to find it, either?” asked Darren.

  There was a strange glint in Ms. Therian’s eyes when she answered. “I never said that he knows what to look for,” she said.

  I guess that’s supposed to make us feel better, Gabriella thought—but she wasn’t very reassured.

  “There’s a literary festival at New Brighton University on Saturday,” Fiona said suddenly. “I could go with my dad and check out the rare books room. It’s closed to the public, but my dad has access. We found information on the Horn of Power there. Maybe there will be something about Circe’s Compass.”

  “Want some company?” asked Darren. Like Fiona’s dad, Darren’s mom was a professor at New Brighton University, and his big brother, Ray, was a student there.

  “Sure,” replied Fiona. “Anybody else want to come?”

  “I wish I could, but I have a game,” Gabriella told them.

  Mack looked torn. “I was planning to work on my entry for the art show,” he said. “But if I finish early, I want to come too.”

  “Excellent plan,” Ms. Therian said. “Remember, I tell you this not to alarm you, but to make you aware. We don’t expect Auden Ironbound will be ready to mount another attack for quite some time—but the situation demands constant vigilance all the same. Ultimately, his odds of success increase when we are distracted or fail to pay attention to the signs around us. And on that note, it’s time to continue your training. Go ahead and transform so we can get started.”

  It was like Ms. Therian had said magic words.

  Gabriella’s transformation to nahual was instantaneous—and effortless. It was a tremendous relief to slip into her jaguar self, to see the world through those wide, golden cat’s eyes. Hearing about Auden Ironbound and his new plot was unsettling, to say the least. But in her nahual form, Gabriella felt ready for anything.

  The hint of a smile flickered across Ms. Therian’s face as Gabriella stretched her legs, flexing her wide, velvety paws to reveal razor-sharp claws. “Climbing for you today,” Ms. Therian said, nodding toward a rocky structure against the far wall of the gym.

  Gabriella didn’t wait around to hear the others’ assignments. The opportunities to be in her nahual form were few and far between.

  And she wanted to make every moment count.

  All too soon, the bell rang. Not only was Changers class over, the school day was, too. For Gabriella, the afternoon was packed: soccer practice; helping her little sister, Maritza, with homework; chores; dinner; starting her own homework. Still, Gabriella lingered in her nahual form as she ran one last lap around the gym, a streak of midnight-black fur under the fluorescent lights.

  The others clapped when she finished; as Gabriella changed back into her human form, she was already beaming.

  “Save some of that for the field, huh?” Mack teased her as he packed his comics.

  “Are you kidding?” Gabriella asked as she grabbed her backpack. “I only wish I could.”

  “It’s always best to be discrete—difficult though it may be,” Ms. Therian said.

  Gabriella turned around quickly. “I was—”

  “I know how hard it is,” Ms. Therian told her. “Being split between two skins is a challenge few could handle. That’s why this space we have—this time we share—is so important. Both of your selves must have the opportunity to be free.”

  There was a long pause. Ms. Therian opened her mouth, as if there were something more she wanted to say. But all she told them was “See you tomorrow.”

  Mack and Gabriella watched her leave the Ancillary Gym.

  “That was . . . weird,” Mack finally said.

  “Was it?” Gabriella asked. She couldn’t quite tell. Ms. Therian was always very . . . careful about her words.

  “I feel like she’s trying to tell us something,” Mack said. “My grandfather gets like that too. And I’m like, What? What are you trying to tell me? Just say it; not everything needs to be a riddle or whatever!”

  Gabriella started to laugh. “I guess being mysterious is just another thing that the First Four do better than anyone,” she joked.

  “Wonder when Ms. Therian will teach us about that,” Mack said, his ey
es gleaming with mischief. He made his voice deeper and said, “The half-truths of a Changer’s existence are not truths at all, but lies.”

  Gabriella applauded. “Perfect! That made, like, zero sense.”

  “Maybe next time I transform, I’ll have earned my third tail for mysteriousness,” Mack joked, making Gabriella laugh again.

  She was still smiling in the locker room when she changed into her practice uniform. As she met up with her teammates on the field, Gabriella felt good. Ready. The memory of yesterday’s practice was fresh in her mind, but Gabriella wasn’t worried. I got all that nahual stuff out of my system in class, she told herself. Everything’s under control now.

  The whistle blew.

  The ball fell.

  And Gabriella was off.

  She ran so hard that her feet flattened the grass; she ran so fast that her dark ponytail streamed behind her like a blackbird in flight. The sun was bright; it smiled on Gabriella as she dashed down the field. Her kicks were perfectly positioned; perfectly restrained. The ball glided forward as if it were on wings. And it wasn’t just Gabriella—the whole team seemed to be playing stronger, tighter, better than ever before, as if every other player was inspired by Gabriella’s command of the field.

  Like the day before, Gabriella approached Trisha, who was warily blocking the goal. Better get out of the way, girl, Gabriella thought as she positioned the ball for one last, solid kick. Gabriella had watched Trisha play goalie plenty of times. She could guess which blocking maneuver Trisha would attempt. But as anticipation rippled through Gabriella’s muscles, she knew this was one goal that Trisha could never block.

  Gabriella’s whole body moved into position for the kick. That solid sense of connection, the leather of her cleat against the leather of the ball . . .

  Whooosh!

  The ball sailed into the goal. As her teammates erupted into cheers, Gabriella did a fist pump in triumph . . .

  And drew blood.

  She felt the sharpness slice her palm and glanced at it, perplexed before the pain set in. There was a razor-thin scratch in her skin, not very deep, not very painful, but enough for a line of bright-red blood to seep from it.

  How’d I do that? Gabriella wondered.

  A closer look told her all she needed to know.

  Her fingernails, always clipped short, had transformed into claws. Claws that were two inches long. Claws that ended in sharp, deadly points.

  Oh, no, Gabriella thought as a wave of understanding hit her. Panicking was easy. Staying calm—now that was the challenge. She balled up her fists, not even caring if she accidentally sliced her palms again. Then she forced herself to take a deep, slow breath. She’d lost control on the field—there was absolutely zero doubt about that—and somehow, someway, she had to get it back.

  I am in control of my transformations, Gabriella told herself as she began to count backward from ten. I am in control of my transformations.

  When she reached zero, Gabriella opened her eyes.

  The claws were gone—thankfully.

  But had anyone on the team seen them? She glanced warily at the rest of the girls as they helped Trisha pack up the equipment. No one was pointing at Gabriella in shock and horror. No one was even looking at her.

  So far, so good, Gabriella thought.

  That’s when Coach Connors called her name.

  Uh-oh, she thought, instantly alert. Did Coach see my . . . claws? Or . . . my eyes? Her eyes! Gabriella hadn’t even thought about them. If her fingernails had become claws, had her eyes transformed too?

  And worse, what if they were still changed?

  “I saw what happened on the field,” Coach Connors began.

  He knows. Gabriella’s thoughts raced as she tried to figure out an explanation, an excuse, anything to tell him.

  “It’s fine to push yourself like that during a practice, but when you’re out there on Saturday, pace yourself, okay?” Coach Connors continued. “There are two halves, remember? You don’t need to win in the first ten minutes.”

  “Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll remember that,” Gabriella heard herself say—boring, ordinary things, not the frantic, fumbling excuses she’d expected to make.

  “Great work today, Rivera,” Coach Connors told her before turning back to the school building.

  And then Gabriella was alone.

  She stared at her palm, where the long, red streak was proof that her powers had shown up during practice. Today had been a close call—closer than all the other near misses. Maybe I should talk to Ms. Therian, Gabriella thought. I’m not sure I can handle this by myself.

  A pair of arms grabbed Gabriella from behind. She jolted from the surprise, twisted herself away . . .

  And looked straight into the familiar brown eyes of her favorite aunt.

  “Mija!” Tía Rosa exclaimed as she pulled Gabriella toward her and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “Tía Rosa!” shrieked Gabriella as she threw her arms around her aunt’s neck. “What are you doing here?”

  “My apartment, it’s a mess!” Tía Rosa groaned. “All that rain from the hurricane a few weeks ago, it flooded my building, and now we have this disgusting mold problem. The air is so bad. It’s very unhealthy.”

  Gabriella wrinkled her nose. “That’s gross!” she replied.

  “You said it,” Tía Rosa declared. “So the management has to treat the entire building for mold, and all the tenants had to leave for ten days. But that’s actually good news for me, because I’m going to be staying with you!”

  “You are?” Gabriella cried. “For an entire week?” Her tía Rosa lived in New Brighton—only an hour away—but her busy work schedule meant that Gabriella didn’t get to see her very often.

  “That’s right,” Tía Rosa said, nodding. “I even took time off from work. It’s going to be like a vacation with my three favorite girls—you, your sister, and your mami.”

  “Maybe I should take some time off from school,” Gabriella said with a grin.

  Tía Rosa chuckled as she linked arms with Gabriella. “Well, you know I would approve, but your mother? Not so much,” she said. “Now, let’s get home so we can have some fun!”

  When Gabriella and Tía Rosa got home a little later, the house seemed empty—at first.

  “Ma!” Gabriella called out as she tossed her backpack onto a chair. “Ma? You home?”

  “Up here!” Ma’s voice was faint, drifting down from the attic.

  Gabriella bounded the stairs two at a time, with Tía Rosa right behind her.

  Tía Rosa gasped when they reached the attic. “It looks like a bomb went off in here!”

  Ma, who was surrounded by boxes and boxes of old papers and photographs, would’ve been mad if Gabriella had said something like that. But when it came from Rosa, she just laughed. “Found it!” she exclaimed, waving an old scrapbook in the air.

  “What’s that?” asked Gabriella.

  “It’s your abuelita’s old scrapbook from when we were kids,” Ma explained. “Tía Rosa said I probably didn’t have it anymore. So I set out to prove her wrong.”

  “I never said that,” Tía Rosa protested. “I said you probably couldn’t find it. Big difference.”

  “Yeah, the difference being that you were wrong!” Ma teased. “Just you wait, Gabriella, until you see your tía with long hair in braids. You won’t even recognize her.”

  Tía Rosa grinned as she ran her fingers through her cropped black hair. “I thought Mami would have a heart attack when I came home from the salon,” she said. “I had it all cut off when I was sixteen, and I haven’t looked back since!”

  Everyone laughed and then Ma’s phone started beeping. “Time to pick up Maritza from her piano lesson,” she said. “Let’s all go together. She’ll be so surprised to see you, Rosa! I can’t wait to see the look on her face!”

  “I like this aunt business,” Tía Rosa announced. “Swoop in like a celebrity, get the star treatment. I could get used to this.”

&
nbsp; “We’ll see what you have to say after you help the girls wash the dishes tonight,” Ma teased.

  As Gabriella followed her mom and Tía Rosa toward the stairs, she caught her toe on something and tripped in the most spectacular way imaginable. A box skidded across the floor before it hit a rickety old card table, which toppled over—spilling another box of mementos and photos everywhere.

  Gabriella tried to stop her fall, but she ended up in a heap on the floor. She groaned as she pulled herself up to a sitting position.

  “Mija! You okay?” Ma cried as she hurried toward Gabriella.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m just a klutz,” Gabriella said, looking down.

  “Grab a trash bag, Isabel,” Tía Rosa called to Gabriella’s mother. “Maybe we can sort through some of this junk while we tidy up.”

  “No, no, I got it,” Gabriella said quickly, looking down at the mess around her. “You go ahead and pick up Maritza,” Gabriella continued. “I’ll clean up this stuff.”

  Ma hesitated, but Tía Rosa beamed at Gabriella. “Such a good girl, and so helpful!” she said to her sister. “Nothing like the two of us when we were growing up.”

  “Yeah . . . but you should see her bedroom,” Ma joked.

  Then she and Tía Rosa disappeared down the stairs. Their laughter echoed back to Gabriella until they left the house.

  Gabriella didn’t really mind cleaning up the huge mess she’d made. It was actually pretty interesting—there were photos scattered around that Gabriella had never seen before, of relatives she’d never met. Some of them had been taken in Mexico, where Gabriella’s grandmother was born. Gabriella put a few of them in a stack to show Ma and Tía Rosa after dinner. With any luck, they’d start telling one of their stories and forget all about the chores Gabriella and Maritza were supposed to do.

  Then something on the floor glinted, catching Gabriella’s eye. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she knew one thing for certain: it definitely wasn’t an old photograph.

  With careful fingers, Gabriella moved aside the papers that were partially covering the object. Her hands reached for it before she knew what they were doing, as if she was somehow drawn to it.