The Emerald Mask Read online

  A mask, she thought—but unlike the flimsy, Halloween store masks she was used to seeing this time of year. This one was tough and aged, made of thick, unyielding leather that had been painted—or dyed?—a shimmery shade of brilliant green. It reminded her of a beetle or a chameleon, reflecting the light with an iridescent gleam.

  Looking back, Gabriella was never quite sure why she pulled the mask up to her face and peered through the eye slits. It just seemed, somehow, like the right thing to do. And she certainly never expected the mask to feel so, well, good. To Gabriella, who was blinking into the dusty shafts of sunlight filtering through the attic, the mask was suddenly more than a mask. It was a whole new identity. It was a way of concealing what was happening to her. To hide myself away, she thought.

  The idea was liberating.

  And silly, Gabriella realized as she ripped the mask away from her face. Wearing a mask like this in public would probably guarantee plenty of attention—and that was the last thing Gabriella wanted.

  A yellowed piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Gabriella picked it up and realized that it was a newspaper clipping.

  ROBBERY THWARTED!

  Emerald Wildcat Saves the Day

  An attempted robbery of New Brighton Central Bank was thwarted on Thursday by a masked individual who, witnesses claimed, apprehended the suspects and tied them to the bank’s marble columns. Witnesses reported that the hero then transformed into a leopard or jaguar before fleeing the scene, shortly before police arrived.

  “It’s very common for mass hysteria, or even psychosis, to occur in groups of people who are under extreme stress or facing life-threatening danger,” said Dr. Abigail Lansing, chair of New Brighton University’s psychology department.

  Gabriella carefully placed the article on the floor. She didn’t need to read any more about Dr. Lansing’s opinions. Most people might find it hard—impossible, even—to believe that the witnesses were right.

  But not Gabriella.

  It had to be a nahual, she thought as she turned the mask over in her hands. Right in New Brighton—just an hour away!

  Gabriella reached for the article again and stared at the blurry photo beneath the headline. Taken from the bank’s security-camera footage, it wasn’t great quality, but if Gabriella squinted, she could get a better look at the hero who had single-handedly stopped the robbery. She had long glossy black hair, which was slicked back from her face. Her face! Gabriella thought. If only she could see the face behind the mask—

  But her neck was visible, and so was her chin. It was a silly thought—just thinking it made Gabriella blush, even though she was all alone in the attic—but for a moment, Gabriella thought she recognized herself in those features.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Gabriella scolded herself.

  And yet . . .

  The mask felt so right. Normal, even, for someone who thought she’d left that word behind the first time she transformed.

  Why is this even here? Gabriella wondered suddenly. In an attic filled with old photos and family heirlooms, the mask and newspaper clipping were completely out of place.

  Or were they?

  A new idea struck Gabriella then, as sudden and unexpected as one of the lightning bolts that crackled between Darren’s fingers.

  Changer ability runs in families, she thought, sitting up straighter. Ms. Therian said so. Just look at Mack and his grandfather!

  Gabriella hardly dared to think it, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  Could I be related to the Emerald Wildcat? she mused.

  Then she heard the sound of a door opening.

  “Gabriella! We’re home!” Ma called from downstairs.

  “Be right there!” Gabriella called back, trying to make her voice sound as normal as possible as she shoved the mask into her hoodie’s pocket. One afternoon in the attic, and her whole world had shifted. Because if Ma was a nahual too, if everything that was happening to Gabriella had happened to Ma and she’d somehow survived it and become so good at concealing her true self that even her own daughters didn’t know . . .

  Then maybe there was hope for Gabriella after all.

  Chapter 3

  Under Control

  Mack got to school so early the next morning that the cafeteria was still serving breakfast. Even though he could smell French toast sticks and maple syrup, he went straight to homeroom. He had so much work to do on his comic that every second of the day counted—and Mack would rather steal fifteen extra minutes to sketch in homeroom than have a second breakfast in the cafeteria.

  Using the side of his pencil, Mack made some thick broad lines on his paper. The kind of comic art he loved had dark, heavy lines, which were perfect for conveying energy and action. Detail work, Mack had already discovered, was harder. Facial features, for example— How did anybody ever learn to draw two eyes of the same shape, or a mouth that was more than a cartoony loop?

  Practice, probably, Mack thought, grimacing as he erased his superhero’s face again. The paper wouldn’t hold up to much more erasing, but Mack didn’t mind if he had to start over. He would do whatever it took to get the facial expression just right.

  Mack was so engrossed in his sketching that he didn’t even hear when someone had come up behind him, whispering “Psst!” to get his attention. It wasn’t until a hand grabbed his right shoulder—jostling his drawing hand—that he looked up.

  “Hey! What—” he started to say. But when Mack realized that Gabriella was standing next to him, he softened.

  “Hey, Gabriella. What’s up?” he asked. A confused expression flickered across his face. “This isn’t your homeroom. Is something wrong?”

  “No . . . not wrong, exactly,” Gabriella began. She glanced over her shoulder at the door to make sure no one was about to join them.

  “What’s going on?” Mack said.

  Gabriella didn’t reply as she slipped the Emerald Wildcat’s mask out of her backpack. Mack let out a low whistle. He turned it over and over in his hands, examining the iridescent leather, before he looked up at Gabriella.

  “Pretty awesome mask,” he said as he handed it back to her. “Where did you get it?”

  “In my attic, actually,” Gabriella explained. “I think . . . I know this sounds crazy, Mack, but I think it belonged to a real superhero. A Changer superhero—a nahual one, to be specific.”

  Mack’s eyes widened, flashing with excitement and intrigue. “Are you kidding?” he asked. But before Gabriella could tell him more, Mack started rummaging through his backpack. “Check this out,” he said as he held out a comic book.

  It was old; Gabriella could tell that right away. The paper felt thin and worn, as though someone had flipped through it hundreds of times. The date on the cover read May 20, 1996. But Gabriella couldn’t tear her eyes away from the title. In tall, jagged letters, it read The Emerald Wildcat, Volume 1.

  Gabriella couldn’t speak.

  There she was, on the cover—or at least, a drawing of her: The Emerald Wildcat, a gorgeous Latina, wearing a green leather suit. Her black hair shone with blue highlights, and her eyes—striking, unmistakable golden cat’s eyes—stared through a shimmering green mask.

  The same mask that Gabriella held in her hands.

  “I—I don’t understand,” she finally said.

  “The Emerald Wildcat. A lesser-known superhero, but one of the coolest, in my humble opinion. One of the most amazing things about the Emerald Wildcat is that she really existed. For a few years in, uh, the midnineties, she actually stopped a bunch of crimes from happening—right in New Brighton,” Mack said, sounding a little bit like a superhero encyclopedia. “Here, I think there’s an article online. . . .”

  Mack tapped his phone a few times and then showed the screen to Gabriella. “All the archives of the New Brighton Times are online now,” he told her. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “I found a copy of that article in my attic!” Gabriella exclaimed. She would’ve recognized the grainy photo anywhere.
<
br />   “Right, so the Emerald Wildcat was running around town, fighting all this crime—better than the police, even,” Mack continued. “And everybody wanted to find out who she was! But she left, like, no clues. Ever. Then things . . . changed.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gabriella.

  “Like, the police put out a wanted poster with her mask on it,” Mack explained, flipping to a panel near the back of the comic. “They were so embarrassed. Here was this so-called superhero—I mean, nobody believed she was an actual wildcat, because . . . well, you know. And she was doing a better job at stopping crime than the actual police!”

  “So what happened to her?” Gabriella said.

  Mack shrugged. “Nobody knows. She simply . . . disappeared, never to be heard from again. Of course, her adventures live on in the Emerald Wildcat comic series. They retold some of her exploits and invented new ones after she vanished. But as for the Emerald Wildcat herself . . . It’s almost like she never existed.”

  “But she did exist!” Gabriella said, forgetting to whisper as she waved the mask in the air. “And—and—I think she’s my mom!”

  “No way!” Mack exclaimed loudly. Then he glanced anxiously over his shoulder. “I mean . . .”

  “Think about it,” Gabriella urged. “It makes sense, right? The Emerald Wildcat was obviously a nahual Changer. And Changer abilities run in families. And her mask was in my attic! I mean, that can’t be a coincidence!

  “Plus, my mom grew up in New Brighton,” Gabriella continued. “She only moved to Willow Cove after I was born.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Mack said, his voice full of admiration. “I’m actually friends with the daughter of a superhero! This is without a doubt the most incredible—”

  “Good morning, Mr. Kimura,” Mr. Morrison, Mack’s homeroom teacher, said as he walked into the classroom. “You’re here early.”

  Gabriella shoved the Emerald Wildcat’s mask into her hoodie’s pocket; the sudden motion made Mr. Morrison glance in her direction. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, but she still felt guilty from the way he raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. “I suppose you’d better be off to your own homeroom, Ms. Rivera,” he said. “The first bell is about to ring.”

  “Yes, Mr. Morrison,” Gabriella said. Then, under her breath, she whispered to Mack, “Talk to you later.”

  “Here,” Mack said suddenly as he pressed The Emerald Wildcat, Volume I into her hands. “You can borrow it.”

  For just a moment, Gabriella hesitated.

  Why would she want some dumb comic? Mack asked himself, feeling a little embarrassed. She probably thinks they are the ultimate in uncool.

  But to Mack’s surprise, Gabriella grinned at him. “Thanks,” she replied gratefully. “I can’t wait to read it.”

  Later that day, Mack ran all the way to the Ancillary Gym for Changers class. His plan to sneak in a few extra minutes of drawing time during lunch had worked a little too well. Hunkered in the stairwell, he hadn’t heard the bell signaling the end of lunch—or even realized it had rung until a bunch of kids were stepping around him on their way to the upstairs classrooms. By the time Mack reached the Ancillary Gym, everyone else had already transformed and started practicing. One look at the steely expression in Ms. Therian’s eyes told him that he was in trouble.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” Mack panted. “It won’t . . . happen . . . again.”

  Ms. Therian nodded—just once. “Go ahead and transform, Mack,” she told him. “You and Gabriella will be racing today.”

  Mack transformed and then glanced over to the track, where Gabriella was waiting for him in her nahual form. Since Mack and Gabriella were the two land-based Changers, it made sense for them to be paired up. That didn’t bother Mack one bit. The same skills that made Gabriella such a formidable force on the soccer field challenged Mack in his training, pushing him to be faster . . . stronger . . . better. He hadn’t won a race against Gabriella yet, but he was determined to keep trying.

  Gabriella’s long, sleek tail flicked back and forth, like a wave, as Mack joined her on the track. Her eyes, shining and golden, seemed like they were smiling at him.

  Ready to race? Gabriella’s voice echoed in his head.

  Oh, it’s on, he said back to her.

  At the first shriek of a whistle, Mack was off and running.

  Sometimes Mack wondered if his heightened kitsune senses were the reason why he could never quite catch Gabriella. The feel of his paws propelling him forward, the light glinting off the equipment in the gym, and the sounds echoing off the walls were a constant distraction. If there was a way to turn down his senses, Mack hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Boom! There was Gabriella, her large paws thundering on the indoor track’s spongy surface.

  Splash! There was Fiona in her selkie form, struggling to master her swimming ability by diving through a series of increasingly narrow hoops.

  Flash! There was Darren, impundulu wings outstretched as he perched high on an exposed pipe near the ceiling. Small sparks crackled from the end of his talons. With Mack’s keen fox vision, he could see the determined gleam in Darren’s eyes. You can do it, Mack thought to him.

  In that same instant the bolt of lightning ripped through the room. Was it coincidence? Or had Mack accidentally distracted Darren?

  It all happened so fast—that burning bolt of electricity that sliced through the air. Mack watched, horrified, as it missed the pool where Fiona swam, blissfully unaware, by inches.

  Thweeeeeet!

  The call from Ms. Therian’s whistle captured everyone’s attention.

  “Human forms, please,” she said, her voice trembling.

  If Darren’s lightning bolt had hit the pool while Fiona was swimming . . . , Mack thought as he transformed. He shook his head. It was too terrible to think about—all that water, electrified, and Fiona trapped in the middle of it . . .

  “Did you see that?” Gabriella, who was back in her human form, asked him.

  Mack nodded. “Close call, huh?”

  “Too close, I bet,” she replied in a low voice. “Ms. Therian looked like she was going to have a heart attack.”

  Mack tilted his head. Ms. Therian’s face did look pretty gray.

  “That was a good practice,” Ms. Therian announced as everyone gathered around her. “Mack, very nice form while sprinting. You seem more comfortable as a kitsune every time you transform.”

  Then Ms. Therian turned to Darren. “Darren—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said right away. “I didn’t mean to send out any lightning—”

  “It happens,” she interrupted him. “After all, practice is the purpose of this class. Still, I think it would be wise to take additional precautions. Whenever Fiona is in the pool, you should practice on the opposite side of the gym.”

  “Of course,” Darren replied. Then he turned to Fiona. “Sorry about that.”

  She smiled at him. “No harm, no foul,” she said.

  “Fiona, you need to continue practicing your breathing exercises,” Ms. Therian continued.

  “In the ocean?” Fiona asked hopefully.

  But Ms. Therian shook her head. “I would prefer you work on them in a controlled environment. However, I suppose you could practice in your bathtub at home.”

  For some reason the thought of Fiona as a seal, lounging in a bath tub, was hilariously funny. Even Fiona laughed, though her cheeks burned bright red at the same time. And just like that, the anxious tension that had filled the room from Darren’s stray lightning bolt melted away.

  “And Gabriella . . . ,” Ms. Therian began.

  Mack’s head turned, just a little. Whatever advice Gabriella was about to receive, he wanted to hear it, too.

  But Ms. Therian didn’t comment on Gabriella’s performance during practice. Instead, Ms. Therian tapped her own temple and said simply, “Mind your eyes.”

  All the kids looked at Gabriella just in time to see her golden cat’s eyes shimmer and shift to br
own human eyes. “Thanks,” she said. “I need all the reminders I can get.”

  Gabriella seemed ready to say more, but closed her mouth instead. She pulled a small compact out of her backpack and glanced at her eyes to double-check.

  “Enjoy your weekend,” Ms. Therian said as she dismissed them. Then she crossed the room to examine the spot where Darren’s lightning bolt had struck the floor.

  Everyone hung out by the bench while they waited for the final bell.

  “So my dad says we need to leave by eight thirty tomorrow morning,” Fiona said to Darren. “Pick you up at eight twenty?”

  Darren grimaced. “I usually have a strict policy against setting my alarm clock on a Saturday,” he said. “But for beating Auden Ironbound, I’m willing to make an exception.”

  “I really wish I could come with you guys,” Gabriella said wistfully.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Fiona told her. “It’s better that you show up for the soccer game like normal.”

  “Yeah,” Mack agreed. He shifted uncomfortably. “Do you guys, uh, need me to come? My project is still really far behind. . . .”

  “I think we’ve got it under control,” Fiona said. “Darren and I were a pretty good team when we researched in the rare books room before.”

  “Yeah, you should stay home and keep working on your comic,” Darren told Mack. “Practice makes perfect, after all. And speaking of practice . . .”

  Everyone turned to look as he held up his right hand and snapped his fingers. A shower of sparks flew into the air, like a burning log shifting in a campfire. The sparks hovered for a moment and then twinkled as they fell and faded.

  “Do it again!” Fiona cried.

  With a confident grin, Darren snapped his fingers several times. The shower flew fast, making a golden cloud. There was a strange expression on Gabriella’s face as she reached out to touch it.

  “Don’t—” Fiona began.

  But it was too late. They heard a sizzle, and then Gabriella sucked in her breath sharply and popped her index finger into her mouth.

  “Oh man,” Darren said anxiously. “Did you get burned? I am so sorry, Gabriella. I would never—”