Sweet Shadows

It worked. It really worked.

Dad, oblivious to what has just happened, walks up to her and rests a hand against her lower back. “It sounds as if Greer has everything under control, Helen.” He throws me a sympathetic smile. “We’ve all had long days. I’ll have Natasha call the housekeepers in the morning, and the house will be back to normal when we return home tomorrow night.”

“Of course.” I smile, trying to appear positive when I know I will have to be the one to talk to Natasha because Dad will be at the office before dawn. I will take care of it, as I always do.

Mother just looks at him, her face still oddly blank, and she lets Dad lead her to the stairs up to their second-floor bedroom. As he guides her into the stairway, he looks back at me and we share a knowing smile. If he notices Mother’s unusual malleability, her slightly odd behavior, he doesn’t comment.

I nod good night to Dad and wait until I hear their bedroom door shut before I release the tense energy coiled up inside me.

My bath is calling me, but I have to face the rest of the cleanup first. Yes, I will make sure the housekeepers come tomorrow, but the better things look when Mother comes down in the morning, the better things will be for everyone in the household.

As I move throughout the first floor, smoothing rugs and straightening portraits of ancestors who no longer belong to me, I can’t keep the tremor from my hands. Even if my hypno powers helped give me the confidence, I just told my mother and the police bald-faced lies. My boyfriend is proving to be too callous and selfish for my taste. And tonight I escaped death by six-armed giant, manticore, and explosion. My life is changing faster that I can keep up with, and for the first time in my life, I’m not 100-percent certain I can handle it.

There are little cracks forming in my controlled facade, and I’m afraid it will take more than a hot bath and a good night’s sleep to repair them.

For tonight, though, they’ll have to suffice.

CHAPTER 5

GRACE

Despite my crazy late night, I’m waiting outside Ms. West’s office first thing the next morning. Actually, I left home so early, I got to school before the front doors were open. The custodian let me in when he saw me sitting on the front steps, and then the secretary let me into the office so I could wait for Ms. West on the bench outside her door.

One reason for my eagerness is that I want to talk to Ms. West and find out for certain if she’s the Gorgon Sthenno. I’m pretty sure—as sure as I can be—but it pays to be cautious. Especially after last night. I have to be a little strategic.

But the other reason is that I wanted to get out of the house before Mom and Dad were up. I knew Mom said Dad and I should talk this morning about my irresponsible behavior, but I couldn’t face the prospect. I couldn’t sit there and listen to them explain how disappointed they are in me and how I know better and how they thought they could trust me. It breaks my heart that I can’t tell them the real reason I disappeared last night. It breaks my heart that this new part of me, this shadow life with triplet sisters and a mythological legacy, might be causing a crack in the relationship I have with my parents. It kills me, but I don’t have another choice. Telling them is not an option. I have to keep my shadows to myself.

“Grace?” Ms. West asks as she arrives at her door. “Is something wrong?”

She looks the same as always: tall, elegant, poised. Wearing a crisp suit in a soft shade of gray and heels that would make Greer proud. Hair in a tight, low ponytail. Simple gold jewelry. Same generically welcoming look on her face.

Even though she hasn’t changed since yesterday, the way I’m looking at her has. I see the little details I missed before. The sense of strength emanating from every inch of her body. The ancient design of her earrings. And, most of all, the wisdom in her soft blue eyes. The wisdom of someone far older—by millennia—than the thirty-something image she presents.

How did I miss these signs before? Or am I just seeing them now because I want to?

I can’t take the risk that I’m wrong, that I’ve guessed wrong. My sisters and I have too much at stake. So instead of asking, Hey, aren’t you an immortal Gorgon? I say, “Yeah. I need to talk to you about my English class.”

She smiles blandly and says, “Of course.”

As she unlocks the door to her office, I mentally play through what I want to say. By the time she has settled into the chair behind her austere desk, and I’m in one of the facing chairs, I’m still trying to figure out how to begin.

The picture on the wall behind her draws my attention. The pristine white sand, the brilliant turquoise waters. There’s something intensely familiar about it.

In an instant, I know what I have to say.

“That’s a beautiful picture,” I say, sitting on the edge of my chair. I drop my gaze to meet her eye to eye. “Is it the Aegean?”

At first she doesn’t react. I sense a slight shift in her, maybe a narrowing of her eyes at the corners or an imperceptible straightening of her spine.

She blinks once. “It is.”

The right side of her mouth quirks up a fraction of an inch.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, charging ahead now that I feel that I have the tiniest bit of reassurance. “It looks … timeless. Like it might have looked exactly like that for, oh”—I lift my brows—“thousands of years.”

Ms. West leans back in her chair, crosses her arms over her chest, and gives me a small smile. “Not exactly. But it’s held up quite well.”