The Son of Neptune - Chapter 6

HAZEL WAS WALKING HOME ALONE from the riding stables.
Despite the cold evening, she was buzzing with warmth.
Sammy had just kissed her on the cheek.
The day had been full of ups and downs. Kids at school
had teased her about her mother, calling her a witch and a
lot of other names. That had been going on for a long
time, of course, but it was getting worse. Rumours were
spreading about Hazel’s curse. The school was called St
Agnes Academy for Coloured 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.
Hazel didn’t understand how other black kids could be
so mean. They should’ve known better, since they
themselves had to put up with name-calling all the time.
But they yelled at her and stole her lunch, always asking
for those famous jewels: ‘Where’s those cursed diamonds,
girl? Gimme some or I’ll hurt you!’ They pushed her away
at the water fountain, and threw rocks at her if she tried to
approach them on the playground.
Despite how horrible they were, Hazel never gave them
diamonds or gold. She didn’t hate anyone that much.
Besides, she 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 coloured 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 Hazel laugh.
That afternoon he’d taken her 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
Hazel in to help take care of the horses. Once in a while
they’d go riding.
Hazel loved horses. They seemed to be the only living
things that weren’t scared of her. People hated her. Cats
hissed. Dogs growled. Even the stupid hamster in Miss
finley’s classroom squeaked in terror when she gave it a
carrot. But horses didn’t mind. When she was in the
saddle, she could ride so fast that there was no chance of
gemstones cropping up in her wake. She almost felt free
of her curse.
That afternoon, she’d taken out a tan roan stallion with a
gorgeous black mane. She galloped into the fields so
swiftly, she left Sammy 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 they had one anyway,
sitting under a magnolia tree with the horses tethered to a
split-rail fence. Sammy had brought her a cupcake with a
birthday candle, which had got smashed on the ride but
was still the sweetest thing Hazel had ever seen. They
broke it in half and shared it.
Sammy talked about the war. He wished he were old
enough to go. He asked Hazel if she would write him
letters if he were a soldier going overseas.
‘’Course, dummy,’ she said.
He grinned. Then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, he
lurched forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Happy
birthday, Hazel.’
It wasn’t much. Just one kiss, and not even on the lips.
But Hazel felt like she was floating. She hardly
remembered the ride back to the stables, or telling
Sammy goodbye. He said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ like he
always did. But she would never see him again.
By the time she got back to the French Quarter, it was
getting dark. As she approached home, her warm feeling
faded, replaced by dread.
Hazel and her mother – Queen Marie, 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 parlours or propose to their sweethearts right
on the sidewalk. Some would go upstairs to Hazel’s
mother to have their fortunes read or to buy charms from
Marie Levesque, the famous gris-gris queen.
‘Did you hear?’ one would say. ‘Two bits for this goodluck
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. Hazel’s 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. They ate steak for dinner
once a week. Hazel 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 Hazel – how she could
find cursed jewels just by walking down the street. These
days only out-of-towners came to visit her mother, and not
so many of them, either. Hazel’s mom had become shorttempered.
She gave Hazel resentful looks.
Hazel climbed the stairs as quietly as she could, in
case her mother had a customer. In the club downstairs,
the band was tuning their instruments. The bakery next
door had started making fritters for tomorrow morning,
filling the stairwell with the smell of melting butter.
When she got to the top, Hazel thought she heard two
voices inside the apartment. But when she peeked into
the parlour, her mother was sitting alone at the séance
table, her eyes closed, as if in a trance.
Hazel 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 Hazel 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 Hazel knew her mother did believe in some magic.
Hazel’s curse wasn’t hokum. Queen Marie just didn’t want
to think it was her fault – that somehow she had made
Hazel the way she was.
‘It was your blasted father,’ Queen Marie would grumble
in her darker moods. ‘Coming here in his fancy silverand-
black suit. The one time I actually summon a spirit,
and what do I get? Fulfils 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 Hazel
had learned not to ask about her father. It just made her
mother angrier.
As Hazel watched, Queen Marie muttered something to
herself. Her face was calm and relaxed. Hazel 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 Hazel’s, and the same dark complexion, brown as
a roasted coffee bean. 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.’
Hazel 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.’
Hazel fled down the stairs, her pulse racing.
At the bottom, she ran into a man in a dark suit. He
gripped her shoulders with strong, cold fingers.
‘Easy, child,’ the man said.
Hazel 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 grey. His face – Hazel’s heart nearly leaped
out of her 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. Hazel had seen that look in the
newsreels at the movie theater. This man looked like that
awful Adolf Hitler. He had no moustache, but otherwise he
could’ve been Hitler’s twin – or his father.
Hazel tried to pull away. Even when the man let go, she
couldn’t seem to move. His eyes froze her in place.
‘Hazel Levesque,’ he said in a melancholy voice.
‘You’ve grown.’
Hazel 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 spat
out a watermelon seed. The man looked at it, unsurprised.
He bent down.
‘Don’t!’ Hazel 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.’
Hazel didn’t understand. The man sounded sad, as if
he were personally responsible for her life. Then the truth
hit her: a spirit in silver and black, who’d fulfilled her
mother’s wishes and ruined her life.
Her eyes widened. ‘You? You’re my …’
He cupped his hand under her 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
–’
She pushed his hand away.
‘You did this to me?’ she demanded. ‘You cursed me
and my mother? You left us alone?’
Her eyes stung with tears. This rich white man in a fine
suit was her father? Now that she was thirteen, he showed
up for the first time and said he was sorry?
‘You’re evil!’ she 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?’
Hazel was too angry to speak, but Pluto seemed to read
the answers in her 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 some day 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 …’
Hazel didn’t follow any of that. Before she could
respond, Pluto held out his hand. A sketchpad and a box
of coloured 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 Hazel off his ‘to do’ list and had already
forgotten her. Happy birthday. Go draw a picture. See you
in another thirteen years.
She was so stunned, so angry, so upside-down
confused that she just stood paralyzed at the base of the
steps. She wanted to throw down the coloured pencils and
stomp on them. She wanted to charge after Pluto and kick
him. She wanted to run away, find Sammy, steal a horse,
leave town and never come back. But she didn’t do any of
those things.
Above her, the apartment door opened, and Pluto
stepped inside.
Hazel was still shivering from his cold touch, but she
crept up the stairs to see what he would do. What would he
say to Queen Marie? Who would speak back – Hazel’s
mother, or that awful voice?
When she reached the doorway, Hazel heard arguing.
She peeked in. Her mother seemed back to normal –
screaming and angry, throwing things around the parlour
while Pluto tried to reason with her.
‘Marie, it’s insanity,’ he said. ‘You’ll be far beyond my
power to protect you.’
‘Protect me?’ Queen Marie 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!’ Queen Marie 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!’ Queen Marie 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. Hazel’s entire collection.
‘You won’t survive,’ Pluto said. ‘If you go north, you’ll
both die. I can foresee that clearly.’
‘Get out!’ she said.
Hazel wished Pluto would stay and argue. Whatever her
mother was talking about, Hazel didn’t like it. But her
father slashed his hand across the air and dissolved into
shadows … like he really was a spirit.
Queen Marie closed her eyes. She took a deep breath.
Hazel 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, Hazel obeyed. She clutched the sketchpad
and coloured pencils to her chest.
Her mother studied her like she was a bitter
disappointment. A poisoned child, the voices had said.
‘Pack a bag,’ she ordered. ‘We’re moving.’
‘Wh-where?’ Hazel asked.
‘Alaska,’ Queen Marie answered. ‘You’re going to make
yourself useful. We’re going to start a new life.’
The way her mother said that, it sounded as if they were
going to create a ‘new life’ for someone else – or
something else.
‘What did Pluto mean?’ Hazel asked. ‘Is he really my
father? He said you made a wish –’
‘Go to your room!’ her mother shouted. ‘Pack!’
Hazel fled, and suddenly she was ripped out of the past.
Nico was shaking her shoulders. ‘You did it again.’
Hazel blinked. They were still sitting on the roof of
Pluto’s shrine. The sun was lower in the sky. More
diamonds had surfaced around her, and her eyes stung
from crying.
‘S-sorry,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t be,’ Nico said. ‘Where were you?’
‘My mother’s apartment. The day we moved.’
Nico nodded. He understood her history better than
most people could. He was also a kid from the 1940s.
He’d been born only a few years after Hazel, and had
been locked away in a magic hotel for decades. But
Hazel’s past was much worse than Nico’s. She’d caused
so much damage and misery …
‘You have to work on controlling those memories,’ Nico
warned. ‘If a flashback like that happens when you’re in
combat –’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m trying.’
Nico squeezed her hand. ‘It’s okay. I think it’s a side
effect from … you know, your time in the Underworld.
Hopefully it’ll get easier.’
Hazel wasn’t so sure. After eight months, the blackouts
seemed to be getting worse, as if her soul were 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 she had. Nico was trying to reassure her, but neither
of them knew what would happen.
‘I can’t go north again,’ Hazel said. ‘Nico, if I have to go
back to where it happened –’
‘You’ll be fine,’ he promised. ‘You’ll have friends this
time. Percy Jackson – he’s got a role to play in this. You
can sense that, can’t you? He’s a good person to have at
your side.’
Hazel remembered what Pluto told her long ago: A
descendant of Neptune will wash away your curse and
give you peace.
Was Percy the one? Maybe, but Hazel sensed it
wouldn’t be so easy. She wasn’t sure even Percy could
survive what was waiting in the north.
‘Where did he come from?’ she asked. ‘Why do the
ghosts call him 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.’

Categories: The Son of Neptune