The Mark of Athena - XXII Leo

THEY STOOD IN THE COURTYARD of an old compound, like a monastery. Red brick walls were overgrown with vines. Big magnolia trees had cracked the pavement. The sun beat down, and the humidity was about two hundred percent, even stickier than in Houston. Somewhere nearby, Leo smelled fish frying. Overhead, the cloud cover was low and gray, striped like a tiger’s pelt.
The courtyard was about the size of a basketball court. An old deflated football sat in one corner, at the base of a Virgin Mary statue.
Along the sides of the buildings, windows were open. Leo could see flickers of movement inside, but it was eerily quiet. He saw no sign of air conditioning, which meant it must have been a thousand degrees in there.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“My old school,” Hazel said next to him. “St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians.”
“What kind of name—?”
He turned toward Hazel and yelped. She was a ghost—just a vaporous silhouette in the steamy air. Leo looked down and realized his own body had turned to mist too.
Everything around him seemed solid and real, but he was a spirit. After having been possessed by an eidolon three days ago, he didn’t appreciate the feeling.
Before he could ask questions, a bell rang inside: not a modern electronic sound, but the old-fashioned buzz of a hammer on metal.
“This is a memory,” Hazel said, “so no one will see us. Look, here we come.”
“We?”
From every door, dozens of children spilled into the courtyard, yelling and jostling each other. They were mostly African American, with a sprinkling of Hispanic-looking kids, as young as kindergartners and as old as high schoolers. Leo could tell this was in the past, because all the girls wore dresses and buckled leather shoes. The boys wore white collared shirts and pants held up by suspenders. Many wore caps like horse jockeys wear. Some kids carried lunches. Many didn’t. Their clothes were clean, but worn and faded. Some had holes in the knees of their trousers, or shoes with the heels coming apart.
A few of the girls began playing jump rope with an old piece of clothesline. The older guys tossed a ratty baseball back and forth. Kids with lunches sat together and ate and chatted.
No one paid Ghost Hazel or Leo any attention.
Then Hazel—Hazel from the past—stepped into the courtyard. Leo recognized her with no problem, though she looked about two years younger than now. Her hair was pinned back in a bun. Her gold eyes darted around the courtyard uneasily. She wore a dark dress, unlike the other girls in their white cotton or pastel flowery prints, so she stood out like a mourner at a wedding.
She gripped a canvas lunch bag and moved along the wall, as if trying hard not to be noticed.
It didn’t work. A boy called out, “Witch girl!” He lumbered toward her, backing her into a corner. The boy could have been fourteen or nineteen. It was hard to tell because he was so big and tall, easily the largest guy on the playground. Leo figured he’d been held back a few times. He wore a dirty shirt the color of grease rags, threadbare wool trousers (in this heat, they couldn’t have been comfortable),
and no shoes at all. Maybe the teachers were too terrified to insist that this kid wear shoes, or maybe he just didn’t have any.
“That’s Rufus,” said Ghost Hazel with distaste.
“Seriously? No way his name is Rufus,” Leo said.
“Come on,” said Ghost Hazel. She drifted toward the confrontation. Leo followed. He wasn’t used to drifting, but he’d ridden a Segway once and it was kind of like that. He simply leaned in the direction he wanted to go and glided along.
The big kid Rufus had flat features, as if he spent most of his time face-planting on the sidewalk. His hair was cut just as flat on top, so miniature airplanes could’ve used it for a landing strip.
Rufus thrust out his hand. “Lunch.”
Hazel from the past didn’t protest. She handed over her canvas bag like this was an everyday occurrence.
A few older girls drifted over to watch the fun. One giggled at Rufus. “You don’t want to eat that,” she warned. “It’s probably poison.”
“You’re right,” Rufus said. “Did your witch mom make this, Levesque?”
“She’s not a witch,” Hazel muttered.
Rufus dropped the bag and stepped on it, smashing the contents under his bare heel. “You can have it back. I want a diamond, though. I hear your momma can make those out of thin air. Gimme a diamond.”
“I don’t have diamonds,” Hazel said. “Go away.”
Rufus balled his fists. Leo had been in enough rough schools and foster homes to sense when things were about to turn ugly. He wanted to step in and help Hazel, but he was a ghost. Besides, all this had happened decades ago.
Then another kid stumbled outside into the sunlight.
Leo sucked in his breath. The boy looked exactly like him.
“You see?” asked Ghost Hazel.
Fake Leo was the same height as Regular Leo—meaning he was short. He had the same nervous energy—tapping his fingers against his trousers, brushing at his white cotton shirt, adjusting the jockey cap on his curly brown hair. (Really, Leo thought, short people should not wear jockey caps unless they were jockeys.) Fake Leo had the same devilish smile that greeted Regular Leo whenever he looked in a mirror—an expression that made teachers immediately shout, “Don’t even think about it!” and plop him in the front row.
Apparently, Fake Leo had just been scolded by a teacher. He was holding a dunce cap—an honest-to-goodness cardboard cone that said DUNCE. Leo thought those were something you only saw in cartoons.
He could understand why Fake Leo wasn’t wearing it. Bad enough to look like a jockey. With that cone on his head, he would’ve looked like a gnome.
Some kids backed up when Fake Leo burst onto the scene. Others nudged each other and ran toward him like they were expecting a show.
Meanwhile, Flathead Rufus was still trying to punk Hazel out of a diamond, oblivious to Fake Leo’s arrival.
“Come on, girl.” Rufus loomed over Hazel with his fists clenched. “Give it!”
Hazel pressed herself against the wall. Suddenly the ground at her feet went snap, like a twig breaking. A perfect diamond the size of a pistachio glittered between her feet.
“Ha!” Rufus barked when he saw it. He started to lean down, but Hazel yelped, “No, please!” as if she was genuinely concerned for the big goon.
That’s when Fake Leo strolled over.
Here it comes, Leo thought. Fake Leo is gonna bust out some Coach Hedge–style jujitsu and save the day.
Instead, Fake Leo put the top of the dunce cap to his mouth like a megaphone and yelled, “CUT!”
He said it with such authority all the other kids momentarily froze. Even Rufus straightened and backed away in confusion.
One of the little boys snickered under his breath: “Hammy Sammy.”
Sammy… Leo shivered. Who the heck was this kid?
Sammy/Fake Leo stormed up to Rufus with his dunce cap in his hand, looking angry. “No, no, no!” he announced, waving his free hand wildly at the other kids, who were gathering to watch the entertainment.
Sammy turned to Hazel. “Miss Lamarr, your line is…” Sammy looked around in exasperation. “Script! What is Hedy Lamarr’s line?”
“‘No, please, you villain!’” one of the boys called out.
“Thank you!” Sammy said. “Miss Lamarr, you’re supposed to say, No, please, you villain! And you, Clark Gable—”
The whole courtyard burst into laughter. Leo vaguely knew Clark Gable was an old-timey actor, but he didn’t know much else. Apparently, though, the idea that Flathead Rufus could be Clark Gable was hilarious to the kids.
“Mr. Gable—”
“No!” one of the girls cried. “Make him Gary Cooper.”
More laughter. Rufus looked as if he were about to blow a valve. He balled his fists like he wanted to hit somebody, but he couldn’t attack the entire school. He clearly hated being laughed at, but his slow little mind couldn’t quite work out what Sammy was up to.
Leo nodded in appreciation. Sammy was like him. Leo had done the same kind of stuff to bullies for years.
“Right!” Sammy yelled imperiously. “Mr. Cooper, you say, Oh, but the diamond is mine, my treacherous darling! And then you scoop up the diamond like this!”
“Sammy, no!” Hazel protested, but Sammy snatched up the stone and slipped it into his pocket in one smooth move.
He wheeled on Rufus. “I want emotion! I want the ladies in the audience swooning! Ladies, did Mr. Cooper make you swoon just now?”
“No,” several of them called back.
“There, you see?” Sammy cried. “Now, from the top!” he yelled into his dunce cap. “Action!”
Rufus was just starting to get over his confusion. He stepped toward Sammy and said, “Valdez, I’m gonna—”
The bell rang. Kids swarmed the doors. Sammy pulled Hazel out of the way as the little ones—who acted like they were on Sammy’s payroll—herded Rufus along with them so he was carried inside on a tide of kindergartners.
Soon Sammy and Hazel were alone except for the ghosts.
Sammy scooped up Hazel’s smashed lunch, made a show of dusting off the canvas bag, and presented it to her with a deep bow, as if it were her crown. “Miss Lamarr.”
Hazel from the past took her ruined lunch. She looked like she was about to cry, but Leo couldn’t tell if that was from relief or misery or admiration. “Sammy…Rufus is going to kill you.”
“Ah, he knows better than to tangle with me.” Sammy plopped the dunce cap on top of his jockey cap. He stood up straight and stuck out his scrawny chest. The dunce cap fell off.
Hazel laughed. “You are ridiculous.”
“Why, thank you, Miss Lamarr.”
“You’re welcome, my treacherous darling.”
Sammy’s smile wavered. The air became uncomfortably charged. Hazel stared at the ground. “You shouldn’t have touched that diamond. It’s dangerous.”
“Ah, come on,” Sammy said. “Not for me!”
Hazel studied him warily, like she wanted to believe it. “Bad things might happen. You shouldn’t—”
“I won’t sell it,” Sammy said. “I promise! I’ll just keep it as a token of your flavor.”
Hazel forced a smile. “I think you mean token of my favor.”
“There you are! We should get going. It’s time for our next scene: Hedy Lamarr nearly dies of boredom in English class.”
Sammy held out his elbow like a gentleman, but Hazel pushed him away playfully. “Thanks for being there, Sammy.”
“Miss Lamarr, I will always be there for you!” he said brightly. The two of them raced back into the schoolhouse.
Leo felt more like a ghost than ever. Maybe he had actually been an eidolon his whole life, because this kid he’d just seen should have been the real Leo. He was smarter, cooler, and funnier. He flirted so well with Hazel that he had obviously stolen her heart.
No wonder Hazel had looked at Leo so strangely when they first met. No wonder she had said Sammy with so much feeling. But Leo wasn’t Sammy, any more than Flathead Rufus was Clark Gable.
“Hazel,” he said. “I—I don’t—”
The schoolyard dissolved into a different scene.
Hazel and Leo were still ghosts, but now they stood in front of a rundown house next to a drainage ditch overgrown with weeds. A clump of banana trees drooped in the yard. Perched on the steps, an old-fashioned radio played conjunto music, and on the shaded porch, sitting in a rocking chair, a skinny old man gazed at the horizon.
“Where are we?” Hazel asked. She was still only vapor, but her voice was full of alarm. “This isn’t from my life!”
Leo felt as if his ghostly self was thickening, becoming more real. This place seemed strangely familiar.
“It’s Houston,” he realized. “I know this view. That drainage ditch…This is my mom’s old neighborhood, where she grew up. Hobby Airport is over that way.”
“This is your life?” Hazel said. “I don’t understand! How—?”
“You’re asking me?” Leo demanded.
Suddenly the old man murmured, “Ah, Hazel…”
A shock went up Leo’s spine. The old man’s eyes were still fixed on the horizon. How did he know they were here?
“I guess we ran out of time,” the old man continued dreamily. “Well…”
He didn’t finish the thought.
Hazel and Leo stayed very still. The old man made no further sign that he saw them or heard them. It dawned on Leo that the guy had been talking to himself. But then why had he said Hazel’s name?
He had leathery skin, curly white hair, and gnarled hands, like he’d spent a lifetime working in a machine shop. He wore a pale yellow shirt, spotless and clean, with gray slacks and suspenders and polished black shoes.
Despite his age, his eyes were sharp and clear. He sat with a kind of quiet dignity. He looked at peace—amused, even, like he was thinking, Dang, I lived this long? Cool!
Leo was pretty sure he had never seen this man before. So why did he seem familiar? Then he realized the man was tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, but the tapping wasn’t random. He was using Morse code, just like Leo’s mother used to do with him…and the old man was tapping the same message: I love you.
The screen door opened. A young woman came out. She wore jeans and a turquoise blouse. Her hair was cut in a short black wedge. She was pretty, but not delicate. She had well-muscled arms and calloused hands. Like the old man’s, her brown eyes glinted with amusement. In her arms was a baby, wrapped in a blue blanket.
“Look, mijo,” she said to the baby. “This is your bisabuelo. Bisabuelo, you want to hold him?”
When Leo heard her voice, he sobbed.
It was his mother—younger than he remembered her, but very much alive. That meant the baby in her arms…
The old man broke into a huge grin. He had perfect teeth, as white as his hair. His face crinkled with smile lines. “A boy! Mi bebito, Leo!”
“Leo?” Hazel whispered. “That—that’s you? What is bisabuelo?”
Leo couldn’t find his voice. Great-grandfather, he wanted to say.
The old man took baby Leo in his arms, chuckling with appreciation and tickling the baby’s chin—and Ghost Leo finally realized what he was seeing.
Somehow, Hazel’s power to revisit the past had found the one event that connected both of their lives—where Leo’s time line touched Hazel’s.
This old man…
“Oh…” Hazel seemed to realize who he was at the same moment. Her voice became very small, on the verge of tears. “Oh, Sammy, no…”
“Ah, little Leo,” said Sammy Valdez, aged well into his seventies. “You’ll have to be my stunt double, eh? That’s what they call it, I think. Tell her for me. I hoped I would be alive, but, ay, the curse won’t have it!”
Hazel sobbed. “Gaea…Gaea told me that he died of a heart attack, in the 1960s. But this isn’t—this can’t be…”
Sammy Valdez kept talking to the baby, while Leo’s mother, Esperanza, looked on with a pained smile—perhaps a little worried that Leo’s bisabuelo was rambling, a little sad that he was speaking nonsense.
“That lady, Doña Callida, she warned me.” Sammy shook his head sadly. “She said Hazel’s great danger would not happen in my lifetime. But I promised I would be there for her. You will have to tell her I’m sorry, Leo. Help her if you can.”
“Bisabeulo,” Esperanza said, “you must be tired.”
She extended her arms to take the baby, but the old man cuddled him a moment longer. Baby Leo seemed perfectly fine with it.
“Tell her I’m sorry I sold the diamond, eh?” Sammy said. “I broke my promise. When she disappeared in Alaska…ah, so long ago, I finally used that diamond, moved to Texas as I always dreamed. I started my machine shop. Started my family! It was a good life, but Hazel was right. The diamond came with a curse. I never saw her again.”
“Oh, Sammy,” Hazel said. “No, a curse didn’t keep me away. I wanted to come back. I died!”
The old man didn’t seem to hear. He smiled down at the baby, and kissed him on the head. “I give you my blessing, Leo. First male great-grandchild! I have a feeling you are special, like Hazel was. You are more than a regular baby, eh? You will carry on for me. You will see her someday. Tell her hello for me.”
“Bisabuelo,” Esperanza said, a little more insistently.
“Yes, yes.” Sammy chuckled. “El viejo loco rambles on. I am tired, Esperanza. You are right. But I’ll rest soon. It’s been a good life. Raise him well, nieta.”
The scene faded.
Leo was standing on the deck of the Argo II, holding Hazel’s hand. The sun had gone down, and the ship was lit only by bronze lanterns. Hazel’s eyes were puffy from crying.
What they’d seen was too much. The whole ocean heaved under them, and now for the first time Leo felt as if they were totally adrift.
“Hello, Hazel Levesque,” he said, his voice gravelly.
Her chin trembled. She turned away and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, the ship lurched to one side.
“Leo!” Coach Hedge yelled.
Festus whirred in alarm and blew flames into the night sky. The ship’s bell rang.
“Those monsters you were worried about?” Hedge shouted. “One of ’em found us!”

Categories: The Mark of Athena