My Secret Life

Chapter 11

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Daria Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor. I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

 The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes. I held my breath and climbed. 

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS.

 One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things - severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth.

The visual had many shuddering in their seats, unused to seeing such monsters so close up.

The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y, 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. 

She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. 

The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

The first years, who hadn't yet seen any ghosts started freaking out. Most of them had never seen anything magical in their life, so watching all this stuff on the screen was scaring them so badly they probably would have nightmares for life.

 Older students and even a few teachers tried to calm them, but the fear was contagious. Some of them, too, had stiffened at the mummy's grotesque appearance. Apollo, however, was not comforting. His gaze was sharp, eyes burning with anger. He hated how his Oracle was being treated

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes.

Witches and wizards gasped, some covering their eyes out of fear for what might happen, even if Daria was clearly fine.

It was the hissing that had death-eaters holding their breath from fear.

I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut.

Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

"You have to keep mentioning Python, right?" Artemis snorted.

"It's extremely important." Apollo nodded.