Calliope's Spell (The Calliope Chronicles Book 1)

Book summary

In Calliope's Spell, 15-year-old Anna is exiled to a small village where she strikes a deal with her estranged father: solve the mystery of the missing crabs, and she can return home. Her quest unravels strange secrets with the help of a young explorer, a quirky priest, and a flying dentist, all tied to a mysterious, long-lost bell.

Excerpt from Calliope's Spell

The Road to Nowhere

Beyond the window of the old rickety bus, the landscape flashing by looked to Anna every bit as dead as she felt inside. Barren, featureless stretches of desert on either side of the black, narrow ribbon of two-lane highway that vanished into the distance, leading somewhere. Where, she wasn’t quite sure. Only that it was probably somewhere horrible.

Anna Gray pressed her cheek against the window and ran her hand over the stubble that was once her hair.

By now her mother would have found the letter. How could she miss it? Anna had taped it to her bathroom mirror and, just to make sure, had written “Please read this!” with a bar of her mom’s expensive, imported French soap, complete with a couple of big, jagged arrows that zigzagged toward it.

She wouldn’t have read it immediately. She would have first cleaned the soap off the mirror and then fixed herself a latte and maybe eaten some yogurt before she got around to it. Not that it would have changed anything. Anna had been convicted and sentenced, but even prisoners can appeal.

The note began:

Dear Mom—Before you banish me forever, let me at least try and give you my side. It’s not like it’s all my fault. If you hadn’t let your stupid boyfriend move in, none of this would have happened. First of all, I’m not an idiot. I know it was wrong what I did to his fancy leather briefcase. And to his precious Lexus… But it’s not like he couldn’t have tried to be a little nicer…

Anna looked up as the bus shuddered to a stop at the side of the road. The driver opened the doors for an old farmer, who climbed stiffly aboard. He said something to the driver in Spanish before making his way down the aisle, taking a seat beside Anna.

He smiled and nodded, and she watched as he looked curiously at her head.

“El cancero,” she said, which was a lie.

With a grind of the gears, the bus lurched down the highway as Anna turned back to the window.

And I know you hate all of my friends, but at least I have friends. And, about that whole shoplifting thing. It was just a big misunderstanding. It’s not like I wasn’t going to pay. People get busted all the time forgetting to pay for things and they don’t get banished to Outer Mongolia…

A few miles down the road, the bus stopped again, this time for a family. A young man and his wife and their infant son. The man helped her aboard, nodding to each of the passengers as he passed, smiling broadly.

By now, the seats were nearly full.

Anna closed her eyes and tried to nap, tried to null out the creaks and rattles and the steady drone of tires on scorching pavement.

The shoplifting hadn’t been her idea. Her friend had put her up to it. And it was only a cheap pair of sunglasses. The saleswoman shouldn’t have even called the mall goons. It was no big deal. She only did it as a joke.

Anna tried to tell her mother that when she came to pick her up at the security office, but she was too furious to listen. She kept calling her “incorrigible.” What did that even mean?

Anna had looked it up online. “Not able to be corrected, improved or reformed.” She had stared at the screen in disbelief. Did her mother think she was really that bad? So bad that she couldn’t be reformed? No, she would never have come up with that. Anna was sure her mom had gotten the word from her prissy new boyfriend, Chad. It was probably what he told all his lawyer friends.

“Marcy would be perfect except for her incorrigible daughter.”

That was what had prompted her to shave her head. If she was incorrigible, she might as well look the part. She had marched down to dinner, just as her mother and Chad were sitting down, and plopped herself at the table without saying a word. It was almost worth it just for the look on her mother’s face. Almost.

Please, Mom. I’m begging you. Don’t send me down there to live with Dad. I’ll be good, I swear. Just give me one more chance. Please?

Anna was also pretty sure the banishment was his idea. It was too perfect. Send the little skank to live with her nerdy father down in Mexico. One less thing to be annoyed by.

She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Maybe this was all just a horrible nightmare. Maybe when she woke up, she would magically be back in California, in her own bed. She’d reach for her phone on the nightstand and check for messages. They’d be a series of short, cryptic texts, punctuated with emojis, floating various plans on meeting up as well as the latest skinny on any juicy break-ups and make-ups among the group and why.

It had all been so perfect until her mom just had to go and get all parental and ruin everything.

Anna jolted awake and looked around. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep, but now the bus was empty, and the driver was poking her in the shoulder.

“Santa Maria de la Campana,” he announced. “Vayamos.”

***

Anna stood on the shoulder of the road and watched the bus pull away, gradually warping in the shimmering roadway heat until, like a mirage, it floated for a moment above the highway and then disappeared all in one blip.

“Anna?”

She turned to see a figure approaching. Instinctively, she waved, and he waved back. At least she wouldn’t die abandoned beside a lonely road somewhere in Mexico.

Kipling Gray, Anna’s father, preferred to be called Kip. He was tall with sandy-colored hair and the kind of permanent tan that only lifeguards and surfers get. He even looked a little like a surfer, with his baggy shorts, T-shirt and huarache sandals. It took her a moment to adjust to the sight of him. After all, it had been over two years since she had last seen him, and that was back home, at a funeral, and he had been wearing a suit and tie. Here, he looked like an aging beach bum.

“I see you found the place,” he said as he arrived. “Sorry I kept you waiting—” He stopped, reached out to run his hand across Anna’s head, but she ducked away. “What happened to you?”

“Hey, lookie but no touchie. You’ll wreck it.”

“How can you wreck stubble?”

“It’s not stubble. It’s minimal.”

“Minimal, huh?” Grabbing her duffle bag, he slung it over his shoulder. “Well, Anna Banana, that’s good. Because down here, we love minimal. Eat. Sleep. Work. Study. It’s about as minimal as it gets.” With that he turned and headed down the dusty road. “C’mon. I’ll show you the town.”

***

Kip and Anna followed the dirt road as it led away from the highway and meandered behind some mesas before dropping down into the almost microscopic town of Santa Maria de la Campana, which consisted of little more than a smattering of houses, a mercado, a few shops and, on the waterfront, a rusting seafood cannery. Perched above the town, like a stern Mother Superior, stood a church, complete with a bell tower, but, oddly, no bell.

It was all actually quite charming for a rustic fishing village, if you were in the mood for being charmed, which Anna decidedly wasn’t. She took one look and wrinkled her nose.

“So how long you planning to keep me prisoner here?” she asked.

Kip stopped, turned to face her. “Okay, could we please just dial it back a little with the drama? You’re not the Count of Monte Cristo. No one’s tossing you in a dungeon. I just promised your mother I’d do what I thought was best for you, that’s all.”

“What’s best for me?” She let fly one of those gaggy little coughs. “Excuse me? You haven’t even been around for three years. You don’t know anything about me. As if you ever did.” She knew her words would sting; that was the whole point.

Kip didn’t answer right away. “Look, Anna,” he said finally. “I know it’s been hard. But that doesn’t give you permission to lie and steal and wreck other people’s stuff. It just doesn’t work that way. So, here’s the deal. The sooner you start acting like an intelligent young woman and not some angry brat, the sooner we can talk about you going home.”