A.k.a. Goddess. Evelyn Vaughn

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      Mom had told me the Melusine story from my infancy. Grand-mère and Aunt Bridge had elaborated on it as my cousin Lil and I got older, adding some of the naughty parts.

      “Once upon a time…”

      The basic story is this. Melusine was a fairy of such beauty that, when a French count came across her bathing in the river, he fell instantly in love. But she’d been cursed with a secret, so she would only marry the count if he agreed to leave her alone, every Saturday night, and never ask about it. He gladly agreed.

      They married. She magically built whole castles for him overnight, and they had ten children. Legends vary on the family that resulted—the Lusignans of southern France are the top contenders, closely followed by the Angevins who later became Kings of England and even the royal family of Luxembourg. No matter how you slice it, she birthed a powerful people.

      But she had that secret curse. Every Saturday, Melusine changed. She grew a snake tail and bat wings, and could relieve her suffering only by splashing around in a bath, safe in her solitude, until the episode passed.

      You can guess the rest, right? The count broke his promise and saw her secret. And Melusine flew out the window, cursed by his betrayal to remain in her serpentine form for eternity.

      They did not live happily ever after. In fact, legend holds that every time a Lusignan count was about to die, Melusine could be heard screaming, banshee-like, outside the tower she’d once helped build. Until someone tore it down, anyway.

      A fascinating story. But…had she really once been a goddess?

      Until this week, my main purpose for researching Melusine remained academic. I wanted to compare her tale with other legends, in hopes of finding an unchanging base myth to all of them. Aunt Bridge was advancing her research on medieval goddess cults by focusing on the group of French women who had worshipped the Mother Goddess in the form of the fairy Melusine.

      The idea that those women had really hidden a chalice, much less that we could find it…that had been an amusement. We were Grail Keepers, as our mothers’ mothers had been for centuries. Keepers of the secrets of the goddess grails.

      We weren’t Grailgetters.

      Now someone was after our information. And if what had happened to the Kali Cup in New Delhi was any warning…

      We had to find the cup first. The chalice that Melusine worshippers would have used and which they would have hidden by the time of the medieval witch burnings.

      Edit that; I had to find the cup.

      I’m embarrassed to admit that the next thing I knew, I was drawing a deep breath and waking to an announcement, in French, that we had started our descent toward Charles de Gaulle. The previous night must have wiped me out, for me to sleep through six hours and at least one meal service.

      I cracked my eyes open and saw that at some point I’d been covered with a thick, rich blanket. Mmm; nice service on this flight. Except…

      A few other passengers also had blankets, and theirs were fairly thin and flimsy.

      Mine was a first-class blanket.

      Suspicion contracted my chest. Did that mean…?

      My notes! I clenched my hand instinctively, sitting bolt upright. My fingers closed on rubber-wrapped index cards. Maybe Lex hadn’t come back here. Maybe the flight attendants just ran out of coach-class blankets.

      Then something small and hard slid off my lap.

      It was a small box of gourmet chocolates. The kind they give out in first class. The kind Lex had always passed on to me after his business trips…back when we were together.

      In the seventh grade, Alexander Stuart inexplicably returns to public school. He’s no longer a bully; instead, he keeps to himself. I’m one of the few people he’ll speak to, maybe because I stood up to him in kindergarten.

      When he sits out PE, we think he’s getting special treatment. Same with all his absences. None of us guesses he’s sick until the day he comes to school with his head shaved.

      This, of course, is when kids stop calling him Alex and start calling him Lex Luther. He ignores them.

      Our teacher does not. One afternoon when he’s gone, she tells us Alexander has leukemia. He could die. That’s why his parents want him home with them. We must not tease him.

      Kids can be cruel. But not all kids. Not most of us.

      Lex notices the change, the sympathetic looks, the students who hang back as if leukemia—or mortality—are contagious. He notices the return of his name. “Hi, Alex.” “How are you feeling, Alex?” “Hey, Alex, what’s up?”

      I see his sharp hazel eyes go from confusion to to realization to fury at becoming an object of pity. Finally, during English, he stands up. “Miss Mason? I want everyone to call me Lex.”

      Miss Mason doesn’t understand. “Now, Alex…”

      “That’s what I want.” There he stands with his military-school posture, a twelve-year-old outsider, skinny, bald. I suspect just how exhausted he must be, how sick he must feel. But he prefers mockery to sympathy.

      “No, Alex,” says Miss Mason. “I won’t allow it.”

      He continues to stand, demoted from sick to helpless by her condescension. An ache grips my throat. It doesn’t seem right.

      So I say, “Fine, Lex. Just sit down and shut up, okay?”

      Several students turn to me in amazement, but I don’t pay attention to them. I’m watching how Lex’s quiet, hazel eyes slide toward me.

      “Did you hear me?” I challenge. “Lex?”

      And with a nod of quiet satisfaction, he sits.

      “Maggi Sanger!” protests Miss Mason.

      “As long as he’s going to act like a jerk, why not let him be an archvillain?”

      Of course I’m sent to the principal. But I also get a glimpse of Lex Stuart’s rare smile. He’s waiting outside the almost empty school building when I get out of detention. A black limousine owns the parking lot not five spaces from my mother’s minivan.

      “We’re doing group reports for social studies,” he says. “I chose Camelot. Will you partner with me?”

      I wait. I know I am not a particularly attractive twelve-year-old. I’m chubby, and my hair is usually messy from running and playing.

      He looks intrigued. “Please?”

      “Sure,” I say. “Lex.”

      He almost smiles. He has preferred “Lex” ever since.

      Alex was a victim.

      Lex is a survivor.

      Chapter 4

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