Back to school season is never easy. Especially when you’re starting a whole new school far from home.
Especially especially when that school is an extremely exclusive academy for young shamans-in-training. Of course, Pahua actually has to get into the school first . . .
Get your first glimpse of Rick Riordan Presents: Pahua and the Dragon’s Secret from author Lori M. Lee below!
I shivered in the dark. A silver cage rose from the earth, glinting as it stretched into the infinite sky.
Forged of flame and light’s defeat, whispered a voice like smoke.
I covered my ears, but it didn’t help. A figure prowled within the cage, silent but for the clanking of golden chains.
The echoes of low laughter flitted around my head like flies. I will see you again soon, defiler. . . .
My eyes flew open as I was startled from a dream that was already growing fuzzy. For some reason, I wanted to rub my arms even though I wasn’t the least bit cold.
“We’re here,” Mom said from the driver’s seat.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I looked out the car window. We were parked in front of a roadside pho cart. It sat outside an abandoned diner that had chipping paint and a rusty metal roof. The windows were boarded up, and a do not enter sign hung over the crooked door.
This is where they’ll find your body in fifty years and determine that your cause of death was “should have known better,” Miv said from his perch on my shoulder.
I poked the cat spirit with one finger as I got out of the car. My seven-year-old brother, Matt, slid out behind me, the old vinyl seat crackling beneath his jeans. The imprint of creases stood out against his round cheek from where he’d been sleeping on his backpack. His nose wrinkled as his too-big brown eyes took it all in. Honestly, I wasn’t very impressed, either.
Both the roadside pho cart and the diner were situated on a small road off the main highway, just north of Minneapolis. Behind the restaurant, a narrow parking lot sat empty save for a single gray Toyota. Past that, tall weeds crowded a field that stretched into woods. Distant bluffs overlooked the trees, probably part of the local national park or something. Either way, the whole setup looked exactly like the kind of setting in a crime drama where the detective would say something like I have a bad feeling about this. My stomach did a little flip.
The only indication that we were in the right place was the sign on the side of the pho cart. It read NYOB ZOO in Hmong beneath the image of a shaman’s cymbal around four elephant’s foot spirals—the logo of the School for Shamanic Arts and Spiritual Mastery.
All my life, I’ve been able to see spirits—nature spirits, guardian spirits, human spirits, you name it. As you can imagine, talking to things that no one else could see didn’t make me the most popular kid in my class. But it wasn’t until a couple months ago that I discovered why I had the ability. Apparently, somewhere deep inside me (like, really, really deep, according to Miv), I had the potential to become a powerful shaman warrior. There was no way to learn how to become a shaman warrior except by studying under a master, which I hoped to find here—if the school accepted me as a student.
The campus tour invitation was tucked inside my unicorn-print backpack along with a super-official-looking seal.
Except this wasn’t a campus. This was . . . the start of a horror movie. Painted across the old stone exterior of the single-story diner was a faded mural that might have once been the massive face of a woman with a Hmong turban, its black and white stripes framing the top of her face. The stone was chipped inside her mouth, making it look like she had missing teeth.
Between the slats of moldy wood, the glass windows were so grimy that all we could see inside was the faint impression of chairs and tables. Look, I’m not the most diligent of kids when it comes to cleaning my room, but even I wiped my hands on my dress just thinking about touching the door handle that was speckled with orange rust.
“This is your school?” Matt asked. “No wonder no one knows about it. All the students must be too embarrassed to admit they go here.”
“It’s supposed to be hidden.” I sounded defensive, but I was feeling a little uncertain as well. Around my feet, dandelion spirits were beginning to gather, shoving each other out of the way and sending tufts of seeds flying.
Matt had been sullen the entire five-hour drive from Merdel, Wisconsin, to Minnesota. I’d hoped to at least have something impressive to show at the end of it.
Suddenly, a woman popped up behind the pho cart, smiling toothily. She looked ancient, her skin dry and wrinkled like tree bark, as she stirred pho broth within a battered metal pot. The cart blocked the short woman, so all I could see was her head. Fine, I admit I’m not very tall for my age, either (twelve in a month and past due for a growth spurt, if you ask me), but she looked like a floating face above a steaming cauldron. A pho witch.
“Hello?” my mom called. The car chirped as she locked it. Matt gave it a longing look, probably wishing he was back inside and getting as far from here as possible.
Mom brushed dust off the hem of her blouse. The shirt was a little wrinkled, but it was what she always wore when she wanted to look nice. Normally, she was either in a graphic tee or a work smock from her factory job. I patted self-consciously at my hair, which kept sticking up on one side from how I’d slept on it in the car. I’d tried to wet it down in a gas station bathroom at our last fuel stop but only ended up making it worse.
Hmm, Miv mused, butting his small black head against my neck. His tail swished back and forth, trailing curls of hazy smoke.
“What is it?” I whispered, quickly scanning the street and nearby woods for anything suspicious. Ever since my trip into Dab Teb, the Spirit Realm, a couple months ago, I’d been keeping an eye out for demons and dragons and whatever else the gods might send after me.
Why would the Hmong gods have any interest in a scrawny middle-school kid whose greatest achievement before this summer was eating the most mystery-flavor jelly beans in my class and winning a thousand-piece puzzle of a dairy cow? I’m glad you asked (just kidding, never ask again).
Remember how I said I had the potential to become a powerful shaman warrior? I may have forgotten to mention the part where I’m the reincarnation of Shee Yee, the first and most powerful Hmong shaman to ever exist, not to mention the half-mortal grandson of the Sky Father. For a guy lauded as a legendary hero, though, Shee Yee had made a lot of divine enemies in his lifetime. And with gods being, you know, immortal, his enemies were now mine. Thanks, past self!
On top of all that, I was afraid my family would get caught up in trouble like last time . . .
Want to read more? Rick Riordan Presents: Pahua and the Dragon’s Secret goes on sale 9/10!