Children's Author Christine Norris

            ISBN: 1-59998-556-X (ebook)
          978-1-60504-023-3 (trade paperback)
          Samhain Publishing
          February 2008 (ebook)
          December 2008 (paperback)
          @248 pages
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Which is worse: Having to start life over, or being eaten by a Minotaur?

The Library of Athena, Book One

Thirteen-year-old Megan Montgomery’s world is falling apart. Her father’s promotion means leaving her whole life in New York behind. She finds herself transplanted to a huge, lonely manor house in the English countryside, with no one for company but the distant staff. Her new school only adds to her misery—neither the girls nor the teachers seem to like her.

Then Megan meets three girls who actually talk to her instead of about her, and at first she thinks things are getting better. But the girls seem more interested in the strange rumors that the house is haunted. Desperate to make friends, Megan invites them to sleep over for the weekend.

A discovery of a cryptic poem, a key and a diary written by the builder of the manor—an eccentric archaeologist—turns the sleepover into a treasure hunt. Clues lead the girls to believe the Parthenon holds a great secret—and suddenly they find themselves sucked into one man’s version of Ancient Greece. The only way home is to find an object thought to be mere legend.

If they survive that long.

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 Chapter One: New Beginning

“But Dad,” Megan said. “I don’t want to go. This is ridiculous!”

“Sorry, Megums, but we don’t have a choice,” her father, Donald Montgomery, replied gently. He slurped up a chow mein noodle and patted his daughter’s hand. “I know it will be hard, but my firm is transferring me. It’s quite a big promotion actually. We have to go.”

Megan slumped into her seat and picked at her chicken and broccoli. It was her favorite take-out meal, but she didn’t feel like eating. She loved living in the city—she had grown up here. Everything she had ever known was here. She was supposed to start high school in just a couple of weeks. This wasn’t just an inconvenience, it was a major disaster.

“This sucks. I don’t want to move.” She winced, aware of how childish she was acting. They’d had this same argument every night this week, and Megan had made no progress. “There won’t be anything to do.”

“Sure there will. There’s a stable full of horses to ride and all the grounds to explore. And there’s a village just down the road. There will be lots to see and plenty to do. And don’t say ‘sucks’.”

Megan put her head back and let her tongue hang from her mouth. “Horses, Dad, come on! They stink! I don’t want to explore anything. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m not a little kid. I pretty much like to talk on the phone and shop, okay?” She tried not to pout like the child she claimed she wasn’t. She would win this argument by making her father see how much better off she would be if she stayed where she was, even if that meant annoying him into letting her stay.

“I’ll bet there isn’t any place to shop either. There’s not a good store anywhere outside Fifth Avenue. And you know there’s not a revival house within 50 miles of this place you’re dragging me off to, is there?”

Megan loved black and white movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. The great actresses like Katharine Hepburn—her favorite—Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth and the handsome leading men like Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy. One of her favorite things was to go to the revival movie houses tucked into the corners of the city. She loved the glamour, the simplicity of their lives and the way they lived and how it all turned out right in the end. Modern romantic comedies couldn’t hold a candle to them. They also reminded her of her mother. She and Megan had spent many rainy Saturday afternoons together, watching those movies and munching popcorn. Right now, Megan couldn’t see any way that this move, which her father was so happy about, could turn out well.

Her father reached between the white and red take-out cartons and took Megan’s hand. “Aw pumpkin, come on. The manor is just forty-five minutes outside of London, a quick train ride. There are more than enough shops there, and we’ll make lots of trips. I’m sure there’s a movie house or two in the city, and it’s not like you don’t have all of those movies on DVD. You can talk to your friends online, just like they were right next door. You won’t miss New York, I promise.”

Megan switched tactics. “Oh, and I’ll be in a new school where I don’t know anyone! I have to leave all my friends, all the girls on the team. Why can’t I just stay here and live with Becky? Her parents said it would be okay.” Becky Reinhart was her best friend and field hockey teammate; they’d known each other since kindergarten. She was like the sister Megan never had.

“No.” He gave her a stern, warning look. “And I don’t want you asking me again. We are staying together and that is that. The Reinharts are good people, but I will not have someone else raising my daughter, no matter how nice they are. There would be too many miles between us. I cannot have that.”

Megan leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “What, so I don’t even get a say?”

“No.”

“It’s not fair. I’m part of the family too.”

“Nobody ever said life was fair.” Her father went back to his dinner, a clear signal to Megan he was finished with the discussion.

Megan gritted her teeth. She wanted to scream at him, to throw a tantrum like she did when she was six. There was no way she was going to go without a fight. But her father could be just as stubborn as she was. He wasn’t going to budge. So instead, she conceded the argument for another evening. She knew how to choose her battles, and there was still a little time left to fight this one. Maybe she could get Becky’s mom to call her dad and talk to him. He might be more receptive to an adult making the suggestion.

“Sorry, Dad.” Still stewing, she looked at her plate and scooped up some rice with her chopsticks.

Her father’s eyes softened. “You’ll make new friends, Megums. You are such an outgoing young lady. I don’t think making friends will be a problem. You’ll see.”

“Whatever.” Megan ate the rest of her dinner in silence.

Once the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded, Megan stalked to her room and flicked on the light. She fought through the piles of packing boxes, made her way toward her bed and flopped down. She looked at all her things, separated into three piles; boxes with things to be given away, boxes with things to be put in storage and boxes of things to make the trip to the new home.

“I don’t want to go, I have a life here,” Megan said angrily to the framed black and white poster of Katharine Hepburn that still hung on the wall. She shook her auburn curls back from her face, reached across to her nightstand and picked up a photo in a delicate silver frame. The woman in the picture looked like an older version of Megan.

“Mom,” Megan whispered to the picture. Her anger melted, and tears splashed onto her cheeks. “I wish you were here.”

She closed her eyes and remembered the day her mother died. That had been three years ago, in a car crash on her way home from a visit with her parents upstate. For months afterward, Megan hadn’t been able to look at any picture of her mother. Her father, in his usual clueless manner, had given this one to her as a birthday gift last year. It had since become her favorite picture, and she often spoke to it, hoping one day it would give her some advice. This had been her mother’s home too. Leaving here would mean leaving part of her behind.

“I know you would be here if you could. None of this is fair, is it? You’re gone, and now it’s just me and Dad, and I guess I should just go with him to England and be quiet about it, huh? It wouldn’t be fair to leave him alone, half a world away, would it?”

She already knew the answer.