Free Level 2 (Memory Chronicles) by Lenore Appelhans

through the motions. All my dreams, if they really were my dreams at all—of getting into an Ivy League school, of being a diplomat or a politician or secretary of state—are impossibly out of reach now. I still need to put in a minimum of effort to graduate, but my fire to succeed, to exceed expectations, has been irreparably extinguished.
    I take a deep breath, slam my locker shut, and drag myself toward Mythology, room 112, Mrs. Keats. The door is still open when I get there, so I slip in and scan the room for an empty seat. I see a familiar face. Neil. He smiles and waves me over, but before I can claim the seat next to him, Mrs. Keats asks for my schedule.
    “Ah, Felicia Ward.” She reads my name off the now crumpled sheet of paper. “Nice of you to finally join us. We were expecting you more than a week ago.”
    My classmates laugh. I clear my throat and offer a mumbled apology but no explanation. Mrs. Keats dismisses me with a sigh, handing back my schedule. I beeline to the back of the class and sit next to Neil.
    “You weren’t at church on Sunday,” Neil says. “We missed you.”
    “Grammy wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t want to leave her.”
    “Can we get started now?” Mrs. Keats raises her voice to silence the smattering of conversations still in progress. “Thank you.”
    I turn my attention away from Neil and do my best to focus on what Mrs. Keats is saying.
    “If you did your reading last night like you were supposed to, you know we are going to talk about the underworld today. Now, in Greek mythology the underworld wasn’t hell. It was a place all souls went to when they died.” Mrs. Keats goes on, detailing the various realms of the underworld: the pit of Tartarus, the Elysian Fields, and the rest of the land of the dead, which was ruled by Hades. Occasionally I halfheartedly scrawl a key word into my wire-bound notebook.
    Soon she’s waxing poetic about the five rivers of the underworld: the Styx, the Acheron, the Kokytos, the Phlegethon, and the Lethe.
    “Who can tell me what the purpose of the Lethe was? Alyssa?”
    A pert, pretty girl in the front row answers, and I can tell she’s the type who always raises her hand. Who is always right. I can tell because she’s the girl I used to be. “The Lethe was the river of forgetfulness,” she trills. “Dead souls drank from it to forget the worries of their earthly life. It was ruled by the goddess Lethe, who offered oblivion.”
    Lethe. I write it down. Underline it. Circle it. Stab at it with my fluorescent orange highlighter.
    “And the Phlegethon?” Mrs. Keats asks.
    Alyssa again. “The river of fire. Dead souls who swam there boiled with rage.”
    “Well, I am pleased to see at least one of you came prepared,” grouses our teacher.
    She goes on with her lesson, peppering her lecture of the rites and traditions of the underworld with occasional questions, the majority skillfully answered by Alyssa. But I allow my mind to wander, to daydream about what it would be like to lie down on the banks of the Lethe and drink just enough to make me forget about the past few months. The thought is undeniably appealing.
    The bell pierces through my daydream, and students stream out of the classroom in a cacophony of slammed books and displaced desks.
    Neil hovers over me. “Which way are you going?” he asks.
    I consult my schedule as I stand up. “Physics. Room 163. Mr. Howe.”
    “That’s in the science wing, near the auditorium. I can walk you. We have choir practice there today.” He grips his binder tightly as we exit the classroom and enter the mob of fellow students hurrying to their next class. “In the auditorium, I mean. Not the science wing.”
    I have to laugh. “I’m sure you could raise all those formaldehyde frogs from the dead with your singing voice. It’d be quite a sight to see.”
    Neil ducks his head, blushing. “I’m better at raising spirits than souls,” he jokes.
    “Do frogs even have souls?” I look