Abandon

by Meg Cabot

  “Give me your phone, Alex,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Why?” he asked, instantly suspicious even in his despair.

  “Because,” I said, “I’m going to call my dad.”

  Alex shook his head at me. “Pierce. Your dad hates my dad. Remember?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I lied. “Just hand it over.”

  “Pierce,” Alex said. “It’s nice of you to offer. Really, it is. But you do not want to get involved in this. It’s not something you can really handle.”

  I had to laugh. Although the truth was, I didn’t feel like it.

  “Oh, Alex,” I said to him. “Trust me. What I handle on a daily basis makes this look like cake.”

  This statement was followed by a crack of thunder so loud, it sent the rest of the few students who were still standing beneath the breezeway with us scrambling for the safety of the various wings where they had classes.

  “Look,” Alex said, raising his voice to be heard above the wind. “I appreciate it, Pierce. But I think your dad’s done enough damage around here. Don’t you?”

  Kayla inhaled sharply. I felt my eyes sting, then realized it was because they were tearing…although it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, and from my own mother.

  “We’re late to class,” Alex said, and pushed past us both. “I’ll meet you at the car at two o’clock if you want a lift home.”

  He hurried down the breezeway towards D-Wing, his head ducked, his shoulders hunched in on themselves. He looked smaller than I’d ever seen him. And Alex had grown two whole inches over the summer. Uncle Chris had proudly shown me the marks on the kitchen doorway.

  “He didn’t mean it,” Kayla turned to me to say.

  “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “He did.”

  “Well,” Kayla said. “Maybe he did. But you know. He’s upset. Hey.” She was staring at something over my shoulder. “Isn’t your grandma the lady from Knuts for Knitting?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

  “Because she’s here.”

  I spun around. Kayla was right. My grandmother was coming down the breezeway towards us, wearing one of her usual artsy outfits of beige gauchos, white peasant blouse, and laceless white Keds.

  Around her neck was one of the many colorful scarves she always wore, all knitted by her own hand. At each end of the scarf dangled a set of tassels.

  Grandma was semi-famous around the island for these. Some people used them as pulls for their ceiling fans.

  “Pierce!” Grandma lifted a hand to wave. Even as far off as she was — two whole locker banks away — I could hear her loud breathing. Grandma wasn’t very athletic. She didn’t like to walk places, preferring to take her car. “Thank God I found you. Did you hear the news about Christopher? It’s just awful.”

  “She must be here to sign you guys out of school,” Kayla whispered to me. “Except for lunch, they won’t let you go off-campus unless it’s a family emergency and someone over eighteen signs you out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Except didn’t Alex just say her car got impounded?”

  Kayla shrugged. “She must have driven your mom’s car.”

  “Then why didn’t my mom tell Alex she was on her way over?”

  Kayla looked at me. “Chickie,” she said. “What are you saying? You think your grandma’s here to kidnap you or something?”

  Did you like him?

  I don’t know.

  You will.

  I put my book bag down on the ground, still staring at Grandma, who had almost made it to the end of the last bank of lockers. The tassels at the end of her scarf swayed.

  Just like the ones at the end of the scarf I’d worn the day I died had swayed in the water above my head.

  It had been there all along, right in front of me, and it had taken this long for me to figure it out.

  I’d been such a fool.

  “Just how dysfunctional is your family, anyway?” Kayla was going on.

  “Kayla,” I said, rolling up my sleeves. “Do me a favor, okay? Go to class.”

  “Uh,” Kayla said with a little laugh, “okay. So I guess I won’t be seeing you at Alex’s car at two?”

  “If I’m not there,” I said, “call the cops.”

  Kayla laughed some more. She obviously thought this whole thing was a hilarious joke.

  “Don’t worry, chickie,” she said, and headed off to D-Wing. “I will. The cops and I go way back.”

  What Kayla didn’t know — and I did — was that the diamond tucked inside my shirt, which had been the cheerful purple it usually turned whenever Kayla was around, had gone onyx the minute my grandmother showed up.

  It always turned this color when my grandmother was around. I’d figured this was because her disapproval of me made me nervous.

  Now I knew the real reason why.

  “Why,” Grandma panted, when she finally got up to me, “didn’t you come over when you saw me? I’m dying here.”

  “It might help,” I muttered, “if you ditched the scarf.”

  “What was that?” Grandma had blue eyes. She was the only one in our family who did. Because she wasn’t an Oliviera. Or a Cabrero. What she was instead, I was only just beginning to figure out.

  “Why are you here, Grandma?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said, fanning herself with the ends of her scarf. “I’m here to get you. Your mom wants you home. Something terrible has happened. Your uncle Chris —”

  “I already know,” I said flatly. “They took him in for questioning.”

  “Oh,” she said again, looking surprised. “Well, if you already know, why are you just standing there? Let’s go.” She took my arm, and then, when I didn’t move, tugged on it.

  “Pierce,” she said, annoyed. “What’s wrong with you? We don’t have time for games. It’s about to pour, can’t you tell? There’s a storm coming. I don’t want to get wet. Let’s go.”

  “What about Alex?” I asked.

  “He left already,” Grandma said without skipping a beat.

  “Really?” I said. “He did? Did you call him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I did. He said he couldn’t find you. Now come on, I don’t have all day. I have to get back to the shop. Let’s go.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not with you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grandma was a little bit shorter than me, but she was wider and therefore had a lower center of gravity. When she pulled, she pulled hard.

  But I could be stubborn, too.

  “Pierce! What is the matter with you?” she demanded. Her grip was so strong, it felt as if it was cutting off my circulation. “I’ve told your mother again and again to keep you away from all that caffeine —”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The courtyard. The breezeway. Her tassels. Everything was starting to turn red. But I didn’t care. “Anything you can do so I won’t remember. But guess what? I do remember, even more than you’ve guessed. You sent me into the cemetery the day of Grandpa’s funeral on purpose. You did it so I’d meet John.”

  Grandma blinked at me uncomprehendingly. “What?” she said. “I don’t know what you’re —”

  “Grandpa didn’t know anything about your little plan, did he?” I went on, ignoring her. “Richard Smith told me you told Grandpa you didn’t believe in death deities. But you do believe in them, don’t you? You not only believe in death deities, you like torturing them, don’t you? Because that’s what Furies do.”

  Now Grandma had gone the color of her gauchos. Outside the breezeway, the wind had picked up. It was stirring her short gray curls. But she kept holding on to my arm.

  “I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff,” she said. “But if you’ve been talking to Richard Smith, I can only imagine what you’ve heard. That man’s a lunatic, obsessed with the idea that death is a natural part of life, or some such nonsense, when you should know better than anyone, Pierce, what really happens when we die. So
you just take everything he says with a grain of salt. I only came here to pick you up and take you to your mother —”

  “Using whose car?” I demanded. “Not Mom’s, because she just called Alex from wherever they’re questioning Uncle Chris, and yours got impounded. So big mistake, Grandma. You know what the other mistake you made was? Killing me.”

  That’s when I saw a flicker of something in those blue eyes. Not fear. It was too reptilian to be fear.

  It was more like…

  Hatred.

  “Oh, I know you thought I’d never figure it out,” I said, still trying to rip my arm from her grip. But she hung on, her expression changing. Now she looked like the wild thing I’d once been so convinced John was.

  Except his eyes, even at their most hopeless, had never looked at me with such hatred. Never once. His eyes might once have looked dead, but I had never doubted that there was life in there somewhere. With Grandma, I suddenly wasn’t so sure.

  “You sent me into that cemetery when I was seven so I’d be certain to meet John, didn’t you? Then that way when I died, I’d be sure to go to the Underworld here in Isla Huesos, and I wouldn’t be afraid of him, and then maybe he’d notice me and choose me to be his consort, the way Hades chose Persephone. Right?”

  It had started to rain, fat, hard drops that made rattling noises against the metal roof of the breezeway.

  I ignored them. All my attention was focused on the woman in front of me. If that’s what she even was. I got the sense she hadn’t been my actual grandmother for a long time.

  “That’s why you asked if I liked him that day, and why when I told you I didn’t know, you said I would. Admit it.” I shook my head. I had put it all together at last. But I was still having trouble believing it. Because it was just so awful. ”You’re the one who knitted me that scarf, the one with the red tassels. You sent it to me for Christmas. I remember it all now. What did you do to it to make sure it tangled up around my legs and tripped me? How did you know for sure I’d wear it outside by the pool, and fall in and drown? Did you hurt the birds, too? The one on the pool cover in Westport, and the one on the path, here in Isla Huesos? What kind of person are you? Who would murder her own granddaughter?”

  That’s when she finally let me go. And stood in front of me, panting.

  But not because she was old and weak. She was far from that.

  Because she was a Fury. And she was finally showing her true face.

  And it was more hideous and frightening than anything I could ever have imagined.

  “You’re the one,” she said, her eyes blazing. “You’re the one who ruined it. You were supposed to stay dead. But you’re so stupid, you couldn’t even do that right, could you?”

  I blinked at her, horrified. It had taken me forever to put it all together. Now I couldn’t believe I’d been right.

  “I tried to tell them,” Grandma went on, breathing hard. Her tongue darted out like a snake’s as she licked her dry pink lips. “I tried to warn them about you. When Deborah was born, and she was so beautiful, and smart, and perfect, it seemed like fate. I was sure our family would be the ones to finally destroy him. I was positive he’d fall in love with her the minute he saw her. But he didn’t. I tried everything. I must have spent a thousand hours in that cemetery with her, roaming up and down between those crypts, trying to get his attention. But did he ever give her so much as a glance?” Grandma gave a snort, her gaze flicking back towards me.

  “But you?” She sneered. “I leave you alone in the cemetery for five minutes, and what happens? I could hardly believe it.” Her face crinkled into something that, had she any bit of humanity left in her, might have been a smile. “If I’d known he liked them stupid and ugly, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time making sure your mother did all her homework and got those weekly manicures.”

  Tears stung my eyes. I knew intellectually of course that she wasn’t really my grandmother anymore.

  But being called stupid and ugly by her hurt more than it should have.

  “Killing you was the easy part,” she went on. “The problem is that you won’t stay dead. You have far more of your father in you than any of us ever anticipated.”

  “You know what?” I said, raising my chin. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Although I knew she didn’t mean it as one.

  “I told them because of that, it was never going to work,” she hissed, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “But would they listen? Of course not. And now look what’s happened. If you’re not dead and at John Hayden’s side, he’ll never know true happiness. And if John Hayden isn’t happy, then we can’t take that happiness away from him, can we? But that’s a situation I can easily rectify—”

  That’s when she lunged…directly into the fist I’d thrust in front of me, exactly the way Dad’s driver had taught me to, in case I were ever in a situation where I had to defend myself.

  She staggered and fell back, letting out a scream like nothing I’d ever heard before in my life. It was so shrill, it shattered the red haze that had fallen over my eyes.

  That’s when John showed up.

  Just appeared out of nowhere, in his black jeans and T-shirt, like materializing in the Quad of Isla Huesos High School in the middle of a downpour and a fistfight between his girlfriend and her Fury grandma was something he did on a daily basis.

  “Let’s go,” he said to me in a calm voice, wrapping an arm around my waist and lifting me off the ground to cart me away.

  No Hello.

  No Hi, Pierce. Nice right hook you have there.

  No It’s lovely to see you. Sorry about your counselor being killed last night. Yes, I see your grandmother is a Fury even though I told you none was after you. I guess I was wrong about that.

  Just Let’s go.

  “I’ll be back for you,” I tossed over my shoulder at the thing that used to be my grandma. I think I was slightly hysterical. John carried me around the corner towards the entrance to B-Wing.

  “No,” John said to me in the same voice he’d used that day in the jewelry shop. Like he was refusing beverage cart service. “You will not be back for her.”

  “What do you mean?” I lifted the hair that had fallen into my face so I could see where we were going. “John, do you know what she is? She’s a Fury. You said there weren’t any Furies after me, but guess what. There are! My own grandmother is one. And she killed me! She knitted me the scarf I tripped over when I died. John, she’s been trying to hurt you since before I was even born —”

  But he wouldn’t put me down, even when I squirmed, until we reached a portion of the breezeway that he seemed to feel was a safe enough distance from my still-screaming grandmother that I’d be out of danger — or she would. Even then, when he stopped and set me back down on my own feet, he kept me pressed up against a locker with his hands on my shoulders so I couldn’t get away.

  “I know” was all he said, his expression grave.

  I gazed up at him, shocked. “You know? About my grandmother? How? ”

  “Not about your grandmother,” he said, shaking his head. “Although it makes sense. I should have guessed. You were right about Furies being after you.”

  “I knew it!” I burst out. “My necklace turns black when they’re around.” I lifted the pendant to show him. The diamond was still as dark as tar. “It did this with the jeweler and Mr. Mueller. I don’t care what you say, John, I think they were both Furies, too. This thing has not been wrong once. I just didn’t know how to read it. It’s too bad it didn’t come with a user’s manual or anything. Because knowing what all the different colors mean would be really bene —”

  “Pierce,” he said. His expression was grimmer than I’d ever seen it. “The Furies killed Jade.”

  My eyes instantly filled with tears. I dropped the necklace. The heavy diamond struck my chest with a thump. “Oh, John, no. My grandmother —” I was too upset to finish the sentence.

  “No, not her. But if what you’re saying is tru
e, they were probably friends of hers. It was three men who killed Jade. She said she didn’t recognize them. They were wearing masks.”

  “Why Jade?” I asked. “Jade never did anything to anyone.”

  Except offer them good advice and red licorice.

  “Don’t you see?” His gray eyes looked haunted. “Jade died because they mistook her for you, Pierce. You’re always tearing through that cemetery on your bicycle —”

  I lifted my anguished gaze towards his. “John. If Mr. Mueller was a Fury, then this isn’t even the first time they’ve hurt someone else because of me. Because…Hannah. What about Hannah?”

  He stared back at me, speechless. The rain had picked up. Now it was starting to pour.

  “I should,” I said in a small voice, “have let you kill him.”

  “No,” he said, tightening his grip on my shoulders. “You were right to stop me. With the jeweler, too. It’s not them doing the killing, Pierce. It’s the Furies possessing them. I forget sometimes.”

  “There must be some way we can stop them before they hurt someone else, John,” I said. “There must be a way.”

  “They’re unstoppable,” he said. “You can break their bones, you can even kill the bodies they’re in. It doesn’t do anything.”

  “But when I hit my grandmother just now —”

  “If hitting them was any use, do you think there’d be any of them left?” he demanded. He kept looking around the corner, as if he expected my grandmother to show up there any minute. “Believe me, I’ve hit enough of them enough times, they ought to be extinct by now. But they always come back. They just find some new body to inhabit, some new weak-minded soul to corrupt.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” I asked, reaching up to put my arms around his neck, desperate for some kind of comfort.

  He buried his head in the place where my neck met my shoulder, clinging to me as tightly as if he were out there in the waves again, abandoned to the storm, and I was the one solid thing he’d found to hold on to. Instead of my finding comfort in him, he was looking for it in me, I realized. This frightened me almost more than anything else that had occurred so far.

  “I don’t know why I ever thought just because you chose not to be with me,” he said, his voice muffled in my hair, “you would be safe from them, when all this time, you weren’t even safe from your own fami —”