Underworld

by Meg Cabot

  So there was no one around to overhear me talking to a bird.

  “We left in a hurry,” I explained to Hope. “Besides, you’re safer there than you are here. You shouldn’t have followed us.”

  She gave a grudging coo and bobbed over to inspect the seeds. She made it clear, though, with her standoffish attitude, that it was about the food and not me.

  A second later the glassed-in door opened behind me and a black loafer — attached to a white-trousered leg — appeared on the step beside me. The loafer had a tassel on it. Due to Mr. Mueller, I had an aversion to men’s shoes with tassels on them.

  But Mr. Smith’s tasseled loafers, which he’d paired with pink socks, didn’t bother me … perhaps because he’d never had an affair with my best friend, and driven her to suicide.

  “Oh,” Mr. Smith said, looking surprised to see a dove pecking seeds from the steps of his office’s storage yard. “You’ve made a friend.”

  “John gave her to me,” I said. “Her name is Hope. I know it’s a dumb name, but I like it, and she already responds to it. Watch. Hope?”

  The bird looked up, annoyed at being disturbed from her feast. When I waved at her, she shook herself all over like a duck flicking water off its back, then dropped her head to continue eating.

  Mr. Smith looked even more surprised.

  “Well,” he said. “Wasn’t that nice of John? You’re aware, I suppose, that mourning doves received their name because of the mournful — almost funereal — sound of their cry, not because they’re seen more frequently in the morning hours. That’s a common misconception.”

  There probably weren’t many cemetery sextons whose jobs were better suited to them, thanks to their obsession with the subject of death, than Mr. Smith.

  “That makes her a highly appropriate companion for the consort of the Lord of the Underworld. I’ve also heard,” Mr. Smith went on, sinking down onto the step beside me, “that mourning doves are monogamous, mating for life.”

  “Great,” I said, looking at Hope a little sadly. I wondered what happened to her mate. I hoped she hadn’t met him yet, and that she was not a grieving widow. Although she didn’t look that unhappy, gorging herself on the handfuls of birdseed I’d thrown her. “I thought she was just a regular dove.”

  “Her coloring is unusually pale for a mourning dove. But you can tell by her markings,” Mr. Smith said. “Those black feathers under her wings and tail.”

  “So she has a dark side,” I murmured. Just like the person who’d given her to me. I ought to have known. I turned to Mr. Smith and said, “You haven’t asked about your tea. I knew you only sent me to make it so you could talk to John alone. But you shouldn’t blame him for what happened. None of it is his fault. Where is he, anyway?”

  “He’s inside. I told him I wanted to speak with you alone for a few moments. I don’t think he likes the idea very much … in fact, he’s probably plotting how to hasten my demise at this very moment. He’s very … protective of you, isn’t he?”

  “Well, he and I only just got together,” I pointed out, “after years of misunderstandings and fights that kept us apart. And now it turns out someone in my family is trying to kill me. I think he simply wants to keep me from getting my head bashed in, like Jade. Or worse, as he keeps saying.” Only I still didn’t think there could be anything worse than what had happened to Jade.

  “I blame myself,” Mr. Smith said glumly. “I always knew your grandmother disapproved of your grandfather’s interest in death deities and the possibility that there might be an underworld beneath Isla Huesos. I just assumed it was because Angela Cabrero was so devoutly religious. She, like so many people, wants to believe there’s a heaven and a hell and that’s that. I didn’t realize her dislike of the idea that there might be shades of gray in between was … personal.”

  “Allegedly it’s not,” I said. “It’s the Fury possessing her that wants to get revenge on John, and has been forcing her to use me to do it. But I don’t know if I believe that. She allowed the Fury to possess her, which makes me think all that hate had to have been there all along.”

  “Good heavens,” Mr. Smith said. “Now we’re talking about whether or not the average human being has the will to resist a Fury. That’s the kind of thing your grandfather and I could spend an entire afternoon debating, and John told me I’m allowed a mere five minutes with you. He says you’re only here to make sure your hapless cousin is all right.”

  He noticed my frown at the word hapless and continued, “Please, I met the boy. Your cousin Alexander is indeed hapless, by which I mean unhappy, not ill-fortuned. Certainly Alex has had his fair share of hard knocks, but I think we make our own luck. Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense about fate. No, our parents give us life, but what we do with that life is our own responsibility.”

  “Actually,” I said, thinking of the breakfast that had appeared that morning, piping hot and impossible to resist. “The Fates are real. I’ve had personal experience with them. Although I’ve never seen one. I’d like to, though.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t believe in the Fates,” Mr. Smith said. “From my studies about the afterlife, I believe the Fates are spirits, just like the Furies. Like what other people might call angels, but the kind that walk on earth, not the kind with wings. When people are moved to do good by the spirit of human kindness, I believe that’s the work of the Fates … as much as other people are moved to do evil by the Furies.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “So you think the Fates are kind of like the power of prayer?” He might have been onto something. John had said the things he wanted badly enough — within reason — had a tendency to appear.

  “Something like that,” Mr. Smith said, with a chuckle. “In any case, John wants to find your cousin and get you back before nightfall, which I can understand … although it’s a shame, because it’s Coffin Fest tonight, if it doesn’t get shut down because of the rain, and that’s something you really ought not to miss….”

  “Coffin Fest?” I’d heard of Coffin Night, but Coffin Fest was a new one. They certainly loved their dead on the Island of Bones.

  “Oh, just something they throw together downtown this time of year,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Quite small, you understand, because it’s more of a locals-only tradition. They’re careful not to put it in the calendar of events they hand out to tourists, because the authorities don’t like to encourage Coffin Night. A few vendors set up stands selling street food and the inevitable Isla Huesos T-shirts, a local band plays Cuban music, people dance to celebrate the fact that they’re alive, but it’s nowhere near,” he added, “the tens of thousands we get showing up for New Year’s Eve. That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, though. What I actually wanted to talk to you about was whether or not you’re happy.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Happy?”

  “Yes, happy,” Mr. Smith said, emphasizing the word as strongly as he had hapless. “I’m sure it all seems very romantic and thrilling, having a strapping young man like John drag you off to the Underworld. Who wouldn’t love it? But his good intentions aside — wanting to save you from the Furies and all of that — you must see that what John did was wrong … very, very wrong.”

  I thought about waking up that morning in John’s arms, after my horrible nightmare about losing him, and how his kisses had made me feel as if I were melting into him, almost as if we were one person. Then later how I’d determined to take care of him, the same way he’d tried over the years to take care of me, even when I’d kept pushing him away … and how later still, I’d seen the great pains he’d gone to in order to incorporate my suggestions on how to better serve the needs of the dead….

  “Being with him doesn’t feel wrong,” I said to him, my eyes filling with tears. “The only thing that feels wrong is when I try to imagine living in a world without him in it.”

  Mr. Smith’s own eyes widened slightly behind the lenses of his glasses.

  “I sup
pose it’s just as well, then,” he said, “that you apparently must remain in his world. Which I was surprised to hear, since I was quite sure you knew all about what happened to Persephone when she ate in the Underworld. In fact, hearing that you ate while in the realm of the dead almost made me think that you did it on purpose so you’d be forced to stay with him, since you knew full well —”

  “I thought it was only pomegranates,” I interrupted. “That’s what they taught us in school. Persephone ate the seeds of a pomegranate, the fruit of the dead.”

  Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows. “Ah, yes, of course. That’s the most common retelling. The safe, watered-down version one would expect … wouldn’t want to frighten the children, or cause them actually to think too much. Poor Persephone ate the wrong thing, that’s all.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “And John, of course, didn’t stop you. Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” The cemetery sexton’s tone was arch. “That would hardly be in his best interests.”

  “He thought I knew,” I said. The tears filling my eyes began to spill over. “Why are you so against us being together? Why does it feel as if everyone wants us to break up? Not only the Furies or my grandmother, but everyone, even you?”

  “I’m not suggesting you break up,” he said, appearing startled by my tears. He reached into his pocket, then produced a neatly folded handkerchief, which he handed to me. It was pink, of course, to match his socks and tie. “But when you visited me here the other night and I said you might want to try being a little sweeter to him, I wasn’t saying you should move in with him and then spend the rest of eternity in the Underworld. At least, not the next day. My God, your poor parents. Supposing they find out I had a hand in encouraging you?”

  “You said what we do with our lives is our own responsibility, Mr. Smith,” I reminded him as I dried my tears. “You’re not responsible for what I did. I am, for falling in love with him. That happened way before I met you. So you can let yourself off the hook.” I passed his handkerchief back to him. “As for my mother … well, I don’t know what I’m going to do about her. Right now, I’m mostly worried about Alex.”

  “I am sorry for what you’re going through,” he said, with a sympathetic smile at me. “Tell you what, I’ll do some research about this food and drink rule in the Underworld. Who knows, maybe John is wrong? It’s possible it’s been misinterpreted over the years. It wouldn’t be the first time. There are many scholars who staunchly believe your pomegranate theory, which is why it was the one you were taught … though in most cultures, including Judaism, Hinduism, and ancient China, the pomegranate, because of all its seeds, has always been associated with fertility and reproduction, not death. But that’s an exciting thought.” He raised his eyebrows. “What if the narrative of Persephone’s tale has been taken too literally, and the pomegranate is actually symbolic of —”

  I held up a hand to stem the tide of his words, fearing I was about to hear a lecture on the cultural history of the pomegranate. Mr. Smith was as bad as my mom in some ways. He could go on for hours about the minutiae of death deity lore the same way she could go on for hours about roseate spoonbills.

  “All I want to know is what the deal is with babies in the Underworld,” I said tiredly. “Can people get pregnant there, or what?”

  Mr. Smith suddenly looked as if he might be stroking out again. A sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead, and he seemed to go a little gray. I found the heat a relief after the chill of the Underworld and the air-conditioning of his office. He apparently did not. He used the handkerchief I’d passed back to him to wipe his face.

  “This is exactly why Patrick and I chose not to have children,” he muttered. “So we would never have to have conversations like this. And yet … here I am.”

  “If you could answer the question,” I said as politely as I could, “that would be great. I really don’t want to have a freaky demon baby, and I can’t imagine John wants one, either.”

  “Yes, well,” Mr. Smith said, removing his glasses and beginning to polish them, his fallback gesture whenever he felt uncomfortable, I’d noticed. “I can only imagine having a freaky demon baby would be unpleasant for all concerned. So you’ll be happy to know in my study of psychopomps, I’ve never come across a death deity capable of siring children at all, even freaky demons … I suppose because life is the very opposite of death. Hades and Persephone certainly had no children together.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling relieved. That was one worry off my mind.

  “But you see my concern, don’t you, Miss Oliviera?” Mr. Smith slipped his glasses back on and looked at me with worry in his brown eyes. “I know John would kill me for pointing this out to you, but there’s still so much you haven’t experienced in life. And now you’ll never get to. Can you honestly tell me you have no regrets at all about that?”

  I sprang up, shooting down the steps to pace the small, cluttered yard, suddenly unable to keep still. The sun had finally managed to burn through some of the thick cloud cover to the west, creating a magnificent orange and yellow fireburst against the thunderheads, and burnishing all the statues atop the nearby crypts — the angels and Virgin Marys and cherubs — with gold.

  “Of course I have regrets,” I said, thrusting my hands into the pockets of my dress. “But how do you think John must feel? He’s spent nearly two hundred years not … experiencing things. That’s what I don’t understand, Mr. Smith. When I was here before, you were on John’s side. You even seemed a little disappointed in me for not liking him more. Now you seem worried I like him too much.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side,” Mr. Smith insisted from the steps. “I simply don’t want to see you get hurt. And I want to make sure you’re fully aware of the risk that you’re taking, that you know what you’re doing —”

  “Of course I don’t know what I’m doing,” I exclaimed, throwing my hands into the air. Hope, whom I paced too near, waddled irritably out of my way. “All I know is that a bunch of people hate my boyfriend for reasons that totally aren’t his fault, and because of that, innocent people have gotten killed, including me. It’s totally messed up and I hate it, but if there’s something I can do to stop it, I’m not going to sit around and give lectures to people about pomegranates. I’m going to actually do something. So it really doesn’t help for you to say things like John’s going to hasten your demise for saying this or kill you for saying that. You know he’s not like that. He’s keeper of the dead, it’s not his job to punish the living. So if you want to help, help. Otherwise, save the lectures.”

  Mr. Smith blinked a few times at my outburst.

  “I see,” he said, finally, a troubled frown on his face. “You certainly don’t hold back when it comes to expressing your feelings, do you, Miss Oliviera? I beg your pardon if I’ve said anything to offend you. The events of this past week have been a bit … overwhelming for me, though I suppose they’ve been much more so for others — such as poor Jade Ortega.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “But the truth is, ever since you showed up here, this island has been thrown into such a state of disruption, from the storm to Jade’s murder to the revelation that your grandmother is a Fury, I don’t know what John is like anymore. I’ve been forced to reevaluate everything I ever thought I knew … including my opinion of John Hayden. Like you said, he is keeper of the dead. But you still don’t even know what he did to become that way, do you, Miss Oliviera?”

  “No,” I said, freezing in my tracks. A sudden breeze picked up, rustling the palm fronds over our heads, and causing the clouds to close in on the brief but dazzling display of sunlight that had broken through, darkening the sky once more. “He said it was a long story.” He’d also said it would make me hate him. I tried to put that out of my mind. It couldn’t be true. “I know it has to do with a boat. I met the crew — well, some of them — already. The Liberty.”

  “The Liberty,” Mr. Smith said grimly. “Yes. Stay right where you are
, Miss Oliviera.” The cemetery sexton rose to his feet, his joints popping nosily in protest. “I have a book you need to read. It might help clear up a thing or two for you —”

  Of course. I was on the run from evil spirits that wanted to kill me and now, according to the local paper, the law. Yet Richard Smith, cemetery sexton and death deity scholar, had a book for me to read in all my copious spare time.

  He pulled open the glass door.

  That noise wasn’t the one that caused Hope to flutter her wings and take off. It was the scrape of the wooden gate to the storage area being thrown open that did that.

  Mr. Smith turned around, as nervous as Hope, to see who was coming into the yard. When he saw it was the same groundskeeper I’d noticed pushing a wheelbarrow behind Jade’s bereaved family, he visibly relaxed.

  I didn’t, however.

  “Oh, Mike,” Mr. Smith said with a cheerful smile, as the man shoved his wheelbarrow — empty now, except for a few tools — into the yard. “I had no idea you were still here. You should have gone home hours ago. They’re saying this storm looks set to hit us dead on. You must have windows to board up….”

  “Nope,” Mike said, his gaze flicking over me. He was probably only a few years older than John, but with his scruffy beard and violently colored tattoos of busty women all up and down his arms — he’d cut the sleeves from his Isla Huesos Cemetery coveralls in order to show them off — he seemed decades older, somehow. “Not bothering. I’m betting this one’s going to fizzle out over Cuba. Who’s this?”

  It wasn’t only the way Hope had reacted to him (she hadn’t flown for the security of a high branch of the nearby Spanish lime tree when Mr. Smith had come outside). There was something about Mike that set me on edge right away. He was looking at me so intently … almost like he recognized me.

  Calm down, I told myself. He’s just planning on how he’s going to spend that million-dollar reward Dad’s offering for your safe return.