by Meg Cabot
“Excuse me, dear,” an old woman said in a quavering voice. In her silk blouse, with a pearl necklace at her throat and a cane in her hand, she could have been a teacher from my old school in Connecticut. Maybe that’s why I didn’t mind so much when she called me dear. “It’s getting quite cold. We saw the accident, so I know it will be a while before the next boat arrives. Is there somewhere we can go in the meantime to be out of this wind?”
I looked up and down the beach, though I knew very well there was no shelter of any kind for them, unlike at a normal terminal. Passengers had never had to wait that long for a boat before. Of course, never before had they faced such dangers as bird bodies plummeting from the sky and much worse, for all I knew.
There was only one thing I could say — though I knew John wasn’t going to like it very much when he found out.
“Yes,” I said to the old woman. I pointed towards the castle. “You can go there.”
“Oh,” she said, her gaze following the direction of my finger. “I see.”
She didn’t look all that excited. It took me a second or two to realize why. Every time she took a step, her cane sank into the wet sand as she leaned on it. It was many, many feet to the castle.
Worse, I could see that several of the people from Frank’s line — including Khaki Pants — were eyeing her pearl necklace with a great deal of interest, even though I had no idea what they thought they were going to do with it once they’d snatched it. It’s not like there were any pawnshops in the Underworld where they could make a quick buck selling it.
“Hold on a minute,” I said to the old lady with the pearls. “I’ll get you some help.”
I glanced around for Mr. Liu. He was so huge, he could pick her up and set her on his shoulder.
Only, Mr. Liu looked busy. One of his charges really had jumped into the lake, as they’d feared would happen, and Mr. Liu had leaped in after him. Now he was towing him to shore.
It seemed like I was going to have to start offering rides to the castle on Alastor’s back like he was a pony at a children’s party. He ought to love that.
Then I heard Mr. Liu call my name … my first name. Mr. Liu had never called me by my first name before, only Miss Oliviera. Normally unwavering in his old-world politeness, I knew something truly horrible must have happened to make him forget it.
Alastor must have heard the urgency in Mr. Liu’s voice as well, since his ears turned forward, and before I had a chance to press my heels against his sides, he’d plunged into the water, splashing towards the Asian man and the body he was towing …
… a body that, as I grew closer, I began to realize looked familiar. It was male, and shirtless, in black jeans.
It was John. And he looked — there was no other way to put it — dead.
8
After she thus had spoken unto me,
Weeping, her shining eyes she turned away …
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto II
He said he couldn’t die.”
I looked accusingly at Mr. Graves from the bed where I was sitting next to John’s lifeless body.
“He can’t.” The ship’s surgeon had a strange instrument pressed to his ear. It looked like an upside-down trumpet, only it was made of wood. He pressed it against John’s naked chest, listening for the same heartbeat I’d been unable to find down on the beach. “At least, he isn’t supposed to.”
“Then I don’t understand what’s going on here,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Because he seems super dead to me.”
“To me as well.” Mr. Graves moved the trumpet-like instrument to a different part of John’s chest and listened some more. “This is very troubling.”
“Troubling?” I echoed. “I think I could find a better word than troubling to describe the fact that my boyfriend, who was supposed to be immortal, is dead.”
My voice broke a little on the word dead. I couldn’t stop replaying over and over in my head that last moment I’d spent with John on the dock.
Tell me you love me, he’d said.
Why hadn’t I said yes when I’d had the chance?
How could any of this be happening?
When I’d tumbled off Alastor’s back and into the rough waves to snatch John’s lifeless body away from Mr. Liu, he’d assured me in a voice as broken and ragged as my own that if we got him up to the castle and to Mr. Graves, the surgeon would know what to do.
I’m not sure if Mr. Liu had ever really believed the ship’s surgeon had some magical cure for death that the rest of us didn’t know about, or if he’d only said this to placate me, seeing my near-hysteria. He couldn’t have thought it would keep me from doing what I’d done next, which was drag John to the beach — with Mr. Liu’s help, and Frank’s, when he’d realized what was happening — and attempt to revive him myself.
Why wouldn’t I think I could bring John back to life? I’d done it for Alex. I knew a thing or two about CPR, since it’s what had saved my life the first time my grandmother had tried to kill me. I was convinced it — or my diamond pendant, or a combination of both — would work on John.
Only they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. This was the Underworld. This was where things came to die.
It wasn’t until someone took me by the shoulders and physically pulled me away from him that I realized my own lips had grown as cold and frozen as John’s from pressing my mouth — along with my heart — against his for so long.
“Pierce.” It had been Alex’s voice I heard in my ear. “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to get away from here. Look. The storm. It’s getting worse.”
He was right. The thunder was growing louder, and somehow, it had begun to rain, though at first I thought that was because the fog had finally closed in on the beach.
Except that the fog had turned from white to red. It was the color of poinciana blossoms. The mist clung with enough persistence to make it feel like a steady drizzle ….
“Oh, God,” I’d murmured, looking down at my arms, then at John’s chest. We’d each been covered in a fine spray of pink.
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
Then Alex pointed upwards. I saw that the ravens that had survived the sound of the ships’ impact had regrouped and were spinning in a tight circle, waiting for a chance to do what the old man in the hospital gown had assured us they were waiting to do … feed on the dead. Only now, I realized with horror, it wasn’t the flesh of the dead they wanted.
It was the body of my dead boyfriend.
“The castle,” I’d said, scrambling to my feet. “We need to get him — get everyone — to the castle, now.”
Mr. Liu wanted to carry John, but Alastor put up such a fuss, rearing and whinnying and thrusting his nose against John’s body, as if he were trying to nudge him back to life — or at least knock him off the bigger man’s shoulder — we gave up and laid him across Alastor’s saddle. The horse seemed comforted by the feel of his master’s weight across his back and, allowing me to hold his reins, turned to head back towards the castle without once balking or even so much as snorting.
I wished more than once during that long, frightening walk through the red mist, with the departed souls fighting and complaining behind us that they did not understand what was happening — except, thankfully, for Reed and Chloe, who helped along Mrs. Engle, which turned out to be the name of the nice old lady in the pearls — that I could be an animal and not fully understand what was happening. Then maybe I’d have been able to delude myself into thinking that John was only sleeping, or unconscious, and that I could nudge him awake, the way Alastor had tried to.
I wished it almost as much as I wished that Hope would suddenly appear, fluttering her (mostly) pure white wings and fussing about, letting me know all was not lost.
Except that Hope never put in an appearance, even when we finally reached the room John and I shared. I’d been sure I’d find her perched on the back of my dining room chair, fastidious
ly grooming herself. To my utter disappointment, her perch was empty. She wasn’t there, or anywhere else that I could see.
Not only that, but no fire blazed in the enormous hearth to greet us, as it had every other time I’d walked in. None of the sconces along the passageway had been lit, either. The gleaming silver bowl in the center of the table, normally heaped to overflowing with grapes and peaches and apples and pears, was empty. Even the fountain that usually burbled so animatedly in the courtyard was silent.
All of this, I thought with foreboding, could mean only one thing: The Fates had deserted us.
Tears filled my eyes, but for once I didn’t mind them because they blurred the sight of John’s long-limbed body stretched out beside me, completely still and virtually the same color as the crisp white sheets beneath him.
Thankfully, they also blurred the faces of the people gathered around John’s room and the bed on which he lay, which was a small mercy. What would I want to look at Alex for, as he slouched on the couch and mindlessly (and irritatingly) flipped through the pages of a book he’d found on the nightstand? Zzzzzpppt went the pages. Zzzzzpppt.
Or Chloe as she knelt at the end of John’s bed, murmuring whatever prayers she’d been taught were appropriate to say at someone’s deathbed (which weren’t doing any good, as far as I could tell. John’s eyelids never stirred).
I definitely didn’t need to see Reed, still shirtless and looking all around the room, like, What is this weird place?
I didn’t even want to look at Kayla as she sat beside me, patting me on the shoulder and murmuring over and over again, “Everything’s going to be all right, chickie. Everything’s going to be fine.”
How did that make any sense? Everything clearly wasn’t going to be all right. Nothing was ever going to be all right again.
“Here, dear,” Mrs. Engle said, removing, then replacing, a cup of tea that Henry had thrust into my hands, even though I had never touched it to my lips. She kept refilling it from a pot Henry had brought from the kitchen. Every time the pot ran low, I heard Henry’s overlarge shoes clip-clop against the floor as he shuffled out to refill it. “Try to drink it, won’t you? It will help.”
What was she talking about? Tea wasn’t going to help anything.
Crying helped a little. The tears kept me from seeing the expression on Frank’s face as he mumbled, periodically, “I think I’ll go check on that lot out there in the courtyard,” in a voice so clogged with emotion, I knew he was actually leaving the room so no one would see his tears.
Mr. Liu, meanwhile, sat silent as a stone at the bottom of one of the double sets of curved staircases that led to a set of — locked — doorways back to earth. His brawny arms folded over his chest, his head bowed so low, his long, single black braid had fallen over one shoulder, his face was cast in shadow.
The fact that I knew he, too, was crying — and that the reason Henry kept slipping from the room for more tea wasn’t because anyone wanted it, but so I wouldn’t see his tears — didn’t make it easier to bear.
Maybe because he was a man of science and it was his job to break bad news, Mr. Graves was the only permanent resident of the Underworld not shedding any tears. His words simply caused other people to.
“When I said troubling,” the doctor went on, fumbling to slip his old-fashioned stethoscope into one of the deep pockets of his black coat, “of course what I meant was that it’s troubling in an intellectually curious manner. You see, all of us were granted eternal life, so long as we don’t stray too far from the Underworld. Technically, the captain didn’t do that.”
“But technically,” Kayla said, “he’s still dead.”
“Well, yes,” Mr. Graves admitted. “I’m afraid that’s true.”
In the brief silence that followed, my personal cell phone buzzed — no doubt I had another text message from the National Weather Service in Isla Huesos — and at the same time, John’s tablet, which was tucked into my sash beside the phone, let out a chime.
No one remarked on this, least of all me. John’s tablet had been doing this at regular intervals — notifying me whenever a new soul had arrived and needed to be sorted.
How John hadn’t been driven witless by these near constant alerts, I had no idea. I was ready to pitch the stupid thing across the room. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t do anything to bring John back.
“So what gives, Doc?” Reed asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Graves looked confused.
“Why’d the dude die?”
“Oh. I’m afraid I don’t know.” Mr. Graves sighed. “I can’t find a wound. No sign of trauma or internal injury. He doesn’t appear to have drowned —”
“Why did he die this time and not before?” I asked, my voice sounding croaky from disuse. “He’s been hurt by Furies plenty of other times, badly” — I kept my gaze averted from the scars on his chest, the scars it seemed a lifetime ago that I’d run my fingers across, making him gasp — “and he didn’t die then. Why this time?”
“I honestly couldn’t say. If I were to perform an autopsy, then of course —”
I dropped the teacup I’d been holding in my hand. It fell to the stone floor, spilling its lukewarm contents, but didn’t shatter.
Before anyone could move to clean the puddle up, however, it was quickly lapped away by John’s massive dog, Typhon, who had stationed himself at the end of John’s bed from the moment they’d lowered him onto it, refusing to move.
A part of me had wondered if the dog’s hot breath might warm some life back into his master. So far, sadly, this hadn’t worked.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Engle said, stooping to lift the teacup, “it might be better to leave talk of autopsies and such things until we’ve all had time to grieve —”
I wasn’t crying enough to miss the sidelong glance she threw me. By we, she meant me.
“Yeah, Doc,” Alex said. Zzzzzppt went the pages of the book in his fingers. “No offense, but your bedside manner could use a little work.”
“Cabrero,” Kayla said, narrowing her eyes at Alex. “If you do that one more time, I will take that book from you and hit you with it till you’re dead. Again.”
From the wall where he leaned, Reed smirked.
“Please,” Chloe said, miserably, raising her head from her steepled fingers. “Could you please not fight, you guys?”
“No one is fighting,” Mr. Liu said from the staircase where he sat, not lifting his head. “Anymore.”
Alex’s fingers stilled on the book, and he cast Kayla and Reed warning looks. “No. Sorry. No, we’re not.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Oliviera,” Mr. Graves said to me with an apologetic smile. “I simply meant that an autopsy is often the only way to determine the cause of death in cases like this. I certainly wouldn’t perform one on the captain, nor do I recommend digging a grave for him … at least, not yet.”
I raised my head, a twinge — just a tiny one — of hope darting through me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Only that there’s reason,” Mr. Graves said, “to suppose that the captain might wake up.”
9
“Wherefore, here where thou seest, am I lost … ”
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XXVII
The twinge of hope I’d felt turned to a spark.
I knew that was ridiculous. Dead was dead. If anyone knew that, it was me.
Still, I couldn’t help noticing Mr. Liu’s head jerk up, as if he, too, had felt a spark of hope.
Nor could I help repeating, “Wake up? How could John wake up from being dead?”
“Like me, you mean?” Alex asked. Now that most of my tears had dried up, I could see that the book he was holding was A History of the Isle of Bones, which Mr. Smith had loaned to me, and which had caused John and me to have one of our biggest fights.
I couldn’t remember who’d won that fight. I couldn’t remember why we’d fought — why we’d ever wasted what precious little time we had fighting about anythin
g at all — in the first place.
“Not like you,” Mr. Liu growled at Alex from the darkness, his tone disapproving.
“Mr. Liu is right,” Mr. Graves said. “You were granted a second chance at life by your cousin and Captain Hayden. The captain, on the other hand, was granted a second chance at life by the Fates, along with a set of extraordinary gifts, one of which was the ability to grant life himself. He then brought all of us back to life. We’ve all been attacked by Furies before, but none of us has ever been killed.” He turned his head back towards me. “It was from a Fury attack that I lost my sight, you know. Though we heal much more quickly here, we’re not immune to injury or pain. But this is the first time death has been the result of a Fury attack.”
I glanced involuntarily at John’s supine body, taking in the long white scars that marred his otherwise perfect skin. The fact that the full-time residents of the Underworld weren’t immune to injury had been plainly obvious to me for a long time.
The fact that they were immune to aging, but apparently not death, was only just dawning on me.
“So?” Alex asked rudely. The jibe at his not deserving his second chance at life had evidently stung a little.
“So while it’s not likely,” Mr. Graves said, “I’d say there’s every reason to be hopeful that the captain will recover his heartbeat, just as I’m hopeful that with time, I’ll recover my sight.” He reached out to pat my knee, the part of me that was closest to him. I don’t know how he’d known it was there. Maybe he felt my body heat, the way I could feel Typhon’s hot breath. “Time heals all wounds, you know, Miss Oliviera, even in this place.”
I suppose he did it to comfort me, the way Kayla had patted my shoulder. But I didn’t feel comforted, neither by the gesture nor his words. The spark of hope I’d felt died as surely as if someone had doused it with a cup of tea.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Mr. Graves was supposed to make everything better, not tell me the same kind of platitudes my own doctors had told my parents back when they’d been convinced I was crazy because I kept seeing a leather-jacketed mystery boy every time my life was in jeopardy.