by Bree Despain
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He smiles. “Your chariot awaits, mademoiselle,” he says, and holds out another gray helmet for me.
“You’re driving that to the play?”
“Bobby says he wants to buy it off me since you don’t want it … but I thought it a shame to get rid of it without at least taking it for an inaugural ride. And, no, I’m not driving it; you’re going to. What kind of rock star father would I be if I didn’t teach my own daughter how to drive a motorcycle … or, er, motor scooter?”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present …” His voice trails off, and I gather his real meaning from the notes that swirl about him. He’s trying to seize the opportunity for a daddy-daughter moment just in case.… Just in case he never gets the chance again …
“You seriously want me to drive this thing?” I ask, taking the helmet from him.
“It’s easy,” he says. “Just like riding your bicycle, but faster.”
I strap on my helmet and climb onto the scooter seat in front of Joe.
Joe’s assertion that it would be as easy as riding my bike doesn’t exactly hold up, but I’m surprised by how fun it is to drive once I (sort of) start to get the hang of it. I even dare to speed up to a whole twenty miles an hour when I figure out that it’s easier to balance, the faster I go. Joe laughs as my long hair in the wind whips him in the face.
I laugh, too, and I can’t help thinking that this is exactly the kind of thing I have always wanted in a father: that person who teaches you how to drive, helps you with your schoolwork, and shows you how to be a better person. Joe may have his problems, but he is trying. He’s been doing so much to help us and is doing everything possible to become a better man. I’d been carrying his sobriety coin in my pocket for the last few weeks as a reminder of the promises he’d made to me, but I had also still been carrying what remains of my anger toward him. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of letting it weigh me down. So as we cruise along the lakeshore road, I decide to just let my anger go. To release it into the wind and let it fly away. And forgive Joe in my heart.
“Lean the scooter but not yourself,” Joe says as we round the corner into the amphitheater parking lot. We pull to a stop—not too hard. Joe gets off first and then steadies the scooter as I swing off it.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“I love it,” I say. “Do you think Bobby would mind if we decide to keep it? I think I’d like to do this some more when I get back.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Joe says, with a cheeky smile.
As I leave Joe to park the Vespa in the lot and I head toward the theater, I feel as though a change has come over me. I feel lighter and ever more confident about the tasks that lie ahead of me.
And like the wall around my heart is finally starting to come down again.
Haden is already backstage at the amphitheater when I come out of a dressing room with my hair and makeup done and my costume on. He’s dressed in a rust red toga that shows off the finer parts of his body, while I wear a flowing white Grecian-style dress. He doesn’t smile when he sees me, but I can tell by his inner tone that he’s relieved—and possibly happy—that I’m with him.
“I have something for you,” he says. Other cast members are milling about, so he speaks softly as he slips something round and metal into my hand.
“The Compass,” I whisper, wrapping my fingers around it. Warmth pulses through my hand, up my arm, and into my chest. It feels like what I imagine having one’s sight restored after a month of blindness must be like.
“I can have Dax hang on to it and bring it to the grove so you don’t have to worry about it while you’re onstage.”
“No, I’ll keep it,” I say, not wanting to let it out of my possession again, and tuck it into the secret pocket I asked Dax to sew into the side seam of my dress. It nestles next to Joe’s sobriety coin, and knowing I have it on me gives me more strength.
Beyond the stage, I can hear the school band tuning their instruments, but I can still make out the shift in Haden’s inner tone as it becomes softer and more fluid.
I look up to find him watching me. He starts to say something, hesitates, and then starts again. “I wanted to say something to you,” he finally says.
I take a deep breath, part expecting, part dreading, and part hoping for another declaration.
“I want to apologize,” he says.
“Apologize?” Was he going to take back his words? “For what?”
“For bringing you into all of this. I know none of what has happened to you is part of your big plan for your life, and I’m sorry that, because of me, your future is so uncertain. I also wanted to thank you for sticking with us. You didn’t have to leave Ellis Fields and come back here with us; you didn’t have to agree to go to the Underrealm tonight. You could have stayed where it was safe and tried to forget about the rest of us, but the truth is we need you and you didn’t run away from that.” He brushes the backs of his fingers lightly against my shoulder, sending a tingling sensation down my arm. “I know this isn’t what you envisioned for your life, but I’m glad we’re doing this together.”
I look down at my hands. When did they start to tremble? “You could have done differently, too,” I say, realizing that now. He could have run away. Or stayed in Ellis. He could have said a big “screw you” to the mortal world and gone his merry way. No one had asked him to be a hero.
“I couldn’t have done anything differently,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t have been right.”
My breath catches in my chest. I want to say something to him … tell him something … but I don’t know the right words to express what I’m feeling.
“Yo, Daphne?” Tobin says, poking his head around the corner of the alcove where I’ve been standing with Haden. I am relieved to note that his inner tone sounds nervous but not angry like it had when I’d confronted him at school. “Joe’s looking for you. He says you have a couple of surprise guests.”
“I do?” I ask, completely confused.
I follow Tobin out of the alcove, with Haden trailing behind me. I can hear a string of tense notes accompanying him. Our plans for later tonight must have him paranoid, and I don’t think he likes the sound of anything surprise-related.
“There you are, Daphne!” Joe says brightly as he comes through the curtains of the amphitheater, but his tone tells me something’s got him worried. He pulls the curtain aside, and the two people I least expect to see follow him backstage.
“Mom? Jonathan?” I almost want to rub my eyes like a cartoon character to make sure I’m not seeing a mirage brought on by nerves.
“Hello, my little sprout!” Mom says as I throw myself at her. She hugs me tight, like she’s tempted to never let me go. Or run off with me back to Ellis before I have a chance to escape.
“My turn!” Jonathan croons impatiently.
Mom releases me from her death-grip hug, only for Jonathan to scoop me up in his giant, bearlike embrace.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask, when he sets me back on my feet.
“Like we were going to miss your big debut!” Jonathan says.
Actually, that’s exactly what I’d expected to happen. We hadn’t really been speaking to each other since the Christmas debacle, and my mom doesn’t travel—I knew crossing two state lines would be hard enough on her that I hadn’t bothered to invite her to the play. I can tell from the uneasy tone that eeks off her that being here is no small sacrifice.
“Who are your friends?” Jonathan asks, indicating Tobin and Haden, who both stand protectively behind me. “I want to meet every one of your friends.”
“Well, this is Tobin, my costar,” I say as Tobin steps forward.
He shakes both my mom’s and Jonathan’s hands.
“The infamous Tobin Oshiro-Winters.” Jonathan closes both of his huge hands around Tobin’s. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”<
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“And this is Haden Lord,” I say, almost too reluctantly.
Haden follows Tobin’s lead and shakes my mother’s hand, then offers to do the same with Jonathan, but Jonathan doesn’t return the gesture.
“Haden Lord? I haven’t heard a single thing about you,” Jonathan says, giving him a suspicious look. Like Haden’s some secret boyfriend I’ve been keeping on the side. “Lord? I knew some Lords once. Where are you from?”
“Back east. New York.”
“Oh really? I hail from Manhattan. What part of New York—”
“Jonathan, what do you think of the set?” I ask, trying to get his mind on design to deter him from giving Haden the third degree. “A lot swankier than that time you and I put on our version of Cinderella on the back patio, huh?”
“It’s nice, yes. Where in New York?” he asks, undeterred.
“Upstate,” Haden says, and I wonder how much more about New York geography he knows beyond that.
“No visitors backstage,” I hear the stage manager call. “We’re five minutes from curtain.”
“Come on,” Joe says. “I’ll help you find your seats.”
“We’ll come find you right after,” Mom says, giving me another squeeze. “You should see the bouquet Jonathan brought you all the way from Ellis for curtain call.”
My heart sinks. I won’t be here for curtain call. How will my mom react when she finds out I’ve gone missing? How will I explain to them where I’ve been when I get back?
If I get back?
“Yes. Bring all of your friends,” Jonathan says, still eyeing Haden. “We’ll go out for ice cream afterward.”
“Break a leg,” Joe says. I can tell by the look on his face that he’s not only wishing me luck for the play but also for our journey to come. He moves like he wants to give me a hug but isn’t sure I’ll let him, so I wrap my arms around his shoulder and give him a tight squeeze. All while my mom gives Joe the side eye.
When I release Joe, he ushers Mom and Jonathan out, and I almost want to cry for the three of them not to leave. I’d known all along that what we are planning to do tonight is dangerous. Foolish, even. But I hadn’t thought about how it will affect the people who love me if we don’t succeed. Failure is not an option I’ve allowed myself to dwell on. Now, having seen Mom and Jonathan again, knowing what I’d be missing and who would be missing me, I can feel the possibility trying to close in on me.
“Hey,” Haden says, giving me a little shake. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice sounds anything but sure.
“We’ll make it back. I promise.”
“You don’t know that.…”
“I do. Because this right here,” he says, indicating the stage, “this is your destiny. This is your plan. You’re going to kill it out there, and everyone is going to love you, and it’ll be the beginning of that big music-star dream you’ve always wanted. And I’ve made up my mind. There’s no way I’m not getting you back here so you can go on to live it.”
I look at him, warmth filling me because I know he means everything he says. My plans may have been derailed temporarily by all this Underrealm stuff, but it didn’t mean that the future I’d planned couldn’t be put back on track.
And the details might be hazy, but for the first time, I can start picturing Haden as part of it.
chapter forty-four
HADEN
“You ready for this?” Dax asks during intermission. He adjusts the golden trim on the shoulder of my red toga, which came loose during the last scene before the break.
“I just hope I don’t forget the rest of my lines,” I say, rocking back in my sandaled feet. I’ve gotten so used to wearing twenty-first-century teenager clothes that it feels strange to be back in garb similar to what I wore in my former life. Actually, it feels almost ominous, considering it is the Eve of the Return. The night before the equinox, when the gate will open on its own.
“I was talking about later,” Dax says, pulling his hand away from my shoulder.
I take a deep breath. Through the curtains, I can see Daphne on the other side of backstage. She’s dressed as Eurydice in a flowing white dress, having just acted out her death on her wedding night. “I know,” I say to Dax. “Are you?”
He nods.
“Intermission is over in two minutes,” the stage manager whispers loudly as he comes through the curtains.
A phone starts ringing on the table behind us.
“Whose phone is this?” the stage manager growls, picking it up. “Mr. Morgan will flip if you don’t turn it off. It interferes with the sound system!”
“Sorry, it’s mine,” Dax says, and grabs it out of his hand.
“I hit decline. You’ll have to take the phone at least three hundred feet from the stage before you call them back. Unless you want Mr. Morgan to kill you.”
“I hear you,” Dax says, waving at the kid as he crosses to the other side of the stage to inform the rest of the cast that we are about to go back onstage for the second half of the play.
“Who was it?” I ask Dax.
“I don’t recognize the number,” he says. The phone beeps, indicating there’s a message. Dax hits the play button and holds the phone to his ear.
“Aren’t you afraid of Mr. Morgan’s wrath—” I start to tease, but Dax holds up a hand to silence me. The look in his eyes tells me this is no joking matter. He clasps his hand over his mouth.
“It was Abbie,” he says, through his fingers.
“What?”
He hits the speaker button and holds the phone up as he replays the message. A garbled, frantic voice speaks like a ghost: “Dax? Dax? It’s me. I escaped. I’ve been running. I’m hiding at a place near my old town. Old Sutton Mill. Please, Dax, come. Before they find me again.” The message cuts off, and Dax looks as pale as a harpy’s underbelly. He hits the redial button, but the call doesn’t go through.
“That’s Abbie,” Dax says. “I have to go to her. I have to go now.”
“Dax, it could be a trap.”
“It’s not. I know Abbie. She wouldn’t have left that message unless it was the real deal. No matter how much duress she was under.”
“But how did she even get your number? It’s a trick: the Skylords messing with us because they know we’re up to something.”
“I don’t care. That was her voice. I have to go.”
I grab his arm. “You can’t go. What about …” My plan. If Dax leaves, my plan is jeopardized. Who will protect Daphne as she gets the Key? Who will cross through the gate with her? But I can’t bring myself to say any of it. Because I know that if it had been Daphne who called, if that had been her voice ringing with fear through that phone, nothing anyone could say would stop me from going to her. Even if she doesn’t feel the same way about me.
“I’ll come with you,” I say, pulling at the shoulder of my toga. “Give me a second to change.”
“No,” Dax says, clasping his hand over my shoulder. “If you leave, then the play can’t go on, and if the play doesn’t go on, then your plan is ruined. The mill is only about twenty minutes from here. I have to check this out even if it is a prank. I can get there and back before the play is even over. I will be back in time to meet Daphne in the grove; I swear it.” He gives me a look that tells me that if he had water from the River Styx, he would make an oath on it right now.
“Take Brim, at least,” I say, offering her up in my place. If I couldn’t be there to protect Dax, then she would willingly do it for me. “She’s in my duffel in the dressing room. Take her with you now so you don’t have to return here before going to the grove.”
“I will,” he says. “I’ll leave a message on your phone when we’ve made it back.”
“Places, everyone, places,” the stage manager calls. “One minute to curtain.”
I place my hand on his shoulder, returning his gesture. Behind him, I can see Daphne and Tobin taking the stage. If something goes wrong, I will have to find a way
to get the message to her that our plans have changed before she makes her grand exit and heads for the grove.
“Hades’s speed,” I say, and let Dax go.
chapter forty-five
DAPHNE
I stand on the stage of the amphitheater, clasping a goblet that supposedly holds water from the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the underworld. My character has died on her wedding night and found herself in the underworld when she should have been celebrating with her new husband, Orpheus. She is overcome with grief.
Two handmaidens of Persephone have offered me the goblet, promising that if I drink from it, I will forget my pain, along with my former life, and find peace in my death.
I sing my response to them—Joe’s words, written for me—in my most difficult solo of the night. The beauty of the song almost overcomes me as I channel Eurydice’s emotions. The song ends as I dash the cup away, choosing to keep my pain in order to retain my memories of true love—a plot point that will come in handy when Orpheus comes to rescue his bride.
The handmaidens scurry away with the goblet, ducking their heads, as Haden, in the role of Hades, enters the stage. My character stands her ground as he sings to me about the folly of my choice to try to defy the order of his world.
I can tell by the notes that swirl around Haden that he is nervous, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by the way he carries himself. He is strong and proud and unbelievably attractive as he commands the stage. I would never guess that he had no idea what music was only six months ago—that he comes from a place where it is forbidden.
I watch him sing, letting his song wrap around me like a warm cocoon. I feel as though I could curl up inside of it and find refuge from the world.
That there is no other place I would rather be.
But it’s not just the way he looks or the way he sings that has me so caught up in him. No, it’s who he is. After our conversation before the play—his apology—I’ve realized something about him that I hadn’t seen before. What he’d done by not giving me to his father hadn’t happened just because he’s in love with me. He didn’t do it just because he wants me. He did it because it was the right thing to do.