Awaken

21

“’Tis true that in the early centuries,

With innocence, to work out their salvation

Sufficient was the faith of parents only.”

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXXII

My parents’ attitude towards John improved significantly after he set my mom’s living room carpet on fire with a lightning bolt.

Improved might be too strong a word. I think they were actually a little bit afraid of him.

Fear isn’t such a bad thing if it causes people to be more careful about the things they do and say. But it’s upsetting to see people you love acting fearful around someone else you love, even when it’s preferable to the way they were acting before. I had to help my mom into one of the chairs at the kitchen counter and make her another coffee with extra sugar before she could begin to process the whole thing. It seemed too much for her ultra-organized scientist’s brain to take.

“It’s not possible,” she kept repeating. “It’s simply not possible. An underworld? Beneath Isla Huesos? And that’s where you’ve been this whole time?”

“Yes, Mom,” I said, sliding a plate of waffles in front of her. “Here, eat these. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Maybe because his brain was more entrepreneurial, my dad was able to take the whole thing more in stride.

“So do you think you could do that trick with the lightning on a larger scale?” he asked John. “Turn it up ten thousand or so megawatts — whatever they call them — and focus all that energy on a target about the size of, say, a military base?”

“Dad,” I said with a warning tone in my voice.

“I suppose I could.” John was eating bacon from a plate my dad had put in front of him. “But I won’t.”

“That’s fair,” Dad said. “That’s fair. I like a man with principles. Would it change the way you feel if I told you this military base had fired on American soldiers?”

“John, don’t listen to him. Dad, I told you, John already has a job.”

“Right, right, he sorts souls of the dead. How much does one earn in a job like that, if you don’t mind my asking? Ballpark figure, of course.”

“Dad!”

“I’m just saying, if the boy came to work for me, I could pay him double or triple what he’s earning now —”

“It’s not that kind of job, Dad. But I do think there might be a way you could help us.”

John scowled at me over the forkful of eggs he was scooping into his mouth. We’d foregone the waffles, the memory of our great waffle fight still being a little too fresh in our minds for comfort. Fortunately, there were also scrambled eggs.

I could understand how John might not be eager to accept help from a man who’d threatened to shoot him in the knees, but the truth was, my dad had access to considerable resources. And I figured if there was anything the two of us — not to mention the Underworld — could use right now, it was resources.

“My dad owns a really big company, John,” I explained.

Now John scowled into the cup of coffee he was drinking. “You might have mentioned it one or two hundred times since I met you.”

“It’s a company that makes things for the military.” I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.

John’s scowl deepened as he set down the coffee cup. “Weapons don’t work on Furies. You know that.”

“Not Furies again,” my mom said. “All this talk of Fates and Furies … none of it makes any sense.”

“Grandma being possessed by a murderous demon from hell makes perfect sense to me,” Dad said. “It’s about the only thing I’ve heard this morning that does.”

My mother dropped her head down onto her folded arms. “You told Christopher it was drugs,” she said to the kitchen counter. “Why couldn’t it be drugs?”

I stared at her. “You’d rather this whole thing was about drugs?”

Mom lifted her head. “Than demons? Yes, Pierce, I would. Drugs I can understand. Drugs make sense. With drugs you can go to rehab or call the police and have someone arrested. What are we supposed to do about a demon possessing my mother?”

Dad lifted his coffee. “You’re entitled to your own opinion, of course, but if she really did try to kill Pierce —”

Mom dropped her head into her arms and groaned.

“— well, then I say John here should just hit her with one of his lightning bolts.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Dad,” I said.

“I need an aspirin,” pleaded my mom.

“And I’m not talking about weapons,” I said to John. “I’m talking about boats. Really big boats.”

My dad glanced from me to John and then back again. “A division of my company does make boats. What kind of boat are you talking about? Tanker? Frac? Lift?”

“Passenger,” I said quickly. “I was thinking of a passenger ship. Something along the lines of a ferry.”

“Pierce,” John said warily.

“We make ships specializing in oil services,” Dad said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “But I know a guy who … well, let’s just say I know a guy.”

“We’d need two,” I said. “And we’d need them right away.”

“For how long?” Dad scrolled through his contact list.

“Forever.”

My father’s finger froze on the screen of his phone as he glanced at me in surprise. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Pierce.” John pushed away from the kitchen counter and stood up. “May I have a word with you outside?”

I knew how much he hated asking my father for help, but I couldn’t see any alternative.

“John, it’s all right. After everything we’ve been through, I think we can talk in front of my parents.” I crossed the room to take one of his hands. He was so tense, he was holding them both clenched in fists. I had to pry his fingers open in order to slip mine through his. “If you’ve thought of some other way to get the ships, tell me what it is.”

Even with me standing right there beside him holding his hand, John looked extremely uncomfortable. He wore an expression similar to the one he’d had on when my uncle Chris had confronted him (in this very same room) about kidnapping me. His dark eyebrows were furrowed deeply, his silver eyes glowing defiantly, his free hand clenching and unclenching at his side as if he was going to punch the world.

“The ships will be provided, as they always have,” he said in a low voice, “by the Fates.”

“John, the Fates are gone. They left before you died. And I don’t see any sign of their speedy return. You’re here, the storm’s over, the sun is shining, but Hope’s not back.” Saying it aloud made my throat feel sore. But I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. “She knows where I live. She’s been here before. But she isn’t here.”

“Hope will be back,” John assured me. “And so will the Fates. I know they will.”

Before I had a chance to point out that Mr. Smith had never believed the Fates were distinct entities — he believed they were the spirits of human kindness, which made it sort of understandable how they’d be few and far between on Isla Huesos — my father began shaking his head.

“Son,” he said to John, “maybe it’s time you realized that these Fates of yours don’t exist.”

“Dad,” I said, my throat tighter than ever. “You’re not helping.”

“Most of us have been making our own fates for a long time,” Dad went on, ignoring me. “Some of us didn’t grow up getting everything we wanted handed to us on gold platters by invisible fairies —”

“Neither did I,” John interrupted, his eyes flashing dangerously.

“Where I grew up,” my father went on, as if John hadn’t spoken, “there was no such thing as fate, or luck, or wishing on a lucky star. There was only hard work and being ready to seize whatever opportunity presented itself. Now, I’m not criticizing you. I appreciate what you did, looking out for my daughter when things weren’t going so well for her. I wish I’d been a better listener when she came to me with her problems. I’m glad you were there for her. To me, that’s fate … being there to give other people a hand when they need it, not being a stubborn ass —”

“Zachary,” my mother said in a warning voice, her eyes wide.

“No,” Dad said. “It’s all right, Debbie. He knows what I’m talking about. He’s not going to set the carpet on fire again. Are you, son?”

John regarded my father with a narrow-eyed stare from the center of the room. I did not share Dad’s faith that John wasn’t about to do something reckless. His breathing was shallow, and his fingers holding mine were clenched so tightly, I half expected that the next time I blinked, I’d open my eyes to find myself back in the Underworld.

It was difficult for John to trust strangers when he’d lived for so long in one place amongst a handful of people he knew so well. It had to be especially difficult for him to trust a man who was in so many ways like Seth’s wrecker great-great-great grandfather.

But my father hadn’t meant for anyone to be hurt in the oil spill that caused so much damage to the shoreline. My father had been trying to help. William Rector, in contrast, hadn’t been trying to help. He hadn’t cared how many lives he ruined in the wrecks he caused.

I squeezed John’s hand. I love you, I love you, I love you, I thought, gazing up at him.

I don’t know if he heard me, but something in either my father’s words or my grip seemed to get through to him, since he said, his voice carefully controlled, “Please call me John, not son. I won’t be your son until your daughter agrees to marry me, which she says she won’t do for now because her mother would want her to graduate from high school first. Pierce says no one our age gets married anymore.”

A high-pitched sound between a scream and a sob escaped my mother. When we all turned to look at her, she’d slapped a hand across her mouth.

“Deborah,” my father said curiously. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, her hand still riveted in place, and made a motion with her other hand for us to go on with the conversation. I noticed her eyes were wide and unnaturally bright.

“I’m not sure you’re right about the Fates, Mr. Oliviera,” John said. “But I’ll welcome any help you’re willing to give us.” He held out his right hand.

This time, my father walked across the room and shook it.

“Great, great. But Mr. Oliviera is my father. Call me Zack. I’m right about those fate things, though,” he said. “You’ll see.” He dropped John’s hand, then pressed the name on his contact list. “Gary? Hey, Gary, it’s me, Zack Oliviera, how are you? Yeah, I know, me, too, that was some storm, huh? How’d you make it through? Any of those ferries of yours left?”

John sent me a long-suffering look as my father wandered into the dining room, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping an arm around his waist. “I know he can be a challenge.”

“A challenge?” John echoed in disbelief. “That’s not how I tend to describe someone threatening to shoot me.”

“I know.” I flinched. “Sorry about that. But you see how amazing he can be when he tries.”

“Perhaps,” John said, sliding one of his own arms around my waist. “But, Pierce, even if your allegedly amazing father is able to acquire those ships, how am I supposed to get them to the Underworld?”

“Can’t you just blink them there?”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “You do know that the heaviest thing I’ve ever transported to the Underworld is Frank, right?”

I toyed with the diamond at the end of my necklace. “I’m the one who has to get rid of all the Furies somehow. Talk about challenges. You concentrate on yours, and I’ll concentrate on mine.”

John shook his head, pulling me closer. “No. We’ll work on our challenges together.” He glanced at the kitchen counter. “What are we going to do about her?”

I gazed with concern at my mom, who had her head buried in her arms again. “She can be amazing, too,” I whispered, “but I think I’m going to need to spend a little quality time with her in order to help her adjust, especially now that you dropped the M word in front of her.”

John looked puzzled. “The M word?”

“Marriage. Between that and the revelation that this is about demons and not drugs, I’m pretty sure she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

John’s expression went from puzzled to as concerned as mine, but not, I soon learned, for the same reasons.

“I wish we had that kind of time, but we don’t.” He released me to dig into his pocket for the tablet he’d retrieved at the same time I’d snuck back upstairs to brush my teeth, wash my face, and run a brush through my hair. “Mr. Liu says the number of newly arriving souls has slowed down since the storm moved out to sea, but the situation is still beyond critical.”

“I’m not the one causing the imbalance, then,” I said, still fingering my necklace. “I’m not there. It wasn’t Thanatos, either, since I destroyed him. Something else is. Only what?”

There was a loud rattling sound on the other side of the French doors, all of which my mom and dad had unshuttered and thrown open to let in the beautiful morning sunshine. It sounded as if someone was letting himself in by the side gate where my mom and I kept our bikes and the trash cans.

My heart gave a sudden swoop inside my chest.

“John,” I whispered. “What if it’s the police, come to arrest us?”

John reached out and took my hand. “They’ll never lay a finger on you,” he said.

I knew what he meant. We’d be gone before the police ever got inside the room.

It wasn’t the police, however. It was Alex, who loped inside, a backpack slung over one shoulder. He’d changed clothes since the last time I’d seen him. His dark hair was still damp on the ends, and he smelled newly showered.

“There you are,” he said casually, not noticing the tense looks John and I wore. “I’ve been calling you for ages. I don’t know why I bothered; you never answer your phone anyway.”

I’d remembered to slip my phone into the pocket of my dress. I’d forgotten, however, to turn it on.

“We, uh, just woke up a little while ago,” I said, sheepishly dropping John’s hand to hit the power button on my phone. “Where are Frank and Kayla?”

“They went to Kayla’s place to change, then to your friend Mr. Smith’s,” he said, with a meaningful glance at my mom. It was clear he didn’t think we should be talking about any of this in front of her. “They wanted to give Patrick his, er, car back. Then they said they’d meet us” — he lowered his voice, mumbling the next few words so only I could hear them — “at the cemetery.” His tone returned to normal. “Hi, Aunt Deb. Are you okay? You look like you’ve got a headache or something.”

Mom lifted her head. “I’ve been better,” she said. “Would you like some waffles?”

“That’s okay, I just took my dad to breakfast at Denny’s to get him out of the house.” Another meaningful glance at me. “Away from Grandma.”

Mom looked surprised. “Your dad? Oh, Alex, that’s great. How is he doing?”

“Still charged with murder, thanks, Aunt Deb. But I appreciate your bailing him out. Dad? Hey, Dad?”

To my surprise, Uncle Chris poked his head through one of the open sets of French doors. In one hand he was holding an enormous black plastic trash can. In the other, he was dragging a five-foot-long palm frond that had been knocked down by the storm.

“Oh, hey, Deb,” he said with a grin when he saw my mother. “Alex said he wanted to come over and I thought it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get started on your cleanup. Cassandra was a mean one, huh? Lot of poinciana blossoms in your pool, which is weird, since I didn’t think there was one of those trees around here ….”

His voice trailed off as his gaze landed on me. Then his eyes lit up … until he noticed John. Then he frowned a little. “Piercey! And … you.”

John stepped up to him, his right hand extended. “John,” he said. “Remember? It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Cabrero.”

Uncle Chris didn’t look as if he thought it was so nice to see John again, but he stuffed the palm frond into the garbage can, then shook John’s hand.

“How you doing?” he asked. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Well, I’m going to get back to work. Lots to do if we’re going to get this place cleaned up.” He wrinkled his nose slightly. “Hey, uh, no offense, Deb, but it smells like burned toast in here.”

“Oh, no,” Mom said with a semihysterical laugh. “That was just Pierce’s boyfriend. He lit the carpet on fire with his brain.”

Uncle Chris looked at her as if she’d lost her mind — which I think she had, sort of — and nodded.

“Okay,” Uncle Chris said. “Just checking.” Then he quickly wheeled the trash can away, into the backyard.

Alex, who’d slid onto one of the kitchen counter stools, froze. Only his eyes moved as he cut his gaze towards my mother. “Wait … you know?”

“Of course we know,” Mom said. “Why haven’t you told your father yet, Alex? This involves him. After all, Grandma is his mother, too.”

Alex glanced from me to my mother like we were both crazy. “I know. Why do you think I haven’t let him out of my sight since I got here? I’m keeping him as far away from her as I possibly can. But I can’t tell him about any of this. He wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Mom’s glance came into focus. She frowned with disapproval. I didn’t exactly blame her — Uncle Chris was a lot cooler than many people gave him credit for — but considering her own reaction when she’d heard the news, I didn’t think she had much room to talk.

“Your father isn’t a child, Alexander,” she said. “He doesn’t need your protection.”

“You’re right that he isn’t a child,” Alex said, unzipping his backpack and reaching into it. “But you’re wrong that he doesn’t need protection. My dad needs a lot of protecting, because it doesn’t seem to me as if anyone’s ever bothered to protect him before in his life.”

Alex pulled a file from the backpack — a very similar file to the one he’d taken from Mr. Rector’s office in the spec house on Reef Key — and slapped it onto the kitchen counter. A photo slid out … a photo of my mom with my uncle Chris — both of them looking years younger, twenty years younger at least — and someone who could only be Seth Rector’s father.

When my mother saw the photograph, the color drained from her face. She reached out quickly to snatch it away, but Alex was too fast for her.

“No,” he said, his hand landing over it. “Let Pierce see. She has the right to know.”

“Know what?” I asked, moving towards the counter.

“Pierce,” Mom said. She looked as if she were going to be sick. “I can explain ….”

“I’m interested to hear that explanation,” Alex said. “I’m sure Pierce and John will be, too.” He passed the photo to me.

In the picture, my mom, Uncle Chris, and Mr. Rector were in swimsuits, standing on a sandy beach in front of some mangroves, the bushy kind of tropical tree my mom had always said roseate spoonbills liked to nest in. The three of them were laughing and holding something up for the camera as they mugged for the lens. The things they were holding were yellowish and long, and appeared to have been pulled from the sand. I could see the holes — not very large or very shallow — on the beach behind them, along with a lot of seaweed and driftwood.

There were more things like the ones they were holding sticking up out of the sand all around them. There were also more than a few empty beer bottles, and even an overturned bottle of Captain Rob’s Rum.

“That’s Reef Key, isn’t it?” Alex asked. “Before Mr. Rector and Farah’s dad developed it? Is Farah’s dad the person taking the picture?”

“Yes,” Mom said in a faint voice.

That’s when I took a closer look at what she and Uncle Chris and Mr. Rector were holding up as they laughed into the camera, and finally realized what they were: bones.

Not fish bones, or animal bones.

Human bones.