Awaken

30

O joy! O gladness inexpressible!

O perfect life of love and peacefulness!

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXVII

Anything can happen in the blink of an eye.

One. Two. Three.

Blink.

A girl meets a boy, full of sadness and longing. The boy takes that girl to another world, a dark world from which he tells the girl there is no escape.

You don’t have to worry about that girl, though, because she knows there is a way to escape, a way to break the curse, let sunlight into the world …

… or at least let the boy out for a vacation every now and then.

Mr. Graves had been right. There was a pestilence causing an imbalance in the Underworld. What he’d been wrong about was the cause. He’d suspected the pestilence was caused by John or one of the permanent inhabitants spending too much time away from the realm of the dead.

And while certainly the Underworld could not function smoothly without anyone to attend to the needs of the dead, leaving it for too long was not the cause of the imbalance.

The cause of the imbalance was Alex. None of us realized it — least of all Alex — until I released Thanatos from his prison inside Seth Rector’s body, and he found a new home inside Alex.

“He really seems to like me,” Alex informed us cheerfully, as we watched Kayla’s tearful reunion with Frank in front of Mr. Smith’s cottage. “Watch what I can do now.”

Alex picked up a coconut and kicked it. It disappeared, seemingly into the stratosphere. If Alex had any interest in continuing high school — which he did not — he would now have been extremely welcome on the Isla Huesos football team, instead of an object of ridicule to them.

“I can do that,” John said, unimpressed.

“Well,” Alex said. “I could kill you with a single touch. Should I do that, instead?”

“Please don’t,” I said, wrapping hands protectively around John’s arm.

“And how did you discover that you had this remarkable grasp over life and death?” Mr. Graves asked.

“Well,” Alex said. “After I got that little girl back to her mom — who thanked me profusely, by the way — and was following all the cops who were tailing Pierce on her bike, I saw them stop, because that crazy cop had pulled out his gun and was going to shoot this guy with a chain saw. And I felt this crazy urge come over me to go over and yank out the cop’s soul. I honestly can’t explain it any other way.” He took a swig from the water bottle he held. “So I did it.”

“You yanked a man’s soul from his body?” I asked slowly.

“Yeah,” Alex said with a shrug. “It was easy. That’s when I knew I had that death dude living inside me. And honestly, you guys, I’ve never felt better in my life.”

I think all of us were astonished except for Chloe, who said, “Well, it makes sense. After all, your name does mean protector of men. And who is a greater protector of men than someone who brings them the sweet relief of death?”

Frank and John and Mr. Liu and I all gave her sour looks, and Chloe hastily added, “Except of course someone who escorts their souls to their final resting place. That’s a really important job, too. And obviously anyone who dies before their time won’t consider you very protective, Alex.”

“Yeah,” Alex said with a nod. “I’m going to have to work on that. But I think it’s a handy skill to have, you know, in emergencies. I really can’t believe Thanatos spent so long in Seth’s body. I think even he thought Seth was a drag. But it was a Rector tradition to have Thanatos dwelling within the youngest male, so —”

My eyes widened. “So the Rectors knew?”

“They had to have,” Alex said with another shrug. “How else do you explain that hideous mausoleum and the statue of Hades and Persephone?”

“Extremely poor taste?” Kayla suggested.

“No,” I said, shaking my head as I thought of Seth’s shirts. “It was more than that. They knew something. They were proud of it. But they didn’t understand who Thanatos was, exactly. And they couldn’t control him. That’s what led to their downfall.”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “I think Thanatos really appreciated it when you released him, Pierce … you know, later, after he thought about it. Being a Rector wasn’t good for him. It put him in a bad mood. That’s why he chose me. I’m a lot more easygoing than Seth.”

“And more modest,” I pointed out wryly. “So where is Officer Poling’s soul now?”

“Oh,” Alex said with a shrug. “He’s down in the Underworld. He’s your responsibility now. I don’t want anything to do with him. That guy’s a real douche, even without the Fury in him. You know he killed Jade, right? He and that Mike guy mistook her for you, Pierce. I choked the truth out of him — his soul, I mean. I even got him to cough up where he hid the murder weapon. It’s a wrench, part of a set Mike owns.”

“You mean the cemetery owns,” Mr. Smith piped up. “Mike keeps his tools in the shed behind my office.”

“Poling said Mike threw the wrench into the harbor.”

“If I report it missing,” Mr. Smith said, “and suggest the police question Mike again, I’m sure it won’t be long before he strikes some kind of deal.”

Alex looked relieved. “That will clear my dad, then. Anyway, after I figured out I’m Thanatos, and then I dealt with your dad and the cops and stuff, and I heard Frank was dead, I just went over to the crypt and revived him. It seemed kind of natural, in a way, like I always knew how to do it … or was destined to do it, or something.”

I knew what he meant. It was the way I’d felt when I’d finally realized how the Persephone necklace and the whip Mr. Liu had given me fit together. As if I’d found my place in the world at last, and what I was destined to do, odd as it sounded.

Alex looked around. “Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”

Mr. Smith was right. We do need storms sometimes, because they clear away the bracken so that the sun can shine on flowers that might never have otherwise had a chance to bloom.

Chief of Police Santos did eventually arrest Mike both for the murder of Jade Ortega and the attempted murder of Patrick Reynolds. After the missing wrench was dredged from the bottom of the harbor, Mike struck a plea bargain and took a sentence of life in prison in order to avoid the death penalty. All charges against Uncle Chris were dropped.

Seth Rector, who’d successfully murdered Alex, was a little more fortunate. There was no proof he’d murdered Alex, since there was no body …. Alex was still alive. So Seth couldn’t be prosecuted for that crime.

Oddly enough, however, Chief of Police Santos happened to find more than a dozen gold doubloons dating back to the seventeen hundreds (and worth more than ten thousand dollars each) in a black velvet bag in Seth’s locker during a random locker sweep at Isla Huesos High School one afternoon.

Seth, completely shocked, claimed he’d never seen the coins before and had no idea where they’d come from. As he was led down the breezeway in handcuffs, he saw John Hayden leaning casually against one of the outdoor cafeteria tables, his arms folded across his chest. As Seth passed by, John narrowed his eyes at him, then wagged a single index finger. Shame on you.

Seth began to shout that he’d been “set up by Pierce Oliviera and that freak boyfriend of hers.”

Chief Santos advised Seth to save it for his father’s lawyers.

Mr. Rector’s lawyers, however, were quite busy, as Nate Rector was facing prosecution for numerous felonies, including willful and wanton destruction of a known indigenous burial site, improper disposal of human remains, desecration of a cemetery, disturbance of a historically significant archeological discovery, and willfully misleading the Reef Key Luxury Resort investors through purposeful obfuscation, lack of disclosure, and lack of fiduciary responsibility.

Which meant that not only were the Rectors broke, but Reef Key was also very likely going to be reverted back to the roseate spoonbill sanctuary and mangrove habitat my mother had always remembered so fondly.

Since Mr. Rector had misled not simply his investors, but also his business partner, Farah’s father, Mr. Endicott was spared the many charges against the Reef Key developers. This was good, since I’d grown fond of Farah. After Kayla returned to school, she reported that Farah continued to be friendly, no longer hanging out with Serena and Nicole and the Rector Wreckers (which more or less fell apart as a group after Seth went to jail for felony theft, anyway). Farah ate lunch every day with Kayla — who was determined to graduate a semester early and get her cosmetology degree, in order to open Save Yourselves — and had decided the local community college might not be so bad after all. It turned out Bryce was going to go there, and Bryce’s father owned most of the bars downtown, as well as a private plane.

“I can go to Miami whenever I want to go shopping,” Farah said. “Bryce has his own platinum American Express card. Seth didn’t even have that.”

I was pleased to hear that things were turning out so well. Maybe Mr. Smith was right … not just about storms sometimes being a good thing, but about Fates really being small acts of kindness by random people. Certainly that seemed to have improved the quality of life in the Underworld.

Being John’s consort — and cousin to the personification of death — had its challenges. People can be resistant to change, even positive change. I could understand that when you’ve spent more than a century and a half living in an underground castle sorting dead people onto boats all day, spending a few months or weeks or even days aboveground with live people could be a scary concept.

When you’re a flower that’s suddenly had all its protective bracken swept away, facing the sunshine for the first time could be frightening.

Maybe that’s why — after things had settled down and it became clear that, while we’d never be entirely free of the threat of a Fury attack, we might not be in imminent danger of one — when I suggested the idea of going on a vacation to John, he completely freaked out.

I explained to John about work sharing and how vital it can be to a successful and happy place of employment, and how much healthier everyone would be — and how much better they would get along — if we took a day off from the Underworld every once in a while. Frank was always asking for time off to meet Kayla for dinner — and sometimes even entire weekends — in Isla Huesos, and John was happy to allow it. Why couldn’t we do the same?

“It’s different,” John said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because of your grandmother.”

I was ready for this argument.

“You know my dad won’t allow her in the house because of what she did,” I said, “even though she doesn’t remember it. And Mom won’t have anything to do with her, either. It turns out Grandma’s personality without a Fury possessing her isn’t that great. All she wants to do is go to church and criticize people. I have no idea why my grandfather married her,” I added with a sigh, “except that she must have been pretty, once.”

“She’s weak-minded and negative,” John said. “That’s why it was so easy for a Fury to possess her. And also why there’s no reason a Fury wouldn’t be able to take possession of her again. And your uncle, who doesn’t know about any of this, still lives with her.”

“Not for long,” I said defensively. “Uncle Chris is moving out.”

“He is?”

“Yes, he is, remember, I told you? My dad bought him that boat, and he started a fishing charter business, and now he’s saved up all that money and he’s getting his own place, since he can’t stand Grandma, either. Also because Alex went to boarding school —”

The excuse Alex gave to his father for why he wasn’t living at home anymore was that he’d gotten a scholarship to a very prestigious boarding school … the same boarding school in Switzerland, in fact, that my dad had always been threatening to ship me off to.

Alex now saw his father only when he came home from “boarding school” during holidays and breaks. But when he did, they spent almost the entire time working together on Uncle Chris’s boat. I’d never seen the two of them happier.

My father was only too pleased to facilitate Alex’s lie. He’d found the entire adventure with John — teleporting to get the boats, visiting the Underworld, even discovering that his daughter had a boyfriend with supernatural powers — extremely exciting.

The only problem was, now every time he saw John, Dad wanted to be teleported somewhere, such as Paris, even just for a few seconds, as a joke. He didn’t understand why John wouldn’t participate with him in a joint-teleporting — or corpse-reviving — venture.

“Even if you only revived people’s dead pets,” he’d insist, “we could make billions.”

This might perhaps have been another reason John wasn’t particularly eager to leave the Underworld often, especially to visit my parents, though he was too polite to tell me so to my face. He cited fear of lingering Furies as the main reason, and the fact that we had so many responsibilities in our roles as lord and queen of the Underworld to simply dash off whenever we wanted to.

Mr. Graves didn’t approve of any of us leaving at all, at first, for any reason, but as time went by and nothing bad happened — the realm of the dead returned to normal; hot, delicious meals began appearing again on the dining table three times a day, courtesy of the Fates; and new rooms and wings showed up in the castle as if by magic … a chapel for Chloe, a gym for Reed, a library for Mrs. Engle, and a “sick” game room for Alex, complete with every console imaginable — there was really no protest he could give. Nothing except — as Mr. Graves stood outside the game room one night, watching, with his fully restored sight, Alex and Reed patiently explaining to Henry, Mr. Liu, and Frank the finer points of Call of Duty — “We’re doomed.”

“Cheer up,” Mrs. Engle said to him. “It’s better than Furies.”

“Is it?” Mr. Graves didn’t seem certain.

Mrs. Engle laughed and hugged him. Flowers were blooming everywhere after the storm, even in the most unexpected places.

We may have had to listen to the sound of video game explosions ringing through the rest of the castle, but John and I couldn’t hear them from the privacy of our bedroom, which we did not, thankfully, have to share anymore with anyone else, as the Fates generously supplied everyone with a room of their own.

Still, as the days after the storm stretched into weeks, and the weeks stretched into months, I found that, though I had more happiness than I’d ever dreamed possible, living with John in the Underworld and doing work I actually enjoyed and found meaningful, I was missing … something.

Not school, of course, since unlike Kayla, I didn’t have a goal outside the realm of the dead towards which I’d been striving (Frank had become Kayla’s primary investor in Save Yourselves, though I knew that, when the time came, I’d invest, as well).

And not the sunshine, either, since anytime I wanted I could slip out the door at the top of the double staircases through which I’d once bolted so madly, and take a stroll through the Isla Huesos Cemetery (though I rarely mentioned doing so to John, who would definitely not have approved, even though I always kept my whip at my side).

It seemed ungrateful of me to complain, since I had so much happiness, and there were so many people in the world who would have been happy with a mere sliver of my portion of it. But I couldn’t help wishing that, now that they were finally back together again, I could spend more time with my parents.

Yet it always seemed as if just when my parents and I began to relax in one another’s company, it was time to go back to the Underworld.

I understood why John didn’t feel comfortable hanging out in Dolphin Key. More than once, Chief Santos dropped by my parents’ house for an impromptu “visit” that happened to coincide with one that John and I were making. Was he watching the house … or John? The chief of police was no dummy. He hadn’t believed a word we’d told him in the cemetery. He knew something was wrong and was still determined to get to the bottom of it … someday.

He wasn’t wrong, either. Ever since I’d met John, our lives had been in perpetual danger, and a lot of that danger had come from a member of my family, one who didn’t seem particularly anxious to make amends. I’d heard that the burn my diamond had singed into my grandmother’s skin had left a permanent scar.

But Grandma couldn’t remember — or at least, pretended not to — how she’d gotten it. She seemed to remember very little about what had happened during the time she’d been possessed. She even turned out not to have much of a work ethic, since Knuts for Knitting began to fail financially. This was only partly because Mr. Smith’s partner, Patrick, had stopped buying his knitting supplies there.

Grandma began to complain that if things didn’t look up, she was going to have to close the shop and move away.

“Good riddance,” said my father. Apparently his motto of forgiving and forgetting didn’t apply to people who’d tried to kill his daughter.

The only person who offered to help was a distant cousin in Tampa, who sent Grandma a brochure on an assisted living community founded by her church. Grandma became enchanted with the idea, sold both her house and Knuts for Knitting, and left Isla Huesos, another piece of bracken the storm had swept away.

This suited everyone fine except for John, who still didn’t believe we’d seen the last of her.

“Even after she’s dead and we’ve sent her on,” he said, “I still won’t trust her evil spirit not to show up and try to hurt you again.”

Patrick, on the other hand, made a full recovery. Mr. Smith would tell me about it when I’d happen upon him in the cemetery, which I visited even more often as the days grew colder, now that winter was upon us (though winter on Isla Huesos meant that the temperature occasionally dipped below seventy degrees).

“I’d think you’d have bad memories of this place,” Mr. Smith said, falling into step beside me one evening as the sun was setting.

“I don’t,” I said, amused. “It seems peaceful and beautiful to me.” We were near John’s crypt, the roof of which had been repaired. The branches of the poinciana tree were bare of blossoms, but that was all right. I’d been assured it would bloom again in the spring. “Maybe because it’s where I met John.”

“Strange,” Mr. Smith said. “I can remember a time when you didn’t think quite so fondly of him as you do now.”

“I can remember a time when he didn’t think so fondly of me, either,” I said wryly.

“No such time existed,” Mr. Smith said. “I know another person who thinks fondly of you. Patrick. He often asks about you. He wants me to invite you and John over for dinner. He doesn’t understand, of course —”

Mr. Smith delicately avoided mentioning what it was that Patrick didn’t understand, that John and I were Underworld royalty and couldn’t go out to eat like normal people. Also that Patrick had been struck from behind, and so unable to identify his attackers, one of whom might very well have been my grandma. There’d been a second set of fingerprints found at the scene that the police had never been able to identify.

“Patrick keeps reminding me that you never tried his lobster tacos,” Mr. Smith said.

This struck me to the heart. I longed to go back to their house and enjoy their festive hospitality and have the lobster tacos I’d missed. Why couldn’t we? I wondered. The storm was over. The sun was shining. Why were we still hiding?

I put the question to John later that evening, as we lay in bed together in front of a roaring fire in the hearth.

“Obviously it wouldn’t be a good idea, I know, to run off and leave the Underworld for months and months at a time,” I said, “because then you’ll turn into a hundred-and-sixty-year-old man —”

He ignored my attempt at humor.

“But a few days or nights here and there … what would be the harm? Mr. Liu and Mr. Graves, now that he can see, can certainly handle things for a night or two. I’m not saying it would ever be a good idea to leave Chloe and Reed in charge, or — God forbid — Frank or Henry, but Mrs. Engle has turned out to have a nice soothing influence on everyone. Even Alex … well, I wouldn’t trust Alex to bird-sit, and Alastor would eat him alive, but surely he could be kept from burning the place down. And we, in turn, could look after things for everyone else if they wanted to go away for a bit, like we do whenever Frank wants to go visit Kayla. Speaking of Kayla, surely there must be some reason my necklace still turns purple around her even though she’s not in danger anymore. Maybe she’s supposed to be my queen-in-waiting. Maybe we could get her to come here and queen-sit a few nights a month.”

John lowered the book he’d been reading. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Were you speaking to me?”

“I know you were listening,” I said in disgust, taking the book from him and tossing it over the side of the bed. “You couldn’t possibly have been reading that. You were holding it upside down.”

He laughed and put his arms around me. “How can I read when you’re next to me? Your beauty is too much of a distraction for any man to concentrate.”

“Don’t try to flatter your way out of this,” I said. “Even Persephone got six months’ vacation away from the Underworld every year.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, drawing away a little, looking hurt. “Six months’ vacation away from me every year?”

“No,” I cried, instantly regretting my choice of words. It was hard to remember sometimes that, even though he was very much the lord of this castle, a part of him was also still very much the wounded beast it had taken me so long to tame. I doubted the wounds the Furies — and I, though inadvertently — had inflicted upon him in the past would ever fully heal. “Of course not.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think?” he asked. “You won’t marry me, and all you ever talk about is how you want to go away. Don’t think I’m not aware of your rambles in the cemetery —”

“Not away from you. Away with you. So we can live a normal life in the sunshine, just for a little while.”

“Normal people get married,” he said, lifting a dark eyebrow.

“Normal people have their own houses under the sky,” I said. “They don’t live in castles in the Underworld.”

He thought about this for a moment.

“We could do both,” he suggested finally.

I caught my breath. “Do you mean it?”

He nodded. “I don’t see why not. We could have a little house and stay in it sometimes. Not near your mother’s house,” he added sternly, when he saw my face light up. “I don’t want to live anywhere close to your father. And you must know, Pierce, your grandmother will never enter our doorway.”

“No, of course not. Oh, John, I know the perfect place.” I sat up so abruptly that Hope, who was perched on the end of the bed, gave a flutter, startling her mate, whom we’d settled upon calling Courage, so we had both Hope and Courage with us at all times. “Mr. Smith lives in a cute little Victorian condo downtown. They all look out onto this pool in the back, with the sweetest garden. It’s on the highest point on the island, and when there’s a storm, they have hurricane parties, and Patrick makes lobster tacos. We could get a place there. Since we’d only be staying there every once in a while, it wouldn’t have to be very big. And we’d have neighbors we knew right away.”

John smiled at me, then reached over to smooth a strand of my dark hair away from my face. “Is that what you want?”

“I think it would be nice,” I said, reluctant to reveal to him how very much I wanted it, in case it didn’t work out. I knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me — except allow me to be hurt — and it would be complicated, if not downright impossible, for a young man with no credit whatsoever to buy a condominium. “My father could lend us the money.”

I knew John would never take a handout from my father. He’d insisted on paying Dad back for the boats. I’d wisely stayed out of that conversation, but I’d seen the way it had irritated my father. Dad loved throwing his money around.

What he did not love was having money thrown back at him.

John knew this, so it wasn’t a surprise to me when his smile broadened. “Frank’s not the only one who’s been saving his gold coins, you know.”

“Really?” I eyed him. “I thought you planted them all in Seth Rector’s locker.”

“There are a lot more where those came from,” John said. Then he grew serious. “But remember, Pierce, if we do this, the Underworld must always be our first and only priority. We can never neglect the dead.”

“Of course we can’t neglect the dead,” I said, leaning down to hug him again. “I owe everything I hold most precious to the dead: you.” Then I added, “But I couldn’t help thinking it might be a good idea for us to get a place outside the Underworld because maybe, after we’re married, we could —”

“Wait,” he interrupted, surprised. “After we’re married? Now you want to get married?”

“No, of course not now,” I said. “We have to wait until after Kayla has her business up and running and has had her surgery, because she wants to be my bridesmaid, and she says she doesn’t want her boobs to look humongous in the photos. Well, the photos of her and me, since you’ll probably show up as a big blur in them, like you always do on film.”

John was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I love you, but approximately half the time, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I assured him. There was a pause, and then I took a deep breath and said, all in a rush, “What I was trying to say before was that another reason it would be good for us to have our own place outside the Underworld is that maybe, after we get married, we could have a baby.”

He lifted his head from the pillow, then rolled over suddenly, trapping me beneath his arms and staring down at me very intently. “What?”

“Well,” I said, embarrassed. My cheeks were burning, but I plunged on anyway. “I was doing some reading, and Mr. Smith is wrong — not for the first time, but whatever. Hades and Persephone did have children. They’re largely forgotten in Greek mythology, but they do exist. I figure they must have been conceived during the months Persephone wasn’t in the Underworld, since, as you know, no life can grow here. So I don’t see why we can’t do the same thing.” I felt as if I were going to be roasted alive by the heat of his gaze. “You do want a baby someday, don’t you? I never even asked what you thought about the idea —”

He showed me, very enthusiastically, what he thought about it by kissing me hard, on the lips … then kissing me in other places as well.

He seemed to like the idea very, very much.

Which just goes to show that anything can happen. Anything at all.

One. Two. Three.

Blink.