Underworld

by Meg Cabot

  But what I wanted to do was burst into tears.

  “Is that about Pierce?” John looked uneasy. Outside, thunder rumbled again. This time, it sounded even closer than before.

  “Yes, of course, it is, John,” Mr. Smith said. There was something strange about his voice. He sounded almost as if he were mad at John. Only why would he be? John had done the right thing. He’d explained about the Furies. “What did you expect? Have you gotten to the part about the reward your father is offering for information leading to your safe return, Miss Oliviera?”

  My gaze flicked down the page. I wanted to throw up.

  “One million dollars?” My dad’s company, one of the largest providers in the world of products and services to the oil, gas, and military industries, was valued at several hundred times that. “That cheapskate.”

  This was all so very, very bad.

  “One million dollars is a lot of money to most people,” Mr. Smith said, with a strong emphasis on most people. He still had that odd note in his voice. “Though I recognize that money may mean little to a resident of the Underworld. So I’d caution you to use judiciousness, wherever it is that you’re going, as there are many people on this island who’ll be more than willing to turn you in for only a small portion of that reward money. I don’t suppose I might ask where you’re going? Or suggest that you pay a call on your mother, who is beside herself with worry?”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. Why hadn’t I thought of it? I felt much better already. I could straighten out this whole thing with a single conversation. “I should call my mom —”

  Both Mr. Smith’s cry of alarm and the fact that John grabbed me by the wrist as I was reaching into my book bag for my cell phone stopped me from making calls of any sort.

  “You can’t use your phone,” Mr. Smith said. “The police — and your father — are surely waiting for you to do just that. They’ll triangulate on the signal from the closest cell tower, and find you.” When I stared at him for his use of the word triangulate, Mr. Smith shook his head and said, “My partner, Patrick, is obsessed with Law & Order reruns.”

  I looked at John. He glanced down at my wrist, around which his fingers were tightly wrapped, and slowly released his hold.

  “I’m sorry, Pierce,” he said, his tone as apologetic as his eyes. “But Mr. Smith is right. The last thing we need right now is more people knowing we’re here. In and out. That’s what we agreed this visit had to be. We’re only here to help your cousin Alex. Remember?”

  “Of course,” I murmured, lowering my gaze in the hopes that he wouldn’t see the disappointment his words had brought to my eyes. I don’t think I’d realized until that very moment how much I’d been counting on seeing my mother, even if it was only a glimpse.

  “Unless, of course, you want your father to find you, Miss Oliviera.” Mr. Smith’s voice cut through the tension in the air like a knife blade. He’d folded his hands on his dark green desk pad … but he didn’t sound as calm as he looked. I noticed that his fingers were shaking. “Is that newspaper article accurate? Are you being held against your will?”

  “What?” I glanced at the paper and saw there was another photo, farther down the page from the one of me. It was a grainy screen grab from a video camera.

  A video camera hanging from the ceiling of an outdoor breezeway at Isla Huesos High School.

  I actually hadn’t thought things could get any worse.

  I was wrong.

  “That’s you,” I said faintly to John, pointing to the large shadowy figure prominently depicted in the video still. “You do show up on film. Not your face so much. But the rest of you.”

  John looked over my shoulder at the photo.

  “And you,” he said in an unhappy voice. “You’re even wearing the same clothes.”

  It was true. In the photo, though John’s image was blurred, I was clearly distinguishable in my black dress. What was worse was that I appeared to be in a great deal of distress. The much larger figure of John was carrying me away. It didn’t take a great deal of imagination to make it seem as if he was doing so against my will. My arms were flung out in the air, and I was screaming. For anyone who did not quite get the message, the paper had helpfully identified John in the caption beneath the photo as the alleged kidnapper.

  What had been cropped from the photo was the image of the person at whom I’d been screaming and flinging my arms, from whom John had been dragging me away: my grandmother.

  I felt a chill pass over me. It had nothing to do with the fact that the air-conditioning in Mr. Smith’s office had been put on at such a high setting, condensation was forming on the windowpanes.

  “This photo has been altered,” I said to Mr. Smith, feeling outraged on John’s behalf. “It didn’t happen like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Smith said. “That photo has already been on most of the twenty-four-hour news shows and plastered all over the web. Mrs. Ortega, Jade’s grandmother, was only the first person to recognize you. Fortunately I convinced her that it was a case of mistaken identity, and the rest of the family was so busy dealing with her, they didn’t even notice you. But I won’t be around to do that for everyone. And I’m not convinced I should.”

  “My grandmother was standing right there,” I said, tapping the spot on the photo where her image had clearly been removed. “She was trying to kill me. And I was trying to fight back, only John wouldn’t let me, because he was afraid I’d get hurt —”

  “Miss Oliviera,” Mr. Smith said, in the same snippy tone he’d been using since we walked into his office. “Please. I know John is … special … to you. But if you want me to help you, it’s very important that you tell the truth.”

  Suddenly I realized what it was in Mr. Smith’s voice: disapproval. Disapproval and, of all things, fear. He was afraid. Not for me.

  Of John.

  Which made me feel colder than ever, and a little bit fearful myself.

  “I am telling the truth,” I said, just as John said, “What are you talking about? You can see for yourself she’s not hurt —”

  “Well, someone is hurt. Very hurt. Pierce’s grandmother is claiming to have severe facial lacerations,” Mr. Smith said. “As she tells it, it’s because you struck her, John, as she was trying to keep you from abducting her beautiful, innocent young granddaughter, whom you have probably killed, or at the very least —”

  “Oh, my God,” I interrupted. Anger replaced fear. “She’s such a liar. I punched her, not John, and it was because she confessed to killing me.”

  Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon, but you look very much alive to me, Miss Oliviera.”

  “The first time I died,” I said. I reached inside my book bag to pull out my jean jacket and tug it on. But my chill had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. “When I was fifteen, she sent me a scarf that tripped me while I was trying to rescue a bird, so I hit my head and fell in our pool and drowned.”

  Mr. Smith’s eyebrows nearly hit the roof. “I think the local police are unlikely to believe that constitutes proof that the owner of Knuts for Knitting is a murderess.”

  “She did it because she’s possessed by a Fury,” I said, my voice trembling as much as my limbs. “She said she wants me to die so I’ll be with John forever and then she and the other Furies can spend eternity torturing him by hurting me.”

  “What?” Mr. Smith shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. But that’s too ridiculous, even for Isla Huesos.”

  “It’s the truth,” I insisted. “If you won’t believe me, who will?”

  It was only then that Mr. Smith finally did something remotely human. He lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose … and when he did, I saw that his fingers were shaking even more than before.

  “I’ve known your grandmother for over twenty years, and I’ve never heard her mention the existence of Furies, much less that she’s one of them,” he said. “The woman organizes the church bake sale, for God�
�s sake.”

  “All I know is that ever since John gave it to me, my necklace turns black every time I’m around her,” I said. Mr. Smith knew all about my necklace. He was the one who’d explained its bloody provenance — Marie Antoinette had lost her head because of it. “I thought it was my fault we didn’t get along … that there was something wrong with me, because she’s always made me feel so awkward and clumsy. She’s never made it a secret that I’m not good enough, because I’m not as smart or pretty as my mom, and that I need to try a lot harder if I’m going to get as far in life as she did.” My voice caught. This was the first time I’d ever said any of these things out loud. It felt bad to say them in front of John. I didn’t want him to know this about me.

  But my grandmother was a Fury, I reminded myself. It wasn’t like she knew what she was talking about. She was pure evil. Or possessed by it, anyway.

  “Now I know the truth,” I went on, in a less shaky voice, “which is that it wasn’t me at all … it was her. She’s a monster inside — literally — who’s wanted nothing more than to hurt John — and now me — for years.”

  “Pierce,” John said quietly, reaching down to touch my shoulder. I wondered if he could feel it trembling through the denim of my jacket. “You don’t have to say another word to him. We don’t have time for this, anyway. Let’s go —”

  “No,” Mr. Smith said, dropping his glasses back into place and speaking in a tired voice. “John, you can’t afford not to make time to listen to what I have to say. And Pierce … I’m ready for that water you offered me. Or make it tea, please. There’s a little kitchen in the back room, right down that hallway over there. You should be able to find everything you need. Would you be a dear?”

  I was startled. No one but my mother had ever asked me to make tea for them before. And no one had ever called me a dear. Especially right in the middle of a conversation about relatives of mine who were trying to kill me.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Smith said, loosening his tie a little. An older gentleman who dressed with great attention to style, today favoring white linen trousers and a mint-green shirt with a pink knit tie, Mr. Smith did look a little under the weather, I had to admit. “I mentioned to you once that I, too, went through a near-death experience … although like most people, I was not fortunate enough to remember my trip to the Underworld. But that is, of course, what sparked my interest in all things related to the afterlife. Ever since, however, my heart hasn’t been as strong as it used to be. I think some herbal tea would be just the thing….”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, and climbed to my feet, meeting John’s gaze. He shook his head sharply, indicating that he didn’t want me to go. He wanted to leave.

  What was I supposed to do, though, deny a sickly old man the tea he’d requested? I shrugged helplessly at John, then hurried down the hallway Mr. Smith had indicated.

  “She’s not a child,” I heard John say in a razor-edged tone, as soon as I was out of the room. “So you can’t simply send her off to the kitchen because you have something to say that you don’t want her to hear. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you want her to hear what I have to say to you,” Mr. Smith snapped … which of course made me pause before I set one foot in the kitchen and hug the shadows along the hallway wall so they couldn’t see me as I eavesdropped. I knew snooping was wrong, but why was Mr. Smith so angry? I had to find out. “I’ve known you for a long time, John, so I’d like to think you won’t strike me dead for saying this, because we’re friends, and friends should be able to speak honestly to one another. But for the love of all that is holy, what could you have been thinking? This is the twenty-first century, and we’re a civilized country. With laws.”

  “Fortunately,” John said, in a calm voice, “no one asked you, since it isn’t any of your business.”

  “Isn’t any of my business? She’s seventeen years old, and you’re —”

  “Nineteen,” John said flatly.

  “— one hundred and eighty-four. And you transported her … well, not across state lines, but to the realm of the dead, which I’m quite sure her father would find more objectionable if he knew about it.”

  “Would he find it so objectionable if he knew I did it to keep her from being murdered?”

  “Why didn’t you come to me about it, John?” Mr. Smith’s tone was pleading. “I might have been able to help.”

  “Or you might have ended up dead, like Jade, or Mr. Cabrero, Pierce’s grandfather,” John said shortly. “Or do you think he didn’t find out the truth about his wife, and try to stop what she was doing?”

  “What?” Mr. Smith sounded shocked. “Are you saying that old woman killed her husband, too? Act your age, John. Carlos was my friend, I’d have known —”

  “Would you?” John asked, his tone icily polite. “You just said you went to church with her, but you had no idea what she really was. Do you truly think if I’d had any other choice, I wouldn’t have taken it?”

  “Truly? No. Because I know how you feel about that girl. So when the opportunity presented itself, you were more than happy to take it. I’m sure it hasn’t even been that difficult of an adjustment for her, since she’s journeyed to your world before. But none of that makes what you did right, John, any more than what was done to you. I’m positive there must be a better way. I understand about the Furies. They’re a problem, I grant you —”

  “A problem?” John’s voice rose in disbelief.

  “Let me do some research. Perhaps there’s something I missed, some way to get rid of them that no one’s thought of. In the meantime, her father’s wealthy, he could send her anywhere to get her away from the grandmother….”

  Suddenly I realized why Mr. Smith had sent me out of the room. He wasn’t just angry with John for kidnapping me and taking me to the realm of the dead, like Hades had done to Persephone: He was trying to persuade John to give me up.

  “Tell me you’re here to do the right thing and bring her back,” Mr. Smith went on, his voice low and urgent. “It’s the only way. Her parents are frantic … like your own mother must have been when she got word of your disappearance, John, all those years ago. Are you going to do to Pierce’s mother what was done to yours? I can’t believe that.”

  I couldn’t believe Mr. Smith was talking about me like I was some kind of stray kitten and didn’t have a say in what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to live. Although truthfully, I didn’t, since the Fates — and John — had more or less decided for me.

  The truth was, however, the Furies had decided before any of them.

  I was going to storm back in there and say that … but then, of course, they’d know I’d been eavesdropping. Also, John ended up saying it for me.

  “According to that paper you showed us, the damage is already done,” he pointed out coolly. “So I don’t see the good of her coming back now. That being said, there’s nowhere on this earth her father can send her where the Furies can’t find her … and nowhere he can send her where I can’t find her, either, as long as she wants me.”

  “As long as she wants you,” Mr. Smith repeated slowly. “And how long do you think that’s going to be? Does she even know the truth yet about how you ended up where you are?”

  Though I strained to hear John’s reply to this question, only stony silence followed.

  Until I heard, “How are you coming along back there with that tea, Miss Oliviera?” from Mr. Smith.

  Startled, I jumped and hurried as softly as I could down the hall, my ballet flats fortunately soundless on the industrial carpeting.

  “Fine,” I called when I got into the kitchen.

  Only I found that I was still shaking, feeling colder than ever despite the denim jacket.

  I had lied to Mr. Smith, of course. I was not fine.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be fine again.

  It was while I was warming my hands over the teakettle, waiti
ng for the water to boil — trust Mr. Smith not to have a microwave or electric teakettle or modern conveniences of any kind — that I looked out the small kitchen window and saw it:

  Hope appeared from nowhere — just fluttered down from the sky — and landed in the small dirt yard behind the cemetery sexton’s office.

  At first I thought there was no way it could be her.

  Although when I saw her waddling around, lifting up dead leaves in search of food, I knew it couldn’t be any other bird but her. How many other ravenously hungry white doves with black underwings were there in Isla Huesos? Especially following me around.

  Why had she left the Underworld? And how?

  I looked around the tiny kitchen, which was clearly only used as a place to prepare beverages for the bereaved, and perhaps to store ant traps, and was shocked to find a half-full bag of birdseed. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. The cemetery stretched across nineteen acres of land, and was probably a resting stop for a large variety of birds on their migratory path south every year. I was willing to bet Mr. Smith could give my mom a run for her money on their different orders and genera.

  Taking the bag of birdseed with me, I opened the glassed-in screen door to the back steps into the yard, then sat down on the top one, reaching into the bag and sprinkling a few generous handfuls of the seeds onto the step below me.

  Hope eyed me, but didn’t come over right away. She was obviously insulted I’d left her behind, and was giving me the cold shoulder.

  “Come on,” I said. “You know you want it.”

  The yard was more of a fenced-in storage area for the cemetery grounds — complete with a toolshed and piles of damaged headstones and statuary in various states of repair — than it was an actual backyard.

  It was late in the day, and evidence of the approaching hurricane was everywhere, from the luridly purple clouds in the sky overhead, to the Spanish limes that had been knocked by the wind from a nearby tree and now lay in pulpy messes all over the muddy yard, to the humidity that caused me to peel off my denim jacket and tie it around my waist.