Underworld

by Meg Cabot

  Not my mother, my heart whispered. Alex was bad enough, but please, not my mother.

  John’s shoulders slumped perceptibly. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Mr. Smith was right.” He sounded resigned … bitter, but resigned. “He told me I did this all wrong.”

  I knew what he was talking about without having to ask, because of course I’d overheard his conversation with the cemetery sexton back in the cottage. He was referring to how he’d taken me. Mr. Smith definitely hadn’t approved of that.

  I laid both my hands on the hard wall of John’s chest, searching for the right words to comfort him.

  “You did what you felt was right at the time,” I said. “It’s just …”

  I didn’t want to be pessimistic, but if what was left of the crew of the Liberty and what Mr. Smith referred to as the Fates were all that John had on his side, it was no wonder the Furies were winning.

  I knew it wouldn’t help to say this out loud, however.

  “It’s just that you’re up against so much,” I finished instead. Then I quickly amended it to “We. We’re up against so much.”

  “We’re not up against anything,” John said grimly. “It’s my fight, not yours. If there’s danger, I don’t want you getting involved again like you did back at Mr. Smith’s —”

  I stuck out my chin. “Oh, right, because I’m not already involved,” I said sarcastically. “And I thought I was quite handy with that flowerpot, thank you.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, clearly not impressed. “Yes, well,” he went on, “while you and Mr. Smith were having your talk on the back steps, I had some time to think over some of the things he said to me. And I decided maybe he was right.”

  “Right about what, exactly?” He looked so mysterious … but determined at the same time, like nothing was going to stop him from doing whatever it was he was about to do.

  So I was surprised when he pointed at the front of my dress.

  “What?” I looked down, confused. The zipper up the front was firmly in place, so he wasn’t trying to tell me that my bra was showing. I knew he liked me better in more feminine nineteenth-century garb, but I didn’t see what I could do about it then. And this hardly seemed the time or place for a make-out session.

  “Your necklace,” he said. “Is your grandmother here? Can you tell?”

  I realized he wanted to know if there were any Furies present, not get inside my top. Embarrassed, I pulled the diamond out from the bodice of my dress by its chain. It was as solidly gray as the clouds moving quickly overhead.

  “No,” I said. “It seems clear.”

  He nodded, then glanced towards the back porch of my mom’s house. Denuded of furniture and the long curtains and hanging lamps that normally decorated it, it suddenly appeared ominously unwelcoming.

  And all at once, I didn’t care if my mom was behind those French doors. I wanted to go nowhere near them.

  Because I’d seen that look on John’s face before. It was the same one he’d worn just before he’d caught me up and dragged me down to his world.

  “John, why are we here?” I demanded suspiciously. I realized I had overheard most of what John and Mr. Smith had discussed in his office, but not everything. “Is it to see if Alex is trapped in the coffin in my mom’s garage? Or some other reason? Like …”

  You can tell her yourself, the cemetery sexton had said, as I’d stood there trying to stammer out something for him to say to my mom the next time he saw her.

  I reached out to grip the front of John’s shirt, words suddenly failing me.

  But John was already taking me by the arm and marching me towards the porch that ran along the back of my mom’s house.

  “This is what you said you wanted,” he reminded me in a steely tone as he dragged me along.

  My heart staggered and seemed to stop.

  He was right. This was, of course, exactly what I’d kicked and screamed for — what I’d begged for — just a day ago … to come home.

  Now that it was actually happening, however, I found myself wanting the exact opposite. Just like in my nightmare, it felt as if a hole was being ripped in my gut.

  I should have been happy, of course. I should have been over the moon. But all I could think was, how was this happening?

  “I thought because I ate there,” I heard myself babble, “I could never leave the Underworld, like Persephone.”

  “What?” John looked back at me, his expression indicating that he thought I was nuts. He didn’t slow down, though.

  “John,” I said. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who begged her boyfriend not to leave her. This situation, however, was more serious than a typical breakup for a number of reasons. “Slow down. Maybe we should talk about this….”

  I was so upset, my emotions must have registered in the spirit plane, since Hope appeared in a sudden burst of white feathers, whistling her disapproval of John’s actions as she fluttered over his head, beating him with the tips of her dark wings. Even in my distress, I was moved. I’d no idea she’d grown so fond of me in such a short time.

  “What —” John let go of me to throw his arms defensively over his face. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Maybe she’s upset,” I said, with a touch of astringency, “because you’re listening to Mr. Smith, instead of your heart.”

  He spun around to face me. He still wore that look of forbidding determination, almost as if he were daring me — someone, anyone — to attempt to dissuade him from the course on which he was set. Whoever tried was going to get worse than what John had attempted to give Mike, it was clear. Yet there was surprise in his gray eyes, as well. “I thought this was what you wanted. Mr. Smith told me to —”

  “Well, who says Mr. Smith knows everything?”

  “— give you a chance to say good-bye to your mother. That’s what you said you wanted, isn’t it?”

  I stared at him as the blood in my veins began to move again, and comprehension dawned. “That’s why we’re here? You brought me so I could say good-bye to my mother?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. I noticed the now-familiar muscle twitching in his jaw. He looked as if he wanted to punch something. If there’d been anything around besides me to throw into the pool, I’m sure it would have gone in. Fortunately, Uncle Chris had done a good job of clearing the deck of anything portable in preparation of the storm. “Why else would we be here?” he demanded. “Besides to find your infernal cousin. Mr. Smith says it’s wrong to keep you from your mother, and I suppose in a normal world, he’d be right. But he doesn’t seem to understand this isn’t the normal world….”

  No. Because in a normal world, I could see my mother anytime I wanted. And bringing me to see her was something any normal human being would do without a second thought.

  This wasn’t a normal world, though. It was a world in which bringing me to see my mother was a huge, colossal step for my boyfriend, who happened to be a controlling death deity.

  John, misinterpreting the reason for the tears that filled my eyes, widened his own eyes immediately in response.

  “Oh, no.” His deep voice had a note of warning to it. “Don’t cry. This visit has to be quick — no long, tearful reunions, all right? You can’t really say good-bye to her, Pierce. Your mother will never let you leave. The Furies may not be here yet, but you can be sure they know we’re around, and they’re on their way. We’ve got to get out before they arrive. Just tell your mother you’re all right, find out about Alex and the coffin, and then say you have to go. And no crying.” He looked almost as painfully awkward as he had the time we’d sat close to this very spot and revealed our true feelings about each other, and he hadn’t seemed to know what to do with his feet. “You know what it does to me when you cry.”

  He didn’t understand that I was so emotional because I was happy, not upset. I supposed that — again, in a normal world — I wouldn’t have been standing there washed in relief because my boyfriend was bringing me to my
own house to see my mother, not dropping me off because a nosy cemetery sexton had convinced him it was the “right” thing to do.

  But that’s what I’d feared was happening.

  “I won’t cry,” I assured him. “I just thought … I …” Now the blood in my veins was pumping a little too quickly. A lot of it was pouring into my cheeks. I could feel myself blushing. “… I thought you were bringing me back. Forever.”

  He looked puzzled. “Why would I do that, when I waited almost two centuries to find you?”

  As he spoke, he reached out to take me by the waist and pull me against him, then lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me with a thoroughness that left no doubt in my mind that he had no intention of abandoning me anywhere.

  “John,” I said a little breathlessly, when he let me up for air. “Maybe it would be better if you waited for me out here.”

  “No,” he said simply, and took my hand and began walking me towards the French doors to my mother’s home.

  It hit me that if my mother had overheard one word of our conversation — much less have looked outside and seen us kissing — she’d have killed me before Grandma ever got another chance. My father, too. Being consort of the Lord of the Underworld of Isla Huesos was not what either of them had planned for me to do with my life.

  Although it definitely had certain benefits.

  It was somewhat ironic that as I was thinking this, one of the French doors opened, and my uncle Chris stepped out onto the back deck, staring into the yard as if he’d seen a ghost. Perhaps, in a way, he had.

  In this case, however, the ghost was me.

  “Piercey?” he called into the darkness that was quickly descending around us. “Is that really you?”

  It was harder than I thought to keep my promise not to cry. Uncle Chris was the only person who’d ever called me Piercey … with good reason, because as a name, it sounded terrible. Yet I had never minded somehow when he’d said it.

  I dropped John’s hand and hurried up the porch steps.

  “Oh, Uncle Chris,” I said, throwing my arms around him. Until I felt his warm, solidly built body — he liked to joke he was one of the few ex-cons who’d come out of prison having gained more fat than muscle, a result of being overly fond of soda — I hadn’t believed he was real.

  “Piercey.” One of his hands went to my hair, stroking it as if to test if I was real, too. “Where did you come from? Your mom’s been worried sick about you.”

  I pulled away from him, reaching up to furtively dash the tears from my eyes, hoping John wasn’t looking.

  “I’ve been around,” I said vaguely. “I know I should have called. Is Mom really upset?”

  “I’ll say she’s upset. She hasn’t slept since you disappeared.”

  His gaze had swept past me and now focused on John, who’d climbed the porch steps behind me and was standing a few feet away. Unfortunately, John seemed to be radiating hostility, his fingers curled loosely into fists at his sides, his expression defensive, as if he was ready to fight at any moment, if necessary.

  This was how every stray animal brought in from the wild behaved, masking its fear and vulnerability with antagonistic posturing. I wasn’t sure anyone else but me knew that, or that that’s what John was doing … or that anyone else would see through it.

  “Who’s this guy?” Uncle Chris demanded, in a voice as tense as John’s shoulders. “This better not be the guy your grandma was telling me about, the one who hit her.”

  John took a quick step forward, his face going dark with indignation. “I don’t hit women.”

  “Well, you sure did something to my niece,” Uncle Chris said, his own face tightening, “because she never used to disappear for days without calling until you came along.”

  I’ve only been gone two days and a night, I was about to say. Let’s not get carried away.

  But John moved to stand nose-to-nose with him. It was only then that I noticed that Uncle Chris was holding his body in almost the exact same position as John’s. The two men had a lot in common, actually … both had spent many, many years imprisoned, just serving two vastly different sorts of sentences.

  “If I hadn’t, sir,” John said, his voice dropping dangerously low, “your niece would be dead.”

  I insinuated myself between my boyfriend and uncle before things could get any uglier.

  “Okay,” I said, in a shaky voice. It was shocking to me how quickly otherwise reasonable men could revert back to their cave-dwelling ancestors. “Uncle Chris, we didn’t come here to start a fight, we really just came to let you know I’m all right —”

  He inhaled to interrupt me, but I held up a hand to signal that I wasn’t finished.

  “I know Grandma may have told you some things, but let’s face it, we both know Grandma exaggerates a little … sometimes a lot.” I saw Uncle Chris’s face grow contemplative as he took that under consideration. It was true, and he knew it. “My friend’s name is John, and you shouldn’t judge him before you’ve gotten to know him. I think you of all people know how unfair that is, don’t you, Uncle Chris?”

  Uncle Chris blinked a few times at that, as I’d known he would. His frown had deepened.

  But not, it turned out, over my reminder that he, too, didn’t have the most sterling reputation, having spent most of his only child’s life serving a prison term for a crime he resolutely refused to discuss.

  He turned his attention to John.

  “Why?” Uncle Chris asked. “Why would she be dead if you hadn’t come along? Who’d want to hurt Pierce?”

  Suddenly, I could see exactly why John had been so reluctant to bring me back, even to save the life of someone else….

  After I’d died and been resuscitated, everyone had wanted so badly to know what it had been like on the other side.

  But the few people to whom I’d told the truth turned out to not want to hear it. They only wanted to hear about the light everyone else saw.

  Uncle Chris had been one of those people.

  How could you explain to someone that his mother was a Fury, and for years had been trying to kill you, and had maybe killed his own father? How could you tell someone something so horrible, something that would change his life forever?

  John knew all this, had known it all along. Maybe this was not only why he hadn’t wanted to bring me back, but why he wouldn’t tell me the truth about himself.

  Still, when my uncle Chris asked him who would want to hurt me, John didn’t lie. He said only, “Bad people. Some very bad people.”

  Uncle Chris’s mouth flattened into a small, thin line. Then he nodded crisply. He knew all about bad people. John was speaking in a language he understood.

  “Is it drugs?” Uncle Chris asked, in a hushed voice.

  I looked at John, in his black jeans and T-shirt, with his long dark hair, and studded leather wristbands. I could see why Uncle Chris had asked. To someone of his generation, it would have to be either drugs, or … well, a rock band.

  John gave me a barely perceptible shake of his head. No, his eyes begged me. Don’t.

  “Yes,” I said, glancing back at Uncle Chris. “It’s drugs.”

  John’s gaze instantly rolled towards the sky.

  “Piercey,” Uncle Chris said, exhaling gustily and dragging a hand through his hair. “We talked about this. I thought you were the one I didn’t have to worry about.”

  We had talked about something along those lines, I remembered, outside this very house, the night before Jade was killed. But it had been about Uncle Chris giving me driving lessons. I didn’t recall drugs being mentioned.

  “Well,” I said. “Things are a little messed up right now. That’s why we’re here. I wanted to make sure Alex is okay.”

  “Alex?” Uncle Chris threw me a look of alarm. “Don’t tell me Alex is doing drugs.”

  I could see now why John had been against lying about the drugs thing. I’d thought it would simplify things. But it was only making them worse.

&nb
sp; “He’s not,” I said quickly. If Alex got out of all this alive, he was going to kill me. “It’s just that some of the people he hangs out with —”

  “Rector,” Uncle Chris said, in a flat voice. “It’s that Rector boy you were with the other day, the one who brought you home from school in that truck —”

  “What?” I said, taken aback. Especially because John’s head jerked up when he heard the name Rector, the same way it had in the cemetery. What was with the people on this island and the name Rector? “No, it’s not Seth….” Except that of course, if Alex really was trapped in the senior class coffin, it probably was. “It’s … some kids from off the island —”

  Uncle Chris shook his head. He didn’t believe me. “I already know who it is. Why else would your counselor have gotten killed?”

  John was shaking his head, an I-told-you-so expression on his face.

  “Uncle Chris,” I said, fearing I’d created a mess in which my uncle did not — should not — need to involve himself. “I don’t think there’s any evidence that Jade was killed for drug-related reasons —”

  Uncle Chris, however, was off and running, speaking almost to himself. “Seth and his father were over here this morning.”

  “They were?” I could not hide my surprise. “Why?”

  “They took a bunch of the ‘missing’ flyers your mom made up. She said they were real eager to help go around and hang them up. But I kept thinking —” Uncle Chris looked at me, then at John, then seemed to get control of himself with an effort. “Well, there’s no need to go into what I thought. I only wish your father would hurry up and get here. He’s on his way, you know. His jet couldn’t land at the local airport because the FAA closed it due to the storm, so he’s driving down from where they let him land. Or being driven, I guess, since he’s hiring a car and driver from there. Fort Lauderdale, I think it was.”