Underworld

by Meg Cabot

  “A boyfriend?” My mom laughed. I was a little insulted by her incredulous tone. “Pierce doesn’t have a boyfriend, Zack.”

  “Naturally she would never admit it,” Dad said, “because she wants to protect him, but we have to face facts. There might always have been a boyfriend.”

  Hearing this, my mom let go of the towel and sank back down onto her bed, dropping her head into one hand. “Oh, God,” she said with a groan.

  I longed to burst into her room and cry, “It’s true! I do have a boyfriend! But he’s not a death metal goth head, whatever that is. He’s protector of the dead, so okay, he has some issues, but who doesn’t? Once you get to know him, you’ll really like him.”

  Only how could I? Especially since I’d already told them about John — as soon as I’d been resuscitated from being dead — and the description hadn’t been the most flattering. I’d said there’d been a boy — a horrible boy who’d tried to hold me prisoner in the Underworld. Mom and Dad had thought I was crazy, of course, and had sent me to talk to a million shrinks who had also thought I was crazy … only they’d called it something more polite, lucid dreaming.

  What were they going to think if I told them I was now in love with this boy? That I was crazier than ever. Oh, why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut?

  “That composite sketch they’ve made of the face of the boy your mother claims hit her,” my father went on, the skepticism in his voice evident. “My contacts say no one recognizes him. He’s not from around there … or at least doesn’t go to the high school or community college, hasn’t paid any visits to the local men’s detention center lately, and hasn’t been seen at any of the local watering holes.”

  “What does that mean?” my mom asked bewilderedly.

  “It means that it all fits,” my dad said. “Maybe Pierce met him in Connecticut — who knows where — and he followed her down to Florida, and when things at that public school where you sent her didn’t work out — I warned you about that, Deborah — she decided to run away with him. And now the two of them are hiding out in some cheap motel because they know how much trouble they’re in. It’s the only scenario that makes sense.”

  Hiding out in some cheap motel with a boy? Did my parents really think I would do something that immature and, I’m sorry, completely skanky?

  “And I’ll tell you what,” my father was going on. “If it’s true, the second she shows her face, I’m packing her straight off to boarding school, I don’t care what you say. That one in Switzerland that I showed you, remember the brochure? None of this would be happening if you’d let me send her there like I wanted to.”

  “I realize that now,” my mom said … which was a huge concession for her. She hardly ever admitted my dad was right about anything. “Where are you, anyway?”

  There were sounds of muffled movement, like someone leaning to look out the window of a car … or a limo. Then my dad said, “Mile marker twenty-five. So I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  “Oh, Zack,” my mother said, looking dejected. “Hurry. At this point I can only hope you’re right and she has run off with a boy and isn’t lying dead out there in the mangroves somewhere. If that’s where she is … I just don’t know how I’m going to — to —”

  “I know.” My dad’s voice had changed. He was speaking in a tone I hadn’t heard him use in a long, long time. It was almost … gentle. “I’d much rather have it be this than the alternative, Debbie.”

  I saw my mom turn her head towards the phone, startled. No one called my mom Debbie. She hated being called Debbie. It was always either Deb or Deborah, but never Debbie. She’d only ever allowed my father to call her that, a sort of pet name between the two of them, in their tenderer moments.

  But Dad hadn’t called her Debbie since … well, I couldn’t remember the last time. Before my accident, when all the fighting between them started.

  Tears glistening in her eyes, my mother picked up the phone, turned it off speaker, and cradled the receiver to her ear, all of her attention now hyperfocused on their conversation.

  “Oh, Zack,” she said, and then began to murmur endearments that I knew instinctively were not for me to hear. Not that any of their conversation had been for me to hear, but the words she was saying were private.

  I shrank slowly back into my room, careful not to make a sound, grateful for the thickness of the carpets — hand-woven by a women’s cooperative — Mom’s decorator had imported all the way from Kabul.

  So this was how it was. My parents were on the brink of reuniting, bonding over their combined concern over my disappearance. I could burst into my mom’s room with a big, “Guess what? I’m home!” and ruin it.

  Or I could just stay missing, since my parents were planning to send me off to boarding school in Switzerland anyway, and let nature take its course.

  Of the two choices, I preferred the latter.

  Uncle Chris had already seen me. But Uncle Chris wasn’t like other adults. He hadn’t demanded the kind of explanations my mother and father would, because Uncle Chris was too damaged from his years in prison to think the way normal parents did.

  More than anything, I longed to go into my mother’s bedroom, give her a big, reassuring hug, and tell her everything was going to be all right. Except I knew that, like John had predicted, she was only going to want me to stay, and I couldn’t. I also couldn’t tell her that everything was going to be all right, because I didn’t know that it was.

  Maybe it would be better for everyone — with my father arriving in half an hour, and he and my mom seeming to be getting along so well — if I stayed missing.

  So I went over to my bed, opened one of my school notebooks, and jotted a quick letter.

  Dear Mom, I wrote, I’m sorry about everything. It’s too complicated to explain, but I’m fine, and with someone I love. Please tell Dad hi, and that I’m the one who hit Grandma. He was right about her. You should listen to him, she’s a liar and not as great as you think. I love and miss you both. Be happy.

  Love,

  Pierce

  P.S. My boyfriend’s name is John, and he’s very nice.

  I knew it was a terrible thing to do, leaving a letter instead of personally saying good-bye. But I also felt it was kinder … and quicker. Long explanations — like the truth — would be useless. My mother was a scientist. She believed in things she could analyze, like the mating and migration habits of birds. Predation and competition, endangerment and extinction, those were things she could understand.

  She would never understand this.

  I left the note on the middle of my bed where she’d be sure to find it, and had stuffed the dress and picture in its frame into my bag and was creeping down the stairs when I ran into John, coming up to find me.

  I put a finger to my lips and pointed towards my mother’s bedroom. Her door was still ajar. Evening had fallen, casting the first floor of the house into shadows. My mom had switched on her bedroom light, and it threw a warm slice of yellow across the red carpets from Afghanistan.

  “How did it go?” John whispered.

  “I couldn’t face her,” I whispered back. “I left her a note instead. I think she’s going to be fine.” My dad would make sure of that. “Did Uncle Chris find Alex?”

  He nodded and took my arm, his gentlemanly instincts kicking in as he helped guide me down the stairs. I guess he forgot I wasn’t wearing a long dress with a train that I might accidentally trip over.

  “Yes,” he said. “He’s still outside on the deck, speaking to him by phone. It looks as if we’ll have to go get him. He won’t come home.”

  I paused on the steps. “What do you mean, Alex won’t come home?”

  “Your uncle told him you’re back, and that he wants him to come home.” John looked down at me, his expression grimly serious. “He also mentioned it’s apparently going to be very bad tonight after midnight, because of the storm.” I had to suppress a smile. Uncle Chris was obsessed with the weather. “But your cousin
has told his father that he doesn’t want to come home,” John went on. “And your uncle says that’s fine.”

  “Fine?” I shook my head. “Why would he say that?”

  John shrugged, still looking grim. “Your uncle says he doesn’t want to make your cousin angry.”

  Comprehension dawned. “Uncle Chris was in jail for a long time,” I said. “He feels guilty about missing so much of Alex’s childhood. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy —”

  “Interesting way of showing it,” John said wryly. “In any case, your cousin says he’s at —”

  Hope chose that moment to show up, swooping in from nowhere with a noisy patter of wings, and buzzing in front of me and John like an angry hornet.

  I reached out and closed my hands gently over her body, surprised that she allowed herself to be captured at all, and even more surprised that she didn’t struggle. Only the fact that I could feel her heart drumming so frantically against my fingers through her fragile ribs gave away her consternation about the situation.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. It wasn’t until I heard an all-too-familiar voice from the bottom of the stairs that I knew what it was.

  “Pierce,” my grandmother said. Her tone was venomous.

  I felt John’s fingers tighten around my arm. I didn’t have to look down at my necklace to know it had turned as black as the heart of the plump old woman standing by the newel post, clutching her purse in one hand and a spare set of my mom’s house keys in the other.

  “Grandma,” I said. I felt Hope’s heart give a panicked skitter in my hands. Now she began to struggle, frantic to get away from the evil presence she sensed all around her …

  … or maybe the fear she felt radiating from me.

  The front door stood wide open behind my grandmother. I had no idea how she’d managed to get in without either of us having heard her.

  But I wasn’t going to run.

  “When I heard you were back, I thought, no, even she wouldn’t be stupid enough to come to the most obvious place any of us would think to look for her,” my grandmother said. “But you didn’t disappoint. That’s the one good thing about having a stupid grandchild. She’s so predictable.”

  “You’d better get out of here,” I warned her, narrowing my eyes. “My dad’s on his way, and you know how he feels about you. There’s no way he’s going to believe the things you’ve been saying about me.”

  “Isn’t he?” Her mouth curled into a smile that anyone else would have described as angelic … but I knew better. “What about your young man?” Her reptilian gaze fell on John. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger, hasn’t she? What did she do, cry? So of course you let her have whatever she wanted, which was … what? To come see her mommy.” She sneered, then reached into her massive purse. “Well, this just makes everything a lot more fun.”

  There was a Band-Aid on her cheek covering the place where I’d hit her. It was hard to see in the semidarkness of the foyer, but the skin around the bandage looked redder than the skin on the opposite cheek, but more like she’d layered on the rouge a little too thickly than like my fist had actually damaged it that badly. I wondered if rouge wasn’t the only thing Grandma was laying on a little thick.

  “Stay back,” John warned her in a hard voice, pulling me close.

  “Pierce,” my grandmother said, giving me a scandalized look. “Whatever is the matter with that young man of yours? He’s so violent! All I was doing was trying to talk some sense into you … again. Good thing those nice police officers are sitting in that squad car out there, so when he goes after me — like he’s about to — and I try to defend myself, they’ll hear all the screaming, and come running in to arrest him … while you, Pierce — I’m afraid I’m going to misfire, and you’re going to suffer the brunt of it. This is military grade. I’m told the burning sensation goes away in ten to twenty-four hours. But it’s excruciating.”

  She pulled a canister of pepper spray from her purse, aiming it directly at my face.

  Before she could press the nozzle — even before John could whisk me away to safety — my uncle Chris startled us all by stepping into the living room and calling, “Hey, did anyone see a bird? It was the darnedest thing, I opened the door to come inside, and a bird flew into the house.” His bulky silhouette came into view. He paused when he saw us on the steps.

  “Oh, there it is,” he said, his gaze falling on Hope in my hands. “Good job, Piercey, you caught it.” Then he noticed Grandma. “Mom, what are you doing here?” he asked curiously. “I thought you went home to rest.”

  “I did,” my grandmother said, suddenly sounding like a weak old woman as she dropped the pepper spray back into her purse. “But I heard Pierce was back. I can’t believe you didn’t call me right away. Isn’t it the most joyous occasion? Alleluia.”

  Upstairs, I heard my mother’s voice from her bedroom. “Christopher? Is that you? Who are you talking to? I’m on the phone.”

  The slant of yellow light spilling from my mother’s bedroom widened perceptibly. She was heading down the hall towards the stairs — and us — her bare feet silent on the thick rugs.

  What happened next could best be described as an explosion … except that there wasn’t any fire or heat, so no one got hurt.

  Afterwards, they probably blamed it on a power surge brought on by a lightning strike. I wasn’t there, however, so I wouldn’t know.

  Just as my grandmother shouted, “Pierce is home!” my mother said, in a disbelieving voice, “Pierce? Where?” Mom lifted her hand to switch on the elaborate silver and wrought iron chandelier that hung in the foyer, and John’s arms closed around me —

  Then a brilliant burst of light filled the room, dazzling my eyes, and causing my mother to scream.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was standing next to John in a dark, quiet alley.

  High wooden fences rose on either side of us, blocking the view of all but the roofs of the houses behind them. Over the top of the fences hung the thickest growth of bougainvillea I’d ever seen, forming a brightly colored rainbow of yellow, red, and pink flowers all up and down the road. The smell of night-blooming jasmine was almost as heavy in the warm, humid air as the rain, which hung so low in the fast-moving purple clouds overhead, I felt as if I could taste it. Frogs chirped noisily, a cicada rasped, and farther off in the distance, I could hear music.

  “What,” I asked, dazed, “was that?”

  Hope, to show she had not liked what John had done any more than I had, gave a few furious whistles and dug in with her talons, causing me to open my hands with a cry and let her go. She flew off, though not far. I saw her settle on top of a poinciana tree in someone’s backyard, its branches stretching across the alley. She was easy to spot since she was so white, and the poinciana tree had lost nearly all of its blossoms. They lay scattered across the alley floor like a decaying red carpet. She furiously began to groom herself to show how indignant she was at the way she’d been mishandled.

  John’s dark eyebrows were raised in an expression of contrition … but his eyes didn’t show a single hint of remorse.

  “I apologize,” he said smoothly. “I’ll admit that was a cheap magician’s trick. But I couldn’t let your mother see us vanish into thin air right in front of her. I’m sure she was upset enough already.”

  “That would make two of us,” I said, still trembling, both from the close encounter with my grandmother and John’s method of rescuing me from it. The place where Hope had clawed me had begun to sting. I looked up and down the alley, wondering where we were … and how long it would be before the Furies found us this time.

  “Pierce.” John’s voice changed. It softened. He reached out to cup my face in both his hands, looking down at me intently. “I’m sorry. I should never have listened to Mr. Smith’s advice to take you to see your mother. He meant well, but under the circumstances, your grandmother was right … I should have known it was the first place the Furies would look for you, once they heard you
were back.”

  I thought about overhearing my mother’s voice as she spoke to my father on the phone, the way it had softened when she’d begged him to hurry up and get there, and the way he’d called her Debbie. I hadn’t heard the two of them speak that kindly to each other in years.

  “It was worth it,” I said emphatically.

  John dropped his hands and simply looked at me. “Well,” he said. “I’m glad, then. Still, I’m sorry you didn’t get to say a proper good-bye to her. You realize that your uncle is going to tell your grandmother everything about our visit … including that we’re looking for Alex?”

  I nodded, shuddering a little, and not at the lightning that lit up the clouds above the telephone wires. “Where are we?” I asked, absently raising the cut in my hand to my lips.

  “Coffin Fest,” he said. “It’s being held on the street around the corner. It’s where your uncle says your cousin is. Hopefully we’ll be able to find him and convince him to give up on whatever his plans are concerning the coffin, then get him home before your grandmother has time to spread the word about where we are. But I wouldn’t count on it. Let me see your hand.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said, pulling my hand from my lips. For such a small cut, it throbbed a bit. “Only a scratch.” All I could think was, Home. That’s what he’d called it. The Underworld, where I now lived … with him. My heart began to thud uncomfortably behind the zipper down the front of my dress.

  It was fine, I told myself. I liked it there. There was no bougainvillea, but there were black lilies and mushrooms. It was cold, but there was always a fire to sit by. It was just …

  A strong gust of wind stirred the bougainvillea and rustled the skirt of my dress, and for a second the music from the street fair sounded louder. It was Spanish music, pulsating with life and energy.