by J. L. Powers
“Stop talking, Zachary! Maybe I can revive your body. Can you hang on long enough for me to go back to life?”
“Just throw me into the sea.”
“No.” Somehow I have the feeling I shouldn’t do anything for Zachary now. He has to do this himself.
“What the hell, man! After all that you did to me, you won’t even help me? Just like my old man.”
I sit back on my heels. “Whatever you are going to do, you’ve got to do it. This is your world and I’m not going to hold you back. And I’ll be here with you. I just can’t do it for you.”
Zachary raises his fist, starts to grab mine. Then he blinks. “Sorry, I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at my dad.” He mumbles something under his breath, eyebrows scrunched together as he scowls. He stands, hunched over like an old man. He looks at me one last time, his face a mask of frustration and hatred. “I’m done with you, Dad.” Then he shakes his head, vision clearing. “See you on the other side, Adam.”
He jumps over the rubble, sprinting toward the ocean, dodging the large debris, hurtling the smaller bits of wood and metal and broken lights.
I run with him. Side by side. We get closer and closer to the farthest end of the pier and then he hurls himself off the end. Just when he reaches the apex of his jump, a gigantic wave shoots up from the sea and swallows him.
For a moment, I feel the wave’s cold, salty embrace as it crashes against the pier, and then it all disappears.
CHAPTER 29
Darkness embraces me again, a soft touch this time instead of the icy fingers of death. My body feels like it’s congealed in a vat of lukewarm Jell-O.
Is Zachary really dead? I wonder.
Yes, he really is, I answer, almost immediately.
In fact, my memory of him has already changed. It’s missing shape and heft, like the time I left my backpack at a coffee shop and returned and knew, without even looking inside, that somebody had emptied it. Zachary is just an empty backpack in my mind.
What about me? Am I dead too? I don’t think so but how would I know? Do you remember anything from life or Limbo when you reach the other side or have you lost all consciousness of who you were before?
I can’t see anything or hear anything. Am I breathing?
And then I feel it again. The fear. What the hell? I thought I’d gotten rid of it. But it’s there, at a distance, weaker but waiting. Definitely waiting.
A small shot of gladness wiggles its way through all that warm Jell-O. Because if the fear is still there, it must mean I’m still alive. And that means I have to think of something that will recall me back to life.
I think about my friends again. Rachel and her freckles. Tomás’s pipe. Sarah’s smile. Liliana’s grin.
And Dad. His serious face looks at me from across a greasy table, his chopsticks neatly placed on their holder, only a few grains of rice missing from the round mound in his bowl. In his eyes, I see the reflection of someone, and for a moment I think it’s me. Until I see the long red-brown hair and freckled face and beautiful smile . . .
If I get out of this, I’m going to sit down and have a long talk with Dad about my mother.
A bright light pushes painfully against my closed eyelids and tiny hairs from the plush white carpet tickle my nose, making me sneeze.
“He’s coming to!” Rachel says.
I roll over and look up at her. She’s sitting beside me, dark circles under her eyes. I struggle to sit up and get to my feet.
“He’s alive!” she cheers. “He walks! Does he talk?”
I lean over and puke all over the white carpet. Rachel jumps sideways to avoid getting sprayed. “Ewww, Adam!”
Liliana huddles on the floor, Zachary’s head in her lap, caressing his blond hair with her brown fingers. Her shoulders shake as she gazes down at his white face.
“Lili,” I say, my voice squeaky and thin, “Zachary told me to tell you goodbye.”
She grips his body tighter. “He’s not coming back?”
“No,” I say. “He’s free now.”
“Free?” She bites back the word. “Shut up already. I don’t want to hear it.”
Sean and Tomás help Rachel to her feet. When she looks at me with her hazel eyes and frank gaze, I can’t hold it in anymore. I start weeping. She grabs me in a hug. “Thanks,” she whispers. “I couldn’t have survived that alone.”
“I don’t like this.” Sean frowns. “Three of you go to Limbo. The Angel is dead and only the two Reapers made it back alive.”
He looks at me and then Liliana looks at me and Tomás too, and I meet their silent accusation head-on. “You guys know I would never hurt anybody.”
“Look, Adam, or whatever your name really is,” Sean says, “I don’t know you. I just found out you’re a Reaper, a secret you’ve apparently been keeping from us.”
Rachel shivers. “Why does it matter so much? Let’s just get out of here. It’s creepy. I don’t want to wait for other members of La Luz to show up. Because you do know that’s who was behind all this, right? You do know they’re the ones who took Zachary’s body and my body and lured Adam to Limbo? It wasn’t the two of us. It wasn’t the two horrible, awful Reapers. It was La Luz. The bad guys. Remember?”
When nobody responds, she shakes her head. “Forget it. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ll never understand. Your stupid prejudice blinds you to the truth.”
Sean shuffles his feet. Liliana peers off into the distance.
“Rachel’s right.” Tomás speaks casually, as if he’s just commenting on the weather to a neighbor. “La Luz might show up any second. So let’s get out of here.”
“What are we going to do with Zachary’s body?” Liliana asks.
“I’ll carry him,” I say.
“No, I will,” Sean says.
We have a stare-down. Never in the last three months did I imagine I would have a stare-down with a Dullahan. Between a Dullahan and a Reaper, though, there is no contest. He looks away.
“Just give him a hand, Sean,” Liliana says.
Sean takes Zachary’s feet and I grab him under the arms. We heft him up and walk backward, carting him outside the house and down a ramp toward a dock. Rachel leans on Tomás and Liliana and they trail after us.
We slide into the boat, heaving Zachary’s body onto a chair and propping it up. Sean glares at me until I sit next to the corpse.
Guess now that I’m a Reaper, I get all the crap jobs.
“What about the lumberjack?” I ask. “He’s locked in the closet. He’ll die if we leave him here.”
“So let him die,” Liliana responds. “He would have done the same to you.”
“Adam’s right,” Tomás says.
“Fine, one of you go open the door. Hope he’s not awake,” Liliana says.
Zachary starts to fall over when I move but Sean holds him upright. As I jog toward the house, I have this horrible feeling they might leave without me but I’m just going to have to risk it. I can’t leave somebody to die, even if he was one of the people responsible for getting all of us into this mess to begin with.
The house is oddly still and silent. I take a deep breath and try not to think about it as I run up the stairs and to the room where I was a prisoner only a few hours earlier.
The lumberjack is still out cold, drooling on the bathroom tiles. I unlock the door so he’s not trapped.
Then I see it. The Book of Light.
Dad said it shouldn’t get in the wrong hands. I better take it. But where can I hide it? I look around the empty room and finally at the lumberjack. I need his jacket more than he does.
A few seconds later, I’m wearing his plaid jacket, the bootleg copy of The Book of Light hidden safely in its deep pockets, as I make my way back to the boat.
Zachary slumps heavily against my shoulder as I take my seat next to him. When I shift, his head topples forward. I ease it back and smooth his hair out of his eyes.
“Move over.” Liliana grabs the wheel out of Sean’s hands
. “I’m the speed demon.”
Sean slouches into a seat facing the water and glares steadily away from the rest of us, or maybe just me. Rachel and Tomás huddle together, his arm gently supporting her. Liliana glances at Zachary every few seconds, eyes rimmed a pinky red. Every once in a while, her eyes shift to meet mine then flit away, guilty butterflies.
We race over the ocean to the distant coast. It takes about an hour before we reach a harbor I don’t recognize. We tie up the boat and everybody gets out.
“Since nobody has a working phone, I’m going to go find one and call my dad,” I mumble.
“You do that,” Liliana snaps.
“Good idea,” Tomás says. “We’re in his territory. He’ll know what to do.”
Though the harbor and docks are empty, I’m lucky to find a pay phone outside a gray, weather-beaten shack. An ancient phone book dangles from a rusty metal cord. I call Dad collect.
He greets me with a question: “Where are you?”
“Some harbor in Maine that I don’t recognize.”
“I’ll look the phone number up.” He’s silent a moment, then says, “You’re in Winter Harbor, Maine.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just get to an airport—nearest airport, that’d be Bangor—and fly to New York. Do you have Zachary’s body?”
Of course Dad would know if there was a loose soul rattling around Limbo in his territory. “Yes. We couldn’t leave it on the island.”
“Good. It would be very messy if police get involved. So you must bring Zachary’s body to New York. I’ll make sure he gets home for burial.”
“How are we going to get him on a plane?”
Dad’s quiet for a second. “You still have that card I gave you last August?”
I feel its sharp edges inside my hoodie pocket. “Yeah.” I’m also still wearing that stupid hospital gown underneath the lumberjack’s jacket. The ends flap in the wind. I’m going to be surprised if they don’t arrest us at the airport. I imagine telling the police that I didn’t just escape from the loony bin with the body of a dead boy.
I put the phone between my ear and shoulder while I strip myself of the hospital gown. I put the lumberjack’s coat back on and zip it up. It smells faintly of tobacco and coffee.
“With that card, you won’t have any problems,” Dad says.
“Okay.” I’ll believe that when I see it.
“Good job, son. You helped Zachary across. That took skill and care.”
The quiet pride in his voice brings a tear to the corner of my eye. I wipe it roughly away.
After we hang up, I page through the phone book until I find a taxi company. I can’t imagine they’ll be too pleased if I call them collect so I shout back at my friends on the boat, “Does anybody have a quarter?”
They search their pockets, then Liliana runs up the dock to hand me a quarter. As I reach for it, her hand closes back around it, into a tight fist. “Don’t screw this up, okay?”
The cab company has a shuttle to Bangor International Airport. I make arrangements and Liliana and I walk back down to the boat. I glance at her sideways, wondering what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t say anything. One time she cuts a sideways look at me, a hard look, and I quickly turn away.
We put sunglasses on Zachary and prop him up on a bench between me and Sean. When the cab arrives, we lift him carefully, as though we’re assisting him, not carrying him.
Rachel gets into the front seat of the cab. “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you?” she asks, distracting the driver long enough for us to manhandle Zachary into one of the backseats.
“What’s wrong with him?” the guy asks. “He’s not doing drugs, is he? If he’s been using, he has to get out.”
I look deep into his eyes and do my best impression of Dad. “He’s a little under the weather, sir. He’ll be okay in a few hours.”
“He just had some Dramamine so he wouldn’t get sick on the boat and it’s knocked him out,” Liliana chimes in. “He’s my half-brother and he’s always been like this.” She rolls her eyes, exasperated.
“Okay, just so long as he doesn’t yak in the backseat.”
“No sir, I promise he won’t.”
We sit silently on the ride to the airport. It seems to take an eternity as we wend our way over rough roads through small farm towns. How are we going to get Zachary’s corpse on a plane? And what if he starts smelling bad?
At the airport, I hand the driver the black plastic card Dad gave me.
“What’s this?” He stares at its smooth, blank surface.
“Just run it through the credit card machine.” Praying it’ll work.
Tomás is already pretending to dig in his pockets for nonexistent money.
“Well, by golly.” The driver’s eyebrows shoot up like happy arrows. “That worked.” He hands me the receipt and I notice that the card automatically gave him a 100 percent tip.
Thank god. My hand trembles as I shove the receipt in my coat pocket.
The driver is so thrilled with his tip that he doesn’t notice Sean and Tomás having trouble getting Zachary out of the side door. Rigor mortis has finally set in. They prop him up on the sidewalk so he’s leaning against the luggage. Tomás sits next to him, one hand behind him, gripping his shirt to keep him from tipping over.
“Now what?” Sean’s shrill voice pierces my thoughts.
“My dad said we should fly to New York right away.”
Sean’s long hair flops over his eyes as he shakes his head emphatically. “Count me out. I’m not about to head into the Grim Reaper’s lair with the body of the Angel Patriarch’s son on board. I’m going to be safe in Chicago when the bloodbath erupts. Tomás and Liliana, you guys should come with me.”
Tomás nudges my foot and tears spring to my eyes. The gesture makes me realize that Tomás, at least, is still my friend. “Sean’s right, Adam. If we go with you, things will be more complicated in the future. Hopefully the clans can sort this out so nobody else dies.”
Liliana’s fighting back tears. “Guys, I’m sorry. I’m going with Zachary. He’s my brother. I can’t—I can’t leave him.”
Tomás scrambles to his feet, opening his arms wide. She rushes into his embrace and sobs even as Zachary keels over sideways. I heave Zachary back to a sitting position. Dead bodies are a real pain.
“Do you guys have your IDs on you?” I ask.
Everybody looks sheepish. What prepared rescuers I have here! I’m guessing Zachary doesn’t have his hidden in his jeans either. Great, one dead body, five teenagers, and not a single ID among us. Hope Dad’s magic credit card really is magic.
“All right, guys,” I say, “how are we going to get Zachary inside and on the plane? Let’s figure out the IDs as we go.”
Rachel prods me with her elbow and points at an empty courtesy wheelchair sitting beside the drop-off curb. “First things first. We can use that to get him on the plane, assuming they let us on.”
I wheel it over and we haul Zachary up and onto it. His sunglasses dangle off his face and Sean readjusts them.
“Is Zachary really your brother?” he asks Liliana.
She nods.
“That means . . .” He trails off.
“That means what?” Liliana glares at him.
“So the La Muerte Matriarch is your mother . . . and the Angel Patriarch is your father?”
She regards him impatiently.
“How is that even possible?” He gawks at her.
“Has your education been deficient in sex education, Dullahan?” she says. “Do I need to remedy that right now? Insert Tab A into Slot B?”
Sean mumbles something that might be a half-apology. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
Although I understand why Liliana’s angry, Sean’s confusion is understandable. From everything I’ve read, this is an aberration. Not just because the Angels and La Muertes hate each other with a blood feud dating back five hundred years, but becau
se neither parent relinquished their rights to Liliana or to their clan. They had a child and kept her paternity secret . . . That is 250 percent against the rules. Not sure if my dad’s crime is worse.
“Anyway, the proof runs in my blood,” Liliana says. “I don’t know where that leaves us.”
“What are you planning to do about it?” Tomás asks.
“I really don’t know. Well. If you guys are flying to Chicago then I guess this is goodbye.” She hugs Tomás and grimaces at Sean.
Sean looks dejected as he and Tomás split off and head inside.
Rachel, Liliana, and I shamble into the airport. I wheel Zachary up to a counter and ask the friendly flight attendant manning the counter whether there are four seats available on the next flight to New York.
She types something and checks the computer screen. “We have a mixture of first class and coach seats available, sir.”
I pull out the black card. It worked in the taxi but still, I hold my breath. Paying for the tickets is only the first hurdle; the next is getting on board without IDs, and the one after that is not letting on that we’re lugging around a dead body.
The ticket agent swipes the card, stares at her screen, then turns it over, gazing at it with some confusion. Then she turns it over again. “If this is what I think it is,” she says, “you’ll have to talk to my superior.”
“Oh brother,” Liliana whispers. “Your dad had this all planned out, did he?” She rolls her eyes.
“You don’t accept this card?” I ask in a low voice.
The ticket agent breaks out of a trance. “Oh! Oh, yes. Sorry. We definitely accept this card. I just . . . I’ve just never seen one. I’ve only ever . . . heard about them.” Her fingers start to shake and she giggles. “Sorry, it makes me nervous. I’ll be careful . . . One moment, please.” She walks through a side door.
“Now what?” Liliana asks. “Are we about to be stormed by FBI agents?”
Instead, a fat man in a uniform comes puffing up to us. “Sir, I’m so very honored you chose to fly with us.” He hands me the card and I pocket it quickly, just in case. “I don’t believe the accommodation on this flight will be up to your standards. I do have a small private jet ready for takeoff. I’ve already alerted the pilot on call. He will arrive in fifteen minutes. You and your travel partners can be in the air in less than thirty minutes.”
