Underworld (9 page)

“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.

I
t was while I was warming my hands over the teakettle, waiting 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.

So there was no one around to overhear me talking to a bird.

“We left in a hurry,” I explained to Hope. “Besides, you’re safer there than you are here. You shouldn’t have followed us.”

She gave a grudging coo and bobbed over to inspect the seeds. She made it clear, though, with her standoffish attitude, that it was about the food and not me.

A second later the glassed-in door opened behind me and a black loafer — attached to a white-trousered leg — appeared on the step beside me. The loafer had a tassel on it. Due to Mr. Mueller, I had an aversion to men’s shoes with tassels on them.

But Mr. Smith’s tasseled loafers, which he’d paired with pink socks, didn’t bother me … perhaps because he’d never had an affair with my best friend, and driven her to suicide.

“Oh,” Mr. Smith said, looking surprised to see a dove pecking seeds from the steps of his office’s storage yard. “You’ve made a friend.”

“John gave her to me,” I said. “Her name is Hope. I know it’s a dumb name, but I like it, and she already responds to it. Watch. Hope?”

The bird looked up, annoyed at being disturbed from her feast. When I waved at her, she shook herself all over like a duck flicking water off its back, then dropped her head to continue eating.

Mr. Smith looked even more surprised.

“Well,” he said. “Wasn’t that nice of John? You’re aware, I suppose, that mourning doves received their name because of the mournful — almost funereal — sound of their cry, not because they’re seen more frequently in the morning hours. That’s a common misconception.”

There probably weren’t many cemetery sextons whose jobs were better suited to them, thanks to their obsession with the subject of death, than Mr. Smith.

“That makes her a highly appropriate companion for the consort of the Lord of the Underworld. I’ve also heard,” Mr. Smith went on, sinking down onto the step beside me, “that mourning doves are monogamous, mating for life.”

“Great,” I said, looking at Hope a little sadly. I wondered what happened to her mate. I hoped she hadn’t met him yet, and that she was not a grieving widow. Although she didn’t look that unhappy, gorging herself on the handfuls of birdseed I’d thrown her. “I thought she was just a regular dove.”

“Her coloring is unusually pale for a mourning dove. But you can tell by her markings,” Mr. Smith said. “Those black feathers under her wings and tail.”

“So she has a dark side,” I murmured. Just like the person who’d given her to me. I ought to have known. I turned to Mr. Smith and said, “You haven’t asked about your tea. I knew you only sent me to make it so you could talk to John alone. But you shouldn’t blame him for what happened. None of it is his fault. Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s inside. I told him I wanted to speak with you alone for a few moments. I don’t think he likes the idea very much … in fact, he’s probably plotting how to hasten my demise at this very moment. He’s very … protective of you, isn’t he?”

“Well, he and I only just got together,” I pointed out, “after years of misunderstandings and fights that kept us apart. And now it turns out someone in my family is trying to kill me. I think he simply wants to keep me from getting my head bashed in, like Jade. Or worse, as he keeps saying.” Only I still didn’t think there could be anything worse than what had happened to Jade.

“I blame myself,” Mr. Smith said glumly. “I always knew your grandmother disapproved of your grandfather’s interest in death deities and the possibility that there might be an underworld beneath Isla Huesos. I just assumed it was because Angela Cabrero was so devoutly religious. She, like so many people, wants to believe there’s a heaven and a hell and that’s that. I didn’t realize her dislike of the idea that there might be shades of gray in between was …
personal
.”

“Allegedly it’s not,” I said. “It’s the Fury possessing her that wants to get revenge on John, and has been forcing her to use me to do it. But I don’t know if I believe that. She
allowed
the Fury to possess her, which makes me think all that hate had to have been there all along.”

“Good heavens,” Mr. Smith said. “Now we’re talking about whether or not the average human being has the will to resist a Fury. That’s the kind of thing your grandfather and I could spend an entire afternoon debating, and John told me I’m allowed a mere five minutes with you. He says you’re only here to make sure your hapless cousin is all right.”

He noticed my frown at the word
hapless
and continued, “Please, I met the boy. Your cousin Alexander is indeed hapless, by which I mean unhappy, not ill-fortuned. Certainly Alex has had his fair share of hard knocks, but I think we make our own luck. Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense about fate. No, our parents give us life, but what we do with that life is our own responsibility.”

“Actually,” I said, thinking of the breakfast that had appeared that morning, piping hot and impossible to resist. “The Fates are real. I’ve had personal experience with them. Although I’ve never seen one. I’d like to, though.”

“I didn’t say I don’t believe in
the
Fates,” Mr. Smith said. “From my studies about the afterlife, I believe the Fates are spirits, just like the Furies. Like what other people might call angels, but the kind that walk on earth, not the kind with wings. When people are moved to do good by the spirit of human kindness, I believe that’s the work of the Fates … as much as other people are moved to do evil by the Furies.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “So you think the Fates are kind of like the power of prayer?” He might have been onto something. John
had
said the things he wanted badly enough — within reason — had a tendency to appear.

“Something like that,” Mr. Smith said, with a chuckle. “In any case, John wants to find your cousin and get you back before nightfall, which I can understand … although it’s a shame, because it’s Coffin Fest tonight, if it doesn’t get shut down because of the rain, and that’s something you really ought not to miss….”

“Coffin
Fest
?” I’d heard of Coffin Night, but Coffin Fest was a new one. They certainly loved their dead on the Island of Bones.

“Oh, just something they throw together downtown this time of year,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Quite small, you understand, because it’s more of a locals-only tradition. They’re careful not to put it in the calendar of events they hand out to tourists, because the authorities don’t like to encourage Coffin Night. A few vendors set up stands selling street food and the inevitable Isla Huesos T-shirts, a local band plays Cuban music, people dance to celebrate the fact that they’re alive, but it’s nowhere near,” he added, “the tens of thousands we get showing up for New Year’s Eve. That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, though. What I actually wanted to talk to you about was whether or not you’re happy.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Happy?”

“Yes,
happy
,” Mr. Smith said, emphasizing the word as strongly as he had
hapless
. “I’m sure it all seems very romantic and thrilling, having a strapping young man like John drag you off to the Underworld. Who wouldn’t love it? But his good intentions aside — wanting to save you from the Furies and all of that — you must see that what John did was wrong … very, very wrong.”

I thought about waking up that morning in John’s arms, after my horrible nightmare about losing him, and how his kisses had made me feel as if I were melting into him, almost as if we were one person. Then later how I’d determined to take care of him, the same way he’d tried over the years to take care of me, even when I’d kept pushing him away … and how later still, I’d seen the great pains he’d gone to in order to incorporate my suggestions on how to better serve the needs of the dead….

“Being with him doesn’t feel wrong,” I said to him, my eyes filling with tears. “The only thing that feels wrong is when I try to imagine living in a world without him in it.”

Mr. Smith’s own eyes widened slightly behind the lenses of his glasses.

“I suppose it’s just as well, then,” he said, “that you apparently
must
remain in his world. Which I was surprised to hear, since I was quite sure you knew all about what happened to Persephone when
she
ate in the Underworld. In fact, hearing that you ate while in the realm of the dead almost made me think that you did it on purpose so you’d be forced to stay with him, since you knew full well —”

“I thought it was only pomegranates,” I interrupted. “That’s what they taught us in school. Persephone ate the seeds of a pomegranate, the fruit of the dead.”

Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows. “Ah, yes, of course. That’s the most common retelling. The safe, watered-down version one would expect … wouldn’t want to frighten the children, or cause them actually to think too much. Poor Persephone ate the wrong thing, that’s all.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“And John, of course, didn’t stop you. Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” The cemetery sexton’s tone was arch. “That would hardly be in
his
best interests.”

“He thought I knew,” I said. The tears filling my eyes began to spill over. “Why are you so against us being together? Why does it feel as if everyone wants us to break up? Not only the Furies or my grandmother, but
everyone
, even you?”

“I’m not suggesting you break up,” he said, appearing startled by my tears. He reached into his pocket, then produced a neatly folded handkerchief, which he handed to me. It was pink, of course, to match his socks and tie. “But when you visited me here the other night and I said you might want to try being a little sweeter to him, I wasn’t saying you should
move in with him
and then spend the rest of eternity in the Underworld. At least, not the next
day
. My God, your poor parents. Supposing they find out I had a hand in encouraging you?”

“You said what we do with our lives is our own responsibility, Mr. Smith,” I reminded him as I dried my tears. “You’re not responsible for what I did.
I
am, for falling in love with him. That happened way before I met you. So you can let yourself off the hook.” I passed his handkerchief back to him. “As for my mother … well, I don’t know what I’m going to do about her. Right now, I’m mostly worried about Alex.”

“I am sorry for what you’re going through,” he said, with a sympathetic smile at me. “Tell you what, I’ll do some research about this food and drink rule in the Underworld. Who knows, maybe John is wrong? It’s possible it’s been misinterpreted over the years. It wouldn’t be the first time. There are many scholars who staunchly believe your pomegranate theory, which is why it was the one you were taught … though in most cultures, including Judaism, Hinduism, and ancient China, the pomegranate, because of all its seeds, has always been associated with fertility and reproduction, not death. But that’s an exciting thought.” He raised his eyebrows. “What if the narrative of Persephone’s tale has been taken too literally, and the pomegranate is actually symbolic of —”

I held up a hand to stem the tide of his words, fearing I was about to hear a lecture on the cultural history of the pomegranate. Mr. Smith was as bad as my mom in some ways. He could go on for hours about the minutiae of death deity lore the same way she could go on for hours about roseate spoonbills.

“All I want to know is what the deal is with babies in the Underworld,” I said tiredly. “Can people get pregnant there, or what?”

Mr. Smith suddenly looked as if he might be stroking out again. A sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead, and he seemed to go a little gray. I found the heat a relief after the chill of the Underworld and the air-conditioning of his office. He apparently did not. He used the handkerchief I’d passed back to him to wipe his face.