Texting the Underworld (16 page)

“We'd better go in now,” Ashling said.

“Not my affair what happens to you next,” the Cailleach said, typing. “Good riddance.”

Ashling stepped through the curtain and held it open for Conor, Glennie, and Grump.

“Welcome to the Other Land,” she said.

The noise of the crowd was an assault after the quiet tunnel. Donkeys brayed, dogs barked, tigers roared, people jabbered at one another. Weaving through it all were tendrils of faint music, sometimes harp, sometimes flute—somebody's attempt at keeping everyone calm.

Conor glanced up and almost forgot how to breathe: Rough stone walls ascended to a roof so high it was lost in shadow. Looming out of the rock, carved in sapphire blue, were gigantic stone faces—ancient, expressionless, eternal. He felt very small and very temporary.

In desperation, he got out his cell phone and turned on the GPS. It said:
Your current location is temporarily unavailable.

“Keep moving.” Ashling wasn't meeting anyone's eye.

Who's the Death?
Conor wondered. But he didn't know how to ask without Grump and Glennie hearing, too.

Maybe it's me.

They pushed through the throng of people and animals. The human Dear Departed wore earth-colored robes, bright-colored dresses, jeans and cowboy hats, leather jackets, high heels, boots, slippers, sandals. Some had bare chests with cloth wrapped around their waists or rough cotton trousers. There was hair of every color Conor had ever seen, and some he'd never considered. Eyes of every shape, bodies of every size.

“What will happen to us?” a woman in a red dress said to the man next to her. “Will we stay together?”

“I don't know, beloved. We'll have to see.” He took her hand in both of his and hugged it to his chest.

Glennie watched them as if they were in a movie. “That's what happens when there's no guide, right, Ashling?” She bounced on her toes with excitement. “Good thing we have you, right?”

Ashling didn't respond. Conor wanted to pull her aside. But he still was shivering so hard he could barely walk. He was no use at all to Grump. Glennie had to pull both of them out of the way of a large farm horse with a cat on its back. Conor stepped on the foot of the woman in the red dress, but she didn't notice.

“They don't feel anything,” Ashling said. “Come on.”

At first the crowd seemed to be milling around aimlessly. But here and there Conor noticed overworked authority figures with laptops like the Cailleach's—odd-looking figures, some human-looking, some not. One had horns; another had a head like a dog's. They shoved people here, animals there, with no ceremony and little conversation. The animals headed for a large archway to the left—Glennie caught sight of her tiger and waved excitedly. The tiger nodded to her and Grump, then padded majestically through the archway.

Conor took advantage of the distraction and leaned close to Ashling's ear. “Who's the Death?”

She jumped as if he'd sneaked up on her. “Don't . . . don't ask.”

He shook her arm to make the words fall out of her mouth. “Come on. I have to know.”

“Stop that.”

“Tell me!”

“Fine.
Fine!
It's your sister.” Ashling turned from him, but not before he saw the misery on her face.

He lunged for her ear and whispered, “Don't tell Grump.”

“I shouldn't have told
you
. Why do I keep telling you things?” She freed herself and resumed pushing through the crowd.

Conor wanted to sit down somewhere and think this through. But they had to keep moving, if only to prevent Grump from getting trampled.
If he had any idea Glennie was the Death, he'd
let
himself get trampled.

“Do all these people get to meet the Lady?” Grump sidled past a cluster of shouting, gesturing women in business suits. “There's not enough time in the universe.”

Ashling waited for them, pale of face. “She only talks to one in a thousand. A hundred and fifty thousand pass through here every day, Nergal says. And they keep track of each one.”

“Why?” Glennie asked.

Again, Ashling didn't answer.

Something had been vying for Conor's attention, and now it beckoned harder. The Dear Departed around him exchanged panicky glances as it beckoned at them, too.

Somewhere, someone was shrieking. And shrieking and shrieking. The noise was muffled, but also it echoed.

“Is this Hell?” quavered a little old lady in white athletic shoes.

“What
is
that?” Glennie said.

Ashling's mouth was a grim line. She took Conor's elbow and shoved through the crowd in an entirely different direction from the way they'd been going.

“Hey, wait for us.” Glennie followed, hauling Grump behind her.

The crowd thinned as they got closer to the source of the shrieks, a small archway in the rock wall. None of the Dear Departed wanted to be near it, and those who couldn't get away fast enough had their hands over their ears.

The archway was barred, beyond the bars a comfortable room with a pillow-strewn bed and carpets on the floor, colorful hangings softening the rock walls.

There was even an easy chair. In it sat a redheaded girl, wearing a tattered green tunic and red cloak. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears; her hair was unbraided and wild. She clutched the arms of her chair as if she were afraid she'd fall off otherwise. She was shrieking, shrieking, shrieking . . . but then she saw Conor, Grump, and Glennie and went silent, her mouth open.

“Hello, Maeveen,” Ashling said.

Maeveen flung herself at the bars. “No, no, no!” She reached for Ashling, who evaded her. “No live ones. No. No.”

“It's all right.” Ashling caught Maeveen's flailing hand and held it. “I will fulfill my Death. I promise.”

“Li-i-ive ones,” Maeveen moaned. “No-o-o.”

“That's her,” Grump said. “She's a mess now. But that's her, the one who took Jeannie.”

“LI-I-I-IVE ones!” Maeveen shrieked.

“Move away from here,” Ashling said. “You upset her.”

Conor and the others stepped to the side, out of Maeveen's sight, and listened to her mutter and moan. What could have happened to her?

Ashling murmured steadily, raising her voice once to say, “Someday you will be well. This cannot last.”

“La-a-ast,” Maeveen moaned.

Ashling joined them, even paler than before. “What happened to her?” Conor asked. Maeveen's shrieks began again.

“She abandoned her Death,” Ashling said shortly. “She found a way to prevent her keen from starting. This is the result—she keens now without relief, feeling the horror of death but not its blessing.”

“Why did she abandon her Death?” Glennie asked.

“Is it not clear?” Ashling snapped. “She tired of her task, that's all. She told herself if she did not keen, the child she'd been sent for would not die.” Grump sucked in his breath. “Not your child, Davey O'Neill. Another.” She shuddered as Maeveen's shrieks amplified. “And the child died anyway.”

“Will that happen to you?” Glennie was white-faced.

“No,” Ashling said. “I will get my Death. It may not be the one I was sent for, but it will be a Death, that I promise you.” She launched herself into the crowd of Dear Departed.

“Come on.” Conor ignored the chill in his heart. “We have to keep up.”

They pushed and shoved and slipped and slid through the crowd, following Ashling's back, Maeveen's despair fading behind them. The figures with laptops were directing the mass of Dear Departed toward a huge archway in a far corner of the cavern.

Next to the archway was a massive stage, gleaming in the torchlight, an intricately carved throne set against the wall. The stage and throne were made of smooth rock, black as the inside of your eyelids on a moonless midnight. To one side of the stage, waving regally at the dead passing through the archway, stood a hooded figure all in white.

“This way.” Ashling headed for the steps to the platform.

“Are we allowed up there?” Conor said. The shiny black rock was chiseled on the sides but its surface was smooth as glass, the size of a school gym. It was empty except for that solitary white-draped figure, standing with its back to them.

“I am allowed.” Ashling ran up the steps and, turning, extended a hand to Grump. Conor and Glennie got behind him and pushed. But then . . .

Woodsmoke. Conor stepped backward, dizzy, as a memory washed over him—not his, someone else's. But maybe his, too.

Ashling pulled Grump up the last step. She looked harried. “Hurry, Conor-boy.”

But he was drowning in the past. “I saw you up there—you were with her on that platform,” he heard himself say. “I was old but you were as young as the day I met you. I waved and you looked right at me and you didn't know who I was.”

She stood rooted there, staring back down at him. Grump bumped against her, trying to keep his balance.

The moment passed. The memory faded and was gone.

Conor shook his head. What was happening to him? Cripes if he knew. He scuttled up the steps to the platform, aware that Ashling was trying to read his face.

“Hey! How come they get to go up there?” shouted a man in a gray suit, rushing for the steps. But when he reached the first step, his foot went right through it, as if the step were vapor. He tried the second step. Same result.

“What is this?” the man yelled at Ashling.

Ashling gave herself a shake. “One of Death's great mysteries,” she called to the man. “Come on,” she said to Conor. “Time is passing.”

“Why did we get up here and that man didn't?” Glennie asked as they walked across the smooth rock.

“Seriously—it's a mystery. I don't think even Nergal knows. The Lady doesn't care, as long as the steps keep letting her up. And me, of course.” Ashling raised her hand to stop them and advanced the last few paces alone. “My lady. I am back.”

It occurred to Conor that he had no idea what the Lady would look like. She was in charge of death, after all. Would she be a skeleton? A hag with flaming eyes? Something so horrible he'd never even imagined it?

The white figure turned, head bowed so her hood covered her face.

Glennie huddled in close to Conor. Grump squeezed Conor's shoulder so hard he thought he heard it crack.

Conor wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't.

The figure pushed the hood from her face. Conor held his breath. And there before his eyes, taking his breath away once and for all, was . . .

The sunniest, rosiest face in the universe. The Lady's cheeks were like apples, her blue eyes bright as winter sky, her snowy white hair set in a fluffy permanent wave. She should have had an apron with bunnies on it.

“Hello, Ashling dear. My goodness, what a sad face
.
Oh, but here's our little . . . my goodness,
three
. How on earth did that hap— Oh.” The Lady's blue eyes hardened. “Ashling. Pet. They're alive.”

“Yes, Lady. They wish to test the Birds.”

The hard eyes acquired a wicked twinkle. “Ooo, how thrilling. All of them wish this?”

“I don't know. I suppose.”

“I want to be the Death,” Grump said. “I'm probably who it is anyways.”

Ashling didn't look at Conor. Nor did Conor look at her.

The Lady smiled at Grump, and it was not the smile of a cookie baker. “And you are?”

“Davey O'Neill. Crumlin Street, South Boston, Massachusetts. You took my daughter when she was—”

“I can't be expected to remember every death, dear,” the Lady said. “If you seek your daughter, I have no doubt she's moved on to another life. She may be quite near you, but I'm afraid we can't let you know that.”

“I'm not looking for her, Lady. I want—”

“You want to be Ashling's Death. I understand. I'm afraid I don't control who dies when. We merely keep track of who goes where.”

“It's my right to test the Birds.”

Conor wasn't sure it was a good idea to go talking about “rights.” But the Lady didn't seem to mind. “Yes, yes, indeed, it is your right,” she said. “And, of course, my very great pleasure. I don't think anyone's tested them in, oh, it must be at least a century—a long, tedious century, I might add. What do you hope to accomplish, Davey O'Neill?”

“I want the power over life and death,” Grump said. The Lady raised her eyebrows, and he added: “This once. Not forever.”

“Well,
that's
a relief.” With no warning, the Lady swooped in nose to nose with Conor. Up close, her face was plump and rosy but hard as ice. “And you, boy, what do you want?”

Gazing into the heartless blue eyes, Conor said the first thing that came to mind. “I don't want anyone to die.”

The Lady gave a high-pitched titter that only a dog should have been able to hear—and right in Conor's face, which almost made him fall over backward. “But how
silly,
dear. Somebody has to die. Otherwise where would they put you all?”

“That's what I thought.” Glennie had on her playground scowl. “But now we know it's just the same souls recycling over and over. Why not let us be the same people forever?”