The Twilight Prisoner (6 page)

As they shot up off the fire escape and over the tenement roofs, Euri flying alongside them, Cora gave him terse directions. “FDR Drive, north.”

“You live on the Upper East Side?” asked Euri. To Jack's relief, her tone was friendly for the first time since she'd met Cora. As they joined the aerial highway of ghosts zooming uptown over the red brake lights of cars below, she added, “That's where I grew up. On Fifth, across from the park. Where are you?”

Cora didn't answer. She seemed so preoccupied that she didn't even flinch as they flew perilously close to an obese ghost in a caftan. They darted past a restaurant that was perched on the East River, and through a midtown tunnel, where they flew inches above the yellow roofs of taxis. They sailed right past the Upper East Side.

“Get off at 106th,” Cora ordered curtly.

Jack obediently turned off the highway above the next exit ramp. They passed a cluster of high-rise projects then flew west past low-slung brick storefronts advertising dentists, unisex barbers, and lawyers in both Spanish and English. At Lexington Avenue, Cora directed them north. Music drifted from open apartment windows and, in the orange glow of the streetlights, Jack could see colorful murals painted on the walls of the stores and community centers—sad-eyed saints, Puerto Rican flags, lines of poetry.

“Stop,” said Cora curtly, at the corner of 110th street. “I'm right here.” She pointed to a half-open window directly above a convenience store that was papered in beer and cigarette ads.

Euri raised an eyebrow. “This is where you live?”

Cora glared at her. “What's wrong with it?”

Jack thought of the other students at Chapman, how so many of them lived in fancy buildings on Central Park West like Austin, or in Fifth Avenue penthouses like Euri once did. In an instant, he understood why Cora had never invited anyone over. “Nothing is wrong,” he said quickly. “Let's go find your mom.”

“Bad idea,” Euri mouthed.

He flew Cora over to the window and pulled her through it. Euri floated after them. Inside, it was warm and a fan whirred noisily overhead. The room was small but neat, with a TV, several potted plants resting on crocheted doilies, a red velvet sofa, and a calendar of saints. On a side table was a framed photo of a chubby, dark-haired child in a white dress, clutching a bouquet in front of a fake backdrop of a field. HIJA was engraved atop it. Next to the photo, Jack noticed a basket stacked high with prescription bottles.

“Mama!” Cora shouted.

From another part of the apartment, they heard a plaintive voice. “Cora, Cora, Cora. ¿
Dónde estás tú?
”

“I'm here,” Cora shouted, running into the other room.

Jack and Euri followed her through a sweet-smelling kitchen and into a bedroom where a small woman with short, dark hair and Cora's round face sat in a wheelchair, staring anxiously at a cell phone. Jack suddenly realized that he wasn't the only one with secrets. Cora had never told him that her mother was in a wheelchair. He had been so worried about what she thought of him that he had never really thought about what her life was like. But then he remembered all the calls from her mother, how she was always hurrying home, even the reason she'd given for why she would never commit suicide.

“Mama!” Cora shouted, but her mother didn't look up. Cora knelt in front of her, and rested her head in her mother's lap. “
Estoy bien, Mama
,” she said. “
Estoy bien
.”

But her mother's hand passed right through Cora's head as she adjusted her skirt. After a deep sigh, she looked back at the phone.

Cora turned to face Jack. Her eyes were wet. “Why can't she hear me?”

“Because we're in the underworld—” he started to explain.

“She's got to know I'm here!” Cora interrupted. “Mama,” she said, peering into her mother's eyes. “Look at me!”

But her mother wheeled through her to the window and looked out.

Cora began to cry. “I can't leave her alone.”

Jack wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know what to say. He reached out his hand, then let it fall back to his side. “I didn't know she was—” He pointed to the wheelchair.

“I don't tell most people,” Cora snapped. “She has this muscle disease. It's not a big deal. She's only needed the wheelchair for a couple years. But I can't leave her alone. I need to stay.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Euri.

They both turned to look at her.

“You're right,” she continued, mimicking Cora's outraged stare. “You should stay here for eternity.”

Cora's mouth twitched. “What do you know? You didn't even get along with your parents!”

Euri shot a hard glance at Jack, which he ignored. “Your mom's sick,” she said to Cora, “but she can survive without you. You need to take care of yourself.”

Cora shook her head vehemently. “No way. She can't. Not for four whole days.”

Euri started to speak, but Jack cut her off. “I'll make sure we find a way out before then,” he said. He tried to sound confident, but he had absolutely no idea what to do next. He should never have dragged her into the underworld just to show off his powers. Euri was right. A freak like him belonged here, but not Cora.

“We both will,” added Euri.

Jack looked at her, surprised by her offer, but she just shrugged. He figured she felt sorry for Cora. “You shouldn't panic,” he told Cora.

“Not yet, anyway,” said Euri. “Besides, isn't there someone who can help her?”

Cora took a deep breath. “I guess she can call the neighbor. And I made her some meals yesterday.”

“She's going to be okay,” said Euri.

“You could have told me about her,” Jack said quietly. “I would have understood.”

“I don't want people feeling sorry for me,” said Cora. “Ellen knows, but that's it.”

Jack thought about how he, too, dreaded people finding out about his mother and feeling sorry for him. Cora seemed even more amazing to him, being on scholarship, taking care of her mother, and still acting as fearless and confident as she did at Chapman. It was her crush on Austin that made her seem ordinary. But he could never tell her that.

As he gently led Cora to the window, she looked back over her shoulder at her mom. “I'll be back soon,” she whispered. “
Te quiero
.”

They flew up onto the tar roof of the building. Cora fixed Jack and Euri with a determined look and took out a stick of gum. “I want to know every possible way we can get out of here.”

But before she could unwrap it, Jack grabbed the stick of gum from her and tossed it off the roof.

“What are you doing? I only have three pieces left!”

“You can't eat in the underworld. It's like the Proserpina myth.”

“Is chewing gum eating?” Cora asked.

“I wouldn't risk it,” said Euri.

“Well, I need to think,” said Cora. She pretended to put a piece of gum in her mouth and started to chew.

Jack opened his backpack and pulled out the Viele map with its squiggles of rivers and faded city grid. “Last time I was here, my mother told us about a secret way out of the underworld on this map. The guards know about it now, but there may be other hidden exits that they don't know about.”

“Trouble is,” said Euri, “your mom has moved on.

We need to find someone else who would know where they are.”

Cora hunched over the map. “It says it was prepared by someone named Egbert Viele.”

Jack brightened. “Viele was a city engineer in the nineteenth century. He knew everything about the city's secret water sources. If there's a secret way out, he'll know it.”

“Good,” said Cora, pretending to blow a bubble. “How do we find him?”

“It's easy,” said Jack, growing excited as he spoke. “There are death records for everyone in the underworld. You can look anyone up by the year they died and the death record will tell you where they haunt. Once we find out Viele's haunt, then we'll just go there and ask him if there are any other ways out. Other secret rivers or streams.”

“How about if he's moved on?” Euri asked.

“Well, then we'll figure something else out.” He turned to Cora. “The death record tells you whether someone has moved on or not, too. If they've moved on, there is a stamp of a bridge.”

“There certainly seem to be a lot of ghosts here who haven't moved on yet—” Cora said.

“Who don't want to,” interrupted Euri fiercely.

“I say we do it,” said Cora. “Where are the death records kept?”

“There are different keepers for each year,” said Jack. “You just have to ask around.”

A knowing smile spread across Euri's pale face. “I know just the person who can help.”

Jack wasn't surprised when Euri touched down on a set of stairs rising in between a pair of stone lions. In front of them were the grand arches and Roman columns of the New York Public Library. “You're taking us to see Professor Schmitt,” Jack guessed.

“Exactly,” said Euri. “He was alive at the same time as Viele, and he knows the map. He'll definitely know who has his death record.”

“Who's Professor Schmitt?” asked Cora.

“Euri's French tutor,” said Jack. “He was the one who explained to us who Viele was in the first place.”

Euri's face softened as she added, “I haven't seen him since I got sent to Bloomingdale.” She eagerly began to fly up the steps toward one of the padlocked bronze front doors. Cora instinctively closed her eyes as they floated through the door after her.

They passed into an echoing marble hall lit by a blaze of electric candles. Just as Jack remembered from his last visit, there were ghosts everywhere: they flew up the sweeping double staircases laden with books, hung from the chandeliers reading yellowed newspapers, and floated through the air arguing about the meaning of a text. “I guess you can get a lot of reading done after you're dead,” Cora observed.

“Reading is the number one afterlife activity,” boasted a ghost with a big Adam's apple and a bow tie behind the reference desk. “Now, if you'll please just sign in.”

“Sign in?” said Euri. “I've never had to sign in before.”

“It's part of the new security measures,” replied the librarian. “It'll just take a moment.” He held out a stubby pencil and a clipboard.

Euri looked at the clipboard, shrugged, and wrote,
S. O' Hara
. Then, with a wink, she passed the clipboard to Cora.

Cora hesitated and then quickly wrote,
Dorothy Gale
.

Jack took the clipboard but before he could write down a name, a tall, thick-necked guard blew in through the wall behind the reception desk and nodded sternly at the librarian. Jack froze.

“I'm afraid you've been randomly selected for an interview with a member of the Underworld Security Team,” said the librarian to Jack. “I'm sorry. This will just take a moment.”

Jack hesitated. If he grabbed Cora and flew away now, the guards would be on to them. But perhaps they already were and had set up this trap for him, hoping to get him alone so they could feed him to Cerberus. Jack gave a quick glance behind him. Euri, he noticed, had grabbed Cora's hand and was floating slowly back away from the reception desk. No one seemed to be stopping them. There were no signs of Cerberus either. “Um, okay,” he said.

The guard directed Jack to follow him across the hall and into what appeared to be a coat-check room. Jack was relieved to discover it was empty, and there were no other guards inside. “You can just float right there,” the guard said in a gruff New York accent, pointing to the attendant's chair.

As Jack hovered stiffly above the chair, the guard grabbed a pencil in his thick hands and slowly began to fill out some paperwork. “The new head of the security team likes everything in writing,” he explained.

“He sounds thorough,” said Jack politely.

“He's a thorough pain in the—” The guard caught himself. “So what's your name, kid?”

“Holden Caulfield,” blurted Jack.

“And why are you haunting the library, Mr. Cauliflower?”

“I'm visiting a friend who haunts the library,” Jack said, trying to be as honest as possible.

“How long have you been dead?”

“Two days,” Jack lied.

The guard peered at him skeptically.

“Well, really less than that,” Jack stuttered.

“You look more dead than two days,” said the guard.

For a moment, Jack forgot himself. “I look
more
dead?”

The guard ignored him and began to read from a card. “Answer the following questions yes or no. Have you noticed any suspicious persons or groups on your fountain commute?”

“No,” Jack said. Why did he look so dead?

“Has anyone asked you to find a death record for them or hold their hand as they fly?” the guard read.

“No,” Jack lied.

“Have you ever engaged in an illegal activity such as, but not limited to, the use of Ouija boards or other paranormal enhancers?”

“Never,” said Jack, shaking his head furiously for effect. “But what does that have to do with the security alert?”

The guard pointed to an official-looking letter taped to the wall.
NEW UNDERWORLD SECURITY FORCE GUIDELINES FROM COMMISSIONER STEPHEN KENNEDY. APPLY THE LAW AND APPLY IT VIGOROUSLY!

“We're cracking down on the smaller crimes that lead to larger ones,” the guard explained. “There are harsher penalties, too. The new commissioner doesn't believe in therapy. He believes in jail.” The guard snickered. “The Living Avenger is going to rot there!”

“Am I done?” squeaked Jack.

“Yeah,” said the guard, with a wave of his hand. He seemed preoccupied as he filled out the last of his paperwork. Jack flew away slowly so as not to arouse suspicion. As soon as he left the coat-check room, Euri flew up to him. “I was just about to go in there!”

“I'm fine,” said Jack. He scanned the hall. “Where's Cora?”

“There was a ‘Now That You're Dead' seminar going on upstairs. I figured she'd be safe there.”

On his last trip, Euri had taken him to the introductory seminar for new ghosts. Jack had found it mostly useful except for regulation 41.5a, which explained what Cerberus did to living intruders. But Cora already knew that. “She might as well hear the rules of the underworld,” he said with a sigh. “We may never get out.”

Euri gave him a curious look. “What did that guard tell you?”

“They're looking for us—or me, at least.”

“Professor Schmitt will help.”

Jack nodded, trying to feel reassured.

“Come on,” said Euri. “Let's get Cora.”

They flew up one of the sweeping staircases to the McGraw Rotunda, where a motley group of ghosts was standing under Euri's favorite mural—the Greek god Prometheus giving the knowledge of fire to mankind. Through invisible stereos, Jack could hear the fading strains of classical music. The seminar, Jack guessed, had just ended.

“You're okay,” said Cora with a deep breath when she spotted Jack.

“Let's go,” said Euri impatiently. Dragging both of them along, she flew into the catalog room, then through another door and a foyer into the reading room. Just as it had been on his last visit to the underworld, the reading room was packed with ghosts hovering beside the sturdy wooden tables as they paged through books, and floating under the enormous mural of a cloud-dappled sky on the ceiling, pretending to sun themselves. Euri flew to the back of the room and scanned the long wooden tables in the back. “Where is he?”

They flew slowly around the room, dodging ghost librarians who flew out from the shelves on the balcony balancing teetering stacks of books. “I'm sure that's his table,” Euri said, pointing to one in the middle of the room. She floated down to it and tapped the shoulder of a ghost hunched over a book. But as soon as the ghost straightened up, Jack realized he wasn't Professor Schmitt but a man with a flop of graying brown hair and the wrinkled face of a prune, who was furiously crossing something out on a page of the book in his hand. “Yes?” he asked in a British accent.

“You're not . . .” Euri started to say. “I'm looking for an older ghost. His name is Professor Schmitt. Have you seen him?”

The ghost brightened. “The translator? He was a hunchback, yes?”

Jack nodded. “That's him.”

The ghost gestured toward an empty spot at the table. “He moved on just a few weeks ago,” he said. Then he opened an identical book to the same page and resumed scribbling.

Jack tried to hide his mounting panic. What were they going to do now? He turned to Euri. But she was staring at Professor Schmitt's empty seat, blinking back tears.

“I'm sorry,” Jack said.

“It's no big deal,” said Euri in a flat voice. “Hewasjust someone to practice French with.”

Before Jack could comfort her, she flew to the other side of the table and flopped into Professor Schmitt's empty chair.

Jack looked at Cora. She was chewing intently on a lock of her hair. “We have to start with what we know,” she finally said.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“Like when you do a tough crossword, you're supposed to start with what you know. We know Viele made maps. Perhaps the library has a map room?”

“It certainly does,” said the ghost with the flop of hair and the wrinkled face.

Jack turned around to stare at him. He looked familiar.

“I love maps,” he continued, opening a third copy of the book and brandishing a pen. “Particularly of Iceland. It's my favorite country.”

“What are you doing to those books?” Jack asked.

“Unfortunately, I can't truly alter them,” said the ghost, holding up his pen with a sigh. “It's invisible ink— at least to the living.” He turned the spine toward Jack so he could see the title,
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden
. “This poem‘September 1, 1939,'” he said, pointing at the pages he had tampered with. “It's rubbish.”

“No, it's not!” said Cora. “We read it in class.”

Jack nodded enthusiastically. “It's a great poem. ‘We must love one another or die,'” he quoted.

The ghost gave a pained look. “Exactly!What a stupid line. It's not a choice. Even if we love one another, we're going to die anyway.”

“Well, maybe the poet disagrees,” said Jack defensively.

“I don't think so,” said the ghost. “I am the poet.”

“Auden?”

“We must love one another
and
die,” Auden continued, shaking his head. “That's the way the line should read. There's only one choice. We must love one another despite death, rejection, loneliness—not because love will save us from these things.”

“What's the point of love, then?” Jack asked.

The poet grinned. “There is no point. And you are . . . ?”

“Jack.”

Cora held out her hand. “Cora.”

The poet nodded at Jack and then clasped Cora's hand in his large ones. “A variant of
Kore
, the Greek word for ‘maiden.' Also, an old Greek name for Proserpina. Make sure you don't eat anything while you're here, my dear.”

Cora shifted uneasily. “But my mother named me for the Spanish word for ‘heart,'
Corazón
.”

“And she's going to get back to her mother,” Jack blurted out. “I'm going to make sure she does.”

The poet looked from Cora to Jack. “So you are both stranded here?”

Jack looked down, ashamed of the mess he had made. He thought of the story of Proserpina in the
Metamorphoses
and suddenly felt sorry for Pluto. If he hadn't had a crush, he wouldn't have dragged
his
Kore into the underworld just as Jack had done.

“What map are you looking for?” asked Auden.

“We're not looking for a map exactly,” said Jack. “We're looking for a mapmaker. Egbert Viele.” He pulled out the map of the underground streams and rivers. “He made this. We're searching for his death record.”

“Before my time, I'm afraid. But,” he added with a wink, “I have an in with the map-room librarian. Come, I'll take you there.”

Jack waved Euri over. “This is the poet Auden,” he explained. “He's going to take us to the map room.”

But Euri just picked at her skirt.

“I'm sorry about your friend,” Auden said to her as they floated out of the reading room and back down the stairs. “I can tell you cared deeply for him.”

“I don't care for anyone,” she shot back.

“‘If equal affection cannot be,'” said Auden, “‘Let the more loving one be me.'”

Jack recognized the lines. They were from another of Auden's poems.

But Euri looked unmoved. “No offense,” she said. “But I only like Donne.”

“A fine poet,” Auden said generously.

They followed the poet back downstairs into a small, square room that reminded Jack of the inside of a music box, with a gold painted ceiling and four golden chandeliers. The walls were lined with old maps of the world, and even the face of the clock, Jack noticed, was a map. Auden led them to the information desk.

“Hello, Oscar,” he said to a ghost dressed in a nightshirt and sporting a wiry mustache. “I'd like to take a look at the Kjartansson map of Iceland. And these youngsters are looking for . . .”

“The death record for Egbert Viele,” said Jack.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “I'm not really supposed to give out death record information without getting permission first from the guards. Part of the new security regulations.”

“Do it for me, won't you, Oscar?” said the poet in a soothing voice.

The librarian shifted his eyes around the map room. When he seemed satisfied that no one was watching, he shuffled through a card catalog, stopping on an entry. Then he jotted something down on a piece of paper and slid it to Jack. “Egbert Ludovicus Viele, June 17, 1825April 22, 1902,” it read. “Contact Washington Irving Bishop, 1902 death record keeper, Lamb's Theater.”