Awaken (29 page)

Mr. Graves didn’t approve of any of us leaving at all, at first, for any reason, but as time went by and nothing bad happened — the realm of the dead returned to normal; hot, delicious meals began appearing again on the dining table three times a day, courtesy of the Fates; and new rooms and wings showed up in the castle as if by magic … a chapel for Chloe, a gym for Reed, a library for Mrs. Engle, and a “sick” game room for Alex, complete with every console imaginable — there was really no protest he could give. Nothing except — as Mr. Graves stood outside the game room one night, watching, with his fully restored sight, Alex and Reed patiently explaining to Henry, Mr. Liu, and Frank the finer points of
Call of Duty
— “We’re doomed.”

“Cheer up,” Mrs. Engle said to him. “It’s better than Furies.”

“Is it?” Mr. Graves didn’t seem certain.

Mrs. Engle laughed and hugged him. Flowers were blooming everywhere after the storm, even in the most unexpected places.

We may have had to listen to the sound of video game explosions ringing through the rest of the castle, but John and I couldn’t hear them from the privacy of our bedroom, which we did not, thankfully, have to share anymore with anyone else, as the Fates generously supplied everyone with a room of their own.

Still, as the days after the storm stretched into weeks, and the weeks stretched into months, I found that, though I had more happiness than I’d ever dreamed possible, living with John in the Underworld and doing work I actually enjoyed and found meaningful, I was missing … something.

Not school, of course, since unlike Kayla, I didn’t have a goal outside the realm of the dead towards which I’d been striving (Frank had become Kayla’s primary investor in Save Yourselves, though I knew that, when the time came, I’d invest, as well).

And not the sunshine, either, since anytime I wanted I could slip out the door at the top of the double staircases through which I’d once bolted so madly, and take a stroll through the Isla Huesos Cemetery (though I rarely mentioned doing so to John, who would definitely not have approved, even though I always kept my whip at my side).

It seemed ungrateful of me to complain, since I had so much happiness, and there were so many people in the world who would have been happy with a mere sliver of my portion of it. But I couldn’t help wishing that, now that they were finally back together again, I could spend more time with my parents.

Yet it always seemed as if just when my parents and I began to relax in one another’s company, it was time to go back to the Underworld.

I understood why John didn’t feel comfortable hanging out in Dolphin Key. More than once, Chief Santos dropped by my parents’ house for an impromptu “visit” that happened to coincide with one that John and I were making. Was he watching the house … or John? The chief of police was no dummy. He hadn’t believed a word we’d told him in the cemetery. He knew something was wrong and was still determined to get to the bottom of it … someday.

He wasn’t wrong, either. Ever since I’d met John, our lives had been in perpetual danger, and a lot of that danger had come from a member of my family, one who didn’t seem particularly anxious to make amends. I’d heard that the burn my diamond had singed into my grandmother’s skin had left a permanent scar.

But Grandma couldn’t remember — or at least, pretended not to — how she’d gotten it. She seemed to remember very little about what had happened during the time she’d been possessed. She even turned out not to have much of a work ethic, since Knuts for Knitting began to fail financially. This was only partly because Mr. Smith’s partner, Patrick, had stopped buying his knitting supplies there.

Grandma began to complain that if things didn’t look up, she was going to have to close the shop and move away.

“Good riddance,” said my father. Apparently his motto of forgiving and forgetting didn’t apply to people who’d tried to kill his daughter.

The only person who offered to help was a distant cousin in Tampa, who sent Grandma a brochure on an assisted living community founded by her church. Grandma became enchanted with the idea, sold both her house and Knuts for Knitting, and left Isla Huesos, another piece of bracken the storm had swept away.

This suited everyone fine except for John, who still didn’t believe we’d seen the last of her.

“Even after she’s dead and we’ve sent her on,” he said, “I still won’t trust her evil spirit not to show up and try to hurt you again.”

Patrick, on the other hand, made a full recovery. Mr. Smith would tell me about it when I’d happen upon him in the cemetery, which I visited even more often as the days grew colder, now that winter was upon us (though winter on Isla Huesos meant that the temperature occasionally dipped below seventy degrees).

“I’d think you’d have bad memories of this place,” Mr. Smith said, falling into step beside me one evening as the sun was setting.

“I don’t,” I said, amused. “It seems peaceful and beautiful to me.” We were near John’s crypt, the roof of which had been repaired. The branches of the poinciana tree were bare of blossoms, but that was all right. I’d been assured it would bloom again in the spring. “Maybe because it’s where I met John.”

“Strange,” Mr. Smith said. “I can remember a time when you didn’t think quite so fondly of him as you do now.”

“I can remember a time when he didn’t think so fondly of me, either,” I said wryly.

“No such time existed,” Mr. Smith said. “I know another person who thinks fondly of you. Patrick. He often asks about you. He wants me to invite you and John over for dinner. He doesn’t understand, of course —”

Mr. Smith delicately avoided mentioning what it was that Patrick didn’t understand, that John and I were Underworld royalty and couldn’t go out to eat like normal people. Also that Patrick had been struck from behind, and so unable to identify his attackers, one of whom might very well have been my grandma. There’d been a second set of fingerprints found at the scene that the police had never been able to identify.

“Patrick keeps reminding me that you never tried his lobster tacos,” Mr. Smith said.

This struck me to the heart. I longed to go back to their house and enjoy their festive hospitality and have the lobster tacos I’d missed.
Why couldn’t we?
I wondered. The storm was over. The sun was shining. Why were we still hiding?

I put the question to John later that evening, as we lay in bed together in front of a roaring fire in the hearth.

“Obviously it wouldn’t be a good idea, I know, to run off and leave the Underworld for months and months at a time,” I said, “because then you’ll turn into a hundred-and-sixty-year-old man —”

He ignored my attempt at humor.

“But a few days or nights here and there … what would be the harm? Mr. Liu and Mr. Graves, now that he can see, can certainly handle things for a night or two. I’m not saying it would ever be a good idea to leave Chloe and Reed in charge, or — God forbid — Frank or Henry, but Mrs. Engle has turned out to have a nice soothing influence on everyone. Even Alex … well, I wouldn’t trust Alex to bird-sit, and Alastor would eat him alive, but surely he could be kept from burning the place down. And we, in turn, could look after things for everyone else if
they
wanted to go away for a bit, like we do whenever Frank wants to go visit Kayla. Speaking of Kayla, surely there must be some reason my necklace still turns purple around her even though she’s not in danger anymore. Maybe she’s supposed to be my queen-in-waiting. Maybe we could get her to come here and queen-sit a few nights a month.”

John lowered the book he’d been reading. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Were you speaking to me?”

“I know you were listening,” I said in disgust, taking the book from him and tossing it over the side of the bed. “You couldn’t possibly have been reading that. You were holding it upside down.”

He laughed and put his arms around me. “How can I read when you’re next to me? Your beauty is too much of a distraction for any man to concentrate.”

“Don’t try to flatter your way out of this,” I said. “Even Persephone got six months’ vacation away from the Underworld every year.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, drawing away a little, looking hurt. “Six months’ vacation away from me every year?”

“No,” I cried, instantly regretting my choice of words. It was hard to remember sometimes that, even though he was very much the lord of this castle, a part of him was also still very much the wounded beast it had taken me so long to tame. I doubted the wounds the Furies — and I, though inadvertently — had inflicted upon him in the past would ever fully heal. “Of course not.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think?” he asked. “You won’t marry me, and all you ever talk about is how you want to go away. Don’t think I’m not aware of your rambles in the cemetery —”

“Not away
from
you. Away
with
you. So we can live a normal life in the sunshine, just for a little while.”

“Normal people get married,” he said, lifting a dark eyebrow.

“Normal people have their own houses under the sky,” I said. “They don’t live in castles in the Underworld.”

He thought about this for a moment.

“We could do both,” he suggested finally.

I caught my breath. “Do you mean it?”

He nodded. “I don’t see why not. We could have a little house and stay in it sometimes.
Not near your mother’s house
,” he added sternly, when he saw my face light up. “I don’t want to live anywhere close to your father. And you must know, Pierce, your grandmother will never enter our doorway.”

“No, of course not. Oh, John, I know the perfect place.” I sat up so abruptly that Hope, who was perched on the end of the bed, gave a flutter, startling her mate, whom we’d settled upon calling Courage, so we had both Hope and Courage with us at all times. “Mr. Smith lives in a cute little Victorian condo downtown. They all look out onto this pool in the back, with the sweetest garden. It’s on the highest point on the island, and when there’s a storm, they have hurricane parties, and Patrick makes lobster tacos. We could get a place there. Since we’d only be staying there every once in a while, it wouldn’t have to be very big. And we’d have neighbors we knew right away.”

John smiled at me, then reached over to smooth a strand of my dark hair away from my face. “Is that what you want?”

“I think it would be nice,” I said, reluctant to reveal to him how very much I wanted it, in case it didn’t work out. I knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me — except allow me to be hurt — and it would be complicated, if not downright impossible, for a young man with no credit whatsoever to buy a condominium. “My father could lend us the money.”

I knew John would never take a handout from my father. He’d insisted on paying Dad back for the boats. I’d wisely stayed out of that conversation, but I’d seen the way it had irritated my father. Dad loved throwing his money around.

What he did not love was having money thrown back at him.

John knew this, so it wasn’t a surprise to me when his smile broadened. “Frank’s not the only one who’s been saving his gold coins, you know.”

“Really?” I eyed him. “I thought you planted them all in Seth Rector’s locker.”

“There are a lot more where those came from,” John said. Then he grew serious. “But remember, Pierce, if we do this, the Underworld must always be our first and only priority. We can never neglect the dead.”

“Of course we can’t neglect the dead,” I said, leaning down to hug him again. “I owe everything I hold most precious to the dead: you.” Then I added, “But I couldn’t help thinking it might be a good idea for us to get a place outside the Underworld because maybe, after we’re married, we could —”

“Wait,” he interrupted, surprised. “
After
we’re married? Now you
want
to get married?”

“No, of course not
now
,” I said. “We have to wait until after Kayla has her business up and running and has had her surgery, because she wants to be my bridesmaid, and she says she doesn’t want her boobs to look humongous in the photos. Well, the photos of her and me, since you’ll probably show up as a big blur in them, like you always do on film.”

John was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I love you, but approximately half the time, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I assured him. There was a pause, and then I took a deep breath and said, all in a rush, “What I was trying to say before was that another reason it would be good for us to have our own place outside the Underworld is that maybe, after we get married, we could have a baby.”

He lifted his head from the pillow, then rolled over suddenly, trapping me beneath his arms and staring down at me very intently.
“What?”

“Well,” I said, embarrassed. My cheeks were burning, but I plunged on anyway. “I was doing some reading, and Mr. Smith is wrong — not for the first time, but whatever. Hades and Persephone
did
have children. They’re largely forgotten in Greek mythology, but they do exist. I figure they must have been conceived during the months Persephone wasn’t in the Underworld, since, as you know, no life can grow here. So I don’t see why we can’t do the same thing.” I felt as if I were going to be roasted alive by the heat of his gaze. “You do
want
a baby someday, don’t you? I never even asked what you thought about the idea —”

He showed me, very enthusiastically, what he thought about it by kissing me hard, on the lips … then kissing me in other places as well.

He seemed to like the idea very, very much.

Which just goes to show that anything can happen. Anything at all.

One. Two. Three.

Blink.

T
he question I get most often from readers at the close of a book series is, “Is it really the end?”

Of course Pierce and John and their friends could continue to have many adventures, and perhaps someday we’ll hear from them again, but for now it seems best to give them a well-deserved rest.

The inspiration for this series came from Edith Hamilton’s fantastic book,
Mythology
. I loved reading this book when I was growing up. The myth of Persephone was always my favorite. I used to wish the Greek god of the Underworld would kidnap me so I could live amongst the dead.

Some of the characters in this series were inspired by myths, and some by real people. Alastor, John’s horse, is named after one of the four black horses who pulled the chariot driven by Hades when he kidnapped Persephone (in the Roman version of the tale). Typhon, the tongue-in-cheek name John gives his dog, is also derived from the “father of all monsters” who attempts to destroy Zeus.

The character of Mr. Smith, the dry-witted cemetery sexton, is partly based on an amazing English teacher I had my freshman year in high school, Mr. Kenneth Mann. By giving his students creative writing assignments in addition to the state-mandated curriculum, Mr. Mann inspired not only myself but many of my fellow classmates at Bloomington High School South to want to become better writers (and consequently better human beings).

The character of Pierce, whose plight was loosely based on that of Persephone, was inspired by a close friend of mine who had a near-death experience. She filled me in on what it’s like to be an “NDE.” Much like Pierce, my friend says that only by nearly losing her life did she learn to live it to its fullest, and that the only way to fight the darkness is to bring a little light into the lives of those we love.

There are so many people to whom I am indebted for the help they gave me while I was writing this series, I could never name them all, but they include Beth Ader, Nancy Bender, Jennifer Brown, Barb Cabot, Bill Contardi, Benjamin Egnatz, Michele Jaffe, Lynn Langdale, Laura Langlie, Ann Larson, Janey Lee, Charisse Meloto, Abigail McAden, Laura Wisen, and of course, all my amazing readers. Thank you all. If I were in charge of the Underworld, you would get assigned to the “good” boat.

M
EG
C
ABOT