Texting the Underworld (9 page)

“It means”—Dad paused, and for a second Conor hoped he would rethink what he was about to say—“it means, old man, that you didn't want to face facts. And the fact is, if you were paying attention to your daughter that day at the playground, she'd be sitting here right now.
That's
what it means.”

Very quietly, Grump stood up. “Good night, kiddos.” He headed for the front door. He still had his napkin tucked into his pants.

Dad stood up, too. “Dishes.” He went out to the living room and turned on the evening news. Standing in the kitchen they heard him punch a sofa cushion—not too hard and only once.

“Another blissful night in the O'Neill household.” Glennie squeezed dish liquid into the sink.

“Dad shouldn't've said that.”

“Grump shouldn't've spent that money.”

“How many times does he have to say he's sorry? Dad'll make the council—that's all he wants.”

“Know what?” Glennie said. “When I grow up, I'm living alone.”

They washed and wiped and put everything away in silence.

As she hung up the dish towel, Glennie whispered, “Are you taking food upstairs for you-know-who?”

“Uh, no. She . . . she smuggled something in for herself.”

“I'm coming to your room so I can get to know her, too.”

“No. Don't. Dad'll get suspicious.” Which was true. Normally, Glennie would rather eat hash six meals in a row than spend time alone with Conor.

“Maybe I've started to appreciate your awesomeness.”

“Yeah, right. Go watch a movie with Grump.”

“Dweeb.”

When he got back to his room, Ashling was sitting in the beanbag chair, reading the science book. “Humans have two million sweat glands,” she said by way of greeting.

Conor didn't waste time. “Did you remember anything more? About that bonfire night, I mean.”

She shrugged. “Declan was very important to me, I know that. But also . . .” She frowned into the science book. “He betrayed me in some way.”

“How?”

“I don't know. I don't want to talk about this anymore. It makes me unhappy.”

“But I'm going nuts over here! Why do I keep dreaming about these things?”

“
Ach,
can you not see? We must have known each other back then. As simple as that.” She returned to her book. “Potent Mother Maeve. Did you know a brown bat can eat twelve hundred insects in a night?”

“You
are
as stubborn as a she-goat.”

A corner of her mouth quirked up, but she kept reading.

Who was I?
Somebody who hated the young man Ashling danced with. Her father? Oh cripes, the old man with the rotten breath?

He couldn't do homework after that. Nor did he want to draw any more of Shanaya. Instead, he fled to the familiarity of his South Boston map, filling in more of the names he'd gotten from Grump's friend.

Ashling stayed on the beanbag chair, intent on the science book. They settled into silence, a surprisingly comfortable one, considering that she was a death-threatening monster.

Now and then she'd offer a news flash: “The blue whale is the largest mammal that ever lived!” or “The ostrich lays the world's biggest egg!”

He had to explain kangaroos, then algebra, as best he could, which wasn't that great. But it sort of made up for Javier not texting.

When he'd written all the names onto his map, he got into bed and Ashling lay in the cupboard doorway, flipping through Trivial Pursuit cards. And they talked.

He spent time like this with Grump, sure. And with Javier. But their lives were similar to his, once you got past Grump's age and Javier's love for fried plantains. Ashling, on the other hand, spoke longingly of empty hills and bogs, the large round mud-and-straw one-room house where the whole family and their servants slept and ate. Fetching water on a cold morning with a leaky wooden bucket, the damp eating into your bones. The colors of people's cloaks and the diseases they got and the dances they did to fend off death's humor.

She learned to fight with ax and sword, like her mother and father and their parents before them. She listened for hoofbeats and the shouts of attack, never knowing when they'd come or how they'd change her life—or end it.

Death was no stranger to her, even when she was alive.

To his astonishment, Conor found himself telling Ashling things he hadn't even admitted to Javier—notably, how much he wanted to stay in Southie, with everything just the way it was, safe and predictable.

“That's not a very interesting life,” Ashling commented.

“I draw maps,” Conor said defensively. “They're interesting. Maybe—like you said—maybe I could be a mapmaker's apprentice.”

“I couldn't stand to be indoors. Too many people and too much smoke.”

“I like fresh air, too. I go outside to measure stuff all the time.”

“When the smelly old man died, I was going to have my own cattle. I thought I would take another husband and have brave and handsome children. Perhaps I still will. My older sister loved being a woman. I can't wait to experience womanhood. I . . .”

And then they both remembered why Ashling was there, flipping cards in the game cupboard, waiting to usher death into 36A or 36B Crumlin Street. This wasn't a sleepover. Ashling was preparing to trade Grump's life—or maybe Conor's, who knew?—for a new one of her own.

Anger washed over Conor like a rogue wave. “I'd like to experience manhood. If I don't
die
first, of course.”

A smothering silence, except for the
flip flip flip
of the Trivial Pursuit cards.

Conor turned out his light. Outside the window, last fall's dry ivy leaves rattled like bones. Inside, the darkness was tangible, suffocating.
That is not a person in my game cupboard,
Conor reminded himself yet again.
That is death.

He was being unfair—Ashling wasn't death. She simply came with it.

But nothing about this situation was fair.

Conor got up at seven the next morning, even though it was Saturday. He and Glennie spent Saturday mornings at Grump's, watching cartoons and eating sugar-coated cereal out of the box, a violation of at least three house rules. Saturday was their mother's one chance to sleep late, and they took full advantage.

A whiff of woodsmoke wafted past as Conor crept down the stairs. He stopped halfway, suddenly sure that he'd dreamed of Ashling again last night. He closed his eyes.

He is sitting next to her on a bench against a stone wall, the Beltine sun hot as a bonfire.

“I don't know how to describe it.” She closes her eyes against the glare. “I feel calm in myself, and somehow I pass that along to the beast. I look into its eyes and put my hand on its chest and . . .” She opens her eyes, sees him watching her, and blushes. “I've never talked about this before.”

“Why not? It's a gift.”

“You're the first one to ask about it.”

He can't help himself—he reaches out, touches her hair. She twists away from him, but also she smiles.

And then her smile dies. “There's something I must tell you.”

The memory wavered, then faded; he couldn't keep it with him. “Dreams,” he said out loud. “Cripes.” He continued down the stairs.

Early as it was, Glennie was already at Grump's, pouring the last crumbs of Honey-Glazed Nutsos from the box into her mouth. Today's tattoo was a fluffy kitten on the back of her hand, but Conor wasn't fooled.

“Don't worry. I got more cereal.” Grump grabbed his step stool.

Conor settled down for the opening credits of his favorite robot cartoon.

“Ju-u-ust up here,” Grump said from the kitchen. “A-a-a-a-ah!”

Crash!

Conor and Glennie dashed into the kitchen, and there was Grump, on his side on the floor, the step stool overturned. Grump was out cold and had gone Arctic White, the exact color Conor had painted the kitchen for his Adventure Boys badge.

“GRUMP!” Conor flung himself down next to his grandfather. “Glennie, go get Mom!”

Glennie pelted out the door. Conor got a blanket for Grump and knelt beside him, patting the old man's shoulder like that would do anything.
If Javier ever speaks to me again, he's teaching me first aid. Or I'll ask Mom to do it.
Anything to stop feeling so helpless.

Grump's eyelids fluttered. “Still here,” he whispered. One eye opened and regarded Conor. “Hear anything?”

Conor listened. A car drove by. Some kid yelled. But nobody keened. He shook his head.

“Early yet,” Grump said. “Maybe later.”

Mom and Dad came crashing through the front door in their bathrobes. Saturday morning, usually a cozy time of cartoons and Honey-Glazed Nutsos, turned into an ice field of sirens and whispers and scared eyes.

Dad got out his old beater of a car, and the whole family followed Grump's ambulance across the West Fourth Street Bridge. Conor watched the odometer and learned that the hospital was eight-tenths of a mile beyond the bridge, which meant it was two-point-nine-five miles from 36A Crumlin Street.

Two-point-nine-five, two-point-nine-five,
he chanted to himself as he and Glennie found chairs in the waiting room. They'd been sitting there for an hour when he realized that if Ashling hadn't keened by now she probably wasn't going to.

Grump wasn't dying—not yet. But he would someday. The thought made Conor feel like he was drifting in uncharted space.

The despair must have shown on his face, because when Dad came out to check on them he patted Conor heavily on the back and said, “Buck up, Con. This stuff happens to old guys.”

“He'll be okay,” Conor said. “But not forever.”

His father pulled abruptly away and pointed to the wall television. “Great tie on that guy.” It was a game show. The guy with the great tie had to phone a friend to find out who the vice president was.

“What a doofus,” Glennie said. “People are smarter than that in cartoons.”

Somebody prodded Conor in the back: an old man, but nowhere near as old as Grump, with brown hair and a deeply unhealthy grayness to his skin. Standing next to him were a three-legged cane and a rolling tank with a tube that ran to a pair of prongs in the guy's nose. “Is Davey gonna be okay?” the guy said, sounding breathless.

Conor went tongue-tied, but his dad jumped in. “We think so.” He extended his hand. “Brian O'Neill. I've seen you around, right? But not for a while.”

“I'm an O'Neill, too,” the guy said. “Richard. I live a couple streets over from your dad's old store. You probably saw me around before I acquired this stuff.” He jerked his head at the cane and oxygen tank. “Never smoke, kids.”

“This is Conor, my son,” Dad said. “And this is my daughter, Glennie.”

“Are we related?” Glennie said.

Richard O'Neill gave a wheezy chuckle. “Oh, back in the mists of time, I guess. My dad was the one who knew all that stuff. I never paid much attention.”

The guy looked like he could keel over then and there. Conor wondered if Ashling would keen for him, or if his part of the family had a banshee all its own.

“I used to love hanging around your dad's store . . . when I . . . was a teen . . .” Mr. O'Neill had to stop talking for a minute to catch his breath, his hand on his chest.

Her hand on my heart,
Conor thought.

“He . . . your dad,” Mr. O'Neill managed, “used . . . to tell me about banshees and the Other Land and stuff. He knew . . . an awful lot, especially about . . . death.”

Dad scowled, but Mom came up behind him before he had a chance to change the subject.

“Mr. O'Neill,” she said, and Conor realized she must have known the guy from the clinic. “Have you been doing your exercises?”

He grinned at her, breathing heavily. “Yes, ma'am. But they don't . . . do any good.”

“They will if you keep at it.” Mom gave Mr. O'Neill a stern look, then turned to her children. “Grump broke his arm and two ribs. They don't like his heart rhythm and they're not sure if he fell or blacked out. So they want to keep him, at least overnight. They're sending him to the ICU.”

The intensive care unit smelled like disinfectant and canned vegetable soup. Grump, Arctic White, had one arm in a brace and a tube in the other, wires stuck to his chest, and oxygen prongs in his bulbous nose. But when he opened his eyes, they had their usual mischievous sparkle. Conor's mom fussed around, adjusting pillows and making Grump drink water through a straw.

Swallowing looked like hard work.

“Pop,” Conor's dad said, “I'm sorry I said that last night. About Jeannie.”

Grump eyed him for a minute, then waved his hand in the air, dispelling the memory. “'S-okay. I've said worse to myself.”

“It wasn't your fault, Pop. You can't watch a kid all the time.”

“Yeah, I know.” Grump's voice was like a wisp of fog. “I want to talk to Conor alone.”

Dad looked down at his feet, feelings hurt. Conor hardened his heart.
He was mean to Grump last night.

“You can't have any rocket parts in here, Davey,” Mom said, “so don't even ask.”

“I want to talk to Conor.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes a kid needs to hear from his old grump, that's all.”

Mom looked suspicious. Grump shot a conspiratorial wink at Glennie, who was always willing to undermine her parents even if she didn't understand why. “I didn't have enough breakfast,” Glennie announced. “I want a boysenberry smoothie.”

“No sugar,” her mother said.

“Mom,” Glennie said, anything but sweet. “We're in a hospital. They probably don't even
have
sugar.”

“I could use a cup of coffee,” Dad said to his feet.

“Oh, all right.” Mom gave Grump's pillow one more plump and stalked off. Glennie returned Grump's wink as she followed Dad out the door.

Conor moved to the head of the bed. “What is it, Grump?”

Grump took Conor's hand in his bony one. “Listen, kiddo, I want you to bring this Ashling in here. I need to talk to her.”

It took Conor a second or two to see the problem with that idea. “Grump, I can't bring her to a big hospital. What if”— he swallowed hard—“somebody dies? She'll turn into a wraith.”

Grump grinned under the oxygen prongs. “Oh yeah? Got any change?”

Conor fished in his pocket, held out a handful of quarters and nickels. “You want something from the machine? I don't know if they'll let you—”

“No, I don't want nothing from the machine. I want something small that a banshee could hold in her hand.” Grump held up a quarter, waggled it significantly. “A little Worldcraft.”

It was the Mississippi magnolia quarter, the one Ashling had said was beautiful but couldn't keep because . . . because . . .

Oh
.
“If she has Worldcraft on her she won't turn into a wraith,” Conor said. “Will that stop the Death?”

“No, kiddo, of course not. Nothing stops death. But Worldcraft keeps a banshee solid so nobody else dies by mistake.”

Conor wished he'd remembered that at school.

“I'll bring her.”

When the rest of the family returned, Grump announced that he wanted to sleep and they should all leave him the heck alone. Conor's mom adjusted his pillow one last time and filled his water jug, then obeyed Grump's command.

“Bring me some Honey-Glazed Nutsos,” he said as she headed for the door. “I want to eat 'em out of the box.” She pretended she hadn't heard.

Mom took them all home and drove off to her Saturday study group. Glennie went next door to Grump's for some more Honey-Glazed Nutsos—it was still only ten thirty. Conor didn't feel like eating. He went upstairs, where Ashling was hanging upside down from the ceiling again.

“Dude, where have you been?” she said, righting herself. “Did you know that the killer whale totally is the fastest swimming marine mammal?” She was too jolly, as if they'd never had a fight and she wasn't death's best friend.

He handed her the Mississippi magnolia quarter. “Come on. Grump knows all about banshees and he wants to talk to you.” He paused and added the obvious: “I told him you were here. Sorry.”

Ashling furrowed her brow. “I can't walk around with this coin in my hand. It's not right. I have to be what I am. Which is the finest—”

“Grump's in the hospital and people die there sometimes. You only have to keep the coin on you while we're there.”

“And what if this Grump is the Death? What if he begins to die whilst we're there? What then, Conor-boy, hey?”

“Easy. I'll rush you outside and take back the coin.” He put his finger to his lips to silence her, and opened the door.

“Conor-boy, I need to say something.”

“Shhhh!” He tiptoed out to the head of the stairs, listened, and whispered, “Nobody's around. Let's go.”

“I'm around,” Glennie said, coming up the stairs. “Where you going?”

Conor gave her a frantic hand waggle. “Shhh! I'm taking Ashling to see Grump.”

“Why?”

“He wants to meet her. Because . . . because of the IRA.” He didn't look at Glennie to see whether she bought that idea. Better not to know. “Where's Dad?”

“Right here.” His father appeared in the downstairs hall. “What's up?”

Conor shut his bedroom door, brain frozen. “Uh.”

Glennie smirked at him. “Hi, Dad. We want to go ride bikes.”

“I dunno, kids. Grump's sort of a sick puppy right now. We probably should be on hand in case he needs—”

“We want to ride our bikes to the hospital,” Glennie said. “To see him.”

“Are you nuts?” Conor muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Dad looked stricken. “Aw, kids, I don't think your mom would like that.”

“We'll take the bus then. We want to see Grump.”
Smart,
Conor thought. Glennie had started with the really forbidden thing, then dropped back to something that seemed safe by comparison.

“It's across the bridge,” Dad said. “Your mom won't want you going over there by yourselves.”

“But . . . but I want to see Grump.” Glennie's lower lip began to quiver. Conor leaned against the wall to watch her work.

“Your mom'll be home in a couple hours,” Dad said. “We'll drive over then.”

“I want to see him
now,
” Glennie wailed. She hiccupped—hiccups always preceded her sobbing routine. She hiccupped again. Then a third time. “Two hours might be too late.” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.

“Aw, honey.” Dad hustled up the stairs and put his arms around Glennie. She kept her face in her hands—lately, she'd been having trouble summoning actual tears. (She blamed puberty.) “He's not
that
sick, Glennie.”