Underworld (13 page)

John laid a hand on my shoulder. “Go see your mother,” he whispered in my ear.

“I want to make sure Alex is all right,” I whispered back, watching Uncle Chris intently. No one seemed to be picking up on Alex’s end.

“I’ll do that,” John said. “You go.”

I knew he was right. I turned and climbed the stairs to the second floor, just as my uncle’s voice said, “Alex? It’s Dad.”

I felt my shoulders sag with relief. So, that was all right. Uncle Chris would make Alex come home, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore … just my new life as queen of the Underworld. Great.

Upstairs, I could hear the shower in my mom’s bathroom still running. My dad and I had always joked that for someone who was so environmentally conscious, Mom was the biggest hot water waster in our family, taking the world’s longest showers.

I went to stand in my bedroom doorway, looking at my room for what I knew was most likely the last time. This was going to be my only opportunity to pick up anything I wanted to take back with me to the Underworld.

What do you pack for eternity? My gaze roved the room. The only jewelry that held any sentimental value to me was the necklace I was already wearing around my neck. I’d never collected stuffed animals or designer clothes or shoes or anything like that. Really, my room was kind of empty, except for my laptop and the books on my bookshelves. John had already said he’d get me whatever books I needed, and it wasn’t like there was a web to surf in the Underworld. The only difficulty, really, was my music. I had all the songs I liked stored on my phone. But what about when the charge ran out? And how was I going to download
new
music?

I’d never considered a life without music, although I supposed deaf people got along without it. And if Mr. Graves could get along without
seeing
, I could certainly get along without iTunes.

I shoved thoughts of music from my head and went to my closet and looked inside. There was one thing … the white dress I’d worn to the Welcome to Isla Huesos party Mom had thrown for me. John had liked how I looked in it so much, he’d asked me to wear it on our first date … a date we’d never had a chance to have because of Jade being murdered, and then my grandma trying to kill me.

I took the dress from the closet.

Then my gaze came to rest on a photo in a silver frame on my nightstand. It was of me and my mom and dad in happier times, before the divorce, before the accident, which I now knew hadn’t been an accident at all.

I picked it up. The dress and the photo were all I would take, I decided. In fact …

I sat down on my bed, then opened my book bag. Now was a good time to divest myself of things I
didn’t
need, things that were only weighing me down in my new life, like my econ textbook and school notebooks. I didn’t need my pill case, either. I knew from the dozens of doctors I’d seen after my accident that I was supposed to take my pills for all the aftereffects I’d suffered from what my grandmother had done to me — pills to wake me up, and pills to put me to sleep, and pills to help with the headaches from the pills that woke me up and put me to sleep.

Since finding myself in the Underworld, however, I’d taken no pills, and had no trouble waking up or falling asleep.

Maybe what I needed — what I’d always needed — was not pills, but to find my true place in the world … which was a completely different world than this one.

It was as I was digging through my leather bag that I realized someone had actually
added
to the assorted junk I’d been carrying around. Which explained why my bag had felt a little heavier when Mr. Smith had handed it to me in the yard outside his office.

I was surprised to pull out the bag of birdseed I’d found in the kitchen of the cemetery sexton’s cottage.
I
hadn’t put it there. Mr. Smith must have.

That wasn’t all, though. Beneath the bag was a book.

It was small but thick, the brown hardcover showing its age in the flaking gold script across the front,
A History of the Isle of Bones
. When I opened it, the sepia-colored pages gave off a scent vaguely reminiscent of vanilla wafers, an odor I’d always loved, because it reminded me of being taken as a child to the children’s section of the library for storytime. It was the smell of books.

Of course. This was the book Mr. Smith had said he was going to give me, about the
Liberty
. He must have put it, along with the birdseed, in my bag when he’d gone inside to call the ambulance. I suppose he thought he was being a “Fate” — doing something kind.

A History of the Isle of Bones
was four hundred and fifty-six pages long.

“Seriously?” I said in disbelief, forgetting where I was. “He couldn’t have given me the abridged version?”

“Pierce?”

It was my mother.

M
y mother’s voice was coming from across the hall.

Realizing I could no longer hear the sound of water running, I got up from the bed and hurried to the hallway. My mother’s bedroom door was open just enough for me to be able to see that she was wearing the soft, fluffy bathrobe I’d given her last Mother’s Day. I felt a pang when I saw it, and had to restrain myself from running towards her and flinging myself into her arms.

Because her next words stopped me cold.

“Zack, how can you even say such a thing?” my mother asked in an agitated voice as she squeezed the ends of her long, dark hair with a towel. “I refuse to believe Pierce would ever
run away
, especially with a boy.”

She was on the phone. And she was talking to my father. Arguing with my father, actually. About me.

Well, what else was new? Their arguments about me, starting from the time of my accident, for which my mom had always somewhat irrationally blamed my father — though it was my own fault, not Dad’s, that I’d died. Oh, and Grandma’s — were what had ended their marriage.

But where had my father gotten the idea that I’d run away?

“When? When did this happen?” my mom demanded, going to sit on her bed. She looked upset. “When did Pierce call you and say she wanted to leave Isla Huesos?”

Standing in the shadows of the hallway, I felt my heart skip a beat. Oh, God, of course … the phone call I’d placed to my father a few nights earlier, when I’d seen the Coffin Night supplies in our garage … and learned the truth about my necklace.

And John.

That had been
before
, though, when I’d been unhappy and overwhelmed and — I might as well admit it — scared to death. I was still scared, of course, and a little overwhelmed, and I certainly wasn’t always happy.

But I didn’t want to leave Isla Huesos anymore … or John.

It sounded like my mother was on my side, though.

“Zack, that was her first day at a brand-new school,” Mom said, into the phone. “It’s natural she called and asked you if she could come home. The counselors at New Pathways said she might. Every student feels insecure and miserable their first day at a new school. That
doesn’t
mean she’s run away. What about that boy on the security tape? Pierce didn’t look as if she was going with him willingly. And he punched my mother, you know.”

My father must have made some kind of colorful remark about that — there’d never been any love lost between him and Grandma — since I heard my mother inhale, then sarcastically reply, “Yes, well, I understand
you’ve
always wanted to punch my mother, Zack, but that doesn’t make me think that boy is someone whose company Pierce would keep. Did you
see
him? I know the photo was grainy, but he looks like one of those death metal goth heads, or whatever they’re called. All dressed in black with long hair —”

I took umbrage at my mother describing my boyfriend this way. John was the Lord of the Underworld. How else was he supposed to dress?

“And why are you only telling me about this phone call from her
now
?” Mom wanted to know.

She had switched the phone on to speaker, probably because my dad’s remark about her mother had agitated her so much, she needed to do something else while she listened to the rest of what he had to say … which in this case was stand up and rub the towel vigorously through her damp hair. Although my mom liked to think I’d inherited my attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity from my dad, she was the one who had all the track, tennis, and academic decathlon trophies from high school. A guidance counselor had once told me that there were many high achievers with ADHD. They’d just learned to hyperfocus their tremendous amounts of energy, the way my mom had.

“— because I didn’t want to upset you.” My father’s booming voice — strong and deep and sounding slightly harassed, as always — filled the room. “I know how hard you’ve tried with her, Deborah. But there’s been no trace of them, no sightings, no ransom request, nothing. Taking into consideration her phone call the other night to me, asking if she could come home, and the fact that there was always something a little squirrelly about the Mueller case —”

Mom looked up from her toweling, astonished. “That pathetic teacher of hers who poor Hannah Chang was having the affair with? Zack, that was ages ago. What has that got to do with anything?”

“The police never believed Mueller’s story that it was Pierce who broke his hand that day at the school.” My father’s voice was flat … but I could hear in it an undertone of anxiety. “Mueller’s a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound man. How’s an average-size high-school girl like our daughter going to get the advantage over a thirty-year-old man that size,
and
walk away without a scratch on her? The cops have always thought there was a boyfriend involved, Deborah.”

“A boyfriend?” My mom laughed. I was a little insulted by her incredulous tone. “Pierce doesn’t have a boyfriend, Zack.”

“Naturally she would never admit it,” Dad said, “because she wants to protect him, but we have to face facts. There might
always
have been a boyfriend.”

Hearing this, my mom let go of the towel and sank back down onto her bed, dropping her head into one hand. “Oh, God,” she said with a groan.

I longed to burst into her room and cry, “It’s true! I do have a boyfriend! But he’s not a death metal goth head, whatever that is. He’s protector of the dead, so okay, he has some issues, but who doesn’t? Once you get to know him, you’ll really like him.”

Only how could I? Especially since I’d
already
told them about John — as soon as I’d been resuscitated from being dead — and the description hadn’t been the most flattering. I’d said there’d been a boy — a horrible boy who’d tried to hold me prisoner in the Underworld. Mom and Dad had thought I was crazy, of course, and had sent me to talk to a million shrinks who had
also
thought I was crazy … only they’d called it something more polite, lucid dreaming.

What were they going to think if I told them I was now in love with this boy? That I was crazier than ever. Oh, why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut?

“That composite sketch they’ve made of the face of the boy your mother claims hit her,” my father went on, the skepticism in his voice evident. “My contacts say no one recognizes him. He’s not from around there … or at least doesn’t go to the high school or community college, hasn’t paid any visits to the local men’s detention center lately, and hasn’t been seen at any of the local watering holes.”

“What does that mean?” my mom asked bewilderedly.

“It means that it all fits,” my dad said. “Maybe Pierce met him in Connecticut — who knows where — and he followed her down to Florida, and when things at that public school where you sent her didn’t work out — I warned you about that, Deborah — she decided to run away with him. And now the two of them are hiding out in some cheap motel because they know how much trouble they’re in. It’s the only scenario that makes sense.”

Hiding out in some cheap motel with a boy? Did my parents really think I would do something that immature and, I’m sorry, completely
skanky
?

“And I’ll tell you what,” my father was going on. “If it’s true, the second she shows her face, I’m packing her straight off to boarding school, I don’t care what you say. That one in Switzerland that I showed you, remember the brochure? None of this would be happening if you’d let me send her there like I wanted to.”

“I realize that now,” my mom said … which was a huge concession for her. She hardly ever admitted my dad was right about anything. “Where are you, anyway?”

There were sounds of muffled movement, like someone leaning to look out the window of a car … or a limo. Then my dad said, “Mile marker twenty-five. So I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“Oh, Zack,” my mother said, looking dejected. “Hurry. At this point I can only hope you’re right and she
has
run off with a boy and isn’t lying dead out there in the mangroves somewhere. If that’s where she is … I just don’t know how I’m going to — to —”

“I know.” My dad’s voice had changed. He was speaking in a tone I hadn’t heard him use in a long, long time. It was almost … gentle. “I’d much rather have it be this than the alternative, Debbie.”

I saw my mom turn her head towards the phone, startled. No one called my mom Debbie. She
hated
being called Debbie. It was always either Deb or Deborah, but never Debbie. She’d only ever allowed my father to call her that, a sort of pet name between the two of them, in their tenderer moments.

But Dad hadn’t called her Debbie since … well, I couldn’t remember the last time. Before my accident, when all the fighting between them started.

Tears glistening in her eyes, my mother picked up the phone, turned it off speaker, and cradled the receiver to her ear, all of her attention now hyperfocused on their conversation.

“Oh, Zack,” she said, and then began to murmur endearments that I knew instinctively were not for me to hear. Not that any of their conversation had been for me to hear, but the words she was saying were private.

I shrank slowly back into my room, careful not to make a sound, grateful for the thickness of the carpets — hand-woven by a women’s cooperative — Mom’s decorator had imported all the way from Kabul.

So this was how it was. My parents were on the brink of reuniting, bonding over their combined concern over my disappearance. I could burst into my mom’s room with a big, “Guess what? I’m home!” and ruin it.

Or I could just stay missing, since my parents were planning to send me off to boarding school in Switzerland anyway, and let nature take its course.

Of the two choices, I preferred the latter.

Uncle Chris had already seen me. But Uncle Chris wasn’t like other adults. He hadn’t demanded the kind of explanations my mother and father would, because Uncle Chris was too damaged from his years in prison to think the way normal parents did.

More than anything, I longed to go into my mother’s bedroom, give her a big, reassuring hug, and tell her everything was going to be all right. Except I knew that, like John had predicted, she was only going to want me to stay, and I couldn’t. I also couldn’t tell her that everything was going to be all right, because I didn’t know that it was.

Maybe it would be better for everyone — with my father arriving in half an hour, and he and my mom seeming to be getting along so well — if I stayed missing.

So I went over to my bed, opened one of my school notebooks, and jotted a quick letter.

Dear Mom,
I wrote,
I’m sorry about everything. It’s too complicated to explain, but I’m fine, and with someone I love. Please tell Dad hi, and that I’m the one who hit Grandma. He was right about her. You should listen to him, she’s a liar and not as great as you think. I love and miss you both. Be happy.

Love,

Pierce

P.S. My boyfriend’s name is John, and he’s very nice.

I knew it was a terrible thing to do, leaving a letter instead of personally saying good-bye. But I also felt it was kinder … and quicker. Long explanations — like the truth — would be useless. My mother was a scientist. She believed in things she could analyze, like the mating and migration habits of birds. Predation and competition, endangerment and extinction, those were things she could understand.

She would never understand this.

I left the note on the middle of my bed where she’d be sure to find it, and had stuffed the dress and picture in its frame into my bag and was creeping down the stairs when I ran into John, coming up to find me.

I put a finger to my lips and pointed towards my mother’s bedroom. Her door was still ajar. Evening had fallen, casting the first floor of the house into shadows. My mom had switched on her bedroom light, and it threw a warm slice of yellow across the red carpets from Afghanistan.

“How did it go?” John whispered.

“I couldn’t face her,” I whispered back. “I left her a note instead. I think she’s going to be fine.” My dad would make sure of that. “Did Uncle Chris find Alex?”

He nodded and took my arm, his gentlemanly instincts kicking in as he helped guide me down the stairs. I guess he forgot I wasn’t wearing a long dress with a train that I might accidentally trip over.

“Yes,” he said. “He’s still outside on the deck, speaking to him by phone. It looks as if we’ll have to go get him. He won’t come home.”

I paused on the steps. “What do you mean, Alex
won’t
come home?”

“Your uncle told him you’re back, and that he wants him to come home.” John looked down at me, his expression grimly serious. “He also mentioned it’s apparently going to be very bad tonight after midnight, because of the storm.” I had to suppress a smile. Uncle Chris was obsessed with the weather. “But your cousin has told his father that he doesn’t
want
to come home,” John went on. “And your uncle says that’s fine.”

“
Fine?
” I shook my head. “Why would he say that?”

John shrugged, still looking grim. “Your uncle says he doesn’t want to make your cousin angry.”

Comprehension dawned. “Uncle Chris was in jail for a long time,” I said. “He feels guilty about missing so much of Alex’s childhood. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy —”

“Interesting way of showing it,” John said wryly. “In any case, your cousin says he’s at —”

Hope chose that moment to show up, swooping in from nowhere with a noisy patter of wings, and buzzing in front of me and John like an angry hornet.

I reached out and closed my hands gently over her body, surprised that she allowed herself to be captured at all, and even more surprised that she didn’t struggle. Only the fact that I could feel her heart drumming so frantically against my fingers through her fragile ribs gave away her consternation about the situation.