Awaken

20

And light I saw in fashion of a river

Fulvid with its effulgence, ’twixt two banks

Depicted with an admirable Spring.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXX

Sunlight streamed through the slats in the storm shutters, making cheerful patterns across my walls.

I heard birdsong outside, as well. I hadn’t heard birds singing while the hurricane was blowing. I could also hear the steady hum of the air conditioner. That meant the power was back on. My room was cold enough that I needed to pull the down comforter up over my bare shoulders and snuggle closer to John for warmth.

The storm was over. It was morning. And I was in my own room, in my own bed, next to John.

Then a coldness that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning gripped me.

The storm was over. It was morning. And I was in my room, next to John.

We’d fallen asleep. After I’d told him not to let me fall asleep, he’d not only let me fall asleep, he’d fallen asleep himself. He lay beside me in a chaotic scatter of throw pillows, the comforter half on, half off him — but mostly off — his bare chest rising and falling deeply, dead to the world.

Probably not the best choice of words.

But I had the feeling he was going to wish he was dead to the world when he woke up and saw who stood in the open doorway a few feet away, holding a steaming cup of coffee and staring at the two of us in complete and utter shock.

“Mom,” I said, sitting bolt upright in bed. “This is not what it looks like.”

“Isn’t it?” my mother asked in an icy cold voice. She was wearing the fluffy bathrobe I’d given her for Mother’s Day. “Because I have the feeling it’s exactly what it looks like.”

I threw the comforter over John, as if, were he hidden from view, he would no longer exist. Perhaps he’d get the clue, wake up, and blink himself somewhere else. It would be the best thing that could happen.

Unfortunately, the lumps beneath the comforter stayed exactly where they were, except that they began to move slightly.

“Actually,” I said, “it’s kind of a funny story.”

“Is it?” Mom asked. “Your letter to me was far from humorous.”

John threw the comforter from his head and chest and stood up. Thankfully, he was wearing his jeans, although I didn’t know how or when he’d pulled them back on.

“I’m very sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, ma’am,” he said, extending his right hand. “My name is John Hayden. I’m very much in love with your daughter.”

I don’t know why John didn’t simply grab my hand and blink us somewhere else, the way he had the last time we’d encountered my mother. I supposed it had something to do with what he’d said the night before, about wanting to be open with my parents, and also probably something to do with the fact that no one was actually trying to kill us.

He didn’t know my mom very well.

Her dark eyes widened to their limits. She did not shake John’s hand.

“Pierce, I’d like you and your friend,” she said, stressing the word friend as if it tasted unpleasant in her mouth, “to get fully dressed and then come downstairs so your father and I can discuss a few things with him.”

Now it was my turn to widen my eyes. “Dad? He’s here?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” my mother said, “making waffles. Or at least he was. Right now he’s on the phone with his lawyers, since I just received a somewhat disturbing phone call from Seth Rector’s father, complaining that you and — John, is it?” She gave John a skeptical look, as if she doubted that was his real name. “That you and John assaulted his son last night at some party. What you were even doing at a party in the middle of a Category Three hurricane, I don’t care to know, let alone why you assaulted him. But Mr. Rector fully intends to press charges.” She sighed. “Another name to add to the long list of people you’ve struck in the face, including your own grandmother.”

My jaw dropped.

“You’ve got to believe me, Mom,” I said. “Those are all lies. Everything Seth is saying is a lie, and everything Grandma said is a lie, too. Like I said in the letter I left you, I wasn’t kidnapped. Grandma tried to kill me. Twice. John is the one who saved me —”

My mother had already started shaking her head.

“Pierce,” she said. “Please. I’m so tired of all this. I don’t know what your father and I ever did to make you so unhappy. Maybe we weren’t the best role models, and Lord knows we went through a rough patch. But it isn’t fair of you to take it out on innocent people like Seth and your grandmother —”

“Innocent?” I burst out. “You’ve got it all wrong, Mom. John saved me from them. He saved me from Mr. Mueller, too. I can prove it. Remember the shadow on the security tape from my school in Westport? That was him. That was John. He saved me from Mr. Mueller again last night.”

Mom’s expression changed. Her mouth, which had tightened into a thin, disapproving line — she usually wore lipstick but obviously wasn’t wearing any this early in the morning — fell open. I saw the hand she’d kept wrapped around the coffee mug tremble slightly, and she reached out to clutch the doorknob to my room, as if to steady herself.

“Mr. Mueller?” she echoed faintly, her gaze flicking from me to John. “They just said something on the news about how there was only a single fatality in the area from last night’s storm … a Mark Mueller of Connecticut who was struck by a falling tree. But surely … that couldn’t be the same Mark Mueller as —”

“It was, ma’am,” John said gravely. “You can ask Mr. Richard Smith. He’ll tell you that it’s true. I believe he’s an acquaintance of your father’s —”

“That crazy old cemetery sexton who was so rude to me that first day of school?” My mom looked at me like I was the one she thought was crazy. “What’s he got to do with any of this?”

“You can just ask Alex, Mom,” I said. “He was there, too.”

“Alex?” My mother’s hand shook some more. “You know where Alex is? He hasn’t been answering his cell. His father’s frantic —”

“I do know where he is.” John stepped forward and neatly rescued the drooping mug from her hand, before she’d spilled a single drop. “Not to worry, Alex has been with us.” John didn’t add the part about Alex’s having been murdered, then revived. “Why don’t we go downstairs so we can talk about this with your husband —”

“Ex-husband,” Mom said like someone in a daze, as John took her by the elbow. “Pierce’s father and I are divorced. But we’re reconciling —”

“What?” I’d shuffled from the bed, wrapped in my comforter, to rifle through my closet in search of something to wear. Hearing the bombshell Mom had just dropped, however, I nearly dropped the comforter.

“We still have a lot of things to work through. Obviously.” Mom shot me another disapproving look, no doubt because she’d seen what I had on beneath the comforter, which wasn’t much. “And the last thing we need right now is to become grandparents, so I hope the two of you are at least using protection.”

I blanched. I’d forgotten all about that particular detail during the storm, what with all the love talk, and the thunder, and the nearly having gotten killed a few hours earlier. What had I been thinking? Or, more accurately, not thinking? Mr. Smith had said he’d never heard of a death deity capable of siring children … but what if that was only because the Underworld was so inhospitable to new life? He’d said nothing of what might happen outside the Underworld.

Fortunately John could not know what she was talking about. They didn’t have protection — at least the reliable kind my mom was referring to — back when he’d been alive.

“It’s all right, Dr. Cabrero,” he said soothingly. The doctor was a nice touch. It made up for all the ma’ams. Mom hated it when boys ma’amed her. “We’re going to be married, just as soon as your daughter will have me.”

Oh, my God.

“Zack!” my mother began to shout hoarsely. She turned and ran from the bedroom. “Zachary!”

Furious, I let the comforter drop and from the closet ripped the first dress I touched.

“Are you crazy?” I hissed at John, pulling the dress over my head, then searching for a pair of sandals. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

“They’re your parents,” John said. He’d found his shirt and was tugging it on. “They deserve to know the truth.”

“The truth? That I have to live eighteen hundred miles below the earth, with a bunch of dead people, for the rest of eternity? How well do you think that’s going to go over?”

“They love you,” he said, following me as I darted into the hallway and started down the stairs. “They’ll understand.”

“You don’t know my parents,” I said. “I’ve been trying to tell them the truth about you since the day I died and met you, and all it’s gotten me is a lot of appointments with a bunch of shrinks. They are not going to believe the truth about you, and they are not going to let me be with you.”

On the landing, John caught hold of my arm, then turned me around to face him.

“Pierce,” he said, looking down into my eyes and smiling as he smoothed a dark curl of hair from my forehead. “They can’t stop us from being together. And they will believe you. Because I’m here with you. You’re not alone anymore.”

Though my heart was hammering with fear — a worse kind of fear, in a way, than I’d felt when it was Mr. Mueller who’d stepped into Kayla’s car headlights, or when I’d realized Seth was Thanatos — I smiled tentatively back at him.

John was right. My parents couldn’t stop us from being together. So many people had tried — Furies included. But none of them had succeeded.

“Could someone please explain to me what in the hell is going on here?” I heard a familiar voice bellow from the bottom of the stairs.

I looked down and saw my father standing there wearing a short-sleeved undershirt, a pair of dress slacks, and no shoes.

A significant amount of my fear dissipated as I realized I wasn’t the only female member of the household who’d entertained an overnight guest.

“Wow,” I said, as I slipped my hand into John’s and began walking down the stairs with him. “Did you forget the rest of your suit when you came over for breakfast this morning, Dad? And your shoes? And your belt?”

My mom, who was standing next to my dad, began to blush, but her voice was strong as she said, “I wouldn’t crack jokes right now if I were you, young lady. You’re in very big trouble.”

John squeezed my hand, and when I glanced up at him, he frowned. He didn’t approve of my joke, either. I guess my kite strings were getting pulled.

“Sorry,” I said. When we reached the ground floor and stood before my parents, I said, in what I hoped was a suitably chastened tone, pointing to John, “Dad, this is John Hayden. I’m sure you remember him from various security tapes. John, this is my father, Zack Oliviera.”

“Hello, sir.” John extended his hand towards my dad. “I know you haven’t heard very good things about me, but I can assure you I’m very much in love with your daughter.”

Like Mom, Dad ignored John’s hand. He simply stood staring up at him, John being a few inches taller than he was (something I knew Dad wasn’t going to like, if he hadn’t disliked John enough already).

“I don’t care how much you claim to love my daughter,” Dad said evenly. “I have a nine-shot .22 Magnum upstairs in my briefcase. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go get it and shoot out both your knees so you’ll never walk again.”

“Dad!” I cried, horrified, wrapping both my hands protectively around John’s arm.

“Oh, God,” my mother said, looking sick. “Zack, no — this isn’t what I wanted. I’m calling the police.” She moved towards the kitchen to pick up the portable phone.

“You call the police,” John said, never dropping his gaze from my dad’s, “and the Furies will know your daughter is here. They’re the ones who’ve been trying to kill her.”

My dad’s dark eyebrows lowered into an even deeper scowl. “Oh, sure,” he said scornfully. “The Furies. What are they, part of your druggie gang?”

Only then did John break my father’s stare to glance down at me. “Druggie?” he asked uncertainly.

“Dad,” I cried. Now, instead of clinging to John, I threw myself against my father. I thought my body weight would slow him down if he tried to go for the gun. “You have to listen to me. John didn’t kidnap me. He saved me, because Grandma was trying to kill me. You were right about Grandma all along. She’s a Fury.”

Mom laid down the phone in exasperation. “Now I’ve heard everything. You’re trying to say your grandmother is in a gang?”

“No,” I said desperately. “Well, yes. The Furies aren’t a gang … at least, not the kind you’re thinking of. John isn’t in a gang, either. And he’s not a drug dealer or a death metal goth head.” I sent my mother a narrow-eyed glance, but she appeared to have no memory of ever using that term to describe him. She, along with my father, was listening to me intently. “I’ve been trying to tell you guys for two years what he is, but you wouldn’t listen. Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to believe it myself, but I’m ready now. He’s a death deity. I met him when I died and went to his world … the Underworld.”

Mom pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “Oh, Pierce,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

I didn’t think they were tears of happiness. In fact, I was sure she thought I was losing my mind.

“It’s true,” I said. “He sorts the souls of the recently deceased and sends them to their final destinations. Here, see, he gave me this necklace.” I pulled my diamond from the bodice of my sundress and showed it to my father. “Mom, you’ve seen it before, remember? You asked me where I got it right after I had my surgery. I said it was a gift. Well, it was a gift. John gave it to me when I met him in the Underworld. It protects me. The diamond turns colors when there’s a Fury around, and when I touch a Fury with it, it kills it. It was originally mined by Hades to give to Persephone —”

“That’s enough,” my dad said sharply. He swung around to glare at John, his expression angrier than I’d ever seen it … and Zack Oliviera was famous for his ill temper. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this — money, celebrity, whatever — but you’ve been taking advantage of a mentally ill young woman. That may not be a prosecutable offense, but trust me, by the time I’m through with you, not only will you never walk again, you’ll also never work in this country, or any other —”

Thunder rumbled. It was soft at first, like the sound of an unmuffled motorcycle engine on a neighboring block. But as John’s impatience with my parents grew, so did the sound, until every bit of glassware in my mother’s house was tinkling from the vibration.

“What is that?” she cried. In a panic, she’d thrown her hands over her ears.

“Earthquake?” my dad asked. He tried to steer me from beneath the elaborate wrought iron and crystal chandelier Mom had hanging in the foyer, but I stepped from his reach.

“No,” I said. “It’s him.” I pointed at John. “John, stop it. You’ve made your point.”

My parents hadn’t seemed to have gotten it, however.

“That’s impossible,” my dad said.

“He’s ruler of the Underworld.” I shook my head. Why had I thought reasoning with them would work? “You think he can’t control the weather? John, stop it, please. It’s too much.”

The thunder ceased. But a bolt of bright white lightning cracked from the center of my mother’s living room ceiling to the floor, causing one of her expensive imported carpets to burst into flame.

“I love your daughter,” John said to my stunned parents. “And no one is going to keep us apart. I hope you understand now.”

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said dryly to John as I went to the garage to get the fire extinguisher.