Meg Cabot - Awaken

I wished it almost as much as I wished that Hope would suddenly appear, fluttering her (mostly) pure white wings and fussing about, letting me know all was not lost.

Except that Hope never put in an appearance, even when we finally reached the room John and I shared. I’d been sure I’d find her perched on the back of my dining room chair, fastidiously grooming herself. To my utter disappointment, her perch was empty. She wasn’t there, or anywhere else that I could see.

Not only that, but no fire blazed in the enormous hearth to greet us, as it had every other time I’d walked in. None of the sconces along the passageway had been lit, either. The gleaming silver bowl in the center of the table, normally heaped to overflowing with grapes and peaches and apples and pears, was empty. Even the fountain that usually burbled so animatedly in the courtyard was silent.

All of this, I thought with foreboding, could mean only one thing: The Fates had deserted us.

Tears filled my eyes, but for once I didn’t mind them because they blurred the sight of John’s long-limbed body stretched out beside me, completely still and virtually the same color as the crisp white sheets beneath him.

Thankfully, they also blurred the faces of the people gathered around John’s room and the bed on which he lay, which was a small mercy. What would I want to look at Alex for, as he slouched on the couch and mindlessly (and irritatingly) flipped through the pages of a book he’d found on the nightstand? Zzzzzpppt went the pages. Zzzzzpppt .

Or Chloe as she knelt at the end of John’s bed, murmuring whatever prayers she’d been taught were appropriate to say at someone’s deathbed (which weren’t doing any good, as far as I could tell. John’s eyelids never stirred).

I definitely didn’t need to see Reed, still shirtless and looking all around the room, like, What is this weird place?

I didn’t even want to look at Kayla as she sat beside me, patting me on the shoulder and murmuring over and over again, “Everything’s going to be all right, chickie. Everything’s going to be fine.”

How did that make any sense? Everything clearly wasn’t going to be all right. Nothing was ever going to be all right again.

“Here, dear,” Mrs. Engle said, removing, then replacing, a cup of tea that Henry had thrust into my hands, even though I had never touched it to my lips. She kept refilling it from a pot Henry had brought from the kitchen. Every time the pot ran low, I heard Henry’s overlarge shoes clip-clop against the floor as he shuffled out to refill it. “Try to drink it, won’t you? It will help.”

What was she talking about? Tea wasn’t going to help anything.

Crying helped a little. The tears kept me from seeing the expression on Frank’s face as he mumbled, periodically, “I think I’ll go check on that lot out there in the courtyard,” in a voice so clogged with emotion, I knew he was actually leaving the room so no one would see his tears.

Mr. Liu, meanwhile, sat silent as a stone at the bottom of one of the double sets of curved staircases that led to a set of — locked — doorways back to earth. His brawny arms folded over his chest, his head bowed so low, his long, single black braid had fallen over one shoulder, his face was cast in shadow.

The fact that I knew he, too, was crying — and that the reason Henry kept slipping from the room for more tea wasn’t because anyone wanted it, but so I wouldn’t see his tears — didn’t make it easier to bear.

Maybe because he was a man of science and it was his job to break bad news, Mr. Graves was the only permanent resident of the Underworld not shedding any tears. His words simply caused other people to.

“When I said troubling,” the doctor went on, fumbling to slip his old-fashioned stethoscope into one of the deep pockets of his black coat, “of course what I meant was that it’s troubling in an intellectually curious manner. You see, all of us were granted eternal life, so long as we don’t stray too far from the Underworld. Technically, the captain didn’t do that.”

“But technically ,” Kayla said, “he’s still dead.”

“Well, yes,” Mr. Graves admitted. “I’m afraid that’s true.”

In the brief silence that followed, my personal cell phone buzzed — no doubt I had another text message from the National Weather Service in Isla Huesos — and at the same time, John’s tablet, which was tucked into my sash beside the phone, let out a chime.

No one remarked on this, least of all me. John’s tablet had been doing this at regular intervals — notifying me whenever a new soul had arrived and needed to be sorted.

How John hadn’t been driven witless by these near constant alerts, I had no idea. I was ready to pitch the stupid thing across the room. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t do anything to bring John back.

“So what gives, Doc?” Reed asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Graves looked confused.

“Why’d the dude die?”

“Oh. I’m afraid I don’t know.” Mr. Graves sighed. “I can’t find a wound. No sign of trauma or internal injury. He doesn’t appear to have drowned —”

“Why did he die this time and not before?” I asked, my voice sounding croaky from disuse. “He’s been hurt by Furies plenty of other times, badly” — I kept my gaze averted from the scars on his chest, the scars it seemed a lifetime ago that I’d run my fingers across, making him gasp — “and he didn’t die then. Why this time?”

“I honestly couldn’t say. If I were to perform an autopsy, then of course —”

I dropped the teacup I’d been holding in my hand. It fell to the stone floor, spilling its lukewarm contents, but didn’t shatter.

Before anyone could move to clean the puddle up, however, it was quickly lapped away by John’s massive dog, Typhon, who had stationed himself at the end of John’s bed from the moment they’d lowered him onto it, refusing to move.

A part of me had wondered if the dog’s hot breath might warm some life back into his master. So far, sadly, this hadn’t worked.

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Engle said, stooping to lift the teacup, “it might be better to leave talk of autopsies and such things until we’ve all had time to grieve —”

I wasn’t crying enough to miss the sidelong glance she threw me. By we , she meant me .

“Yeah, Doc,” Alex said. Zzzzzppt went the pages of the book in his fingers. “No offense, but your bedside manner could use a little work.”

“Cabrero,” Kayla said, narrowing her eyes at Alex. “If you do that one more time, I will take that book from you and hit you with it till you’re dead. Again.”

From the wall where he leaned, Reed smirked.

“Please,” Chloe said, miserably, raising her head from her steepled fingers. “Could you please not fight, you guys?”

“No one is fighting,” Mr. Liu said from the staircase where he sat, not lifting his head. “Anymore.”

Alex’s fingers stilled on the book, and he cast Kayla and Reed warning looks. “No. Sorry. No, we’re not.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Oliviera,” Mr. Graves said to me with an apologetic smile. “I simply meant that an autopsy is often the only way to determine the cause of death in cases like this. I certainly wouldn’t perform one on the captain, nor do I recommend digging a grave for him … at least, not yet.”

I raised my head, a twinge — just a tiny one — of hope darting through me.

“Why?” I asked.

“Only that there’s reason,” Mr. Graves said, “to suppose that the captain might wake up.”

“Wherefore, here where thou seest, am I lost … ”