Meg Cabot - Awaken

“Pierce,” Mr. Smith said, looking down at me. The brim of his straw fedora shaded his face a bit, but I could see I’d startled him. “Where did you come —” Then he noticed my bike lying on the ground. “Oh, I see. What were you saying about Chief Santos?”

“He’s right behind me. They’re going to have trouble getting through, though, because of this guy with a chain saw … oh, whatever, it’s a long story. It’s really weird, all day total strangers have been going out of their way to —”

I broke off, realizing with a start why the eyes of the young girl in the Daddy’s Little Princess shirt had looked familiar to me. She had eyes like Mr. Smith’s … even though hers had been blue, and Mr. Smith’s eyes were brown. Still, they both had a strange sort of knowingness to them and were filled with kindness.

Now that I thought of it, the guard’s eyes at the gatehouse at Dolphin Key had looked the same way. So had the eyes of Yellow Vest, back at the dead sapodilla.

“Mr. Smith,” I said, squinting in the sun. “Something weird is going on. Do you have any idea why a bunch of total strangers would risk their lives or jobs to help another total stranger?”

The cemetery sexton’s kind eyes narrowed beneath his hat brim. I saw him glance towards the ravens whirling around above our heads. He whispered something.

“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly, but I almost thought he said the word fates.

He glanced back down at me. “Nothing. Only that there might be hope after all,” he said.

“Hope?” I shaded my eyes to look up at the sky, excited, thinking he meant my bird. “Where?”

“Not that kind of hope,” he said, with a tiny smile. “Only that all might not yet be lost.”

I lowered my head to look back at him. “Mr. Smith,” I said. “I think maybe you should sit down and have some water. You’ve been standing out in the heat for too long.”

He nodded. “Maybe I have. I see you’re not wearing a bicycle helmet.” But he pointed at my chest, not my head. “As usual.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t hear me before, but I had more important things to worry about, such as running from the cops and not being shot. Mr. Smith, why are you sweeping all these poinciana blossoms from the front of John’s tomb? He likes them. And don’t you have more important things to do? A tree crashed through the roof of your office, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed,” he said. “I’m extremely observant, unlike some people I might mention.”

“Nice,” I said. “Nice way to talk to me considering everything I’ve been through, saving John’s life and this island and all of that. No need to thank me, even though it turned out Thanatos was Seth Rector, and I killed him. Not that that matters to you, evidently. But whatever.”

Mr. Smith looked slightly paler under his brown skin. “You killed him?”

“Thanatos,” I assured him. “Not Seth. He’s still alive and well and pressing charges against me — and John — for assault. Why? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Mr. Smith said. “Only … it explains a lot.”

“A lot about what? Was I not supposed to kill him? I wondered about that, but I couldn’t help it, he was such a jerk.”

“Thanatos takes on the personality traits of the person he possesses,” Mr. Smith said. There was something a bit mournful in his tone. “If he was possessing Seth Rector he would, I suppose, seem like a jerk.”

I couldn’t help noticing that Mr. Smith’s gaze was all over the place, on me one second, the ravens the next, the poinciana blossoms beneath his feet the next. What was he looking for? That reminded me of something.

“Have you seen Frank and Kayla?” I asked, glancing around, but still seeing only family members carrying gardening tools with which to tidy up their loved ones’ vaults. “They were supposed to be stopping by your place to drop the car off, then meet us here.”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said shortly. “I’ve seen them.”

“You have?” I glanced back at him, surprised. “Where are they?”

There was definitely something off about Mr. Smith, besides the weird things he was saying. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, precisely. He looked as well put together as ever, in a pressed white shirt, sporty green bow tie, and trim khakis, his gold-rimmed spectacles sparkling in the sun.

But I saw that he was clutching the broom handle much more tightly than necessary.

“Oh,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.”

“Mr. Smith,” I said, beginning to feel less relieved at seeing him and more disturbed. It was hard to explain, but in the stillness of the cemetery — the police sirens had been cut off, and all I could hear was the occasional distant cackle of a raven — I’d begun to feel almost as if someone was watching us … someone besides the birds overhead. “What is it? Did something happen to Kayla? To John?” My pulse sped up a little. “Has John been here? Because I’m supposed to meet up with him here, too. Did he say something to you? Did something go wrong with the —”

“No,” Mr. Smith cut me off, a little rudely, I thought. He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out one of his ubiquitous handkerchiefs. “No, no, John hasn’t been here. Everything’s wonderful. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Everything was not wonderful.

I knew that because not only would Mr. Smith never use a word like wonderful — I was pretty certain he’d consider wonderful the equivalent of awesome , a word he’d once said was overused by my generation — but he lifted the handkerchief to mop some sweat from his forehead.

No matter what the weather, I’d never seen Mr. Smith sweat … not unless he was extremely uncomfortable, like if I was asking him about the possibility of getting pregnant in the Underworld.

But if he was so uncomfortable, why wasn’t the cemetery sexton telling me what the matter was?

I saw his gaze dart again to my chest, the way it had when he’d mentioned my helmet.

Only then did I know what was wrong, and I didn’t have to follow his gaze to see what it was.

My diamond was black. There was a Fury around … maybe more than one. Mr. Smith knew it, but hadn’t said anything to warn me.

There could be only one explanation as to why. I saw it in the way his hand trembled as he put the handkerchief back into his pocket. The truth hit me like a slap in the face.

Mr. Smith was afraid. And for Mr. Smith to be afraid, something had to be seriously wrong. Both the cemetery sexton and myself were NDEs. We knew what it was like to die, so death didn’t frighten either of us terribly much. I wouldn’t say Mr. Smith had enjoyed dying, but I knew for certain he longed to go to the Underworld again, because he didn’t remember his journey there. He’d always been a little jealous of the fact that I did, even though I hadn’t liked it.

No, Richard Smith didn’t fear death … not for himself.

But he was definitely afraid of death — or possibly something worse — now. What was it?

Without changing my tone or looking around, I slowly began to unhook the whip that still sat on my belt.

“So you know what John and I did last night after I rescued him?” I asked him conversationally.

“I cannot even begin to imagine,” the cemetery sexton said, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“We went back to my mom’s house,” I said, “snuck into my room, and made sweet love all night.”

“That’s simply wonderful,” Mr. Smith said. His head looked like it was about to explode not only from the effort he was making not to chastise me for my irresponsible behavior, but because of his fear. Trickles of perspiration were flowing down the sides of his face, and there was a smile frozen on his lips. “Simply wonderful.”