Meg Cabot - Awaken

“I hate to leave her like this,” John said, looking down at my grandmother, who seemed to be only half conscious. She was murmuring something about having to get back to the shop to do inventory. “But we’ve got a lot more Furies to get rid of.”

“We’re on it,” Reed said with a wicked grin, shouldering his harpoon gun. Chloe had to drag Typhon away, but he found plenty of sport chasing Furies through the cemetery. To him it seemed like a game — much as it did to Henry, who rushed off with his slingshot, with which he’d found many rocks to fill. The dog was so large and frightening-looking, many of the Furies simply dropped their weapons and ran off at the sight of him.

“We’ll stay with her,” Mrs. Engle volunteered, kneeling at my grandmother’s side. “Won’t we, dear?”

She held out a hand for Mr. Graves, who took it and knelt down beside her. “We will,” he said. “You lot go on. I know you have much to do.”

I was too busy with the task I was performing in my lap to realize at first what I’d seen. Then I lifted my head and said in disbelief, “Mr. Graves. You took Mrs. Engle’s hand. You saw her hand .”

John had risen to go back to the task of fighting Furies, as well. But he froze when he heard these words and spun around.

Mr. Graves looked sheepish. “Now, now,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t get too excited. I’ve been seeing shadows for some time. I didn’t want to tell you and get everyone too hopeful —”

“But that’s amazing!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet.

“They’re only shadows,” he said. “Maybe my sight will improve over time, maybe it won’t.” Then he lifted his head to peer in my direction. “But I will say, you’re quite a bit smaller than I thought you’d be, considering the volume of your voice. Wherever you were in the castle, I could always seem to hear you. It’s remarkable. I thought you’d be a much larger girl.”

I wasn’t certain this was a compliment.

My grandmother groaned and reached out to take Mr. Smith’s hand.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “Perhaps I’d better stay, as well.”

I turned my disbelieving eyes to him. “After what she did to Patrick?”

He looked uncomfortable. “She wasn’t herself. And I owe it to your grandfather. We were friends, and … I should have looked after her a little more closely after his death.” He squeezed my grandmother’s hands. “As a religious but not very intellectually curious woman, the discovery that there exists a world beyond ours that isn’t the traditionally taught heaven and hell must have been deeply disturbing to her. Of course, to her, that world would have seemed very threatening, and so that world would have needed destroying, along with John. Oh, she’s waking up. How are you, Mrs. Cabrero?”

My grandmother blinked at him and said vaguely, “What? Oh, hello, Richard. How are you today?” like they’d run into one another at the grocery store. Her gaze flicked right past Mr. Graves and Mrs. Engle, since she didn’t know them, but when she noticed John and me, her mouth flattened into a thin line of disapproval.

“You two,” she said. She looked — and sounded — angry, but more like a prissy grandmother than someone possessed by an evil spirit. “When I get you home, young lady, we are going to have a thing or two to discuss with your mother. Having boys over all night long! I never heard of such thing. Why, in my day —”

I glanced at John in alarm. His eyes were wide.

“Hmmm,” Mr. Smith said, gently setting down my grandmother’s hand and giving her shoulder a pat. “I see that without a demon controlling her mind, Mrs. Cabrero’s reverted back to her, er, more conservative, religious roots. Perhaps taunting her about your sexual relationship with John wasn’t the best way to handle that situation earlier.”

“You did what ?” John had stood to hit a Fury who’d come storming up. He was way more shocked over what Mr. Smith had said than the fact that the Fury had been carrying a pitchfork.

“I didn’t know she was there!” I protested.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Engle said, and turned pink. Mr. Graves put his arm around her and looked rightfully outraged.

“I suppose your mother will think it’s all right,” Grandma went on in a critical tone. “She’s always had modern ideas. But this is a small town, and people talk. I won’t have my only granddaughter behaving like a slattern.”

“I won’t have her behaving like a slattern, either, Mrs. Cabrero,” John said earnestly. “I keep asking her to marry me, but she won’t.”

“John,” I cried. Now I was the one who was outraged.

“Well, that’s more like it,” my grandmother said, seeming pleased. “A young man with proper Christian morals, in this day and age? That’s what I like to see. Though he’ll have to get a haircut, Pierce, whoever he is. He looks like one of those dirty hippies that ride their motorcycles around downtown, making all that racket.”

“Oh, my God , no,” I said with a groan, as John looked confused and asked, “What’s a hippie?”

With all this drama, it was almost easy to forget there was a Fury war going on … at least until Kayla walked up to us, dragging behind her the shovel Mike had dropped.

“Here,” she said, handing it unceremoniously to Mr. Smith. “You’re an undertaker, right? You should be good with this.”

“Cemetery sexton,” Mr. Smith said, looking nervous. “I’m a cemetery sexton, actually. Undertakers and cemetery sextons are two different things.”

“Whatever,” Kayla said. She had a dazed look on her face. “Start digging.”

“And, uh, why should I do that?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Because I’m about to murder someone, so we’re gonna need a grave.”

She walked over to Mike’s prone body, then raised the knife I’d confiscated from my grandmother, ready to plunge it into the back of the handyman’s neck.

“He killed Frank,” Kayla said simply. “He should pay.”

The knife was on a downward swing when I went rushing towards her, crying, “Kayla, no!”

It was John who stopped her. He flung an arm around her waist and swung her bodily off her feet, pulling her from Mike’s side and startling her so badly, she screamed and dropped the knife. It fell to the ground below, landing in the poincianas that lay in such a thick cushion, the metal blade didn’t even make a sound against the paved path.

“Kayla,” John said, keeping a gentle but restraining hold on her as she struggled to escape him and retrieve the knife. “I understand how you feel, but that’s not the way.”

“Why not?” Kayla asked, looking furious as she squirmed in his grip. “Frank’s dead. He killed him.”

John’s face went slack with shock at the news.

I thought he’d known, but it was clear from his expression that he hadn’t. Kayla’s words seemed to have been almost a physical blow to him. Unfortunately, much as I wanted to put my arms around him to comfort him in his grief, this was not the time for that.

“We’ll fix it,” John said to Kayla, taking her by both arms and giving her a little shake, since holding her had done no good. His heartache and desperation were obvious both in his tone and the tightness of his grip on her. “I swear, Kayla. I’ll find a way to fix it.”

“John.” I laid a hand upon his shoulder. I didn’t want him to make promises he couldn’t keep, especially not to someone I cared about as much as Kayla. “I killed Thanatos. Remember?”

John’s gaze met mine and held it. Around us was chaos — the shrieking of the increasingly agitated birds overhead, coupled with the shrieks of the Furies as they battled, Typhon’s ferocious barking, the mad whinnies of Alastor, the rushing of the steadily growing wind in the few palm fronds that remained in the trees, and Kayla’s sobs.