I stopped pacing to stare at him. “Are you purposefully trying to make me throw up?”
“Miss Oliviera, please,” Mr. Smith said, opening his arms wide as if to say, Why are you blaming me for stating the obvious? “I know that to you I must seem sometimes like the silly old man who loves to talk about death deities, but give me some credit for having lived a bit longer than you and having seen a few more things. Yes, storms are damaging, but we need them because they clear away the bracken that prevents new flowers from having a chance to grow. And of course we need the sun to shine on those new flowers that without the storm might never have had a chance to bloom.”
Tears formed again in my eyes. “Stop it.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being silly,” Mr. Smith said. “It’s good to be the storm and be able to defend yourself and others when you have to, but it’s just as good to be the sun … maybe better.”
“I’m not the sun,” I said, reaching up to wipe my tears. “Or springtime, or water, or any of those things. I’ve been told on pretty good authority that I’m a kite with no strings, fueled by anger.”
“Of course you are,” Mr. Smith said, “when John isn’t around. I believe I mentioned that he wasn’t particularly enjoyable company before you came into his life. That’s why it would be nice to get the two of you back together. You really only function well as a pair.”
“Right,” I said in a not very steady voice. “So maybe we should concentrate on figuring out what’s happening in the Underworld.”
“What’s happening in the Underworld is fairly obvious,” Mr. Smith said, peeking inside my tote. My cell phone had begun to ring. “The goal of the Furies has always been to destroy the Underworld. And now that they’ve killed John — or believe they’ve done so, anyway — and crippled the transportation of souls, the only thing that stands in the way of their goal is you. Once you’re gone, there’ll be nothing left of the Isla Huesos Underworld, and your friend Mr. Graves’s prediction will come true: Pestilence will reign here on our once fair isle.”
“So I was right,” I said. “There really is a Fury convention going on out there.” I nodded towards the shuttered windows. “Except the only activity on the agenda is killing me.”
“I would imagine so,” Mr. Smith said, reaching inside my bag. “Unless, of course, we can throw a spanner in the works.”
“What does that mean?”
“Throw a —” He heaved a sigh as he drew out my cell. “Good God, do they teach children nothing in school these days? In olden times, the only way workers in factories could get breaks was if one of them threw a tool into the machinery, causing it to break down. A spanner is a type of tool. The only way we’re going to stop the Furies is if we —”
“I already know,” I said. “Kill Thanatos, bring back John, then find boats to replace the ones we’ve lost.”
“You do understand Thanatos is only a symbol of death, much in the way a white dove is a symbol of hope, or a pomegranate is a symbol for fertili —”
“Someday you and I are going to have a long talk about pomegranates, but not now.” I extended my hand, palm out, towards him. “Give me my phone.”
“Someone named Farah Endicott seems to need you quite urgently,” he said dryly, having glanced at my screen. “Apparently there is a party and you are missing it. She’s attached a very rude photo. Pardon me for having looked, but she uses a font that is extremely large, and quite a lot of what I believe your generation calls emoticons and what my generation calls an inability to conduct face-to-face conversation.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking my phone as he passed it to me. “There’s a Coffin Night party at Seth Rector’s dad’s place in Reef Key. I thought it would be canceled due to Hurricane Cassandra. I guess not.”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Smith said. He was still poking through my bag. “Master Rector’s party appears to be quite the rager, as you people call it. I won’t, of course, mention to you that it seems a bit coincidental to me that you received an invitation to his party after you dispatched a Fury, and that I’m quite certain you’re being lured into a trap so that you can be killed. You’ll have figured that out yourself.” He pulled out my copy of A History of the Isle of Bones. “I didn’t give this to you, you know,” he griped. “I only loaned it to you. It’s out of print. It’s not like you can download copies on the Internet.” He flipped through his precious book like I might have hurt it. “Did you actually read it?”
“Of course I read it,” I said, glancing up from my phone. I was looking at the photo Farah had sent. It was of her and Seth and their friends. They were all giving the camera the finger. Classy. “Well, the parts about John, anyway.” I paused, looking around nervously for signs, like flickering lights, John might be eavesdropping. “It was good,” I continued. “I promise to give it back later. And of course I know this party is a trap, I’m not stupid. And quit going through my stuff.”
“So sorry,” Mr. Smith said, closing my bag. “I’ve never been privy before to the personal effects of a co-regent of the afterworld.”
I barely heard him. I was staring at the photo Farah had sent. Where u at, girl? she’d written at the bottom of the photo. We miss u! Get on over here! Mr. Smith had been right about Farah’s generous use of emoticons, many of which were smiley faces wearing devil horns.
That wasn’t what I found so fascinating about her message. It wasn’t even the garishly painted wooden coffin in the background, on which our class’s year had been scrawled in gold, or the fact that a girl I didn’t know was riding the coffin like a horse.
It was Seth, with his tussled blond hair and easy smile, straight white teeth and an allover surfer tan. He looked so wholesome in his polo shirt and board shorts — well, except for the obscene gesture he was making to the camera. The shirt he had on in the photo was black, probably in honor of the occasion, Coffin Night.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what bothered me about him.
Oh, yeah. He’d killed my cousin.
“You’re not going,” Mr. Smith said. “Are you?”
“Of course we’re going,” I said, lowering the phone. “They actually invited me the other day, before I killed Mr. Mueller.”
Mr. Smith sighed. “The police will be looking for you.”
“They’ve been looking for me all along,” I said.
“But you hadn’t killed anyone then.”
“We’ll have to be extra careful,” I said. “Thanks for everything.”
He sighed again, then looked heavenward. “At least use Patrick’s car. The police won’t be looking for that.”
“Why Patrick’s car?” I asked curiously. “Why not yours?”
“You’ll see,” Mr. Smith said.
A few minutes later, I did.
15
“But of this water it behooves thee drink
Before so great a thirst in thee be slaked.”
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXX
There were only two ways to reach Reef Key, the remote island located a mile or two off the coast of Isla Huesos where Seth Rector was throwing his Coffin Night party. One of them was by boat. But with coastal advisories warning of tidal surges of as much as four feet due to the massive power of Hurricane Cassandra, getting to Reef Key by boat was out of the question.