Hades

“He was also the Son of God, there’s a difference.”

“Do you think they could have crucified him if he wasn’t human?” I asked. “He was flesh and blood, just like Xavier. You’ve been here so long you underestimate the power of humans. They’re a force of nature.”

“Forgive me, miss, if I cannot hope as you do,” Hanna said humbly. “I don’t want to raise my dreams out of the dust only to have them cut down. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, Hanna, I can,” I said at last. “That’s why if you don’t mind, I’ll hope enough for the both of us.”

I thought about Hanna’s story for a long time after she left. Although I wanted desperately to go and check on Venus Cove, I couldn’t free my mind. It remained stuck on Hanna and the hardships of her young life. I thought about how little I really understood about human suffering. What I knew about the blackest episodes in human history was nothing but cold hard facts. Human experience was so much more complex. There was probably a lot more I could learn from Hanna than I’d realized.

There was one thing I did know; Hanna had made a mistake. But she had expressed regret and she was sorry for her actions. If she was destined to live beneath the ground for the rest of eternity, then there was something wrong with the system. Surely Heaven couldn’t stand by and let such corruption go unpunished. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay. Hanna was wrong. Heaven would seek justice. I just had to be patient.

13 Speak of the Devil

I had no idea what time it was in Venus Cove, but I kept imagining Xavier’s bedroom with its sports paraphernalia and lopsided piles of textbooks on the carpet. For some reason that’s where I most wanted to go. The thought of being in his room surrounded by his things made my heart race with longing. Where was Xavier right at this very moment? Was he happy or sad? Was he thinking about me? One thing I knew with certainty was that Xavier possessed the kind of decency that made heroes out of mortals. He had never abandoned his friends in times of need and he wasn’t about to abandon me now.

I felt cold and saw that the embers in the grate were dying. I reached for the wine-colored throw draped over the foot of my bed and wrapped myself in it. The candles were burned almost to the wick and cast strange elongated shadows across the walls.

Having decided that I would not be left to languish in Jake’s airless kingdom somehow made me feel calmer. As soon as I felt the first waves of sleep, I focused my energy on reconnecting with Xavier in my mind. My body grew heavier and yet I felt an indescribable lightness. It was not possible to pinpoint the exact moment of scission, when matter and spirit chose to follow different paths, but I knew it was happening the minute the details of my hotel room blurred and suddenly the plaster rose on the ceiling was in front of my nose. All I had to do then was allow myself to drift.

As I drifted, like a humming vibration, I travelled through time and space and over water until I reached my final resting place. I was standing in Xavier’s bedroom. I didn’t land there so much as blow in like a wind under the door. Xavier had thrown himself full length across his bed and was lying on his stomach, face buried in the pillow. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his shoes. On the floor a hefty volume of the Princeton Review’s Best 371 Colleges lay abandoned. His mom, Bernie, had arranged a copy for me too — insisting we both had to make a list of our top ten choices. I smiled at the memory, recalling the conversation Xavier and I had had only days before the Halloween party. We’d been lying on the south lawn taking turns reading aloud the most interesting statistics about our short-listed schools.

“We’re going to the same college, right?” he’d asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.

“I hope so,” I replied. “But I guess it depends on whether they want to station me somewhere else.”

“They can just butt out. No more ifs, Beth,” Xavier said. “We tell them what we want now. We’ve been through enough to have earned that right.”

“Okay,” I said and meant it. I took the hefty volume from him and flipped causally through the pages.

“What about Penn State?” I asked, trailing my finger down the index.

“Are you kidding? My parents would have a combined coronary.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s known as a party school.”

“I thought the choice was up to you.”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean they’re not rooting for Ivy League. Or at least somewhere like Vanderbilt.”

“University of Alabama?” I asked. “Molly and the girls have applied there. They want to be sorority sisters.”

“Another three years with Molly?” Xavier wrinkled his nose teasingly.

“I like the sound of Ole Miss,” I said dreamily. “What do you think? Oxford would be just like here, our own little world.”

Xavier smiled. “I think I like that idea. And it’s close to home. Put it on the list.”

The conversation replayed itself in my head as if it had happened yesterday. Now, here was Xavier, slumped on his bed, all plans for the future abandoned. He flipped over to lie on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He looked lost in thought and his face showed visible signs of exhaustion. I knew him well enough to be able to read his mood. He was thinking: What now? What do I do now? What more can I do? Xavier’s rational side was very strong. It was the reason so many people brought their problems to him. Even students he didn’t know very well would come to him for advice on which AP class to take or what sport to try out for. Whatever the question they rarely walked away disappointed. Xavier had this uncanny ability to examine a problem from all angles at once. In fact, the tougher the problem, the more determined he was to solve it. Except the one facing him now floored him completely. This time it didn’t matter how many angles he considered it from. He had no answers and I knew it was killing him. Helpless was not something Xavier was accustomed to feeling.

I thought of all the things I so badly wanted to whisper to him. Don’t worry. We’ll work this out. We always do. We’re invincible, remember? It felt strange, our roles being suddenly reversed. This time it was my job to try and get Xavier through. I willed myself forward so I was hovering just inches away from his face. His eyes were half open, slivers of sky, but melancholy, missing their usual brilliance. His light walnut- colored hair fell across the pillow and his lashes glistened with unshed tears. The wave of emotion that hit me was so strong I almost had to turn away. Xavier was never like this. His eyes were full of life even when he was being serious. He could brighten a room just by entering it. This was the senior class president of Bryce Hamilton; respected and loved by the entire school population. He was the one person nobody ever spoke a bad word against. I hated seeing him so defeated.

A tentative tapping at Xavier’s door startled me so much I flew across the room, generating a rush of wind that almost overturned a chair, but Xavier barely seemed to notice. A few moments later, the door opened a crack and Bernie stuck her head into the room. She looked apologetic for interrupting his privacy, but as soon as she saw her son lying listlessly on the bed, concern flooded her face. She covered it quickly with feigned cheerfulness. I could see in her expression her love for Xavier and her intense desire to protect him. He looked so beautiful he could have been an angel himself, but so profoundly sad, it frightened me.

“Can I get you anything?” Bernie asked. “You hardly touched your dinner.”

“No, thanks, Mom.” Xavier’s voice was flat and lifeless. “I just need some sleep.”

“What’s going on with you, honey?” Bernie inched toward the bed and tentatively sat down. She looked wary; worried that invading the space of her troubled teenage son might not be the wisest idea. Xavier’s unresponsiveness told her he wanted to be alone. “I’ve never seen you like this before. Is it girl trouble?”

I realized his mother had no idea what’d happened. He hadn’t told her I was missing. I guessed it was because she’d want to contact the sheriff, demand to know why they weren’t investigating my disappearance more thoroughly.

“You could say that,” Xavier said.

“Oh, well, these things have a way of sorting themselves out.” She laid a hand gently on his shoulder. “And