Awaken

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.”

9

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

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XXVII

The twinge of hope I’d felt turned to a spark.

I knew that was ridiculous. Dead was dead. If anyone knew that, it was me.

Still, I couldn’t help noticing Mr. Liu’s head jerk up, as if he, too, had felt a spark of hope.

Nor could I help repeating, “Wake up? How could John wake up from being dead?”

“Like me, you mean?” Alex asked. Now that most of my tears had dried up, I could see that the book he was holding was A History of the Isle of Bones, which Mr. Smith had loaned to me, and which had caused John and me to have one of our biggest fights.

I couldn’t remember who’d won that fight. I couldn’t remember why we’d fought — why we’d ever wasted what precious little time we had fighting about anything at all — in the first place.

“Not like you,” Mr. Liu growled at Alex from the darkness, his tone disapproving.

“Mr. Liu is right,” Mr. Graves said. “You were granted a second chance at life by your cousin and Captain Hayden. The captain, on the other hand, was granted a second chance at life by the Fates, along with a set of extraordinary gifts, one of which was the ability to grant life himself. He then brought all of us back to life. We’ve all been attacked by Furies before, but none of us has ever been killed.” He turned his head back towards me. “It was from a Fury attack that I lost my sight, you know. Though we heal much more quickly here, we’re not immune to injury or pain. But this is the first time death has been the result of a Fury attack.”

I glanced involuntarily at John’s supine body, taking in the long white scars that marred his otherwise perfect skin. The fact that the full-time residents of the Underworld weren’t immune to injury had been plainly obvious to me for a long time.

The fact that they were immune to aging, but apparently not death, was only just dawning on me.

“So?” Alex asked rudely. The jibe at his not deserving his second chance at life had evidently stung a little.

“So while it’s not likely,” Mr. Graves said, “I’d say there’s every reason to be hopeful that the captain will recover his heartbeat, just as I’m hopeful that with time, I’ll recover my sight.” He reached out to pat my knee, the part of me that was closest to him. I don’t know how he’d known it was there. Maybe he felt my body heat, the way I could feel Typhon’s hot breath. “Time heals all wounds, you know, Miss Oliviera, even in this place.”

I suppose he did it to comfort me, the way Kayla had patted my shoulder. But I didn’t feel comforted, neither by the gesture nor his words. The spark of hope I’d felt died as surely as if someone had doused it with a cup of tea.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Mr. Graves was supposed to make everything better, not tell me the same kind of platitudes my own doctors had told my parents back when they’d been convinced I was crazy because I kept seeing a leather-jacketed mystery boy every time my life was in jeopardy.

Every reason to be hopeful? Time heals all wounds?

When someone in the medical field started spewing those golden oldies, it was time to give up all hope entirely.

I wanted to leap from the bed and strangle him, but I was pretty sure people who strangled blind doctors didn’t get to go on the nice boat after they died.

“So we’re just supposed to sit here and wait, while the Furies are out there, most likely preparing to attack