Awaken

“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.

That same surge made the narrow two-lane highway that led to Reef Key almost impassable.

Almost. Unless you were driving a specially equipped recreational vehicle.

“Is that a snorkel?” Alex asked after Patrick threw the cover off the tricked-out hardtop Jeep he had parked in the aboveground parking garage we’d already heard so much about.

“Of course,” Patrick said, looking pleased. “This baby can cross through depths of up to six, seven feet, easy. I installed the filtration system myself — along with the roof rack, fog lights, winch, and CB radio.”

“Wow,” Alex said, widening his eyes at Kayla and Frank and me as if to ask, Where’d this nutcase come from, anyway? Which wasn’t very nice, considering Mr. Smith was standing right there, too, and Patrick was his special friend. “A CB? How forward thinking of you.”

“Hey,” Patrick said, looking serious. “You think this is a joke? Climate change is real. They’ve got these buoys out in the ocean between Cuba and Isla Huesos, measuring the sea level, and every year, the level goes up another inch thanks to all those melting glaciers. At that rate, everyone on this island who owns property on the waterfront will be underwater within our lifetimes … maybe sooner. That’s why Rich and I bought a place eighteen feet above sea level …. Not that that does anyone much good in a storm this size — and storms this size are becoming more and more frequent. That’s why we’ve got this baby” — he patted the side of the Jeep Wagoneer fondly — “so we can get out fast if we need to. But she’s only for extreme emergencies. No one should be out on a night like this.”

“Yeah,” I said, apologizing for all four of us. “We know. But we really need to get to this party to, uh … ”

“Pick up her sweetheart,” Frank rushed in. “He’s stranded and needs a ride. And the coppers are still looking for him, you know.”

Mr. Smith had buried his face in one hand, as if embarrassed for us.

I didn’t blame him. I was embarrassed for us, too.

But Frank’s lie — which wasn’t entirely untrue — did the trick. Patrick handed over the keys, which had a fob depicting Napoleon Dynamite with the motto SKILLS!

“Go,” Patrick whispered to me. I had to lean in to hear him. “Go and get your boy.”

Outside the aboveground parking garage, open on four sides, lightning had flashed, followed a few seconds later by a boom of thunder so loud, it seemed to shake the cement floor beneath our feet. I hadn’t been sure at