Awaken

from the bottom of the stairs.

I looked down and saw my father standing there wearing a short-sleeved undershirt, a pair of dress slacks, and no shoes.

A significant amount of my fear dissipated as I realized I wasn’t the only female member of the household who’d entertained an overnight guest.

“Wow,” I said, as I slipped my hand into John’s and began walking down the stairs with him. “Did you forget the rest of your suit when you came over for breakfast this morning, Dad? And your shoes? And your belt?”

My mom, who was standing next to my dad, began to blush, but her voice was strong as she said, “I wouldn’t crack jokes right now if I were you, young lady. You’re in very big trouble.”

John squeezed my hand, and when I glanced up at him, he frowned. He didn’t approve of my joke, either. I guess my kite strings were getting pulled.

“Sorry,” I said. When we reached the ground floor and stood before my parents, I said, in what I hoped was a suitably chastened tone, pointing to John, “Dad, this is John Hayden. I’m sure you remember him from various security tapes. John, this is my father, Zack Oliviera.”

“Hello, sir.” John extended his hand towards my dad. “I know you haven’t heard very good things about me, but I can assure you I’m very much in love with your daughter.”

Like Mom, Dad ignored John’s hand. He simply stood staring up at him, John being a few inches taller than he was (something I knew Dad wasn’t going to like, if he hadn’t disliked John enough already).

“I don’t care how much you claim to love my daughter,” Dad said evenly. “I have a nine-shot .22 Magnum upstairs in my briefcase. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go get it and shoot out both your knees so you’ll never walk again.”

“Dad!” I cried, horrified, wrapping both my hands protectively around John’s arm.

“Oh, God,” my mother said, looking sick. “Zack, no — this isn’t what I wanted. I’m calling the police.” She moved towards the kitchen to pick up the portable phone.

“You call the police,” John said, never dropping his gaze from my dad’s, “and the Furies will know your daughter is here. They’re the ones who’ve been trying to kill her.”

My dad’s dark eyebrows lowered into an even deeper scowl. “Oh, sure,” he said scornfully. “The Furies. What are they, part of your druggie gang?”

Only then did John break my father’s stare to glance down at me. “Druggie?” he asked uncertainly.

“Dad,” I cried. Now, instead of clinging to John, I threw myself against my father. I thought my body weight would slow him down if he tried to go for the gun. “You have to listen to me. John didn’t kidnap me. He saved me, because Grandma was trying to kill me. You were right about Grandma all along. She’s a Fury.”

Mom laid down the phone in exasperation. “Now I’ve heard everything. You’re trying to say your grandmother is in a gang?”

“No,” I said desperately. “Well, yes. The Furies aren’t a gang … at least, not the kind you’re thinking of. John isn’t in a gang, either. And he’s not a drug dealer or a death metal goth head.” I sent my mother a narrow-eyed glance, but she appeared to have no memory of ever using that term to describe him. She, along with my father, was listening to me intently. “I’ve been trying to tell you guys for two years what he is, but you wouldn’t listen. Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to believe it myself, but I’m ready now. He’s a death deity. I met him when I died and went to his world … the Underworld.”

Mom pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “Oh, Pierce,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

I didn’t think they were tears of happiness. In fact, I was sure she thought I was losing my mind.

“It’s true,” I said. “He sorts the souls of the recently deceased and sends them to their final destinations. Here, see, he gave me this necklace.” I pulled my diamond from the bodice of my sundress and showed it to my father. “Mom, you’ve seen it before, remember? You asked me where I got it right after I had my surgery. I said it was a gift. Well, it was a gift. John gave it to me when I met him in the Underworld. It protects me. The diamond turns colors when there’s a Fury around, and when I touch a Fury with it, it kills it. It was originally mined by Hades to give to Persephone —”

“That’s enough,” my dad said sharply. He swung around to glare at John, his expression angrier than I’d ever seen it … and Zack Oliviera was famous for his ill temper. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this — money, celebrity, whatever — but you’ve been taking advantage of a mentally ill young woman. That may not be a prosecutable offense, but trust me, by the time I’m through with you, not only will you never walk again, you’ll also never work in this country, or any other —”

Thunder rumbled. It was soft at first, like the sound of an unmuffled motorcycle engine on a neighboring block. But as John’s impatience with my parents grew, so did the sound, until every bit of glassware in my mother’s house was tinkling from the vibration.

“What is that?” she cried. In a panic, she’d thrown her hands over her ears.

“Earthquake?” my dad asked. He tried to steer me from beneath the elaborate wrought iron and crystal chandelier Mom had hanging in the foyer, but I stepped from his reach.

“No,” I said. “It’s him.” I pointed at John. “John, stop it. You’ve made your point.”

My parents hadn’t seemed to have gotten it, however.

“That’s impossible,” my dad said.

“He’s ruler of the Underworld.” I shook my head. Why had I thought reasoning with them would work? “You think he can’t control the weather? John, stop it, please. It’s too much.”

The thunder ceased. But a bolt of bright white lightning cracked from the center of my mother’s living room ceiling to the floor, causing one of her expensive imported carpets to burst into flame.

“I love your daughter,” John said to my stunned parents. “And no one is going to keep us apart. I hope you understand now.”

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said dryly to John as I went to the garage to get the fire extinguisher.

21

“’Tis true that in the early centuries,

With innocence, to work out their salvation

Sufficient was the faith of parents only.”

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXXII

My parents’ attitude towards John improved significantly after he set my mom’s living room carpet on fire with a lightning bolt.

Improved might be too strong a word. I think they were actually a little bit afraid of him.

Fear isn’t such a bad thing if it causes people to be more careful about the things they do and say. But it’s upsetting to see people you love acting fearful around someone else you love, even when it’s preferable to the way they were acting before. I had to help my mom into one of the chairs at the kitchen counter and make her another coffee with extra sugar before she could begin to process the whole thing. It seemed too much for her ultra- organized scientist’s brain to take.

“It’s not possible,” she kept repeating. “It’s simply not possible. An underworld? Beneath Isla Huesos? And that’s where you’ve been this whole time?”

“Yes, Mom,” I said, sliding a plate of waffles in front of her. “Here, eat these. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Maybe because his brain was more entrepreneurial, my dad was able to take the whole thing more in stride.

“So do you think you could do that trick with the lightning on a larger scale?” he asked John. “Turn it up ten thousand or so megawatts — whatever they call them — and focus all that energy on a target about the size of, say, a military base?”

“Dad,” I said with a warning tone in my voice.

“I suppose I could.” John was eating bacon from a plate my dad had put in front of him. “But I won’t.”

“That’s fair,” Dad said. “That’s fair. I like a man with principles. Would it change the way you feel if I told