Awaken

She glanced back at Reed over a bare shoulder, startled. “No way. He’s dead? That guy does not look dead. How’d he die?”

“What does it matter?” I asked. “I thought you liked Frank.”

“I like Frank, but I’m not dead. Is that what’s with Cindy Lou Who’s hair over there?” Kayla nodded at Chloe. “Is that blood? She’s dead? I thought she just had a bad experience with some hair dye.”

“They’re all dead,” I said. “I thought Mr. Graves explained it to you.”

“He did, in between beer tastings. But how am I supposed to tell who’s dead and who’s not if they don’t have telltale bloodstains? You know, it’s good this place gives out free gifts, because who’d want to stay if they didn’t?” She patted the sparkling amethyst-tipped pins in her own voluminous hair, which matched the purple streaks she’d dyed there. “I’d be so out of here otherwise. Dead people and giant horses and dogs and homemade beer? Yuck. FYI, if my mom doesn’t hear from me by the time her shift at the hospital ends, she’ll probably call out the National Guard.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. “Remember that reward my dad was offering for my safe return from my kidnappers?”

“Oh, was this where you were?” Kayla looked surprised. “No wonder you were in no hurry to come back. I wouldn’t, either, if I was kidnapped by someone who looked like that.” She grinned a little wolfishly at John, who still stood with his back towards us, peering through the spyglass Henry had rushed down from the castle. Then she added, “Which Frank does, of course. Where is Frank, anyway?”

I pointed at the dock across the beach. “Over there.”

Next thing I knew, she’d shot over to the railing to wave and blow kisses in Frank’s direction, which didn’t work out quite as well as I suspect she’d hoped, since when Frank looked up and smiled — almost as if he’d felt Kayla’s kiss travel on the hot wind, then settle upon the jagged scar that ran down one side of his face — one of the men in the line behind him used Frank’s momentary distraction to wrap a burly arm around his throat.

Fortunately Frank reacted quickly and decisively by thrusting the heel of his hand into the other man’s nose. Kayla looked upset by the turn of events, her hands flying to her face in alarm. Concern for Frank hadn’t been why she’d gasped, however.

“Guillotine,” she shouted across the beach. “Use a guillotine chokehold on him, Frank, you idiot!”

I shook my head in wonder. It wasn’t that I was surprised by what Kayla was screaming, or that I minded that she’d been checking out my boyfriend’s backside — which I had to confess did look particularly well proportioned in the snug-fitting jeans he was wearing.

It was that the way she was acting reminded me of something my dad had once told me. The military had performed a study to find out what kind of equipment my dad’s company could provide to help keep fighter pilots calm and levelheaded when they were flying in their F18s and being shot at by the enemy, thousands of feet above the earth at speeds exceeding a thousand miles per hour.

Pulse monitors were applied to the fighter pilots’ chests and were read around the clock by scientists on the ground.

The problem, Dad said, was that the heart rates of the fighter pilots remained perfectly steady when they were in the air, and even when they were under simulated attack.

It was only when those same pilots were back home, jockeying for a position with their shopping cart in line to buy dinner at their crowded local grocery store, for instance, that the scientists saw the readings on their heart monitors skyrocket.

It just goes to show, you can’t tell how anyone is going to react in any given situation, Dad had said.

It was no surprise to me that Kayla was taking completely in stride the discovery that there was an underworld beneath the island on which she lived. The only thing I’d ever seen really upset her was when she’d witnessed John and me revive Alex. She’d been sure we were vampires …. Oh, and my suggestion that she join me for ice cream once after school with Seth Rector’s girlfriend, Farah Endicott. I’m pretty sure Kayla thinks Farah’s a vampire, too.

“Uh-oh,” Kayla said, elbowing me. She pointed at John, who was slowly lowering the spyglass Henry had passed him, his expression troubled. “Looks like the boyfriend’s not happy.”

But when I glanced in the direction John had been peering with the small folding telescope, I saw what could only be good news: the prow of a second ship breaking through the thick wall of fog.

The passengers over on the pier manned by Frank and Mr. Liu saw it, too. They began to cheer. They thought they were being rescued from their present misery.

They didn’t know they were about to board a ship to some place much, much worse.

“What’s wrong?” I crossed over to John to ask. “Haven’t you had two ships come in at the same time before? You don’t have to worry, you know. We’ll all help.”

John handed the spyglass back to Henry. I wasn’t sure if he’d even noticed me, let alone Kayla; he’d been so transfixed by whatever it was he’d viewed through the lens.

“Let Frank and Mr. Liu know what’s happening in case they haven’t noticed yet.” John was speaking in a swift, low voice so quietly, I was certain only Henry and I could hear him. “Tell them I’ll take care of it, but they’ll need to be ready just in case.”

Henry nodded crisply. “Right away, Captain,” he said.

Henry pulled his own tablet — or magic mirror, as Henry adorably referred to it — from a coat pocket, and began to type.

“Just in case?” I stepped away from Kayla, lowering my voice to match John’s so she and the others wouldn’t overhear. “In case what, John? What’s going on? I said that Alex and Kayla and I can —”

“The problem’s not that the boats are coming in at the same time.” John’s tone was barely audible. He didn’t want to broadcast his concerns to the public. But his expression was graver than I’d ever seen it. “It’s that they’re coming in too fast.”

When he looked down at me, I saw something in his light gray eyes that I’d seen there only a handful of times before: It was fear.

“Pierce, those boats aren’t going to stop until they hit something. And the only thing in their way is us.”

5

When they arrive before the precipice,

There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,

There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto V

What?”

I whirled around to see for myself.

The first ship — as large as the ferryboat to Martha’s Vineyard my parents and I used to take on vacation, which could easily fit hundreds of people as well as their cars — was churning straight at us through the mist, looking like a great white shark headed for its prey.

The second boat was plowing through the water towards the dock on which Frank and Mr. Liu were still toiling.

John was right. Both ships were making a direct path for the docks.

I spun back towards John. “Can’t you contact the captain and tell him to turn, or … or drop anchor, or whatever it is boats do?” My knowledge of nautical terms was limited to things written on raunchy-joke pirate shirts I saw the tourists wearing around Isla Huesos, such as Give up your booty or Prepare to be boarded.

“There is no captain to contact.” John’s mouth was a grim, flat line.

“Then who’s steering them?”

“Normally? The same forces that decided to put me in charge,” he said, his lips now curving into a bitter smile.