“Yes,” I’d said, without thinking. “Of course.”
All the softness left him then. Even his shoulders tensed. “You realize you just said you’d rather starve to death than be with me?”
He was right. I’d been so caught up in my own emotions, I hadn’t noticed how insensitive I was being to his. I reached for his hand.
“John, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the right way,” I said. “What I meant was —”
“I think your meaning was clear,” he’d said. Overhead, thunder boomed again, though not as loudly as before. It sounded resigned … kind of like his demeanor. “Maybe you’re right, and I did trick you. In any case, now you have the answer to your question, don’t you … why I was the person chosen for this position.”
It was hard not to admit that his dark side seemed a little darker than I’d previously suspected.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that he’d saved my life when it would have been easier for him not to. Why go to all these lengths to keep me from feeling the pain of death again when he could simply have let me be murdered and be at his side as a spirit? I couldn’t believe he was bad … not as bad as he seemed to want me to think he was.
“John, I’m sorry for what I said before,” I’d said, meaning it. “But you’ve got to admit it — there isn’t anyone … any rational person — who’d want to live in this place forever if there was the slightest chance they didn’t have to.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, then,” he said. I could see that he was trying to act as if he didn’t care, but there was a hurt in his eyes that no amount of sardonic posturing could hide. “I would want to live in this place forever, if it meant living here with you. And though I suppose that means one of us isn’t particularly rational, it looks as if I’m getting my wish. So I recommend you get used to the idea, Pierce, and learn to live with it. And me.”
A second later, he’d jerked his hand from my fingers, and then — exactly like in my dream — he was gone.
That’s when I flung myself onto the couch.
I knew crying was stupid. I hated doing it, and it never solved anything.
I couldn’t help it, though. Never mind that thanks to some mysterious beings called the Furies, I was apparently powerless to keep completely innocent people like Jade from being hurt at the hands of monsters like my grandmother. Never mind that thanks to another mysterious force called the Fates, I was apparently going to have to live in the Underworld for all of eternity, just because I’d eaten some waffles.
The thing that hurt the most was that I’d injured John. The weight of that knowledge made me cry hardest of all …
… until I realized a small amount of that weight was literal. And it was sitting on my head.
“Oh, my God,” I cried, sitting up.
The bird gave an indignant flutter of her wings, then flew over to the dining table, where she started pecking at crumbs I had left behind. Which was preferable to her trying to make a nest in my hair, I supposed, but not by much.
“Better knock that off,” I said, drying my eyes. “Or you’ll never be able to leave here, either.”
The bird lifted her head to look at me inquisitively, as if determining my moral worth, then turned back to her meal.
That stung. Even though she was right.
I remembered the hopeful expression that had been in John’s eyes when he’d given her to me. It had been almost exactly like the one he’d worn when he’d given me the necklace, nearly two years earlier.
She’s for you, he’d said. To keep you company when I’m away. I know how you love birds.
I knew that by giving this bird to me to care for, he’d been hoping to replace the ache in my heart I felt for everyone I was missing back home. Perhaps he’d hoped to do something else, as well: remind me that this was my home now, and that there were those in it who needed caring for even more, perhaps, than the people I’d left behind.
“Maybe,” I said to the bird, “I can start by taking care of you, and then move on to taking care of him. He’s always needed a bit of caring for, don’t you think? Though he’s never liked to admit it.”
I knew things had gotten bad — really bad — if I was talking to a bird. What did it matter, though? There was no one to hear me.
“It can’t hurt. And maybe something good will come of it. We can only hope, right?”
On the word hope, the bird finally looked up at me, and started cooing.
“Oh, God, no,” I said, mortified. “Please don’t tell me you want to be called Hope. That’s a total cliché for a bird that lives in the Underworld.”
The bird lifted her wings and took off down the hall.
I decided I’d better follow her, not because I thought there were any dangers lurking for her in the bathroom (where she was headed, and through which I already knew from experience there were no escape routes), but because I needed to pull myself together, anyway.
I could see why the bird liked it in there. The massive sunken tub was fed by a naturally occurring hot spring — hot water came bubbling out from the bottom — and a steaming waterfall poured constantly from a crevice in the stone ceiling, through which moss and vines grew. Hope — though I refused to call her that, except in my head — fluttered around while I bathed, dipping her head in and out of the water, her coos echoing off the stones.