A very unpleasant one.
“This is a portal,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“A what?”
“A portal,” John whispered. “A direct link from here to the Underworld. That’s why you don’t feel dizzy this time.”
I hadn’t even noticed, but he was right. I didn’t feel sick, for once, though we’d just jumped between astral planes.
“This is a doorway through which the souls of the departed enter the world of the dead after they pass,” John explained softly. “The doorway closes behind the dead once they enter. They can never leave again —”
“Unless they escape,” I interrupted. Because this was what had happened to me.
He glanced down at me with a teasing smile. “Unless I choose to let them escape,” he said, “because they seem to want their mothers so badly.”
“That was two years ago,” I reminded him. I shouldn’t have mentioned the thing that morning about being inexperienced with men, even if it was technically true. He was never going to let me help him if he always thought of me as someone he had to protect. “And do I have to remind you that you didn’t let me escape, I —”
“Shhh.” He held up a hand. “Someone’s coming.”
I looked past his shoulder as a family walked down the pathway along with Mr. Smith and some other people who were dressed in business attire and carrying clipboards. It was difficult to hear what they were saying, but not hard to imagine what they were discussing … a crypt. The people dressed in business attire were probably from a local funeral parlor.
The family wore the somber, unhappy expressions of the newly bereaved. Someone they loved had passed away.
Not far behind them followed a man in coveralls — obviously a groundskeeper who worked in the cemetery. He was pushing a wheelbarrow, in which he was collecting the many palm fronds that littered the path. The high winds of the approaching storm must have torn them from the trees in and around the cemetery.
I remembered the hurricane for which we’d been dismissed early from school the day before. Was it still on its way? I had no way of knowing. From John’s crypt, I couldn’t quite see the sky, though the warm air certainly seemed oppressive enough for rain.
I tried to concentrate on staying quiet, the way John had asked me to.
This was hard to do, though, when I kept remembering the last time I’d stood amongst so many poinciana blossoms, the fiery red flowers beneath my feet. It had been the night I’d run into John in front of this very crypt, and been so convinced he was going to kiss me … only he hadn’t. I’d thought he’d hated me, until I’d learned the next morning from my cousin Alex that poinciana blossoms had turned up all along the walk in front of my mom’s house.
There was only one person who could have put them there.
Who could have guessed that less than a week later, I’d be inside that crypt with that person, going to search for Alex. It was incredible how much had changed. What was my mom going to say when she saw me? Would John let me introduce him? What had my grandmother told everyone about what had happened at school? Knowing her, it definitely wasn’t anything good.
“What about Furies?” I whispered to John, suddenly fearful. “Can Furies use the portal?” I looked down to check my necklace — clear — and noticed for the first time that I wasn’t wearing my Snow White gown or slippers. Somehow I was back in the clothes I’d worn to school the day before, a black zip-front sundress along with a pair of metallic silver flats.
Which was good, because running around Isla Huesos in a long white dress would not only have attracted too much attention, it would have been inconvenient, especially considering the temperature. Even inside the crypt, the air was as thick and as warm as soup. I could only imagine what it was like outside.
“Furies escape the Underworld by finding weak-willed people to possess,” John whispered back. “Only the newly dead can use this portal. Or me. That’s why Mr. Smith had to start locking the grate. Too many people have seen me coming and going, and have gotten curious.”
I looked around the small dark room — its walls were so old and ill-maintained, the roots of the enormous poinciana tree growing nearby had begun to push through — and tried to imagine anyone curious (or foolhardy) enough to follow John into it.
“Can Mr. Graves and the others use it?” I asked, thinking of how Henry had said he’d never been to Isla Huesos.
John shook his head.
So it was another one of those things only death deities could do, like the ability to make birds come back to life, and create thunder at will.
It didn’t seem fair.
“Do you ever take them with you?” I asked. “Like me?”
“I should have taken them this time instead of you,” he said. “Unlike you, they’re capable of grasping the meaning of the word quiet.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You’ve seen them,” John said, with a grin. “If people notice me walking in and out of a crypt, what do you think they’re going to say about Henry, or Mr. Liu, or Frank? And you’ve heard Mr. Graves. He refuses to entertain the idea of any of them going.” He shifted into a fairly good imitation of the blind man. It wasn’t unkind, but it was accurate. “Isla Huesos is an island of sin. If the dead go unsorted, there will be nothing but pestilence.”
I got the message. Still, I was concerned.