Abandon - Meg Cabot [73]
But now that I knew a thousand people had been killed because of it — that a queen had, indirectly, lost her head because of it — I didn’t feel quite as friendly towards it as I once had.
“It’s supposed to protect its wearer from evil,” I said.
“Well,” Richard Smith said, blinking rapidly. For the first time, he didn’t appear to be quite so sure of himself. “Yes. That’s how the legend goes. That’s supposedly why Hades had it made. And if anyone not a chosen consort of the death deity attempts to possess it —” He shrugged, then rubbed his eyes, then put his glasses back on. “Well, nothing good will happen to her, obviously. But all of that is just a story. What did you mean when you said —”
“He didn’t tell me that part,” I murmured, looking over my shoulder, back at the window. “He didn’t tell me there would be evil spirits coming after me. He didn’t tell me that’s who he was. Or maybe he did. I was crying so much.…”
I got up out of my chair, feeling dazed, and moved towards the window. The view from the cemetery sexton’s office was of the street but also of the corner of the cemetery where the poinciana tree stood, its dark and twisted branches spreading out across the Hayden crypt.
I don’t know what I was hoping to see out there. Him? As if there was a chance he might be there, by the crypt where he’d thrown away the necklace he’d given me (because I’d given it back to him)? Or by the gate he’d kicked apart after telling me to go (because I’d called him a jerk)?
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him, or feared seeing him.
I needn’t have worried. The cemetery, like the street, was deserted. Everyone was trying to avoid the coming storm.
Just like he was trying to avoid me. Or didn’t care.
“Miss Oliviera,” the cemetery sexton said from behind me. “I don’t understand any of this. Who is he? What did you mean when you said you were there?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I laughed. I couldn’t believe any of this. “I threw a cup of tea in his face.”
I heard the cemetery sexton’s chair creak, like he was getting up.
“Wait,” he said. “Are you telling me that you —”
“What do you want?” I swung around from the window. I don’t know why I was taking it out on him. It wasn’t his fault, poor man. I think it was going to the window and looking out and realizing he wasn’t there and that he’d never be there again, and that even after everything I’d been through, everything I’d just heard, when I should have been relieved to see he wasn’t there, what I felt was disappointment.
I didn’t belong in New Pathways. I belonged back in kindergarten.
“What do you want from me, giving me mysterious notes and trying to intimidate me like this?” I demanded. “Is it money to repair the stupid gate? Fine. I’ll get my dad to pay for it. Just don’t tell anyone about it. My mom is trying to make a new start here.”
I walked over to the desk and snatched up the necklace. As soon as I did, I felt better. Comforted.
This might have been the most disturbing thing of all.
“And I lied to you,” I said. “This is mine. I’m taking it back. I don’t care about any stupid curse. So.” I looked him in the eye. “How much?”
He looked surprised. More than just surprised.
He looked horrified.
“Money?” he echoed. “I never wanted money from you, Miss Oliviera. Money never had anything to do with this.”
I looked at him in confusion.
“But if you don’t want money,” I said, “what do you want from me?”
“Well, to begin with, the truth.” He looked past me, towards the window I’d just been staring through. “How long have you known John?”
“Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint?
Dost thou not see the death that combats him
Beside that flood, where ocean has no vaunt?”
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto II
Me?” I stared at him. “You mean you know John?”
Then I realized what I’d done. I’d just admitted John’s existence to him.
Except…hadn’t he just admitted John’s existence to me?
“Well, of course I do,” Richard Smith said, looking at me as if I were a little slow-witted. “Not as well as you do, evidently. But then, when I passed,