Chapter Fifteen
Destiny
I step through the screen into the driveway, and there’s Dad. I blink hard, afraid I’m imagining this. Then I hear his voice.
“Mort? Hey, I thought you were going to Andy’s. Great, this gives us more time to get on the road.”
“Dad.” My voice catches, and I can’t go on.
“Are you all right, son?” His voice sounds puzzled. “You’re soaking wet. What’s happened?”
“Dad -” I swallow, then blurt out, “You’re going to have an accident on the road to Andy’s. You and Mom are going to crash because Uncle Karl messed with the brakes, and the truck burns and you - you - you die. Except you don’t because you’re Pluto and she’s Persephone and you just go back to Hades, but I go to Uncle Karl’s except he’s really Karon and he says I’m Death and—Dad, I think I’ve actually killed people. I think Uncle Karl got Aunt Daphne all upset and made her say something that made me mad and I killed her.”
Then Mom is in the driveway too, and her arms are around me and she’s saying it’s not my fault, and Dad’s telling me that he’s never forgiven his brother for doing that to me when I was just a little kid. I try telling them that I don’t want to be Death, but Mom says, her voice sad, “You can’t change that.”
Dad says, “Life and death always go together, Mort. I’m glad you know, even though I wouldn’t have chosen this way for you to find out.”
Mom interrupts, “But what are we going to do about Karon?”
That’s when I explain about the golden bough.
Dad looks amazed. Then he grins. “Well, you sure fixed him. That is the law - Karon has to retrieve the golden bough and carry it to Persephone.”
Mom points out, “But if we don’t have the accident, Mort won’t be living there and can’t trap him.”
“Yeah, but what if you stage the accident?” I ask. I thought about this while I sat in my room last night. “The truck burns. Everything else happens the way—well, the way it happened. Then you come and get me after he drowns.”
Mom and Dad look at each other. “It could work,” Dad says. “We substitute people whose time is up anyway.” He sighs. “I wanted more time up here, in the sun, with mortals—watching our son grow.”
“I always wanted that too,” Mom says softly. “But so much could go wrong.”
“Mom,” I say, “so much has already gone wrong. But now I think we have a chance to make it go right instead.”
Dad nods, then chuckles. “You certainly got the better of my brother, Mort—and that’s something we’ve all tried to do for centuries.”
I grin, then say, “When you come to get me, you’ve got to take Eric, too. I don’t think it’s his fault that his dad has him so wired about violent movies and video games and red meat and stuff. And he needs his family.”
Dad frowns. “Mort, when Eric finds out you killed his parents, he’s going to be angry. It may take him a long time to understand.”
I just stare at him, thinking of how Eric tried to make me feel at home when I was on my own. “Dad, we can’t leave him.”
“No, of course,” Dad says. “Look, let me think about it while we come to get you.”
“How will you get back?” Mom asks. She shakes her head. “How did you even get here?”
I turn and squint into the afternoon sun for a minute before I find it. “There—can you see it? That strand of light, there, like a thin rope?”
Mom stares, shaking her head. But Dad narrows his eyes and looks carefully. “That filament?”
“Yes!” I take hold of the light. “It leads me right back through the video screen into the pit. Until I really understand this job better, it’s my digital lifeline.”
Then I pause. “Life, not death. I don’t care what Uncle Karl said.”
Dad grips my shoulder and turns me around. “Everyone dies in time, Mort. That’s what the Underworld is for, a place for them to come home to at last. Death chooses that time, not to punish them, but to reward them for a life well lived.”
I think about that. “Well, until the right time comes for them to come home to the underworld, I’m going to concentrate on keeping everyone’s lifeline in good shape.”
As I turn and head toward the shimmering curtain into the pit, I wonder what I’m going to tell Eric.
– End Chapter Fifteen –
