The Death Catchers (18 page)

“That's precisely why I gotta get out of here. You and me have a lot of work to do!” Bizzy wheezed, out of breath. I took one of Bizzy's hands between mine, just like she does.

“You have to stay, Bizzy.” She looked confused. I continued. “You have to get better and you can't do that at home.”

“A wounded deer leaps the highest!” Bizzy said.

“What?”

“It's another Emily quote.”

“No offense, Bizzy, but Emily Dickinson probably didn't know what an embolic stroke even was.” I pressed on both sides of her cold, wrinkled hand with my own hands. Bizzy's eyes moved back and forth in her sockets like they were on a working typewriter ribbon. I forged on. “If you don't stay here, you're going to give Dad a heart attack.”

“My own son treats me like I'm an invalid! And I ain't leavin' you to fend for yourself in this. It's too big.” She put one of her hands through her mound of white hair.

“What if you didn't have to?” I said. “I've been thinking about it. Jodi can help me keep track of Drake while you're here.”

“That isn't supposed to be the way—”

“I know I can't tell her about being a Death Catcher, but she'll help me if I ask her to.”

“It don't seem right. When Washington crossed the Delaware to attack the Hessians on Christmas Day, I'll tell ya one thing—he wasn't watchin' from the riverbank! Why, he was standin' up in that boat with his troops!”

“I know we're not supposed to involve anyone else, but if I'm going to have to do this for the rest of my life, then I want to do certain things my way.”

Bizzy grinned and began to shake her head softly.

“Well, now, Miss Hedgehog … I can't argue with that! Been doin' things my own way since birth.” Bizzy sighed. “I guess if I tagged along right now, you'd just be draggin' me from pillar to post, and I'd be slowin' you down,” she admitted. “You can trust Jodi?”

“I know I can.”

“Well, all right then. I'll stay. The last thing we want to do is give your father a heart attack.” There was a pause as Bizzy looked down in her lap. “I was gonna wait till we had some real privacy at home, but if I am gonna stay here, then there's one thing I need to discuss before you go.”

“What?” I asked.

“Do you know anything about a book called
The Last Descendant
?”

I honestly hadn't thought about the book I'd stolen from Agatha's cottage in weeks. I pictured it resting on my nightstand.

“I took it from Agatha's cottage right after she told me we could never go back.”

“Well, Sweet Pea, I ain't ever been good at followin' instructions. I visited her on my way back from the cannery.”

My jaw dropped. “Was she there? What did she say?”

“She weren't too pleased to see me, but I told you I'd find out what Vivienne le Mort was after and I wasn't gonna let some old crotchety grave keeper stand in my way.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She was sure you stole a book from her called
The Last Descendant
.”

“She was?”

“I said I didn't know anythin' about that. But she somehow knew you'd taken it. And she said if you could see words on the pages, then you were meant to know what Vivienne le Mort was after. She said, otherwise, it weren't her place to tell.”

“I don't understand …”

“Agatha Cantare is convinced, Sweet Pea, that whatever it is Vivienne le Mort is after … that book explains it.”

My mind raced as I thought of what I'd learned in
The Last Descendant
. Then it hit me. I'd seen Drake's death-specter a few pages from the end.

I'd become so distraught over Drake, I'd stopped reading.

I never finished the book.

 

Persuasion

I couldn't wait to get home to read the last pages of
The Last Descendant
, mad at myself for not getting to the end. But before I did any reading, I had a few items of unfinished business to take care of.

Knowing how to write in a way that convinces a person to believe something is important, but I'm not sure I'll ever be good at it, Mrs. Tweedy. You say it's all about using evidence to build a case, but I usually end up sounding wishy-washy. Still, I realized that if I were going to reenlist Jodi to help me watch Drake, I would have to do some major persuading. I needed a better method. So I decided I would leave out the facts that didn't bolster my case and invent some that did.

First, I broke the news to Dad and Mom that Bizzy had agreed to stay in the hospital for the next two nights. I could see the relief on Dad's face. Mom looked at me sort of like I was an alien.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I told her that she should stay.”

“And she
listened
to you?” Mom responded doubtfully.

“Yeah.”

“Well, all right,” Mom said, shaking her head. “You two have some sort of
special
bond.” Mom was acting like she was mad at me.

I rode home with Dad, convincing him I needed to stop by Jodi's to pick up a homework assignment.

The bell attached to the door of Miss Mora's Market dinged as I walked into the store.

“Hello, Lizzy!” Miss Mora said. “How is Bizzy doing?”

“She's going to be fine,” I said.

“I'm so glad.” Miss Mora came out from behind the counter, wearing her red apron with her hair in a long braid down her back. “Are you looking for Jodi?”

“Is she home?”

“Just walked in a few minutes ago. Go on up.”

I took the wooden staircase up a floor to Jodi's. The cramped two-bedroom apartment was decorated with dozens of pictures, and overlapping floor rugs covering the well-worn hardwood floors. Bookshelves filled with records and numerous volumes on topics that included traveling and gardening lined the walls. Jodi complained about not having a TV, but I viewed the Sanchez home as a treasure trove of riches waiting to be discovered.

Jodi was lying on the floor, reading one of Miss Mora's old
Life
magazines from the 1980s.

“Hey!” she said, getting up. “Heard you left class early. What happened?”

“Bizzy's in the hospital again,” I answered. “She fell, but she'll be okay.”

“She's had a tough time lately,” Jodi said. She sat in a shabby Barcalounger in the corner and I plopped in the armchair facing it.

“I have a favor to ask you,” I said.

“Anything,” Jodi responded.

“I need your help stalking Drake again.”

Jodi put her hand up instantly. “Whoa, wait one second. Lizster, I know you may still be hung up on him, but that's going to lead nowhere good. As your friend, I feel like it's my duty—”

“Before you say no, hear me out,” I interrupted.

Because Bizzy and I hadn't yet discovered what was going to get Drake to the cannery that fateful morning, we decided I would follow Drake's movements as best I could for the next three days, with Jodi's help, to gather clues. We could easily swing by the cannery both Saturday and Sunday on our bikes. With daily trips, we'd be able to keep track of any changes there, as well. Bizzy had insisted that if we couldn't figure out what would cause Drake to visit the cannery, our best backup plan was to nab Drake right before he got there.

I told Jodi about Sherriff Schmidt's discovery in the cannery of the blueprints to her mother's market. But instead of telling her Damon and Randy weren't planning on robbing the market for another couple of weeks, I said they were going to do it on Tuesday morning, when the cannery explosion was supposed to occur.

“Damon and his friend are going to rob
us
?”

“I think so,” I said. “But if we go to the police, it will just be my word against theirs and they'll come after me or Drake. I have no proof. We need to catch them in the act to make sure they end up where they can't hurt Drake … or me, I guess.”

Jodi's mind was already working. “In the meantime, I'll make sure my mom changes the combo to the safe,” she said.

“So you'll help me watch Drake and Damon? You think it's a good plan?”

“I'd help you even if it was a bad plan, Lizzy.”

When I arrived home, Mom said dinner would be served in a half hour. I told her that I wasn't hungry and went straight upstairs. Sitting on my bed, I took
The Last Descendant
from my nightstand. I hadn't held the leather volume since I'd seen Drake's death-specter.

My whole world had turned upside down since then.

Thumbing through the book, I found the place where I'd left off:
King Arthur and his passengers sailed from Avalon on the eve of the Feast of Samhain.
I flipped to the end. I'd only left two pages unread. Looking back on it, I wonder if my receiving a death-specter about Drake at that exact moment wasn't Merlin's handiwork. If I'd learned everything about the Last Descendant all at once, there's no telling what I would have done.

In any event, those two pages turned out to be the most crucial of them all.

Not only did they describe the last prophecy Agatha the Enchantress had seen in the Sooth Spring before she set sail with King Arthur and Morgan's child, but they also included a personal plea from the book's author, Merlin Ambrosius.

Agatha's prophecy predicted what would happen to the mortal world if the future proceeded without any interference—Merlin Ambrosius called it Doomsday. Basically, Vivienne le Mort would discover a way to collect the pile of cut threads and weave them into an undead army that would eventually wreak havoc on the mortal world. Death, darkness, and despair would multiply with Vivienne at the helm of her unspeakable army.

After Agatha's prophecy, Merlin Ambrosius then described the only way this eventuality could be prevented.

Before these events take place,
Merlin wrote,
there will be one descendant of Arthur Pendragon left on earth. This last descendant, as it so stands, is scheduled to die before it is his time. However, the Last Descendant is the only one who has the right combination of fearlessness and prudence to defeat Vivienne le Mort. Without him, all hope is lost. Should his untimely death occur, the end of the earth as we know it will assuredly follow.

I, Merlin the Magnificent, write this account during my last free moments, for I have had a vision that I will soon fall under Vivienne's spell and be reduced to nothing more than stone. As my last lucid act, I have enchanted this bound written account and am sending it out into the world, hoping upon all hope that it will find its way to you.

If, as you hold this volume in your hands, you are able to read it, then you are the fated Keeper of the Last Descendant.

Perhaps you have already discovered the identity of the Last Descendant. After all, it is written in the stars that your two destinies will depend on one another, as the destinies of those who came before you once did.

If, by happenstance, the Last Descendant has not revealed himself to you, identify him by the Mark of Arthur. The Mark of Arthur is an eye with two perfect blue halves, divided by a thin band of brown. These two halves represent the ideal balance between reason and emotion, mercy and justice, faith and doubt—all qualities the Last Descendant will need if he is to forestall Doomsday and restore the mortal world to its proper equilibrium.

I hope with all my being that you will succeed where, before you, Guinevere did not.

Remember, peace can only reign when righteousness intersects with fate. I am sorry that the fate segment of this equation has been placed upon your shoulders, but there is no other way. Just as you sought out this book, it has also been seeking you for many centuries.
You are the one
.

I trust we will meet one day,

Merlin Ambrosius

I sat on the edge of my bed, dumbfounded. My hands went limp and
The Last Descendant
slipped through my fingers and dropped to the floor. I'd pictured Drake's gleaming eyes so many times in my head before, but in the moments after I'd completed
The Last Descendant
, they were even more vivid. He was the Last Descendant and I was his Keeper?

Had I been too dense to see it? Did that mean I was somehow linked to Guinevere? Was I destined to fail, too?

Or was all of it coincidence?

Ultimately, it was too much to take in at once.

Numbly, I wandered downstairs, past Bizzy's dark room. Instinctively, I walked through the back door and out our side gate. From the street in front of our house I could hear the ocean crashing into the rocks below. The air had a gloom to it—the sea fog already had taken its nightly hold on Crabapple. Streetlights on Earle glowed with orange dullness like a row of candles with barely enough oxygen to keep burning.

I hopped on my bike and began to pedal at a maddening pace. I sped along the same hill Bizzy had careened down on Dixie less than two months before, to rescue Jodi.

It was much darker this time.

When I reached Ocean Avenue, Mickey's Music came into view. I jumped off my bike and ran into the store.

Mickey was humming to himself as he read on a stool behind the counter.

“Hey there, Lizzy! I don't usually see you around these parts this late. I was actually about to close up.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish. “I'm sorry.” I turned around, ready to walk right back out the door.

“I didn't mean it that way. Please, stay. Is there something I can help you with?”

Whether I was the Keeper or not, I'd decided there was no time to beat around the bush.

“Mickey, you've read
Le Morte d'Arthur
, right?”

Mickey's eyes lit up behind his thick-framed glasses. “Aha! I'm guessin' you, like many before you, have become enchanted by all things Arthurian!”

“Sort of,” I said, resisting the urge to tell Mickey that I may have involuntarily
become
Arthurian.

“Well, King Arthur is one of the most elusive and captivating heroes we have and Camelot is the stuff of legend. You've got the love triangle between Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, and Arthur, you've got the noble Knights of the Round Table. Merlin, Avalon, and the Lady of the Lake … so much great stuff! I think that's why the story has stuck around for so long and been retold so many times. Obviously, I went through a bit of an Arthurian phase myself,” Mickey said, rubbing one side of his beard as he spoke.

“Well, what really happened, then?” I asked.

Mickey chuckled to himself. “If I could answer that question, Lizzy, I'd probably be a millionaire. Some scholars doubt that King Arthur existed at all.”

“What about Guinevere?” I asked. “You said before that she brought down Arthur's kingdom, right?”

“I'm not sure Guinevere's really gotten a fair shake in all the books I've read, to be honest,” Mickey said thoughtfully. “But, yeah, she does sort of betray Arthur by taking up with Lancelot. That leads to some pretty disastrous consequences.”

“But
Guinevere
was the one who had been protecting Arthur the whole time! And Morgan le Faye was the one having an affair with Lancelot,” I insisted.

Mickey raised his eyebrows. “Now that's a interesting take on things I haven't heard before. What book did you find that version in?”

I realized that there was no way Mickey could have possibly read
The Last Descendant
. There was no way I'd be able to explain it to him. Or anyone.

Though I was unsettled by what I'd read in
The Last Descendant
—and what it meant about my role in everything—it also occurred to me that the ending to the version I was living had yet to be written.

There was still time.

After bidding Mickey a quick good-bye, I pedaled quickly until I was in front of Drake's house. Crabapple, as always, was dead this time of night—even on a Friday. I got off my bike and stood in front of Happy Landing. The whole downstairs of the Westfall house was dark, but Drake's light was on upstairs.

I stared up at the window. Drake walked past wearing a white T-shirt. When he walked by the window again, he stopped. Thinking he might see me in the street, I dove behind one of the elm trees that lined the sidewalk.

After catching my breath, I resumed observing. Drake looked above me, out at the sea through the gap between the houses across from his own. I turned toward the sea myself. The silver moon spilled enough murky light on the bay that I could make out the outlines of waves and rocky cliffs.

I turned back around.

Drake was still. His little notebook rested in the palm of one of his hands. In the other, he held a small pencil. His right hand hovered above the book. He closed his eyes for a moment and then his hand began to move quickly across the open page. His face wore an expression of extraordinary concentration.

Drake was drawing, using nothing more than his memory and moonlight.

I'd always expected that somewhere within Drake, there was something that made him different from most of the kids at Crabapple High.
The Last Descendant
, if it was true, was proof of that. I realized why I'd come out into the street. I had to see him, to see Drake now that I knew who he was. Or maybe I had to see him now that I knew who we
both
were. I thought about the passage I'd just read.

It is written in the stars that your two destinies will depend on one another.

Was I really Drake's Keeper? Was what was written in
The Last Descendant
true? Could Morgan and Lancelot's affair really have set in motion everything that had happened leading up to this point, including Drake and me?