The Death Catchers (21 page)

I may have suspended my disbelief for a little while, but it was back. I didn't care if Morgan le Faye was two thousand years old or whatever, she was talking absolute nonsense. Drake Westfall of one-thousand-year-old Crabapple, California … the key to the world's future? And me, Lizzy Mortimer, high school freshman, the one responsible for his well-being? The whole thing was suddenly hard to stomach.

Bizzy, on the other hand, didn't seem to be sharing my doubts any longer.

“So if the Westfall boy dies unnaturally when he's scheduled to, we can kiss our messy ole world good-bye?” she asked.

“I am afraid so. Which is why we came to tell you that Vivienne is sure to be tracking Drake Westfall right now. Watching his every move very carefully,” Morgan le Faye said, looking directly at me. “If she finds out you two are the ones trying to prevent his death, she will find a way to destroy you.”

Morgan le Faye stopped in front of me and paused.

“So, are you gals goin' to help us save Drake, then?” Bizzy asked.

“I strayed once from Avalon's rules and caused pain and a great rift among my sisters. I will never do so again,” Morgan le Faye said. “We cannot violate the Great Truce. You already possess all that you need to save Drake Westfall.”

“I hate to say this, Morgie,” Fial said, her eyes shifting around the room, “but we have really already been here too long for anyone's well-being.” Fial got up and put her yellow hood over the pile of blond hair on top of her head.

“You are correct, Fial. Our presence here only serves to put you both in more danger. Agatha has only allowed us to warn you because she believes the epic contest must be fair. Avoid Vivienne at all costs.” Morgan le Faye began moving her right hand in a circle, at first slowly and then gathering speed. She closed her eyes. Red haze surrounded her, as if her moving hand conjured it. Fial produced her own cloud of yellow smoke. Morgan le Faye's voice thundered out of the thicket of red and yellow, sounding as if it was coming from all sides like some giant surround sound.

“May fate be on your side. And if it is not, may you make it so!”

As if it were being sucked from Bizzy's room with a vacuum, the vapor disappeared out Bizzy's open window in one single whoosh.

When the colorful haze was gone, only Bizzy and I remained, sitting across from one another in her bedroom, growing more certain by the minute that unless we found a way to stop fate and Vivienne le Mort, Drake Westfall had less than forty-eight hours to live.

 

Revision

Look, I know it's important, Mrs. Tweedy, but rewriting something after you've already finished it is not the easiest task. Writing can be a painful process. Sometimes revising feels like using an already-sore muscle.

After Morgan le Faye and Fial visited, I began to realize that life is one big revision. We are constantly rewriting the stories we tell others about ourselves. Even the Death Catcher part of me keeps changing and morphing. Maybe the only difference between language arts and life is that when you revise an assignment, it's supposed to improve it, right? But when life gets revised, there are no guarantees it will. In fact, sometimes it gets a whole lot worse.

When I found out that Drake's death didn't just affect his life and my life, but according to Morgan le Faye, the entire world, I wished I could edit the knowledge out of my brain. If I could hit the delete key, I thought, the information would be gone and I could adjust to being a Death Catcher first, before I dealt with things like being the Keeper, Doomsday, and the Doomsday maniac, Vivienne le Mort. Yet, I knew, there was no way to separate any of it—one thing bled into another.

Fortunately, there wasn't much time to dwell on it with Drake's life hanging in the balance and with our supposedly united destinies. Bizzy and I discussed the details of our plan that night. Monday arrived on schedule. Drake's body would be discovered in the cannery on Tuesday.

I thought the school day would pass slowly, but first and second period flew by. As soon as recess rolled around, I tried to get a visual on Drake. He was at the picnic tables, hanging out with his teammates.

Jodi met me by our planter. She was wearing a large polkadotted headband, a homemade feather earring in her right ear, and braided sandals.

“What's the plan for tonight?” Jodi said, watching me watch Drake.

“Bizzy is planning some kind of stakeout,” I said without taking my eyes off Drake.

Jodi and I both jumped up from the planter as the word “FFFIIIIIGHT!” echoed across the quad.

A crowd had gathered by the picnic tables.

“Over there!” Jodi pointed. Instead of running toward the group, Jodi hopped back onto the brick planter. I joined her. From our bird's-eye view, we could see the entire scene.

In the middle of the mob, two students were tearing at each other in one huddled mass of clothing and flailing arms. I spotted Garrett Edmonds first. He was bobbing and weaving, crouched close to the ground, holding someone in a headlock. Drake's head appeared as he freed himself from the headlock.

Simultaneously taking a step back and winding up, Drake took a massive swing at Garrett's face. His fist connected with Garrett's jaw, followed by a loud pop. The crowd murmured and lurched backward, creating space for Garrett to topple over onto the concrete. His groan echoed through the crowd. Garrett thrashed on the ground. I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look at Drake. He was bleeding from his lip and his T-shirt was torn.

Soon, Mr. Thompson, the assistant principal and football coach, was pushing students out of the way, trying to disperse the crowd so he could get to Drake and Garrett. He blew his whistle repeatedly. Finally, he had a direct path to the boys. By that time, most of Crabapple High had assembled around the fight area.

Mr. Thompson reached out and collared Drake.

“Step back!” he yelled at the crowd, waving his free arm at the students. After a few seconds, Mrs. Rios, the theater arts teacher, reached Garrett. She kneeled next to him, asking if he was okay. Garrett hopped up defiantly, still clutching his jaw. Suddenly, he lunged at Drake in a rage. The murmur of the crowd spiked once again. Mr. Thompson stepped between the boys, pushing against Drake, forcing him out of Garrett's reach.

After another minute, the commotion ended. Mrs. Rios led Garrett to the office while Mr. Thompson ushered Drake from the scene. The quad was alive with the leftover buzz from the fight.

Jodi and I looked at each other, speechless, from our perch on top of the planter. We watched students cluster together, reenacting and recounting portions of the fight. The noise grew. Jodi was the first to notice a group staring at us. She nudged me. Some students pointed at us and then resumed talking. Soon other groups did the same.

“Are they looking at us?” I asked with disbelief.

“No, they're looking at
you
,” Jodi said. The ringing of the bell sent students scattering, though dozens of pairs of eyes still followed me as I walked across the quad.

I waited impatiently for two more periods to pass so that I could meet with Jodi again. I was sure she'd have more information for me. She did.

“Looks like I was right,” Jodi said confidently.

“Right about what?”

“People were staring at you after the fight.” Jodi took her cherry ChapStick out of her burlap shoulder bag and coated her lips.

“They were?” I said, dismayed.

“Uh-huh. Apparently Garrett and Drake were fighting
over you
.”

I had to stop myself from toppling over into the planter. There was just no way it was true. I said as much to Jodi.

“I've heard it from multiple sources. Garrett said something to Drake about how Garrett invited you over for dinner … Garrett started teasing Drake about stealing Drake's girlfriend. Which, I guess, is you. Drake exploded or something. Word is he kinda went agro on Garrett.”

“He did?” I asked in disbelief. “That's awful.”

“Um, that's one way of looking at it,” Jodi said, extending her hand and patting my shoulder.

“What do you mean?”

“If Drake was defending your honor, or whatever, I'd take it as a very positive sign that he doesn't hate you. I think it means the opposite.” Jodi smirked at me. “It looks like you guys can't seem to escape one another.”

“Maybe Drake fought Garrett because he was upset that Garrett was associating me with him,” I said. Could Drake really have been defending me? Though I tried not to, I thought about Merlin's words about Drake's and my intertwined destinies.

“Gee, Lizster. And maybe we'll all die in an atomic bomb blast tomorrow. But I prefer to think positive.”

I almost laughed at Jodi. She was closer to the truth than she knew. None of this would matter if Drake wound up inside the cannery tomorrow morning.

“Anyways, I'm sure Drake will be suspended, so you'll have a few days to think of something to say to him when you see him next,” Jodi said, taking a bite out of an apple she pulled from her bag.

“How do you know I want to say something to him?”

“Don't you want to talk to him again?”
More than anything
, I'd wanted to respond. My feelings about Drake were a muddled mess. Between the combination of the death-specter, his behavior at school, his name engraved on my hand, and my new role as his Keeper, I had no idea how I felt, just that I wanted to spend more time with him.

I had to focus on the most immediate of the concerns. I considered Drake's possible suspension. Would he still be able to play in the last couple of water polo games? If not, Mr. Westfall would be furious. Furious enough to lose his temper and do something destructive? Was that what Drake was trying to tell me pre-kiss in the pool house?

When the dismissal bell rang, I headed straight for my bike. Jodi split off, promising she'd meet me at Cedar Tree Park at midnight. If she was nervous, she didn't show it.

I don't think I've ever pedaled as fast as I did the rest of the way home that afternoon. I knew Bizzy would be waiting anxiously for me when I got there.

 

Onomatopoeia

You're always encouraging us to use onomatopoeia—words that sound like what they describe—to make our writing “sing.” Most of them are fun words like
buzz
and
growl
, but there's one onomatopoeia I will remember above all others:
rumble.
It wasn't until Bizzy and I heard the low rumble that we figured out how Drake was going to die.

I should explain.

Bizzy's last trip to the cannery shaped the final part of our plan. The reason she'd traveled all the way to Cedar Tree Park was that, at one hundred feet above and two blocks away from the cannery, the park provided the perfect lookout point.

Since Bizzy and I still hadn't figured out why Drake was going to be at the cannery on Tuesday morning, we'd decided we would sneak out and spend Monday night camped out under the cedars at the park. From there, we'd be able to see someone approaching the cannery. There was a clear view of Mission and Ocean avenues, as well as the streets in the surrounding area. From the park, we could intercept Drake before he even got close to the cannery. While Bizzy watched from the hill, Jodi and I would monitor the storm drain entrance and the Westfall house.

I wasn't supremely confident in our plan the way Bizzy was. Then again, Bizzy had been in the death-catching business for sixty years. I hadn't even been doing it for sixty days.

Regardless, the moment to put our plan into action had arrived.

While I was at school, Bizzy had been living up to her name. She'd gathered the camping equipment we would need from the garage, hidden it underneath a patch of bushes at Cedar Tree Park, and tracked down a blueprint of Crabapple's storm drain system.

“How did you get to the park and back by yourself?”

“I drove,” Bizzy said. Since her first accident with Dixie, Bizzy's old Buick Roadmaster station wagon (complete with wood paneling on the sides) sat in the driveway unused. The doctor had warned that it would be impossible for Bizzy to drive with her leg straight out in a cast. But by extending her leg into the passenger's foot well she'd figured out how to do it.

“Did the doctor clear you to do that?”

“I cleared my doggone self!” Bizzy said. “I'll just need help with my chair.” I looked on Bizzy's bed. She'd started collecting another pile of supplies. There were two headlamps, three thermoses, a large Maglite, two blankets, a map of Crabapple, a bag of groceries, handcuffs, and a compass.

Bizzy pointed to the brainstorming wall. The covering photos were pulled back.

“Take a good last look, Sweet Pea—you may need every scrap of information—no predictin' what might happen out there tonight.”

I leaned against the bottom of the bed and started at the top of the wall.
Drake Westfall
. Followed by tomorrow's date. It was hard to believe it was almost here. My eyes followed the lines from Drake's name to
the cannery
, to
foul play?
, to
art
, to
Mr. Westfall's temper
, to
Damon
, to
robbery
, to
Miss Mora's Market
, to
basement
, to
storm drains
.

I thought of all the things that weren't listed on the wall that were so intimately related to those that were there: Morgan le Faye, Vivienne le Mort, the Great Truce, Old Arthur, and
The Last Descendant.

We'd learned a lot in the past few weeks. But it still hadn't been enough to figure out what would cause Drake's appearance at the cannery.

“How are we going to sneak out?” I asked. Bizzy wheeled up next to me.

“Honeychile, ya tellin' me you never snuck out of here at night, not once?”

“Well … no … I mean,” I stammered. Bizzy cut me off with a laugh. Leave it to Beatrice Mildred Mortimer, my seventy-four-year-old grandma, to make me feel completely lame.

“It's simple. Your parents fall asleep 'round ten. Meet me out back at eleven sharp. Wear dark clothes and dress warm. Yur first stakeout's always yur longest.” For dinner, Mom had made beef stew, which was my favorite and one of her few edible dishes. We hadn't really talked since our conversation on the beach the day before. I knew she'd be watching me, so I forced myself to down a small bowl of stew, even though I felt queasier with every spoonful. When I asked to be excused early, Mom looked anxiously over her glasses at me.

I spent the rest of the evening pacing, mostly, back and forth in my room, and trying on different shades of black clothing. I settled on a black fleece and Dad's old ski pants that I sometimes wore when I rode my bike in the cold. When it was ten minutes to eleven, I checked my room for anything else I thought I would need. Sheriff Schmidt's business card was sitting on my desk. I grabbed it and slid it into my pocket along with my cell phone. Although reception was poor around Crabapple, it did get better at night.

When I got out to the driveway, Bizzy was waiting in the Roadmaster. I loaded the rest of the supplies in the back, including my bike. As soon as I was buckled in, carefully avoiding her leg—which was extended into my foot space, Bizzy put the car in neutral. The Roadmaster coasted out of the driveway and into the street.

How many times before had Bizzy snuck out secretly on her way to save someone whose thread was about to be cut? We glided farther down the street. Bizzy was careful not to start the engine until we were a safe distance from the house.

“Better do your first check a' the night on Drake and Damon,” she said, motioning with her head to the row of elm trees on the opposite side of the street.

Climbing the elm tree was easier the second time. Scrambling from branch to branch, I was level with Drake's window in no time. The lights were out in Drake's room, but I could still see inside. He was a big lump on his bed, asleep. The carrot-colored light of the streetlamps filtered in. I could barely make out the slight cut on his lip. He coughed and turned over. I gripped the tree tightly, hoping Drake wouldn't open his eyes and look right out at me. He didn't. He was asleep.

He was alive.

I climbed down a few branches and hopped back onto the sidewalk. When I scaled the other tree to look at Damon, I was relieved to find him asleep, as well. He wasn't supposed to rob Miss Mora's Market for another ten days, but I couldn't help but think he was involved somehow.

We arrived at Cedar Tree Park about two minutes later. Bizzy stepped out of the car, her legs shaky, and beckoned for her wheelchair.

“You're late.”

I turned around and spotted Jodi emerging from behind a tree. She was wearing a beanie, black leggings, and an oversized black cashmere turtleneck. The outfit actually made her look stylish. As I unfolded the wheelchair from the backseat, I got my first look at Bizzy's ensemble. A black bandana covered most of her white hair. She'd managed to find black sweatpants big enough to fit over her leg cast. But the sweats' tight fit made her appear to have one huge leg and one small one. She wore old-school black Reebok high-tops and a sparkly black long-sleeve top—probably something she used to wear out on the town back in Louisiana. A black scarf was wrapped around her wrinkled neck, clear up to her nose. With her face still cut, and in her strange garb, Bizzy resembled a battle-worn grandma ninja.

I was completely out of breath by the time I wheeled Bizzy up the grassy hill to the top of the park. Jodi had offered to help, but pride kept me from accepting. The wet grass was slippery and I kept losing my footing.

The opposite side of the hill had a steep side. At the top there was a low wood railing and a sign warning people about the sheer drop to the water below of over a hundred feet. People called it Deadman's Drop, though I had never heard of anyone who had died falling from it.

The grove of cedar trees loomed like towering sentinels watching over all of Crabapple. We helped Bizzy retrieve the gear she'd dropped off and laid out the tarp over an out-of-the-way spot under one tree. In the middle, we set up two beach chairs, a small gas grill, and a battery-powered clock. We took the blankets, flashlights, and remaining supplies out of the car. Bizzy wheeled over to the portable gas grill and ignited it. It clicked on. Then she rifled through one of her bags and found a kettle and some marshmallows wrapped in tinfoil. Realizing that the beach chairs were for us (Bizzy had her own chair, after all), Jodi and I sat back in the creaking seats and huddled under one of the blankets. I could see my breath in the cold Crabapple air. I watched Bizzy work. She poured water from a jug into the kettle and began heating it over the grill after she lined it with aluminum foil. It was remarkable how well she'd learned to move around in her wheelchair in just a few short weeks. It wasn't long before she'd filled three thermoses with piping hot water and chocolate powder, topping them off with marshmallows. She had packed some Creole seasoning and sprinkled a little in her own thermos. Then she wheeled over next to Jodi and me, and the three of us stared out over the cannery.

The stars seemed brighter up above the trees, like hundreds of lit pinholes. Down below, I could make out the stone building that housed Miss Mora's Market in the dim light of the lampposts that ran along Ocean Avenue. I spotted the pharmacy and, off in the distance on the south side of Crabapple, the widely spaced streetlights on the road that led in and out of town. What struck me most, though, was the sea behind us. Where shore met ocean, the gleam of Crabapple dropped off into a great blackness. The dark waters rippled in the distance, reflecting little of our town's glow. The bay and the ocean beyond looked like one giant oil slick.

The warmth of Bizzy's chocolate concoction passed through my lips and into my core. I wondered if hundreds of years before this moment, granddaughters had sat up with their grandmas and best friends, drinking hot drinks much like the three of us were doing. For a brief moment, as I sipped, I felt content.

As soon as we were settled, we began the first of our hourly checks. Jodi and I decided that one of us would check in on the Westfall house and the other would head to the storm drain entrance on Delores Avenue and look for anything suspicious. I chose Drake's house for my first mission. Whizzing through the streets of Crabapple, I felt like I was flying through the night air. Bizzy made us wear the lit headlamps, in case a car approached and couldn't see us. She also insisted we ride on the sidewalk and keep our phones on in case something happened at the cannery in the meantime.

When I got to Drake's, I climbed up to the second-story level of the elm tree. There Drake was, sleeping peacefully, completely unaware that fate had made an appointment for him at the cannery. I climbed the elm on the side of Damon's room. The room was dark, but I could make out a Damon-sized lump under the covers of his bed. I didn't linger at Damon's window like I had at Drake's.

I zipped back to Cedar Tree Park in under eight minutes, which was a one-way record.

Hours passed that way. Jodi and I both nodded off a few times. But in each instance, my head would snap up and I'd wake to find Bizzy, fully alert, scanning the perimeter of the cannery. The three of us were alone together, with only the crickets and night owls for company.

“So far, all remains quiet on the cannery front, eh?” I asked Bizzy softly when I realized Jodi had fallen asleep again.

“Yup,” she said.

We were silent for a few minutes. I looked down at the clock. It said 4:35. Morning was around the corner.

“Can I ask you a question, Bizzy?”

“Shoot. That's what nights like this are for,” Bizzy said, smiling at me through the shadows.

“Do you think Drake is actually going to grow up to be some kind of hero? I mean, do you think the world
needs
him or whatever?”

“To tell you the truth, I ain't sure. If he is, he's sure gonna need you as his Keeper. I found Morgan le Faye pretty convincin'. But you know him. Do you think he's heroic?”

I thought about it. I'd always been convinced there was something different about Drake—he was intelligent, genuine, and independent. He stuck up for people like Roger. He'd liked me even though there were dozens of girls that were more popular than me who threw themselves at him. “What makes someone heroic?” I asked Bizzy.

“Lots of things. I'm not sure about Drake, but I am sure about you, Sweet Pea. No matter what happens this mornin', I want you to know that. It makes perfect sense that you could read that book a' Merlin's. You've got more courage in your pinkie than most people have in their whole bodies. That makes you a hero. It's been an honor watchin' you come into your own.” Bizzy's eyes misted over. “I love you and I'm gonna miss you.”

“What do you mean you're going to
miss
me? Where are you going? What's wrong?” I asked, glancing at Jodi, who was still fast asleep.

“I only meant when I finally do pass on. But I'm sure that won't be for a long time, so don't mind me. 'Fraid I'm turnin' into a sentimental ole woman more and more each day.”

As Bizzy wiped her eyes, I heard the sound of the birds nesting in the park taking flight all at once—a noisy chorus of flapping wings. Before I could comment on it, my chair began to sway from side to side. There was a low rumble, like the earth itself had a bellyache. The trees swayed eerily above us in the half light. Soon I could hear the rattling of buildings, glass, and concrete.

Bizzy looked at me wide-eyed.

“It's a doggone shaker!” she screamed, raising her hands over her head for protection as cones from the cypress trees pelted the ground.