Texting the Underworld by Ellen Booraem Page A

chose a card, flipped it over. “Anne Boleyn had eleven fingers. Who’s she?”
    Conor had to think. “Um. A queen. She got her head cut off.”
    Ashling beamed. “With an ax?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe.” Conor remembered he was ticked off. “But listen, I can’t sit around talking about axes and things. You have to tell me who’s going to die and what we can do about it.”
    Ashling’s face went stolid. “Who would be ‘we’?”
    â€œMe. My parents.”
    â€œWhat would they do about it? Your father doesn’t even think I’m real. And anyway, as I
keep
telling you, even the Lady can do nothing to change this.”
    â€œAnd you don’t know who the victim is. I don’t believe that.”
    â€œBelieve. There is no way for me to know. I can only accept and wait, and you must do the same.”
    â€œWe’re talking about somebody DYING!”
    Ashling picked up a stack of Trivial Pursuit cards. “That’s nothing new, Conor-boy. It happens every day, thousands upon thousands of times.”
    â€œNot in my family.”
    â€œLucky you.”
    She flipped over a card and brightened. “President Gerald R. Ford survived two attempts on his life in seventeen days.”
    Conor stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He racketed down the stairs, out his front door, and into 36B, his grandfather’s side of the house.
    â€œDon’t dalk ’a me wor a sec,” Grump said around the glue cap he was holding in his teeth. Hunched over the workbench that dominated his living room, he eased the nose cone onto a miniature Firehawk missile. Pulling his fingers away, he examined the set of the cone and let out his breath. “That’ll do it.” He stood up, half-glasses at the end of his nose, checkered shirt taut over his belly. “Hey there, kiddo. Got your Shanaya map?”
    â€œGrump, we have a banshee.”
    Grump dropped into his easy chair. “So I hear. At least that explains the helmet. Your pop says it’s all my fault for filling your head full of garbage.”
    â€œIt’s not your fault. The banshee’s real. It’s just that she disappeared when I tried to show her to Dad. And somebody’s going to die. And”—might as well get it all out—“and I keep hearing a flute and I probably have a brain tumor.”
    Grump picked at the dried glue on his thumb. Removing the glue took all his concentration. Conor waited. Then Grump said, “I gotta say, kiddo, this is the first I’ve heard of a banshee hanging around socializing before the Death.”
    Something like a Firehawk missile exploded in Conor’s head. “You . . . you don’t believe me?”
    â€œOh, sure, kiddo, I believe you. At least . . . well, you know I believe in banshees, right? It’s just . . . you been under a lot of pressure lately, worrying about exam school and stuff, and—”
    Without a sniff of warning, eighteen hours’ worth of pent-up anxiety burst from the depths of Conor’s inner being. He stood there, wailing, arms at his side, not even trying to keep the tears and snot from running down his face. He hated crying in front of Grump—impossible as it was, he wanted Grump to think he was brave, not a disgrace to the O’Neills, who used to be kings.
    He’d figured Grump—with his Ireland birthmark, a red spot for Dublin—would believe him without question.
    Grump didn’t move, didn’t bustle over to pat Conor on the back and tell him it was all right. That wasn’t Grump’s way. He sat in his easy chair picking glue off his skin until Conor ran out of tears, then beckoned him to a footstool and handed him a box of tissues.
    â€œIf y-you don’t believe me, I don’t know what to do.” Conor blew his nose.
    â€œThe good thing,” Grump said, “is that