Texting the Underworld Read Online Free Page A

get reborn after they die?”
    â€œNot everybody.” Ashling kicked at the hockey stick, peevish. “Not me, for example.”
    â€œMost, though?”
    â€œMost. They go through a gateway and we see them no more.”
    â€œDo people know that they lived before?”
    â€œNo.
You
know it now, of course.”
    Conor’s eyebrows shot up toward his scalp. “How . . . how many times have I . . . ?”
    â€œHow should I know that? I am Ee Nay-ill, I don’t hang about keeping records. That’s Nergal’s task.”
    â€œNergal?”
    â€œHe’s Babylonian.” She said that as if it explained everything.
    â€œBut . . . I don’t remember any other lives.”
    â€œOf course not. Look at you, you’re white as a new bone knowing what you know now. Imagine if you knew
everything
. You would be holy macaroni.”
    It was time for bed. The world was more out of control than he’d ever suspected.
    â€œYou want to sleep,” Ashling said. “I shall sleep, too.”
    â€œBanshees sleep?”
    â€œIt seems we do. I’m tired, in any event.” She pondered for a second, then said, “I don’t seem to be hungry. That’s good, because I’m not supposed to eat anything.”
    â€œYou don’t know much about being a banshee.”
    â€œIt all happened in such a rush. The Lady said I’d learn as I went along. Considering how new I am, I am doing the best of anyone in the world’s memory.” She peered at him. “Don’t you agree?”
    â€œYeah, yeah. You’re doing great.”
You’re a total screwup.
    â€œWe usually stay in our family’s home. Have you a small space, a bit confined? I’m used to being underground, see.”
    Conor opened the door to the game cupboard under the eaves. “Is this okay?”
    She peered in at the shelves of games and retired toys, Glennie’s threadbare Mother Goose rug on the floor to sit on while deciding between Mario Kart and Pokémon. A shelf in the back had a bunch of old board games: newish Clue, oldish Monopoly, ancient Trivial Pursuit.
    â€œThis is very fine,” she said. “Have you any straw?”
    Conor felt around under his bed—momentarily concerned that the spider might be under there, but not wanting to be a wimp in front of the banshee. He located his regulation Adventure Boys sleeping bag and pad and spread them out on the Mother Goose rug. He even gave her his extra pillow.
    â€œOne thing everyone says about the Ee Nay-ill.” Ashling flung herself down on the sleeping bag. “Since the world began, no one has seen the match of our courtesy to guests.”
    Conor shut her into the cupboard, knowing she could get out easily enough—ever since his mom studied childhood suffocation, house rules decreed that all closet doors have inside latches.
    Something skittered across the ceiling—the spider, once again over his bed. Conor watched it dully, willing it to go someplace else. He wasn’t about to try killing it again, with a banshee in the cupboard waiting to wail. Maybe he’d get a glass from the kitchen, try to trap it and release it out the window. Maybe . . .
    But the spider solved the problem all by itself.
    It fell off the ceiling onto his pillow.
    Stone dead.

Chapter Three
    Conor couldn’t sleep. Every time he dozed off, he startled awake because he thought he’d stopped breathing. He took his pulse . . . Was it slower? Faster? What would it feel like if he were dying?
    Sometimes he concentrated so hard on his heartbeat it pounded in his ears. That couldn’t be healthy.
    A little after one in the morning he got up and settled in the window seat with a flashlight and his notebook of maps. He flipped straight to one of his real maps—South Boston, comfortably familiar. Thanks to a friend of Grump’s who worked at City Hall, he