It took Charlotte some time to regain power of thought. She sat huddled next to her cousin, who had his eyes closed and was slowly breathing in and out, as if to reassure himself that he still could.
They drove on in silence, block after block.
Charlotte put her brain back in place, then her throat, then her heart and lungs, then her stomach. It took some time to untangle her intestines, which seemed to be intertwined with her kneecaps.
That done, Charlotte could focus on her immediate situation. She had a thousand questions. As in, what on Earth was Mr. Metos doing there, what were they doing in Mr. Metos's car, and what in the world was going to happen to them now? Charlotte had a strange urge to open the door and run all the way home, grab Bartholomew, hide under the bed, and never ever, ever come out.
But then she would never find out the answers to these thousands of questions, and frankly, she really wanted to know, and besides, she didn't have any breath left to run.
Mr. Metos did not seem in a particularly chatty mood. He was a lot less frightening than the man-like men, but that really wasn't saying much.
Charlotte gulped. "Um, where are we going?" she asked quietly.
"To my apartment," Mr. Metos said brusquely. "We have much to discuss."
Charlotte's heart flipped. "I'm supposed to be home for dinner," she whispered.
Mr. Metos raised his eyebrows and just kept driving. Charlotte huddled closer in to her cousin, who looked nearly catatonic. Eventually they pulled up behind a small white brick apartment building in a neighborhood full of such buildings. The only thing that distinguished this one from the others was a big sign that read, IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU WOULD BE HOME BY NOW.
Charlotte could not argue with that logic.
Mr. Metos parked right next to the building. Zee awoke from his coma and dutifully began to open the passenger door, but Mr. Metos whispered harshly, "Don't." Zee quickly shrank back in his seat, and Charlotte didn't know whether to be comforted or even more frightened that Zee seemed scared of Mr. Metos too.
Charlotte and Zee watched while Mr. Metos got out of the car, closed the door softly, and began to walk slowly around the parking lot. He stopped a few times, looking around carefully. Finally he walked up to the passenger door, opened it, and hurried them out.
"Quickly, now," he said, ushering them to the building door. Up a flight of stairs they went, then another, then another, feet echoing noisily in the concrete stairwells. The lights buzzed and flickered overhead. Charlotte was conscious of Mr. Metos behind them, moving them with his gaze.
When they got to Mr. Metos's apartment, Charlotte immediately thought it looked a great deal like his classroom-small, dark, and bare. There was a little, brownish kitchen to the right, in the sitting room was a tan couch on which rested a bed pillow and a folded-up blanket, and to the left Charlotte could see a room that seemed to be filled entirely with books. And right in front of her, on the counter, sat a small phone. And that reminded her:
"I have to call my mom. She'll think…" Charlotte gulped a little. "She'll think something happened to us."
It wasn't until she had finished dialing that Charlotte realized she had no idea what to say to her mother, who of course picked up on the first ring. Charlotte was a good liar, but really, how on earth was she supposed to come up with a plausible narrative if her mother picked up on the first ring? "Mom, hi!" she gasped. "Um, we ran into our English teacher walking home from Maddy's, and he invited us over to dinner…"
There was a pause. "Your father made turkey burgers," said Mrs. Mielswetzski flatly.
"Um, it's extra credit," said Charlotte. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she winced. It was her worst lie ever.
Mrs. Mielswetzski just sighed heavily. "Oh, well… they'll keep. Mr. Metos will be driving you home, I hope?"
"I'm sure," Charlotte grimaced.
"You better let me talk to him."
Charlotte panicked. "He's in the bathroom!" she said. "He's been there awhile! Um, I have to go. We'll be home in a couple hours." And she threw the phone back on its hook as if it were burning.
She looked up, blushing. That had not been her best performance. Mr. Metos was looking at her oddly. Zee was still standing in the entrance, staring at the door (which was also odd) and hugging his coat around him. It was awfully cold in there. Charlotte was suddenly conscious again of being a human, one who felt cold, hunger, exhaustion, and tremendous thirst. She stood by the kitchen and bit her lip. Mr. Metos was standing a little awkwardly, looking at both of them as if he'd never seen human children before.
"Um," Mr. Metos said, "you can sit down over there." He motioned to the furniture brusquely. Charlotte guessed he didn't entertain a lot. She nudged Zee, and together they plopped down on the sofa, which was awfully squishy. Charlotte wanted to wrap the folded-up blanket around herself, but she had a feeling that it was what Mr. Metos slept with, and that was just… icky.
Mr. Metos went over to the small kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Then he moved into the living room and proceeded to drink it. Charlotte gulped.
"Uh, Mr. Metos?" she said in a very, very high voice. "Could I… could I have something to drink?"
Mr. Metos blinked rapidly. "Oh. Yes. Of course." He stood up and went to the kitchen. "Um. I have vegetable juice or, well…"
"Water would be fine," said Charlotte.
When Mr. Metos handed her a glass -which she had to share with Zee, who was looking at it longingly-Charlotte noticed that he couldn't seem to meet her eyes, and he might even have stammered a little. He was nothing like the teacher who stared down kids in class and made Charlotte fear for her neck. He was acting like one of the weird kids in gym class who always got picked last for the team. In this small, dark, underfurnished apartment he didn't seem like a monster anymore, but like a man. A kind of weird, very pale, socially retarded, vegetable-juice-drinking man.
Or perhaps once you've been chased by freakish, eight-foot-tall, skeleton-like goons in tuxedos, your creepy English teacher just isn't as scary anymore.
But just as Charlotte was finishing these thoughts, Mr. Metos seemed to regain himself. He leaned against the half wall in front of them and looked them over. "All right," he said. "Let's just get to the point. I'm going to tell you something, and this is going to sound very strange, but I must assure you that it is the absolute truth." He seemed to be regaining his teacherly composure, Charlotte noticed, now that he was instructing again. "Those men who were chasing you, well… they were trying to steal Charlotte's shadow"
A moment of silence. Mr. Metos looked probingly at both of them. Charlotte glanced at Zee, who glanced back at Charlotte. "We know," Charlotte said.
Mr. Metos blinked. "You know?"
They both nodded.
"I see." Mr. Metos raised his eyebrows. "What else do you know?"
"Well…" Charlotte bit her lip. "That's about it."
Then-slowly, carefully-Mr. Metos told them many things that they did not know. Like that the whole Greek mythology thing was actually true; they weren't myths at all. The Underworld was real too, all of it. And now there was a guy, a Phil something, and he was trying to stage a coup in the Underworld-with the help of twelve creepy man-like Footmen formed of clay and an entire army of shadows.
Well.
Upon reflection Charlotte decided that she was taking it all rather well. Which shouldn't have been too much of a surprise; after all, the day had been full of bends to the mind, and other parts of the body too, and Charlotte had really already been as surprised as she possibly could be. There was no more surprise left. Okay, Greek myths real. Underworld real. Coups with shadow army, creepy men made of clay, and Mr. Metos drinks vegetable juice.
Fine.