The first chapter talks about how the main girl of the story, Pierce, relates her situation to the greek myth of Persephone and Hades, but that her problems are way bigger than what “Persephone” had to face since it was no myth to what had happened to her. Pierce is at her “Welcome to Isla Huesos, Pierce” party, she moved to Isla Huesos from Connecticut because of her accident that took place there. Her parents are now divorced and her mother took herself & Pierce to her hometown, Isla Huesos.
Pierce is now at her house party & her cousin, Alex, asked her about whether she saw the “light” before she was revived back to life again. She feels uncomfortable and dizzy and asks her mother if she can go on take a ride of her bicycle. Pierce talks about the last time she came to Isla Huesos to attend her grandfather’s funeral when she was only 7. She sees a hurt bird and tries to help it but it ends up getting hurt more and dying. A man by the name of John, comes to her and asks her if she would like he can bring back the bird to life.
He brings back the bird and leaves, but is seen by her grandmother so they exchange polite greetings. Her grandmother asks her if she likes him and says that she will in the future. Now, Pierce goes to graveyard and is met by John. She ,unexpectedly, meets John once again in the graveyard. She has an awkward conversation with him while he just stares at her. She reminds him of the first day they met in the Underworld when she had died. He notices that she still has the grey diamond necklace ,that he had gave to her in the Underworld, and gives it back to him, only for him to throw it across the cemetery.
She describes the feeling as if her heart has been torn out of her chest and thrown away. The second time she had seen “him” in the past, after the whole bird scenario, was when she was dead. All she saw in the afterworld ere 2 lines, and when a rough-looking man had asked her what her name was, and when she told him her name, he told her to go to the shorter line. The other line, the extremely long one,was filled with gruff-looking people that looked desperate to go the shorter line.
When she asked the old-lady in front of her what they were waiting for, she told her that they were waiting for a boat. Then she notices a tall man dressed all in black,black boots,black leather gloves,and in a black leather coat,cantering towards the riot of the longer line on a huge black horse. Once she recognizes him, she runs towards him, he black horse gets frightened and slashes the air with its charcoal-black hoofs that go inches above her head. She ducks down and hears a noise that is similar to a thunderclap only realizing that it was his voice shouting the name, Alastor, to his horse.
He looks at her and doesn’t recognize her and asks her if she’s alright, but instead she replies with an “Are you alright? ” It somehow shocks him and he drags her back to her line and she tries to tell him, and when she reminds about the first time they met, and when he does he takes her to some place more comfortable. Instead of home, or by the lake, she was in a elegant room. She was surprised that she had magically appeared from one place to another. When she asked him how he had done that, he said that it was a perk of a job.
When she asks him “why her out of everyone? “, her responds by saying that it is because of her nature that makes her stand out. It’s because she always focuses on other but not herself. He then gives her a beautiful grey diamond necklace that has special properties such as it protecting its wearer from evil, possibly even helping them detect it. Which is good since “true evil often wears the most innocent of guises. ” Once she is told that she can never leave he Underworld, she being only 16 and dead, obviously freaks out and throws a hot cup of tea on his face and runs.
She thens runs down a spiral staircase and is suddenly awaken. It was her mother who had saved her life when she found her on the bottom of the pool. When she is revived back to life, her mother hands her the necklace that John gives, meaning that he is real. One day after she visits her doctor, she went wandering into a jewellery store, and an old jeweller noticed her necklace and grabbed her by the necklace and started implying the she had stolen it because it was worth billions and that it should’ve een kept in a showcase not, around her neck.
John then suddenly out of nowhere appears and beats the jeweller up, when he the poor jeweller tries to call the police. Pierce rushes back into her mother’s car and drives away. Pierce is now in the graveyard, she apologizes what she has done in the Underworld and for the rules that she had broken when she left. She calls John a “jerk” because of his wild behaviour and he gets mad, tells her to never come back again, and to leave him alone.
After Pierce’s “near death experience”, she loses her best friend, Hannah Chang, and is suspicious of her gym teacher ,„Mr. Mueller, who she later finds out was having an affair with her best friend. Which caused her best friend to kill herself with a drug overdose. She tries to prove him guilty, but fails and it only makes things worse for herself. Pierce and her mother had bought a house in a gated community. Dolphin key, the community they are currently living in, was the only such community on Isla Huesos. There was a security guard, planted at the gate 24/7, at the entrance, so that was the only way in and out. At Pierce’s new high school, they have a “special” programme for troubled kids called, New Pathways.
Her new councillor, Jade, was different than the other ones she had before. She was more open, offers red liquorice, and like to use the word “epic” more. While Pierce was on the way to the IHHS auditorium, she was met by a boy, that went by the name of Seth Rector, who was the senior class president. The girl perching next to her, in the IHHS auditorium, was Kayla. She was in the same economy class with her, and was quite different, considering the fact that she had frizzy black hair with purple streaks in her hair.
When the assembly had begun, when the principle started, he was greeted by numerous insults oncerning him and his mother. When it started getting out of control, that’s when the Chief of Police Santos stepped in, and when he did everyone grew silent. He started by gruffly saying that coffin night was cancelled, which made the students react wildly, the reason why it was cancelled was because of vandalism that took place in the cemetery last night, which had shaken Pierce, considering the fact that she was with John at the cemetery the other night.
The police had thought that a bunch of teenagers broke into the Isla Huesos Cemetery last night and vandalized it, not only the crypts, but the entrance as well. Now because of that incident, officers would be patrolling the cemetery all night long. Richard Smith, the Cemetery Sexton, who was quietly sitting in the waiting had something on top of his briefcase that grabbed Pierce’s attention. On top of his briefcase, was a necklace, her necklace. Pierce is then met by her mother,who seemed to be more excited then her, was talking with Kayla.
When the Cemetery Sexton Smith, had gotten up on his feet, he started talking about Alex’s father (Pierce’s uncle), who had been sent to jail for quite a while, and how he shouldn’t end up being like his father. Which had made Pierce’s mother quite mad, but tried to hide it, since he had no right to talk about her brother or her nephew like that. But Tim, another councellor, rest assured that Alexander was a wonderful student. Richard Smith then continued saying that he had something of a great deal of importance that he wanted to discuss.
As he left, Pierce noticed that on top of her flyers was a note, that had scrawled in flowing cursive that read” Make an appointment to see me, you will do this if you don’t want trouble. ” She went with Kayla & Alex to Island Queen to get some gut busters, but was met up by one of the girls (who’d been giving her dirty looks in the auditorium), introduced herself as Farah Endicott (Seth Rector’s girlfriend), and invited not only Pierce but Kayla as well.
Which made her tense up a bit, since Farah and her friend cyber-bully her on social media, so she made an excuse to back out and so did Alex, which left Pierce no choice but to accept her invitation because it was a new start for her and she didn’t wanna make any enemies. This made Alex pretty mad, that just because of buying him a Gut Buster, he wasn’t oing to go and sit with the “popular” group, just because he didn’t have expensive clothing and fancy cars. Pierce shot back at him by reminding him that she had died and wasn’t interested in whatever what going on between him and Seth Rector.
Pierce had always believed that Mr. Mueller wasn’t as innocent as everyone else believed that he was. She wanted to prove him guilty, she was sure that he was the reason why Hannah Chang had taken her life, so she planned out a plan. During a private tutoring session, that Pierce had agreed to do with Mr. Mueller, she had implanted a secret camera in her bag, that would capture any of Mr. Mueller’s attempts to do anything. He offered her a neck massage, continuously telling her to relax and to keep calm.
As his hand was reaching out to touch her face, the next second later, you could see on the camera that a third person had entered the room and then there’s a crunching sound and some muffled conversation, and then the figure is gone. And now, standing in front of her is Mr. Mueller, holding his bloody hand, that had every bone in his hand crushed to the core. When Mr. Mueller had been asked what had happened, he stated that he was going over SAT study guide questions and she had attacked him without warning.
Farah introduces Pierce to the rest of the group, as she passes out some Gut Busters, Seth had found a place to get wood supplies (even though the Chief had shut down every wood supply shop for coffin night). They, oh so openly, asked her if they could hide their coffin in her home, Dolphin Key, because it was a gated community that was had a 24/7 guard. They didn’t think that she was so smart, since she was in D-wing (everyone in New Pathways was in D-wing but not everyone in D-wing was enrolled in New Pathways), while they were in A-wing.
The Dwing was were they sent all their “troubled” students, to keep those kids separated away from the “normal” ones. Coffin Night is a tradition, where every year the senior class at Isla Huesos High would build a coffin, and hide somewhere on the island. The senior class would have to find it, and if they find it they would take it out to the middle of the football field during the first game of the season and burn it in front of everyone,film it, and then post it online everywhere.