“I'm not afraid.” Afraid didn't come close to how she felt. Leila was terrified. Her hands were shaking, and her heart was palpitating. It would have been nice if grim reapers didn't have a heart or lungs, or any of the human traits she'd come to expect. At least then she wouldn't feel so awful.
She pushed the last bit of dirt aside and bent down. Wynter helped her remove the lid from the casket. “I'm sorry.” She could still hear him screaming, even though his lips weren't moving. She grazed her hand along the man's arm, and his soul visibly popped out of his body.
“Oh my God!” he screamed. The muffled cries she'd heard while he'd been buried were nothing compared to his hysteria right now. “I was buried alive! You have to help me!”
“I just did.” She didn't know how to calm him down or how else to help him.
“My family buried me alive,” Asher said again.
Wynter leaned in and said, “You weren't technically buried alive.”
“I wasn't?” Asher asked, shocked.
“No,” Wynter said. “You died yesterday in a freak accident. Do you remember what happened?”
“I was gathering water from the stream.” Asher glanced at Leila. “Then I heard hooves, a lot of them. I died?”
Wynter glanced down at the body in the grave. “Yeah, you're definitely dead.” He shut the lid on the casket.
“I was trampled to death, by horses. I'm really dead?”
“On to bigger and better things.” Wynter gestured toward the glimmer at the tree line. It sparkled and rippled with waves of emerald.
Asher walked forward, past Violetta and Emblyn. Jasper watched in fascination. It was the one place reapers couldn't go.
Leila stood with Wynter at her side and glanced down at the grave. “Please tell me I don't have to put all that dirt back myself.”
Wynter grinned and reached for the shovel, handing it to Leila. “Bet you won't do it again.” He was right about that. She wasn't a glutton for pain.
The Disease
Chapter 4
“One day, we'll all be able to look back and laugh about tonight.” Wynter nudged Leila as she sat beside him at the tavern. Thankfully, they were nowhere near the place where Ophelia had died. A tavern had been the last place Leila wanted to step foot in, but they all had insisted on celebrating. Edon had no idea what they'd been up to. Leila owed them each a favor, but there could be worse situations to be in.
Jasper sat beside Violetta, an arm draped across her shoulders, while Emblyn squeezed in beside them in the booth. It was super cozy.
“I'm still not laughing,” Leila said.
“Give it time. How's the burn?” Wynter glanced down at her covered thigh.
Leila gave a mere shrug. “Still hurts.” It would sting for a few days. “Any chance reapers heal quickly?”
Jasper grinned and removed his arm from around Violetta. He leaned forward across the table. “You would like that, wouldn't you? Some injuries will heal quicker than others. You get burned by the scroll; you can expect it to last awhile.”
“Great,” Leila muttered under her breath.
Jasper motioned for Emblyn to get up, and he scooted out of the bench. “Dance with me?” he asked Violetta.
“No way.” Violetta laughed. “Not a chance in hell.”
Jasper's eyebrows rose. “You haven't seen my moves. Come on.”
“You have no moves.” Violetta slid out of the booth and walked onto the dance floor. “You're buying me a drink when the song is done.”
“When don't I pay for your drinks?” Jasper held out his hand and led her onto the floor with the other patrons.
Fascinated, Leila watched the exchange. “Are those two a couple?” She couldn’t forget the naked young man she’d seen earlier that morning sneaking out of Violetta's bedroom. Confused was an understatement.
Wynter laughed. “No. Jasper has been vying for Violetta's attention for as long as I can remember. They flirt, but that's as far as it goes.”
Emblyn carried over two drinks, handing one to Leila. “For a hard day's work.” She clanked her mug with Leila's.
Wynter scooted out of the bench. “I'll get my own drink, thank you.” He walked over toward the bar, giving his order and putting a coin down on the counter. Leila sighed. The scene was all too familiar.
“What's bothering you?” Emblyn asked. “Still adjusting?”
“I guess that's it.” There was a lot more to it than that. First, Larkin. She worried about him. There wasn't anything she could do, but she felt responsible. In some ways, she supposed it was her fault. She owed him the truth, and it was too late. Second, the job itself. She didn't want to be around dead people. It was morbid and depressing. She was sad enough thinking about Mara and never being able to see her again. Which led to the third thing bothering her—rule breaking. She needed to know who killed her. She'd already broken one rule, visiting her past life, technically two, if she counted ignoring her first assignment. She was ready to break the rules again if it meant getting closure. The only problem was, she'd have to be careful none of the other reapers knew, including Edon.
Emblyn took a swig from her mug. “Well, if you ever want to talk.” She stood up. “You know where to find me.” She swayed her hips and moved out onto the dance floor.
Wynter walked back to the table, carrying his mug of ale. “Looks like it's just you and me. Unless you want to go out there?” His thumb pointed behind him at the patrons. “I don't dance, but don't feel like you have to keep me company.”
Leila smiled, a genuine smile, as she sipped her ale. “I only dance at balls.” That wasn't entirely true. She'd danced a handful of times with Larkin at the Blue Moon Tavern in Casmerelda. Dancing with another man, reaper or not, felt like a betrayal. She wouldn't do it.
“Good to know.” He sipped his beer, his eyes trained on the wooden table in front of him. “Quite a day, huh?”
“You mean unburying a screaming dead guy? Yeah it was something.” Leila shuddered.
Wynter's eyes met her stare. “We do a service for the living, Leila. I know you don't see it, but we're helping people.”
She exhaled a heavy sigh and said, “I know.” She had learned that when she was forced to dig up a man's soul that had been buried alive. “Can I ask you something?” She took another gulp of ale and placed the heavy mug down on the table. She wiped the froth from the top her lip, with the back of her hand. “What's with the creepy asylum?” She still couldn't get over the horrible shudder that had coursed through her body when she entered that place. How could anyone willingly sleep there?
Wynter laughed. “Edon's office is on the top floor. I'm surprised that place doesn't creep him out.”
“How old is Edon?” Leila asked.
“No one knows. He's the oldest reaper we’ve encountered though. I’d guess he’s been around a thousand years. He doesn't talk about his past, or how he died.”
“That's sad.”
“No. What's sad is having to relive it day in and day out. You have to learn to move on. You can't keep torturing yourself by visiting Larkin.”
“You heard about that?” Leila asked, ashamed.
Wynter leaned back against the wooden booth, stretching his legs beneath the table. “The girls talk.”
“I'll be sure to remember that for next time.” She stared down at the table and sighed. “Where does Edon live, at the asylum?”
“No. He visits there a few times a month, more often if there's a lot of work to be done.”
“So, why did I have to go there?” she asked. “Was it to scare me?”
“We needed you to sign the scroll at the asylum. It's in the rules about being on sacred ground.”
“An asylum is sacred ground?” Leila scoffed. She'd have thought a church or synagogue, but not a place that the mentally ill were locked up.
Wynter shrugged. “I don't make the rules. When I died, I was surprised Edon didn't show me a graveyard and tell me it was where we lived.”
“That would have been cruel.”
“The cruelty was in how I died,” Wynter said. “I was convicted of murder and treason. I did commit one of those acts, but not in the way I was accused. I was hanged, drawn, and quartered.”
“Which one did you commit?” Although she hadn’t known Wynter long, he didn’t seem like a killer.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He took another swig of ale.
“Perhaps.” Leila sensed it was time to change the subject. “If you weren’t a reaper, you'd be an old guy, all shriveled up and wrinkly.” Her nose scrunched up, and she reached out to touch Wynter's soft skin. “How is it that you're so young? Do we stop aging?”
“Precisely.” Wynter groaned and reached down into his pocket, removing his scroll.
“Won't people notice if we don't age?”
“We move around a lot, and sometimes we die. It’s just not from old age.”
“We’re not immortal?” Leila knew as a reaper she’d be given a few hundred years, but she didn’t expect it could be cut short.
Wynter laughed. “Immortal? No. You can die, and trust me; it isn’t pleasant.”
“It would be so much easier if we were immortal.” Leila paused and frowned. “Do you have to go?”
“No one said being a grim reaper was easy.” He rolled up the scroll and shoved it back into his pocket. “Unfortunately, I do. I can take you with me if you want some additional experience.”
“No, thanks.” Leila didn't want to spend an extra minute with the dying. She couldn't look at someone, know they were about to die, and not feel terrible that she couldn't do anything to stop it. How could this job not affect them?
He finished the last of his drink and scooted out of the bench. “Hopefully, the next time I see you, you're not knee deep in trouble.” Leila watched Wynter walk over to the dance floor and say goodbye to his fellow reapers before leaving.
Early the next morning, Leila rolled over in bed with a massive headache. She couldn't remember how much ale she’d had or what time they'd gotten home. Her leg tingled from the scroll. “Can't I get a day off?”
Leila pulled the scroll from her thigh and carefully unraveled the paper. Her stomach sank.
Isabella Comer, October 13th, 4:52p.m., Lyra, Talivia.
She'd never been to Lyra, but she knew it was a trading city in Talivia. Her father had sent traders to acquire batches of silk that were later used to make dresses for the princesses. She dressed and ran a brush through her hair before she walked into the living room. Violetta and Emblyn were already awake.
“Good morning,” Emblyn said.
“Yeah, not that good of a morning.” Leila grabbed a seat beside Emblyn on the sofa and handed her the scroll. “How am I supposed to know who Isabella is? Did the scroll deliberately forget to give me the woman's age?” Was this to get even with her for not performing her last reap on time?
Emblyn closed the scroll and handed it back to Leila. “Sometimes details are left off. It shouldn't be a big deal. There aren't that many traders who are women in Lyra. Just ask if she's Isabella, and if she says yes, say that you knew her father. It always works,” Emblyn said.
Violetta stretched her arms, stood up, and asked, “Do I need to make sure you don't bail out again?”
“I won't screw it up. I'll be fine,” Leila assured her. “Can I borrow your horse?” She still hadn't been given one of her own, and she didn't have any money to pay for one.
“Go for it.” Violetta shooed her out the door. “Don't screw this one up!”
Leila rolled her eyes and left to saddle the horse. She rode along the dirt trails and paths that had been worn down by other travelers. She gripped the reins and steered the horse toward the city. Hopefully she wouldn't run into anyone from Casmerelda. Even though they wouldn't recognize her, she wasn't sure she could handle seeing them again.
Approaching Lyra, Leila slowed the horse and tied the rope around a post. It would do her no good to bring the horse through town, asking every woman she saw if she was Isabella. This job wasn't going to be easy, was it?
Leila wandered through the open market. There were trinkets of jade, woolen wall-hangings, pottery, and silk. She slowed at each stall, glancing in at the seller, making sure it wasn't a woman. A child's laugh caught her attention, and Leila spun around on her feet, nearly barreling the young girl over. “Isabella?” Leila asked, praying to any deity out there that this young blonde angel was not the girl who would be dying today.
The barefoot blonde girl smiled. She carried a handful of white flowers. “Yes,” she said. Her brown eyes twinkled in the sunlight.
“You look very pretty today.” Leila smiled. She reached down and paused, unable to perform the reap. Leila closed her eyes, her hand retreated and she looked away, ashamed. She couldn't do it. Her hands trembled, and she watched Isabella skip off toward the grass, falling in a heap, laughing excitedly.
“Why her?” Leila asked to no one in particular. She stormed off toward the horse. “Maybe it won't happen. Maybe her number isn't really up.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “It's not fair. She's just a child.” She didn't expect an answer. It wasn't even like she could trade her life for this child's; she was already dead.
“You can't ignore your appointment,” Edon said.
Leila spun around on her heel. “When did you decide to show up?”
They came face-to-face. “I'm always here,” he said.
Somehow she doubted that, or else he'd have known of her recent screw up. She kicked a rock and groaned. Now her toe hurt too. She walked further from the horse. Isabella was sitting on the grass, smiling up as the sun basked her in a warm beautiful glow. The flowers sat nestled on her legs. Everything inside of Leila hurt. “I'm not doing it. She's a child.”
“You have to,” Edon said.
“I can't.” Leila's voice trembled. “She should have her whole life ahead of her. I'm not taking that away.”
Edon sighed. “It was never your job to take it away. It's going to happen, with or without you.”
Leila ran her hands through her hair. “I get that.” She'd seen the consequences with Asher. Refusing to reap him hadn't done anything to keep him from dying. “What if I protect her? What if I make sure whatever is supposed to kill her, doesn't?”
“You're not a dark angel,” Edon said. “You're a grim reaper.”
“I . . . I don't want to be a reaper anymore.” She wasn't sure she ever truly wanted to be one. Maybe for an instant after she died, when she thought she could find closure. This was awful. She couldn't take the soul of a child. “It's not fair.”