Reapers, Inc. - Brigit's Cross (12 page)

Recognition of his fate was slowly wrapping
itself around his thin shoulders. He was finally becoming aware of
the prison ten minutes to eight had become for him. Brigit saw a
faint glimmer of tears welling in his blue eyes. They would never
spill over, but she knew he was finally being released from the
loop and there were some emotions left to expire.

“What do I do now?” he asked quietly.

“When you’re ready, you may leave this place.
Are you ready?”

“Are you sure Mickey isn’t coming? I thought
I heard him in the hall…”

“I’m sure,” Brigit assured him.

“Then, I guess I’m ready. I need my lipstick,
though,” he pointed out as his eyes began to scan the clutter on
the make-up table once again.

When his gaze fell on the platinum beehive
wig to his right, he snatched it from the stand and planted it on
his head. As he continued to straighten it, Brigit stood and walked
to the dressing table to his left. A tube of lipstick rested there.
Silent, she picked it up and read the name:
Lucky Red
.
Silently she passed it to Matthew-Matilda Swenson and watched as he
took his time in applying it. When he was done, he tucked the tube
under one of the rubber false breasts glued securely to his
hairless chest. He smacked his lips a couple of times for good
measure before swiveling on the short stool and facing Brigit full
on.

“How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” Brigit replied with a soft
smile.

“Let’s get this show on the road, then,”
Matthew-Matilda decided. Brigit offered her free hand to the drag
queen as he slowly rose from the stool. As they touched, Brigit saw
the door appear to her left. Her smile remained as she escorted the
towering drag queen toward it slowly.

“What’s your name, honey?” he asked. His
voice had gone from a pert pitch to a seductive low tone. It was a
part of the personae, Brigit knew. She would entertain it for the
next few minutes of knowing him.

“Brigit,”

“Lovely. I like you, honey. What do you do?”
Brigit’s smile broadened.

“I’m a Grim Reaper,”

“Oh my,” Matthew-Matilda froze, suddenly
remembering his joke about his father. Brigit smiled and shrugged
in a sign of dismissal to his silent apology.

“Matthew Swenson,” she began as she opened
the waiting portal to his fate.

“
Matilda
,” he groaned with a dramatic
roll of his blue eyes.

“Matthew
Matilda
Swenson,” Brigit
corrected. “May you find
eternal peace
.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” the drag queen said
before stooping to plant a light kiss on her cheek.

Matthew-Matilda turned dramatically and
walked through the door, holding his breath as if he knew the stage
and a big spot light was waiting on the other side. Brigit closed
the door softly behind him and withdrew his portfolio from her
pocket. When she opened it, she found the pages blank – only his
name and passing date remained. Assignment complete.

Silently, she slipped the black folder into
the opposite coat pocket and left the dressing room. She had to
complete the next assignment before the day was over. John expected
her back at the office to discuss her interactions and actions.
Allowing Matthew-Matilda to tell his story to break him from the
loop of time he was stuck in had taken quite a bit of time; but it
was an action she had felt necessary to avoid a struggle.

As she stepped from the dressing room into
the dark and narrow hall that had led her there to begin with, she
felt the other spirit looming at the end of the hall. Her grip on
the handle of the umbrella tightened again before she began the
walk toward it. As she approached, she could feel it taking the
same number of steps away from her.

“Show your self,” she instructed when she
reached the end of the hall and could see the main room of the
theater with the aid of the faint light from the windows close to
the ceiling. A slight vibration to her left caught her eye and she
turned to face it. It was a young man with a frightened look on his
face. He was wringing his hands nervously as he watched her, ready
to run if she made a move toward him.

“What did you do with Matilda?” he asked. His
voice was shaking.

“I have passed him to his fate. Who are you?”
Brigit asked softly.

“I’m Mickey. I was supposed to fetch Matilda
to the stage. She’s been waiting for me,” he explained.

“Matilda has gone, Mickey.”

“I want to see her show, please,” he
pleaded.

Brigit eyed the young man for a moment. He
had barely left being a boy, yet, he was barely a man as well. She
wondered how long he had been waiting to pass himself.

“That’s not possible at this moment,” Brigit
finally said. “You’ll have to catch the next one,” she suggested
when she saw his shoulders drop in dismay.

“Can you get me in? Please? I’m crazy about
her,” he pleaded.

“I’ll do what I can,” Brigit promised.

“When will I know?” Mickey asked
excitedly.

“Soon, I promise. Just hang out here and I’ll
come for you when I have the green light,” she assured him
gently.

“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you,” Mickey gushed.
His fear of her presence had disappeared. The vibration of his
energy was becoming stronger. He would do as she instructed. He
would wait here for his chance to see Matilda Swenson again.

Brigit nodded and turned away from him. She
had to get on with her next assignment. She had made a promise to
him, to Mickey. She would come back for him as soon as she could
find his portfolio and he would finally have his chance to see
Matilda Swenson sing.

As Brigit exited 72 St. Mark’s Place, she
closed her eyes to the bright light of the portal that would take
her to the next assignment. When she opened them again, she was
standing on a tree lined street with cookie-cutter houses on either
side. White picket fences surrounded a few of them, marking the
boundaries of one lot from the other. Standing in the middle of the
street, Brigit withdrew the second portfolio from her coat
pocket.

Bobby Hooper, aged five, had passed in the
mid-fifties and his parents had left the area shortly after his
passing. His father had been in the Air Force and, as such, had
been reassigned to another base within months of his oldest son’s
death. Mrs. Hooper, Bobby’s mother, had reluctantly followed her
husband despite the heartbreak of losing her child. Brigit read his
short story carefully, hoping to find a sign that would make this
task easy.

The fact that it was a child bothered her.
She had never been particularly good with children despite her
every effort to charm them. That had been Maggie’s department.
Maggie had a way with children that made
The Pied Piper
look
like a charlatan. It was part of her success as an elementary
teacher. The children naturally loved her. Brigit had often
imagined that Maggie would one day be the Mama Dee of the
neighborhood.

Brigit turned and eyed the small square house
that had been indicated in Bobby Hooper’s portfolio. It was a small
place with faux shutters outlining the windows that faced the
street. The white picket fence that had been put up around the yard
was now a faded brown, the white wash having peeled and eroded away
with time. The yard was void of any flowers and the hedge planted
on either side of the tiny front porch was overgrown from years of
neglect. It was obvious to Brigit as she opened the gate and began
walking up the cracked-cement walk that there had been many short
term residents in the small house and none of them had cared enough
to keep up appearances.

As she entered the house, she listened
carefully for the sound of a child playing. Silence was all she
heard as she stood in the front room. Her ears strained for the
slightest sound to indicate the boy’s presence. She was about to
double check the address indicated in his portfolio when she heard
the deep sigh carry across the silence from the back of the house.
Slowly, Brigit began to walk toward it’s origin in the kitchen.

He was sitting on a chair in the corner of
the kitchen. His roly-poly frame was slumped against the back of
the chair as if he had been punished and he was waiting for the
word that he had served his time. His brown hair had been nicely
combed to one side as befitting a little boy of the time. His
shorts and striped t-shirt were clean and pressed. Bright white
socks set off the navy blue of his canvas sneakers as his pudgy
legs dangled over the edge of the chair. Brigit noticed the look of
fear that came into his eyes as she emerged from the hall into the
near empty kitchen. How long he had been sitting in this room, she
didn’t know. All she could see was his sudden fear that a stranger
was present. She wondered if it was an emotion that he had
expressed each time a new family had come into his home.

“Hi Bobby,” she said gently. She stopped a
few feet in front of him, not wanting to excite his fear any more
than she already had. The chubby little boy gave no reply. “How
long have you been sitting here?” she asked. Silence followed her
question and she began to believe that getting him to talk to her
was going to be an act of God.

“You’re mom sent me to bring you to her,” she
said.

Brigit felt the sudden ridiculousness of the
statement as soon as she had finished it. Parents had been
preaching about strangers using that line to snatch children for
decades. Bobby Hooper had obviously been a recipient of that
preaching. Only his eyes showed the wariness he was feeling as her
words sank in on him.

Wondering how she was going to get any kind
of response from the child, Brigit withdrew her field guide.
Hopefully, the last page would have a suggestion on how to deal
with silent children. Quickly, she flipped to the last page.

My baby loved to sing
…

Brigit’s eyes snapped from the words that had
appeared there to Bobby Hooper’s round face. He was sullen, sitting
in the chair and staring back at her with untrusting eyes. She
could only imagine his chubby little cheeks uplifted in a smile of
delight as he sang. As she looked into his dark brown eyes, her
mind quickly began the search for any childhood song that had long
been hidden in her memory. She pushed herself to remember the songs
her mother had taught her when she was a small girl…

“Hey, Bobby,” she said gently. She slipped
the Field Guide back to her pocket and knelt before the child. “I
heard you like to sing. Do you know the song about the
Ten
Little Indians
?”

The roly-poly boy’s eyes snapped to meet
Brigit’s in sudden curiosity. His fear was beginning to ebb.

“Do you know the song?” Brigit pressed, glad
to finally have some sign of ‘life’ from the child. “Will you sing
it with me?
One little, two little, three little Indians
…”
Brigit sang softly. She waited to see if he would join. He merely
stared at her as if she had suddenly lost her mind. Brigit realized
he wasn’t going to join in and quickly searched for another song.
“How about
The Mulberry Bush
? Do you know that one?”

A movement caught her eye and she paused. The
boy had wiggled his fingers where they lay on his thigh even though
his pudgy hand had barely made any other noticeable movement.
Brigit smiled and returned her attention to his face. Slowly, she
sang the first verse about going around the mulberry bush as a
small light began to dance in his brown eyes. She waited, hoping
his small mouth would open and he’d sing with her. His silence
persisted, though.

“Bobby, let’s do
London Bridge
. You
know that one, right?” she praised. “Do you want to sing with
me?”

Brigit stood up and offered the child her
hands to indicate her willingness to go through the motions of
London Bridge
with the child. She hoped it would do the
trick in getting him close to her so the door he needed to pass
through would appear. Once it did, she would open it and urge him
through. She was sure there were plenty of sing-along sessions on
the other side. If not, she would remind herself to speak to John
about it when she returned to the office. Surely, he could put in a
request to have them so Bobby Hooper would be entertained through
out eternity.

“C’mon, Bobby, let’s do the dance,” she
urged.

Brigit began singing again and found herself
trying very hard to remember words in the right order. Finally, the
little boy could no longer contain himself and slid from the chair
to join her in the dance. Together, they held hands and swung their
arms as Brigit watched his face, pleased to see the delight that
had finally erased the sullen expression she had first encountered.
She felt her heart becoming light for the first time in weeks as
she fell to the floor with the little boy when London Bridge came
tumbling down. She felt her spirits rising as she began to belt out
the words of a song she had never thought she would sing again.
Brigit suddenly understood the difference between growing up and
growing old.

By the sixth time through the song, Brigit
noticed the child had begun to sing. His voice still betrayed his
sense of wariness, but the joy of the song put a small on his face.
When the song ended, she found herself lying on the floor beside
Bobby Hooper. His eyes were dancing with delight as he turned his
head and looked at her. She felt his silent gaze urging her to get
back up and sing it again. Instead, she sat up and took his chubby
hand in her own.

“Bobby, it’s time to go away from here. Are
you ready?” She looked deep into his eyes. A slight panic flashed
in his brown eyes as he processed what she had just said. Hoping to
reassure him, she continued: “Where you’re going, sweetheart, they
sing all kinds of songs all the time. Wouldn’t that be fun? You’d
have so many friends to play with. Do you want to go there?”