The Reaping of Norah Bentley (18 page)

“It makes perfect sense,” I said, frowning. It hurt to know he was as torn inside as I was trying to pretend I wasn’t, to know he wasn’t as tirelessly confident as his eyes had led me to believe. “You feel torn,” I said, “between me, and Sam, and the others from your world and you…you don’t…”

I trailed off when I saw him shaking his head at me.

“No—no that’s not what I meant. I’m not torn when it comes to you,” he said. “You’re the one thing I’m not torn about.”

For some reason I found myself blushing. “But you said…”

“It’s purely physical,” he said. “It isn’t normal for me to be spending so much time here on earth, in this human form. And it’s tiring, trying to stay here when souls are calling to me and the Afterworld is waiting—it feels like my own soul is being ripped apart, pieces of it divided between different worlds. The penalty for neglecting my duty, I guess; a reminder that I can’t stay here forever. Not that I haven’t tried.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes got that distant look again, but he was smiling a little too, like he was in the middle of a very fond memory.

“Right after I died, I tried to stay here,” he said.

“Here? On earth?”

“Yes.”

“Like how you said a ghost clings to earth?”

“Not exactly, since I was already designated a grim reaper almost immediately after I died. I didn’t have to cling— I could walk among humans and they could see me, if I wanted them to. Not like you glimpse a ghost, but
really
see me, like you right now and— just like you— not be able to tell I was any different from any other human. People would pass me on the street, and other than probably getting a little chill in their spine, they’d never know they’d just walked past death. And they still could see me now, if I wanted them too.”

“But they can’t.” Except for Luke, I automatically corrected myself. Luke could see him whether he liked it or not. I didn’t say it out loud though. I wasn’t ready to talk about Luke again, to bring that problem up on top of everything else.

“That’s mostly because Sam, and some of the others…they weren’t too happy about what I was doing.” He didn’t look like he wanted to elaborate on what Sam and the others did with people they weren’t happy with. I don’t think I wanted him to either.

“It was a lot easier in the beginning, too,” he went on. “I was responsible for fewer souls back then, and my attachment to earth was stronger. These days it’s a lot more tiring to be completely in one place, though. I’m supposed to be in-between.” His gaze drifted towards the trees again. “It’s not as bad now, though,” he said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time on earth, but it’s been mostly with you.” He blushed, hesitated before continuing in a hurried voice: “And your soul pulls stronger than anybody’s now. I guess that’s why I can be here like this. As far as the universe is concerned, I’m still technically here on business.” He looked disgusted at his own choice of words.

I frowned, and it was a long time before I could bring myself to ask him:

“Has the universe ever been wrong about this sort of thing?”

He frowned too, and slowly shook his head. It was the answer I’d expected, but it still made me feel numb all over.

“So that’s it, then? No negotiating this? No fighting it?” I said quietly. “No such thing as immortality, I guess?” All those people searching for the fountain of youth would be disappointed.

“Immortality is a lot worse than death,” he answered without looking at me.

His answer surprised me, and I scoffed at it without really meaning to. “Given the choice,” I said. “I think I’d take immortality.”

He put his arm around me and was thoughtful for a minute, smoothing my hair with his fingers. I didn’t expect him to say anything else. There didn’t seem to be anything else to argue about; who would try to convince somebody on the edge of death that immortality was a bad idea?

He would, apparently.

“You’d regret it. An eternity on earth is a long time,” Eli said. He turned to me then. The sudden anxiety in his eyes made him look a little less tired. “…Actually, sometimes it’s the punishment for people who
do
try to go against what the universe has decided—like people who try to take their own life before it’s their time to go.”

“Like people who commit suicide, you mean?”

He nodded. “
Rogue
souls, we call them. Once they’ve taken things into their own hands, we can’t touch them anymore—their soul is their own. And without us to guide them to either Afterworld, they’re stuck here indefinitely, even after everybody they love has moved on.”

I’d been feeling lonely already, isolated by everything that was happening to me, by all the things I couldn’t tell Rachel and Luke. And now, a terrifying thought struck me—what if they were gone? Literally, physically gone? What if I could
never
tell them anything again?

“…Maybe that would be worse,” I admitted.

He nodded. “And it doesn’t make them physically immortal, anyway. They still age, and suffer any pain that comes with it.”

“What happens when their body gives out completely, though?”

“Then they’re just wandering souls with no place to go.” He hesitated, then added: “Of course, some of them make a place in
other
bodies, and they—”

“You mean they
posses
people?”

“You could use that word.”

“That’s…” I wasn’t even sure what that was. “Are you serious?”

He nodded again, and I felt the color draining from my face in a rush of cold sweat.

“…How’d we even get on that subject, anyway?”

His eyes hastily dropped away from mine. “We were talking about the souls whose time it
is
to move on,” he said.

“Right.” I swallowed hard. “Like mine.”

“And others.”

“Others?” I encouraged. I was eager to direct the subject away from me, and—thankfully— he could tell.

“The pull isn’t as strong with them,” he said. “But I can still only put off what I have to do for so long—which is why I had to leave you last night. There’s a man nearby. Another one of mine, I mean.”

“How do you know? What does it feel like?”

His lips parted in an uncertain smile, surprised by my curiosity I guess. The bright smile made the shadows under his eyes even darker by comparison. “When it gets close like this,” he said, “it starts to feel like you’re a part of them; you get glimpses of their life, of their memories.”

“Was it like that with me, too?” I felt incredibly self-conscious all of a sudden. “Is it like that now? Do you get glimpses of my memories, too?”

He nodded slowly, almost bashfully. I must have looked terrified at the thought, because he quickly straightened up and said, “Nothing too personal, though. The memories aren’t real specific—more of a feeling, than anything else. Especially at first. I feel everything people have felt, for better or worse.” He hesitated. “I mean, when it gets
really
close, sometimes things get a lot clearer, but with you I didn’t…I mean…” He trailed off with a sheepish smile.

“It must be hard,” I broke in, not really wanting him to elaborate on my memories. “Feeling everything other people have felt. Overwhelming?”

“It’s hell sometimes. But other times…it’s not so bad. Like this man calling me now? He’s been a really good-natured person most of his life—almost always happy, in every memory. There were a lot of people there to see him when I visited him in the hospital last night. He’s lived a good life, and he seems ready to move on. So going to see him this afternoon won’t be so bad.”

“This afternoon?”

“His time,” he said.

“Oh, right.”

We were quiet for a minute, and then Eli dropped his gaze and said, “I’m making you uncomfortable again, aren’t I?”

“No,” I said, a little too quickly. He noticed, and looked up at me from underneath raised eyebrows.

“I mean, okay,” I admitted. “So this isn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever been.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “It’s all kind of strange but…”

“But?”

“But I’m glad you told me all that,” I said. And I really was.

He shook his head, looking surprised again. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I really am crazy. Or maybe…maybe it just makes everything less scary—when you sort of know what’s going on, you know?”

He looked at me uncertainly for a few more seconds and then half-nodded, wrapped his arm more tightly around me. I buried my face into his chest and breathed in the scent of early morning that had saturated his shirt, the scent of dew and of the crisper, cleaner air.

Suddenly, I felt a little braver.

“So tell me. What was it like, feeling my memories?” My voice quiet was quiet, half-muffled by his shirt. “Seeing my life?”

“Your life…” he repeated, his tired voice lifting a little. “I don’t know if I can put into words how it felt the first time I saw it.”

I smiled, huddled a little closer to him.

“Try.”

“I told you—I’m not related to Emerson the poet.”

“You don’t have to get all poetic on me. Just tell me what happened. I’m curious.”

He pressed his lips against my hair. His fingers traced down my side and stopped at my waist, lingered there with occasional, thoughtful little taps against the bottom edge of my shirt.

“It was here, in the park,” he said after a minute. “You had your guitar with you.” His warm breath sent electricity over my scalp, down through my shoulders and straight into my chest.

“When was that?”

He thought for a moment. “Sometime in April, I guess, because the dogwoods were blooming. And you were over there—” he pointed to a single bench on the other side of the small creek that twisted through the park; right now, it was perfectly visible through the crooked, bare branches of the trees. But in the spring, all of the trees surrounding the bench puffed up like cotton-balls, thick with tiny blossoms that fluttered free at the slightest breeze.

“Must have been one of my braver days,” I said. “When I didn’t care if people heard me playing.”

“You should never care,” he said. “You’re very good.”

“I’m decent,” I said. “Nowhere near as good as my dad was, when he still played.”

“He’s the one who first taught you, isn’t he?”

I gave him a strange look.

“In every memory of you playing the guitar, there’s a feeling of your father, too,” he explained.

“…It’s his guitar,” I said. “Or it was. He never plays anymore, though—not since Mom left.”

He nodded, like he already knew what I was going to say.

“You think that was your fault, don’t you?” He kept his eyes on my guitar-bench as he spoke.

“It sort of was.” I picked a stray leaf off the edge of the bench, crushed it in my fist, opened it and let the wind sweep the dust out of my palm. I took a deep breath. “They’d never planned on having me, you know. They were going to be musicians—them and two other friends of theirs had a band, and they’d played out at a lot of bars and even opened for some pretty-well known people. The day they came home from recording their first demo album was the same day Mom found out she was pregnant with me.”

Eli was watching me silently, his eyes urging me on. I still faltered under his encouraging gaze. Why did we have to talk about her again? Why did he care so much about this?

“The band broke up,” I muttered. “Mom hung around and helped raise me for about six years, and then her and Dad drew straws I guess.” I shrugged. “And Dad got the short straw. Mom got to run away. Dad married Helen so he wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. The end.”

“You have a gift for storytelling.”

He was trying to make me laugh, and I did the best I could to choke one out. “I just happen to know this one really well,” I said. “I’ve gone over it enough times in my head to have it memorized by heart.”

“Is that why you can talk about it all so easily?”

It was hard to make me angry, but if there was anything that could do it, this was the conversation. Suddenly even Eli’s mild voice sounded like a vicious attack, and I couldn’t help but snap back,

“What am I supposed to do, break down and cry?”

“You could,” he said, very serious.

“Well I’m not going to. I got over feeling sorry for myself a long time ago. And it doesn’t matter now—I’ll be eighteen in a year and a half, and then I’m out of this place.” Assuming I made it to eighteen. That wasn’t really the point here, though. “And I could care less if I ever see it again. I could care less about any of this—about Dad or Helen or whatever.”

“You cared the night we first met,” Eli said.

The challenge threw me off-balance. “No I didn’t,” I said. “I was running away from them the first night we met.”

“A person who didn’t care would have stayed inside.”

“I—”

My mouth hung open, jaw slack. Suddenly there was nothing I could say, and I didn’t like it. How did he keep doing this to me? Leaving me speechless like that—and in an argument about my own feelings? It was wrong. He didn’t know what he was talking about.