The Deathtaker's Daughter

by S. L. Baum

  “When he does laugh, it is truly from the heart.” Willa hugged her husband to her side. “And when Anna is being her goofy self, he laughs the hardest.”

  Eva fidgeted from side to side, leaning back and forth from one foot to the other. “Should I show Anna the creek? We can just walk down to the water and back.” She’d rather be outside and she figured Anna might as well.

  “Can I?” Anna asked. “I’d love to see the creek.”

  “I don’t know,” Klaus looked apprehensive.

  “It’s an easy walk to the water. Perfectly safe. I promise,” Krista assured him.

  “Let her go,” Anna told her husband.

  Klaus gave a look of uncertain defeat. “Okay, but don’t get too close to the water. I don’t want you to fall in. The chill would not be good for your health.”

  “Gosh, Daddy. I’m not going to fall in. I’ll be fine!” she huffed and walked to the door.

  Eva followed her out.

  “Just don’t push yourself too hard,” her mother reminded her of her waning strength.

  “I will,” she called back just before the door slammed shut behind them. When they reached the bottom step, Anna stopped and looked at Eva. “He treats me like a baby sometimes,” she grumbled. “So, where are we going?”

  “This way,” Eva told her and pointed to the path through the trees that would lead them down to the creek. “So you’re thirteen?”

  “Yeah. How old are you?”

  “Only ten.”

  Anna took a panting breath. “You look older than ten.”

  “Yup. People say that. You look younger than thirteen.”

  “Yeah. I get that all the time,” Anna sighed. “It’s why my dad still treats me like I’m five.”

  “I guess your family is spending Christmas here. My parents said that we’re telling everyone you guys, and that Barbie woman, are my mom’s friends from before she came to Cedar Creek, and that’s why you’re all here for the holidays. Some people around here can be really nosey, so we need a story.”

  “So, everybody here doesn’t know about your mom?” Anna asked. “Dumb question. I doubt many people know about Barbie and her family. I guess it would be something to keep secret. She’d have people lined up for miles trying to get her to save them, if word ever got out.”

  “She’d die if she saved people too often. That’s one of the reasons my grandma, Chai, didn’t come back to help you. She died right after helping our friends.”

  Anna sat down on a tree stump near the lake to catch her breath. “I need to rest for a minute.” She tired easily, and if she didn’t pace herself she’d get dizzy and might even pass out. There was no way she would let that happen. “My mom said Chai saved a mom and a brand new baby.”

  “I saw her right after it happened. She wasn’t able to process both of their deaths all the way, so she died soon after she woke up.”

  “So, do you think your mom will be able to take this cancer death, process it all the way, and then both of us will get to go on and live the rest of our lives?”

  “I hope so,” Eva sighed and sat down on the ground beside her.

  Anna looked out at the water as it flowed across the rocks and down the creek. She felt suddenly stronger, and a warm sense of calm spread throughout her body. “I hope so too. So, tell me all about being a Deathtaker.”

  As soon as Eva and Anna had left the house, Klaus and Willa’s expressions turned grim. “We really hope you can help us. We uprooted Anna from our family and her friends right before Christmas, so we could be here as soon as possible. I suppose we could have waited until after New Year’s, but I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the holidays knowing that Anna’s chance at survival was here in this town. Everyone thinks we took a last minute vacation to Hawaii,” Klaus told them.

  Krista looked out the window and watched the girls as they made their way down the path through the trees. Anna embodied the scent of dying more than anyone she’d come across recently. It dripped from her every pore. She knew the girl didn’t have long before Death would come to claim its victim. “I can most definitely help her. And every extra moment I am able to spend around your daughter will strengthen the bond between us and make the process easier. I’ll be able to make a connection soon, it’s good that you came as quickly as you were able.”

  “The sad part is, I’m sure everyone thinks we are taking her away for one last hurrah before the end,” Willa said with a tear in her eye. “The doctors were really quite disturbed when we checked her out of the hospital last night. They said we were crazy. Part of me thinks we are.”

  “Crazy enough to trust our dear friends to find someone like you to save our daughter,” Klaus added.

  “Then it’s good that you’ve got a little bit of crazy in you,” Abe told them. “Our Krista will get the job done.”

  Sam nodded in agreement. “From a personal experience, soon after I met Krista she took a death and saved our deputy sheriff’s wife. Not long after that, Chai saved my life.”

  Klaus put his hands in his pockets and his finger traced the face of the money clip Anna had presented to him on his last birthday. The engraved inscription read: To the best Daddy in the Whole Wide World. I’ll love you forever!! ~AnnaBanana He didn’t ask for forever, but he did want to keep her alive and well for as many years as possible. She should be able to live a normal life, just like any other girl. He was going to put his faith in this Deathtaker magic. “For many years, we’ve been friends with others who possess some quite interesting powers. Magical happenings are something we absolutely believe in. It’s just hard to hope for something like this.”

  “I know it is, but as long as I can be next to her when the time comes, Anna will come through this,” Krista promised Anna’s parents. “And your friends will be shocked at the unexpected improvement to her health. It’ll be a miracle cure.”

  “Barbie told us that your mother passed away after helping someone else. Will you come through this?” Willa asked.

  “Chai made a lot of mistakes. She abused the power, and eventually it got the better of her. I’ll be just fine. I’m not worried about that at all,” Krista assured her. “And you shouldn’t be either.”

  Sam didn’t say a word. He was worried. He was always worried. And ever since Chai died, the thought of Krista losing her life after taking a death had plagued him more than it ever had before. Sam didn’t want to entertain the thought of losing the love of his life.

  Barbie looked at him with a knowing smile. She couldn’t read his mind, but she could tell what he was thinking by the look on his face. “Your wife will be just fine. She’s a very resilient being. I can feel the strength living inside of her!”

  “You’ve got the right ticket, Barbie.” Abe raised an eyebrow in appreciation. “Our Krista knows what she’s doing.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Fischers spent the morning of Christmas Eve alone. Willa made a big pancake breakfast with the ingredients she’d found in the kitchen of the guesthouse. Krista had stocked it well a mere twenty-four hours before, as soon as she’d found out that the family had been able to catch a plane to Greenville. After breakfast, the three of them planned to decorate the small potted fir tree Klaus had found right outside the front door. A box with glass ornaments and lights sat beside it, and a note was taped to the top of the box. I wasn’t sure if you celebrate Christmas, but I wanted to leave these for you. Just in case. No hurt feelings if you don’t. Just leave it outside and I can pick it up later, if you guys don’t want it. – Sam Webber.

  “We’re all going to have to do some spray tanning before we go back home,” Willa suggested, after swallowing a mouthful of syrupy pancake. “Nobody will believe we were in Hawaii if we come back as pale as we left.”

  Klaus made an approving noise while he chewed his breakfast. “Excellent idea. I’m sure there is a place in Greenville we can visit on the way back. Anna, are you ready for your first fake tan?”

  “I’ve heard it can tur
n out very orangey. I’ll have to do a search and check out some reviews to find the best one,” Willa noted. “I refuse to look like a pumpkin.”

  Willa and Klaus looked at their daughter to find out what she though about the idea, but it was apparent her mind was off somewhere else. The girl was staring out the window with a far off look in her eyes.

  “Anna?” Klaus said her name.

  “I wonder how long it will take for me to die,” Anna blurted out what she was thinking. As soon as she saw the looks on her parents’ faces she regretted the words.

  Willa placed her fork down on her plate and wiped her hands across the napkin in her lap. “What do you mean, die? We came here so that does not happen.”

  “I know I’ll be alive at the end. I mean, afterward. But Eva told me that I’ll have to die first. She said it will only last for like a second, though, my death I mean.” She paused to take a sip of her juice before continuing. “Something about a deep sleep, where I’m just lying there, immobile, and then I stop breathing, and then right after that happens, my eyes pop open and I am alive again. I wonder if it hurts.” She stopped blurting out all the random details she’d picked up from Eva and took a bite of her pancake.

  “When did she tell you this information?” Klaus asked his daughter, trying to keep the distress from his voice.

  “When we were down by the creek, yesterday. Actually, she told me all about the process of Deathtaking, and exactly what will happen to me, and what happens to her mother. She did admit that she hasn’t actually witnessed one, yet, but her mother told her all about it, every last detail. And Eva said she asked a lot of questions.”

  “She seems like such a young girl,” Willa noted. “But I suppose her parents are like us; honest to a fault. We want you to know the truth about everything.”

  “They didn’t tell her until she was eight, when they had to, when her grandmother died. She’s going to become one, you know?”

  “Become what?” Klaus asked.

  Anna looked up at her father. “A Deathtaker, like her grandmother and her mother; it runs in the family. Just like Barbie and her family, I guess.”

  “I’ve been told that those kinds of things certainly do pass through bloodlines across time,” Klaus confirmed.

  “I think she’s a little scared of the whole thing. I’m going to be the first person that she’ll watch die, then come back to life.”

  “You know what?” Willa looked at her daughter and saw a spark of fear behind her eyes. As brave as her little girl always tried to seem, she knew she feared the end of her life coming too soon. “You’ll be the first person your father and I observe die and come back to life. That’s certainly not something you see everyday. I guess that makes you extra special.” Willa kept her tone light and forced a smile to her lips. “Eat your breakfast, AnnaBanana. We’ve got a tree to decorate.”

  Klaus gave his wife a look of thanks. He wasn’t always sure how to react to their daughter in such times, but Willa always seemed to help divert Anna from dwelling on the negative things that surrounded them on a daily basis. They’d had almost two years of relative peacefulness, after the doctors told them Anna’s cancer had gone into remission. But they had always known there was a possibility of it coming back, and they weren’t as shocked as he’d imagined they should have been when they were given the news of its return.

  Chai had been their fallback card, and when they’d been unable to reach her, panic truly set in. They started chemotherapy again, as the doctors suggested, but Klaus had begged his magical friends for help. That Christmas Eve morning he was thankful for Barbie and her locating skills, thankful to Krista for inviting them into their home, and clinging to the hope that his daughter would get to live a much longer life because there were powers in the world that most people were unaware of.

  He cleared his plate and stood up from the table. “I’m going to bring the tree in now. Where do you think I should place it?”

  “In the corner, right there,” Anna told him, as she pointed to what she thought was the perfect spot for the little tree that was barely as tall as she was. “What color are the lights?”

  “I think I just saw little white ones,” Klaus told her.

  “Good,” Willa said with a smile. “I love trees with white lights.”

  “So do I,” Anna agreed.

  They placed thoughts of death at the back of their minds and concentrated on Christmas decorations instead.

  Sam stared at Barbie from the other room, as she walked around the Christmas tree at the main house. At first, his mind had been full of questions. She’d said she was a Witch, she said there were others, she’d even said there were beings that were something else entirely. What were those things? But then he decided he didn’t want to think about it. In fact, he didn’t ever want to know about it. Samuel Webber was sure this was truly a case where ignorance was bliss. He really did not want to know. His view of the world had already been disrupted when he found out what Krista was. He didn’t care how curious his wife was; he planned to stay completely and totally ignorant on the subject.

  Something about Barbie disturbed him. She was too happy, too positive, she gushed about everything, but her most annoying habit was that she rarely stopped talking. He wished the guesthouse had more bedrooms so he could shove her out there and not have to endure her constant chatter. Sam took a slow breath as all those thoughts tumbled around in his brain. You’re becoming an old curmudgeon of a guy, he told himself. Lighten up!

  “Wow! You guys have the coolest tree. I love all the old vintage ornaments you have.”

  “Vintage means old,” Sam mumbled under his breath.

  “Oh, I know that. Everybody knows that.”

  Sam’s breath caught in his throat. There’s no way she could have heard me, he thought.

  Barbie laughed at the shocked look on his face. “Heightened senses,” she answered his unasked question. “You’ve got to have good senses to be The Locator.”

  “Why do you keep calling yourself that?” he asked.

  “Because it’s what I am. I am The Locator Witch, just as Krista is The Deathtaker. I can locate a specific person, anywhere on Earth, as long as I have some personal items from the person I am looking for, while your wife can take the death of anyone that is dying, if she chooses to use her power. Whether we should or shouldn’t is another story. Like, well, I won’t locate someone to settle a vendetta, I won’t work for bad guys, I don’t condone violence, unless it is necessary to save the good guys, and I won’t use my skills for collecting money. While Krista probably wouldn’t take the death away from a vicious murderer, a super duper old person, or a scamming conn artist. I’m not sure exactly where her boundaries lie. There’s a lot of stuff running through our heads when we are going to use our powers, believe you me.”

  Sam just stared at her with his mouth open. He wasn’t aware he was doing it. He simply couldn’t wrap his head around this Barbie woman.

  “I talk a lot. A whole lot. I know. I used to apologize for it, but I’ve stopped. This is me. Take it or leave it. Only my very close friends are allowed to scold me for it, but even then I find it hard to keep my mouth closed. I can tell it’s bothersome to you, so I can try to tone it down a little. But honestly, I probably won’t be successful. And since my father requested that I stay until Anna is fine, until the process is done, I guess you’ll have to put up with me for however long this takes.”

  “I guess I will,” Sam said. He appreciated her honesty and realized he’d need to be more accommodating while the woman was a guest in his home. “The ornaments are quite precious and most of them have been in this family for generations.”

  Barbie smiled widely. “Which one is your favorite? That’s probably a hard question to answer. With so many ornaments, how could you possibly have just one particular special one? So, which are the special ones to you?” she asked, grateful for what seemed like a slate wiped clean.

  Sam stood up and walked over to the tree. �
��Oh, I’m not sure how to narrow them down. They all hold a memory. This one was my mother’s favorite, this one my grandmother’s. This one, Krista and I hung up together on our very first Christmas morning, and this one was the one we got after Eva was born. Oh, and one more. This one Abe gave me to commemorate the first really large fish we caught together when I was a boy.” Sam pointed to each ornament as he spoke, fondly remembering the memories that were encapsulated within all of the decorations hanging from the tree. “Abe knows more about the stories behind the majority of them, because many of those things are older than him.”

  “It’s good to have family,” Barbie murmured, as she lightly touched and turned several of the ornaments on the tree. “I was raised by a drug addict mother and then ended up homeless, for a while, as a teen. After that I hooked up with a very bad Witch. I didn’t find my father’s family until after I’d lived quite a lonely and hard life. Family makes it better. Family makes it good. You have a lovely family and close friends. You’re a very lucky man, you know?”

  “I do know. Even with the losses I’ve had, I still have Krista, Eva, my Uncle Abe, and some very good friends here in Cedar Creek. I’m definitely a very lucky man.”

  “You really are,” Barbie said with her ever-present smile. “Christmas decorations make me want to bake cookies. Do you think anyone would mind if I poked around the kitchen?”

  “Please, go ahead. While you do that, I think I going to go upstairs to wrap some last minute gifts while everyone is out.”

  Barbie clapped her hands with joy. “Perfect.”

  Krista and Eva were out. They’d picked up Anna and taken a drive around town with the girl. The close proximity would help Krista make the much-needed connection, and in turn would cause Death to tighten its grip on the girl. It was a tragedy she hadn’t yet explained to Anna’s parents. She hoped they would not fear her death, because life would quickly follow, but that was a hard thing to get parents and spouses to understand. It was usually just the dying that were somewhat more at peace with the process.