School of Deaths

by Christopher Mannino

  Lovethar was a hideous and terrifying monster. Her face was sunken in and her eyeballs jutted out. Her hair flew out in every direction as she held her scythe in front of her. It was a drawing, not a photo, but the image was gruesome. She reminded Suzie of pictures of Medusa with her wild snake-hair and furious expression.

  LOVETHAR. Born? - Died year 275 (997,990 BCE). Lovethar was the first and only female Death. She became a fully licensed Death in year 260 and continued as a Death for ten years. In year 270 she made a pact with the Dragons, directly starting the Great War. She personally destroyed the Temple of Others, causing over one hundred endings. She was tried and found guilty of crimes against Deaths following the War and expulsion of the Dragons. She was ended in 275, on what is now Widow’s Mount. The Lovethar Protocol passed in 276 decreed that no other female would become a Death. See also: GREAT WAR, Lovethar the Witch, Lovethar the Terrible.

  Suzie closed the book. Why was she here? If no female could become a Death, what had gone wrong? Lovethar’s entry in the history book read like a dictionary definition. Yet Athanasius had mentioned her with fear. Suzie picked up the book and put it with the others. The bed was now clear and she lay down, staring at the blue of the ceiling.

  As she lay, her strength faded. She was alone again. Alone in the world, this strange and hostile world of Death.

  Alone.

  Tears came quickly and did not stop. She cried and cried, not caring if the boys heard her. She wanted to go home, wanted to hug her mom. Mom and Dad and Joe. What would they be doing now? How worried were they? She pictured Dad pacing back and forth, fingering his moustache, trying to remain calm, while Mom screamed at the police. Joe would be silent, unsure of what to do. Would he even miss her?

  Her teachers had been worried about her health. Now she was gone. Not just gone, but vanished, missing. Gingerbread Nurse would pout and Dr. Fox wouldn’t learn the reason for her weight loss.

  Crystal, her best friend, would wonder. Monica, Julie, Freddie, that annoying kid with the sniffles, sort of like Jason. She stopped short. Jason was here. Here. Here was where she was. Simple, yet terrifying. This was the Land of Death. The Land of Deaths. Everyone here was a Death. Jason wasn’t an annoying kid in her Science class, he was a Death. She was a Death too. She would be a Death for a year. She might be a Death forever.

  Suzie cried until her eyes hurt and her throat stung. She stopped. She didn’t feel better, but she’d run out of tears. She was too tired to cry anymore. She rose and washed her face, staring in the mirror.

  Her eyes were red and she looked frightful, a bit like the terrible picture of Lovethar. Her hair hung out at angles, and she began to comb it. She was better than this. She was thirteen, not some little girl. This was terrible and hard, but she could do it. She had to. She would.

  For the first time since arriving in the world of Deaths, she smiled. She’d show them. They expected her to fail, the only girl in a million years. She’d teach these boys something. And in a year, she’d leave.

  Suzie heard a grumbling and glanced down. She needed food. She took out the bag with the cake, and hid it carefully in one of her drawers. She’d have to be careful with that. She looked at the door to her room and turned the doorknob.

  Jason’s door was open a crack. She heard a scampering noise when she opened her door. He had probably been listening to her cry. She walked into the kitchen. The two lamps in the corners lit. She peered at one; a small white flower glowed in its center. Suzie walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a banana.

  “Hey,” said Jason as she peeled the fruit. He stared at the floor and she kept eating. She finished the banana and pulled out an apple. At least they had fruit here.

  “I cried when I first got here too.” Jason’s voice was scarcely louder than a whisper and he still didn’t look up. “It must be super-hard being a girl.”

  “What do you want?” Suzie didn’t mean to sound cold, but she was tired and hungry. Jason was a Death. He might look like a sniffling little boy, but he was one of them.

  “I had a backpack when they took me. They grabbed me right at recess. If you want this, it's yours.” He held out a chocolate bar. Suzie put down the apple and looked at him.

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said.

  For the first time since meeting him, Jason looked up. His eyes were wide and watery. He straightened his glasses and turned away. He put the chocolate bar on the counter.

  “I’m scared too,” he whispered. “Being here, I mean, in this place.”

  Suzie nodded. “Thanks for the chocolate, Jason.”

  “Good night.” He started toward his room.

  “Wait a second,” she said. Jason stopped and Suzie walked to him.

  “We’ll get through this. It’s only a year.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We will.” She wasn’t sure she believed herself, but opened her arms and gave Jason an awkward hug. He stiffened and then started to relax, but did not open his arms. She sensed he wanted to cry.

  “Good night,” she said.

  He hurried into his room and closed the door. Suzie threw out the apple core and took the candy into her room. She closed the door and peeked in the drawers. They had even left her a long pink nightgown. She wondered where everything was from, but guessed they had stolen it from somewhere in the real world, the living world.

  She finished getting ready, lay down, and closed her eyes. Billy was supposed to show them around over the weekend, and on Monday, school would begin. Though depressed, she was also curious. What would school be like for a Death? How do you train a Death?

  Suzie smiled again. She’d always imagined Death being one guy: a fairy tale skeleton who takes souls to Hell or something. Yet here she was, one of many in an entire world.

  A world of Deaths.

  Chapter Five

  Fire by the Lake

  Suzie’s dreams were strange. A man in a purple robe laughed when Cronk stumbled out a door. The dream shifted. Screams echoed in the darkness beneath the flapping of enormous leather wings. A pair of red eyes glowed in the distance, and whispered voices hung in the air. Someone called out to her, a beautiful woman dressed in white with long flowing hair. Men in black robes surrounded the woman, waving scythes and yelling. The woman opened her eyes. Suzie stared at her own face.

  “You awake?” Billy’s voice called through the door. “C’mon, time to get up.”

  Suzie muttered something, and Billy must’ve heard because the knocking stopped. She crawled out of bed and opened the curtains. The window looked over a large grass courtyard. An enormous tower stretched to the sky, looming over one side of the lawn: a mass of twisted, writhing stone. The sky was light and blue.

  She showered and dressed in some of her new clothes. They fit perfectly. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She looked good, better than she ever had. Her face was fleshy and her body hinted at curves. The skeletal girl was a distant memory, she was pretty again.

  Suzie walked into the kitchen and sat at the table. Jason stared at his breakfast, while Billy gave her a big grin.

  “Morning Suzie, are you doing a little better today?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I made you some eggs and toast, for your first morning here. I’ll show you two around when you’ve eaten.”

  “Thank you, Billy.” She took the breakfast and started eating. “This is delicious.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “I’m from Damascus, Maryland, in the United States.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “We’re both from the States. I’m from Connecticut, and Jason’s from Virginia.”

  Jason nodded but didn’t look up.

  “He’s shy,” said Billy. “You’ll both open up sooner or later. It’s not too bad here.” Suzie caught his eye and he looked away.

  “It’ll be harder for you,” he added. “The older Deaths will never accept you. This is a male world.”

  They finished their meal an
d prepared to leave. Suzie slipped Athanasius’s cake into a pocket. Billy led her and Jason out of the door, through the hallway, and out into the courtyard.

  “I’ll start by taking you up the Tower. West Tower is open to students, it’s mostly classrooms. East Tower is for staff only.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Clouds shone in shades of gold and yellow, scattered above the maze of stony mounds forming the College. Across the lawn, sunlight fell onto the colored rocks below. The sun. Not some weird double sun, and not anything else either. The sun from home. The World of Deaths seemed a little less cold. The air still smelled like strawberries.

  “Billy?” she asked as they crossed the courtyard.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why do I keep smelling strawberries?”

  “That’s how it always smells, you get used to it after a while.”

  They arrived at West Tower, which stretched past the mounds, over one hundred fifty feet wide. Rising overhead for thousands of feet, if not miles, the Tower soared into the clouds. Up close, it looked even more like a stalagmite. Rocks of every color twisted and writhed up its stony surface, broken only by windows. Billy opened the large wooden door, which creaked with a low groan. Inside, they walked through a marble hallway. Doors extended in either direction. At the end of the hall, they reached a gated elevator.

  “The old Deaths brag about the elevators.” Billy laughed. “Just installed fifty years ago,” he said in a mocking old voice. “I can’t imagine trying to go up the stairs.”

  They climbed into the small elevator and closed the gates. Billy pushed a button and the floor creaked and shook, before starting to rise. They rose for about ten minutes before they reached the top.

  “Let’s take a look,” said Billy. Jason clung to the side of the elevator looking uneasy. Suzie patted him gently on the arm and he followed them out.

  The gate swung open and Suzie found herself in a well-lit open room. The ceiling was a dome, painted with a vivid fresco. Large Dragons, green and black, with glowing red eyes were painted on the left. On the right, Deaths wielded scythes. A character who must be Lovethar stood near the center, robed but with her hood down, pointing her scythe at the Deaths. Flames surrounded her.

  “The Great War,” said Billy, following her gaze. “You’ll learn about it in History class.”

  Below the dome, enormous glass windows stretched on every side, giving the impression the walls were glass, although stone supports stood between each enormous panel.

  Jason looked around and sighed when he saw the windows. Suzie guessed he was glad not to be outside at this height.

  Billy walked to one of the windows and pointed out. The College spread out beneath them in a labyrinth of trenches, rocky mounds, and small green patches. East Tower faced them, filling much of the sky. Contorted stone sides narrowed as they rose; small rocky points jutted into the clouds along much of its twisted walls. Beyond, blue ocean shimmered.

  “The Council is directly opposite us,” said Billy. “I’ve never been, but they say the Headmaster’s office is at the top of East Tower, right below the Council of Twelve. I’ve heard they use telescopes to watch over everything, probably watching us right now. The Council certainly has plenty of spies.”

  “The Council?”

  “They’re in charge of the world. The Council of Twelve, twelve old Deaths, one of whom is Headmaster Sindril. Lord Coran, who’s sort of like the president here, gets the credit and makes the speeches, and he breaks any tie vote in the Council. He’s separate; it’s the Council who’re supposed to be the real power. If you ever meet a Death with a purple robe, be careful.”

  “A purple robe?” Something tugged at the back of Suzie’s mind, but she couldn’t remember.

  She looked back at the College. In the distance, she glimpsed the Ring of Scythes she had walked through. She walked along the windows, gazing beyond the Ring to a field and a hill with steps. That must be the way Cronk had taken her. A pond stood behind the hill, which looked tiny from here. Open fields led to a forest that stretched unbroken for miles. At the end of her vision, on the horizon, a line of pale blue shimmered.

  “The sea,” said Billy. “You’ll see better from down here, facing northeast.” He led her back around the room.

  “The Junior College is to the left, and the Senior College is to the right. They do overlap.”

  “What’s that?” Suzie pointed to the center of the campus. A small building stood out, unlike the rest. A cube of solid black, like a die dropped by a giant into the middle of the College, sat amid the canyon-like rock.

  “The Examination Chamber, where you’ll take the test. Everyone takes it the end of their first year. Don’t worry now,” he warned, “just get through the year first.”

  He led her farther around the room. They turned. The sea ended, and the distant lands grew hilly. A few small clumps of buildings were outside the Ring, beneath tall craggy peaks. A range of mountains covered in snow and draped in low clouds stood to the west.

  “They’re beautiful,” said Suzie.

  “Yes,” said Billy, “but forbidden. That’s where the Dragons live. The ’Mentals are somewhere in the forests to the north. Don’t ask, they’ll explain in class.”

  In front of the mountains but beyond the Ring, trees and tiny villages spotted the hilly land. A lake glistened in the sunlight, and a river snaked away, winding toward the sea to her left.

  “Silver Lake is one of my favorite spots to go, and it's not far from the College. We can head down if you want.”

  “I’d like that.” An isolated hill stood behind the lake, and a small island sat near the middle of the water. Something jutted out from one shore, maybe a pier.

  Suzie peered down at a mound of stone jutting out right beneath one of the windows, like a gargoyle. She walked around the room again, looking at the mounds of the College, the enormous East Tower, the distant blue of the sea, and the snowy peaks of the Mountains. How could a World of Deaths be this beautiful?

  Billy was talking to Jason in the center of the room. Suzie looked at the domed ceiling again. Lovethar smiled back at her, taunting. The only other female Death had been a terrible witch.

  “You ready to head down?” asked Billy.

  “Yes.”

  The elevator lowered, and Jason clung to the walls, looking like he wanted to puke. His face twisted into a silent scream. Suzie put an arm around him and he clutched it close to him.

  They reached the bottom. Four boys, young Deaths, walked through the hall. As Suzie came out of the elevator the four fell silent and stared at her.

  “Let her be,” said Billy.

  “You with her, Bill?” said a boy with an English accent.

  “She’s housed with me, yes, Connor. I’m showing them around.”

  “Your funeral, mate. C’mon guys, let’s leave the girls to play.”

  The four burst into laughter. Billy brushed past them. Suzie and Jason hurried, though, while Suzie tried not to look at the boys. Was this going to happen every day?

  They emerged in the courtyard again. Another group of boys looked up briefly but ignored them.

  “I don’t understand,” said Suzie, her voice low. “Almost everyone stares at me, but some don’t. You and Jason aren’t being mean either.”

  “Those kids are first years,” said Billy. “They don’t even realize anything’s weird about you. As for me, I remember how difficult the adjustment was, living here. No one should make this harder for you.”

  “Thank you, Billy,” she said, smiling.

  “I like you too,” said Jason, looking up. She turned to him, and he looked down again.

  “Let’s skip lunch in the Hall for now,” said Billy. “I’ll take you guys to Weston, the nearest village. We can buy some lunch and head to Silver Lake.”

  Billy led them away from the Tower. As they walked through courtyards and corridors, Suzie noted the reactions of the men and boys they passed. The oldest Deaths gaped in horror,
and the older boys stared. The youngest boys ignored her; many of them seemed terrified themselves. The College was full of men and boys of every size and ethnicity: from tall, white-bearded men in robes, to young, acne-covered boys in jeans. One teenager with a Yankees cap threw an apple core over her head, and Billy chased him away.

  They reached the ring of massive scythes and walked under the blades. A cobblestoned street led away from the College toward a cluster of houses. In the distance, snow-covered mountains held up the sky, craggy peaks blanketed in trees, shadows, and cloud.

  They walked along the road. Suzie continued to receive stares but she ignored them. She could get used to this. They stared, but nothing else. She looked at a tall hill standing apart from the others, behind the villages. Billy followed her look.

  “Widow’s Peak,” he said. “On the shore of Silver Lake.”

  Widow’s Peak, she remembered reading. Where Lovethar was burned. She had been here less than a day, but kept encountering the strange woman, the only other female Death.

  Weston was a cluster of houses and small shops centered on an open square and a fountain. Suzie and Jason sat on a marble bench circling the gently rising fountain water. Cool drops splashed onto her cheek. A slight strawberry-scented breeze blew through the pleasant air. Billy went to a store on the corner to buy them food.

  “I want to go home,” said Jason.

  “Me too,” said Suzie. “But this isn’t such a terrible place. It’s pretty here, and besides we’re only here for a year.”

  “Maybe.”

  Suzie put her arm around Jason, but he didn’t respond. Billy walked out of the store holding two bags. He smiled.

  “You guys will need some money, if you ever want to go off the College campus.”

  “How do we get money?” asked Suzie.

  “Same way you get money anywhere,” he said. “You work. Regular work as a Death isn’t paid unless you’re licensed, which takes years. I work in an office, help out with paperwork. You don’t need money on campus; it adds up. C’mon, I bought us a picnic. We can eat at the lake.”