The Reaper's Embrace

by Abigail Baker

  “Oh hush, and then go sit on a flagpole, you pinhead. I lived with Trivials like you for decades. You don’t scare me.” Delia’s intensity grew as she spoke. She was honest. She wasn’t scared, and that was clear in her voice. She was, more than anything, annoyed for being proven right. “Now get off the phone before I send your mommy to give you a good whipping!”

  “Bitch,” was all that was said before there was a click, and our unwelcomed third party was gone.

  “Teacup,” Delia went on, “we’ll see you in Quebec. I’ll be the one in the red jumpsuit.”

  That jumpsuit. Good grief. She would not be easy to miss. Six feet of red hair and a red jumpsuit.

  “Toodaloo. Love you, sweet thing.” And like that, Delia was gone, and the phone line dead.

  I scanned the gift shop of Cracker Barrel for any pale-skinned Trivials trying to tap into my phone line. No one looked troublesome, except for the elderly couple giving me a pointed look like they thought me to be a hobo or homeless person invading the premises of their beloved breakfast hotspot.

  As I hit “end” on my phone, I waved at Brent again, though this time with more anger and vigor so that he’d know I needed him at my side. He spotted me over a display of decorative fairies and trolls. With Puck in tow, he brushed past the display and the couple, giving the lady a sly wink, before he approached me waving his bag of goodies in my face.

  “We are stocked for the rest of the ride,” he said. Puck stood nearby, tearing into a bag of Swedish Fish.

  “They’re tapping into the phone signals. They know we’re coming.” My voice quivered.

  “The Trivials?”

  “Yes.” My stomach filled with anxious pits for each of my missing allies. “They’re going to destroy Styx. We have to go back now.”

  “The good news is that we’ll be there before the end of the day. Don’t worry yourself about it until we get there, all right?” Brent pulled me into a strong, tight hug, one that reassured me that nothing would get solved from here. I wanted to melt into him and stay there until all of this blew over and everyone was found safe and sound. Every time I believed that turning away from the storm would work, I had to fight my instincts and turn to run headlong into it. But every time I did that, I knew the risks and that it would be harder than anything I had done so far.

  “Come on. Let’s ride.” Brent pulled me out of Cracker Barrel and back to our metal steed. He even lifted Dudley into his tank bag to secure him down as I struggled to focus. I would not let anxiety guide me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Rebels: Meet on the Isle of Orleans in three days if you can make the journey. It’s time.”

  —Message to rebel cells worldwide

  The remainder of our ride back to Quebec was quick and silent. We stopped occasionally for food and gasoline. In those brief moments, we said nothing. There was little to say anyhow. The cheerful moment back at Cracker Barrel was old history. It was replaced now with tension and anticipation. When we had returned to Quebec before, we had some idea of what we faced—Head Reaper Marin and Eidolons. What did the Trivials have in store? And which rebels would turn out to help us? Or would our small group stand alone against angry, vengeful Trivials?

  We had been told to meet other rebel cells on the Isle of Orleans as we had once done two years ago with a group of turncoat Watchmen. This small corner of paradise felt like home to me, but the sort of home I regretted returning to because I knew bad things happened during every visit.

  I took a deep, solemn breath when we arrived at the island and drew closer to the tiny house sitting in the middle of fields of grape vines. This place was a favorite vacation spot for locals, and in the summer, it was full of lush greens and grape vines. Now that it was winter, everything was brown or gray; everything was dormant and would be for several months. A dusting of snow covered the ground. Northeastern Canada was already committing to the damp, arctic freeze it was known for, a time I treasured as much as springtime.

  As we rounded a bend, our caravan of rebels came upon hundreds of Stygians and their parked vehicles. The cabin, which slept four or five, looked like it was drowning under tents and canopies. I slowed the motorbike and inspected the line of parked cars along the narrow country road. There were license plates from all over Canada and the United States. Some Stygians hung around their vehicles chatting or cooked food on camp stoves outside their tents. Other Stygians were gathered in the fields or closer to the cabin. But what lifted my heart was that as we rode by, each of them, dressed in layers of jackets and hats, stopped what they were doing, smiled at us, and waved.

  There were few places to park. Thankfully, motorbikes only need a sliver of space. We found a spot between a car from Ohio and one from Maine. The remainder of our caravan would have to find spots almost a mile down the road. As they drove by, some hung out their windows, giving us the finger or some other vulgar gesture as a way of showing their love.

  Brent waved, saying to each of them a variance of “Go fuck yourself” or “Eat shit.”

  This was camaraderie between rebels.

  The place felt more like a jovial music festival in the beginning of winter, which, for Canadians, was just fine. For more southerly folk like Brent, the idea of a festival in winter was ridiculous. The evidence of that notion was written on Brent’s scrunched face as the cold beat against our skin.

  “I wasn’t sure if anyone would be here,” I said as I patted Dudley’s head to ensure that we were safe. Or maybe I did it to assure myself that we were safe. Dudley didn’t give a shit.

  “Why the hell are Stygians barbequing when it’s below freezing?” Brent gave a large group of Stygians a quizzical glance. They hovered over a Weber grill as they watched sausages and hamburgers sizzling. Their coats were pulled tight around their bodies, red hoods pulled over their heads. All of them sat with their hands out, warming their fingers over their cooking dinner.

  With Dudley and Brent at my sides, I started toward the cabin, which was still a football field away and would take several minutes of winding through rebel campsites to reach it. “Some of us don’t mind the cold, you know.”

  “I guess.” Brent obviously wasn’t convinced.

  Walking side by side, we scanned the groups as we wound our way through their camps. Our foul-mouthed group from Kentucky came from every direction as they, too, headed toward the cabin. Someone had to be in charge or at least knew who was here.

  Brent tripped over a frying pan, sending hotdogs scattering across a thin veil of snow on the grass. He apologized to the three females who gave him a rather disgusted look for his mistake.

  “I didn’t see them,” he said when they refused his apology with a huff.

  “These are gourmet hotdogs all the way from New York City,” one said in a thick Brooklyn accent. “Where we gonna get hotdogs like these in Quebec, huh?”

  “Maybe if you looked where you’re going,” groaned another as she picked the hotdogs out of snow.

  “I’m very sorry. I didn’t realize this rebel meeting would involve sausages.” Brent sounded rather troubled by the incident. “You don’t happen to know who’s in charge, do you?”

  The Stygian women rolled their eyes again, as young Stygians tended to do these days, and then looked at Dudley.

  “Oh my God, your dog is so cute!” One squealed and dove to pet Dudley. Normally I would have made a comment about a stranger touching my dog, but it was too late for that. “What his name?”

  “Dudley,” I said. The dog accepted her attention. The gregarious pup loved everyone.

  The Stygian looked at me and then at her friends. For a moment, they all stared like they recognized me from somewhere. I glanced between them, growing uncomfortable until their eyes simultaneously sparkled yellow.

  “Hey! You’re Scrivener Dormier, aren’t ya?” said one. She pinched a hotdog between her fingers, pointing it at me like it was a magic wand.

  “That’s me,” I replied, reluctantly, wishing she’d keep
that phallic half-cooked piece of meat to herself.

  “Hades in Elysia!” One jumped to her feet and shook my hand. She rubbed hotdog juice into my skin, and I doubted I would get the stink out even after a good shower. “You are so much shorter than I thought you’d be. You can’t be over five feet.”

  “I’m about five-four,” I argued.

  “Nah. No way, man. You’re a shrimp.”

  I didn’t want to argue my true height with someone I didn’t know, so I nodded and pulled my hand from hers. Better to remain cool. I had an image to keep, even if it was a vertically challenged one.

  “So then this must be Eidolon Hume.” The Stygian’s voice turned sultry even though a moment earlier she grumbled at Brent for tripping over their special gourmet hotdogs.

  “You still got her soul in there, good-looking?” another asked, jabbing him in the side with her finger.

  Brent shoved her hand away as politely as he could. I could tell he did not like being touched by strangers. No one did. But it was the flash of red in his eyes that made it clear to me even if it didn’t quite register with the New Yorkers.

  “Do you know who’s in charge of this rally?” I restated Brent’s question with more authority. His effort had little impact.

  “We are,” said the one with the hotdog hand.

  “I doubt these Sausage Princesses are running the show,” Brent said to me, but loud enough for them to hear.

  I nodded in agreement. We turned to head toward the cabin, since it seemed that everyone built up their camps around it as if it were the stronghold of this rebellion get-together.

  “Clover is in charge,” said one of the New Yorkers. “She’s in the cabin handing out sweatshirts if you’re chilly. Damn cold enough out here that my nipples could cut diamonds.” She pointed the hotdog at the cabin we were already headed toward. But it was the red hoods sticking out of their coats that were most interesting. I noticed that other Stygians wore red hoods and sweatshirts, too.

  Clover Magby, I thought with a smile. Before I let the idea settle, I sprinted toward the house, set on seeing a friend I had believed I’d never see again. Brent and Dudley were on my heels, leaping over campsites, avoiding more Weber grills. The New York hotdog women shouted after us, but whatever they said I didn’t hear. I didn’t care.

  I was set on finding Clover and maybe even Azim if they were still together. I imagined myself throwing my arms around them in gratitude. They were rebels who had helped me escape the Watchmen in upstate New York. And they had been the ones to come all the way to Quebec to help me with igniting my little corner of the rebellion. It had been Azim who nudged me to put my face on public Stygian television. It had been Clover who held my hand as we drove to Le Château Frontenac for my first confrontation with Marin to save Brent’s life.

  As I neared the cabin, I froze. It was the door. A red door. So mundane and simple. Country houses often had red doors to add a splash of color to the setting. That red door had once opened and out came Mama telling me how I had lost too much weight as she pulled me into one of her famous, full-bodied hugs.

  I put a hand to my chest as my heart began to thud hard against my bones. Someone or something had to have been squeezing my lungs of air. My right knee dropped to the grass, and my left leg remained bent, steadying me.

  The memory of her death washed over me like floodwaters. Mama, standing in front of her personal Grim Reaper, Chad. Mama, telling me that she loved me and that going to her death in the name of the rebellion was what she wanted. Me, yelling at Marin to let her live. Me, telling Marin that he was a coward. In the end, Mama’s ashes at my feet, all that was left of her, and my heart in pieces.

  That door triggered that memory.

  The same kind of red fucking door I had seen Mama in front of shortly before her death.

  Time had passed since I lost Mama. Some would say enough time had passed for my heart to heal. But it didn’t. It never would. And to try to patch over the void with something else was disrespectful to the person lost.

  Still. Why did it have to feel like someone tore my chest open and ripped out my heart?

  “Ollie,” Brent said in my ear, “what is it?”

  “I can’t…” I tried to say that I couldn’t breathe, that I could see Mama standing on the cabin’s stoop waiting to hug me. But I couldn’t do it. Tears poured from my eyes. My lungs struggled to get a full intake of air. The world around me spun.

  “Come on, breathe.”

  “Mama,” I whimpered, my face contorted in grief, and it seemed that Brent needed no more explanation. He swept his arms around my body, pulling me close to his chest as I wept. There were no words spoken. He just knew. And he held me so tight that it didn’t matter if my legs gave out.

  No one warned me that time wouldn’t prepare me for those moments when a red door would crush me. How cruel of my mind to do that to me now, here, in front of rebels who had come a long way to save Styx. I was supposed to be a rebel, someone who’d brought Head Reaper Marin down on her own. How could this moment bring me to my knees in mere seconds?

  “It’s okay,” Brent whispered as he stroked my hair. “You’re allowed to do this.”

  Perhaps I was allowed to grieve as he said. I was just not prepared for it, like someone punching you square in the chest after you just had a good laugh. As Brent said, I let it out. I had to. Keeping these sorts of intense emotions locked inside would destroy me quicker than Marin could have.

  When I had seen Mama’s face on Xiangu’s, my reaction wasn’t this visceral. I knew then that it was a test. I’d expected it to affect me, so I’d been able to control myself. But seeing the door threw me off. I didn’t anticipate it, and it struck me harder than anything else so far.

  We stood outside the cabin for a long time. The air nipped at my wet cheeks when I pulled back from Brent to compose myself. Several Stygians nearby did not look in our direction even though they weren’t moving, as if they were eavesdropping. Even our Kentuckian companions who had made their way to the cabin from their parked cars avoided eye contact. Brent was the only one who looked down at me. His blue eyes said so much, and I wanted to cry some more. But I stopped myself.

  “You’re not weak for crying,” he said to me, just above a whisper. He read my mind. I couldn’t hide much from the Eidolon.

  “They’ll think I am,” I said back.

  “What they think doesn’t matter.” He kissed my cheeks. “We’ve all lost somebody. All of us cry at some point, Ollie. Even me. Even Marin. Even…” He paused and looked off to the right and then said, “I was about to say Trivials, but they don’t have emotions.”

  “Kick ’em in the cojones, and they’ll cry,” said Manny, standing next to us. I didn’t know when he or the other Kentuckians arrived, but I was sure they witnessed my entire meltdown.

  He held out both hands to help me to my feet. I took his offer. My knees regained their strength. Manny put his arm around me, not before giving Brent a wink, as we walked the final steps to the cabin. “My abuela died because of the List of Offenses. I cried all the time. Every day. I cried because I cried. But you know what my abuela said to me before she died?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I said to her that Marin is all bad. No good at all. Abuela said to me, ‘Manny, everyone on earth does some good even if you can’t see it. If nothing else, their breath feeds the plants.” Manny hugged me tighter once we reached the cabin steps. “She’s in the plants, trees, flowers. So is your mama.”

  Just like that, Manny left my side to say something to his friends. He’d shared his words of wisdom and was then gone. I appreciated his effort. He left me smiling at the shrubs next to the cabin. Although they were leafless, they were alive, alive because we were here.

  A familiar blonde bombshell in a red “Sisters Café” sweatshirt and a pencil skirt was on the stoop where Mama had once stood. She’d worn the same comforting smile from the café that night she and Azim had helped me escape the Watchmen.
In her hand was a fresh sweatshirt.

  “I knew we’d find each other again,” Clover said and stretched out her arms.

  I climbed the three steps of the porch, the weight of world slowing me down, before I fell into her embrace. I had only known her for a short while, but I didn’t need to know her for very long to know she was special to me. Clover and Azim had always been those Reapers. As we hugged, my grief lifted some more as if Mama willed it away for me from the Afterlife.

  “Honey, you look like chewed twine,” Clover said with a chuckle. “How about a hot shower?”

  All I could do was laugh too as I imagined hot water rushing over me. Having not looked in a mirror in days, I was sure Clover was right.

  …

  Clover let every one of us use the cabin’s bathroom to shower. Not that Stygian rebels care about stinky bodies. It was more a gesture of friendship to offer the facilities so that we could wash the days of travel from our skin. I had been the first to get a shower, luck of being the first one through the door, and when I emerged wearing a fresh Sisters Café sweatshirt, I found the other friend and ally I had hoped to see again.

  “Azim!” I threw my arms around the man. He looked exactly as he had the day we met, minus the egg-covered spatula and apron. His blue turban was wrapped neatly around his head. The smile on his face, one that rivaled Clover’s in warmth, filled me with peace.

  “It’s good to see you again, Ollie,” he said as he hugged me back.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you and Clover. I always wondered.”

  Brent greeted Azim with a handshake and then a hug.

  Although we had not reunited in years, there was nothing lost between us. Azim and Clover were the same brave, loving souls as they were long ago. They still held hope for a better Styx close to their hearts. We all wanted the same for Styx, and for that reason, we were brothers and sisters.

  The little cabin looked exactly as before. The designer had gone for rustic northern woods with Native American rugs and upholsteries scattered throughout the rooms. The moose head hung over the fireplace where Papa had once stood, the weight of the world on his broad shoulders. In a strange way, this vacation home felt like a second home from my childhood, even though every time I visited in recent years, it was during my darkest moments.