“Cade is correct,” Angelica added. “And it’s ordinary souls who fall prey most to reapers. An audit can tell if true growth has occurred or if it’s feigned out of fear of—”
“Hell?” I replied.
Angelica shook her head. “Darkness.”
“So how do we defend against reapers? How do we know who died and who was assigned to us?”
“Ah, there’s the balance.” Angelica nodded. “For every Keeper, there is an equal but opposite reaper. It really comes down to who gets there first.”
I looked at the two, incredulous. “Are you telling me someone like me, who has tried to do the right thing all their life, could end up seduced by a reaper and spend eternity in darkness?”
Angelica nodded. “Souls are fair game until they reach judgment. After that it’s up to the gatekeepers and our recommendations.”
“Gatekeepers. You mean like St. Peter at the Pearly Gates,” I said matter-of-factly.
Cade hunted for another sandwich, frowning when there was nothing left. “If that’s what your tradition teaches. There are different names and depictions, but essentially, yes. There is also a counterpart who gatekeeps the darkness. We simply call him Maalik.”
“Well, if you guard the gates of Hell, you need a demonic sounding name, right?” I laughed.
Cade flashed a quick grin finding an unopened twinkie. “He’s actually a nice guy. If you can get past the awful smell, and the eyes at the front and back of his head, he’s cool to hang out with.”
My lips parted. I couldn’t tell if Cade was serious or just messing. “What about me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re cool or not.”
“Very funny. Well, at least I don’t smell. Unless you’re scent-averse to Coco Mademoiselle.”
With a wink, he shoved the whole twinkie in his mouth.
“Don’t you take care of your Keepers?” I addressed Angelica, but watched Cade chew the entire snack cake. “Emmie lived in a tent, and wonder boy is eating like he’s starving.”
Angelica looked a little hurt. “Emily chose her life. No Keeper is made to give up their home, or their name. It’s optional. Some feel it helps them commune with their charges.”
“So, again. You said discharge my Level One Keeper duties. What does that mean and what do I have to do?”
“That’s a little too complicated to go into here. Cade will show you once you get home.” She glanced at the sky and the late afternoon sun. “You have friends to check on, so you’d better get moving. I want you both behind closed borders before sunset. You need to prepare.”
Angelica’s words sent a shiver up my spine, but at the same time I was primed for a fight. Ordinary people deserved a fighting chance, and I was ready and willing to do the fighting for them.
Clearing my throat, I looked at the elegant angel woman. “It’s ironic that people confuse you with the Grim. I wish more people knew the truth.”
Angelica inclined her head at the compliment. “They find out when they have to. My Keepers help with that.” With a wink, she was gone in a flash, camp chair and all.
“Wow. That’s going to take some getting used to.” I looked at Cade. “She doesn’t do that all the time, does she? Bathrooms. Bedrooms. Off limits, right?”
He laughed, scooping up their lunch mess. “You would hope, but with Angelica?” He shrugged.
Great. When I woke up this morning, who’d have thought this would be my life? Would I remember any of this if I decided not to be a Keeper? I quietly shook my head. I’d never do that to Emmie.
“Okay then,” I said, getting up from the edge of the fountain. “There goes my midlife, I guess. Not-so-mild librarian to kickass Keeper.”
Cade shook his head. “How about we start with lesson one, level one?”
Chapter Nine
“OKAY. OPEN THE BOX.”
I curled my fingers into my palm, giving Cade a hesitant look. “Are you sure about this?”
“Just do it. I promise. No spring-activated snakes in a can.”
I pressed my palm to the lid’s top, and the sigil warmed, growing hotter under my hand until I heard a different kind of snick from the open sesame thing.
Wincing in anticipation, I lifted the lid. Inside were the items I watched Emmie stow in my dream. All except the ruby shoes.
“Why do you look disheartened?” he asked.
I shrugged. “No ruby slippers.”
“I hate to break it to you, Dorothy, but they were a metaphor.”
“As in me stepping into Emmie’s shoes.”
“Exactly.”
The temperature in my kitchen plummeted, and my eyes jerked from him to the open box. Gray wisps swirled over the items, rising slowly until they circled me like horror movie special effects, complete with susurrated voices layered one over another.
“Holy Shit! CADE!”
“It’s okay, they’re harmless. This is a level one introduction.”
If this was level one, I didn’t want to think about the higher levels. “I don’t like this one bit. What’s next? Skeletal ghosts in flowing shrouds hovering over my bed?”
“Perhaps.” His tone was a little too amused for my liking.
“I am not your comic relief, dude.” I stood stock still, hoping they would sniff and then leave.
“You CAN tell them to go. This is your home, and they’re not attached.”
“Now you tell me. You could have led with that, you know.” I steeled myself before turning my focus to the entities. “Quit it! You’re giving me whiplash!”
Chilled to the bone, I could only stare as the wisps stopped their collective whoosh, and hovered above the kitchen floor. They were unfinished, and as gray as they were translucent, but in each I saw a face and the outline of a body.
“Back in your box.” I pointed to the ghost box whose edges now glowed golden same as the sigil.
Surprisingly, they did what I asked, and I slammed the box shut. The room stayed cold, but the bitter bite was gone and so were the apparitions.
There was something slick on the kitchen tile. Oily, with a strange sheen. Anxious laughter bubbled up. “No snakes in a can, huh.”
“Well…”
“They slimed the kitchen floor.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
I cocked my head at him. “Okay then. You clean it up. Your ghosts. Your mess.”
Cade’s answering smirk was more of a charming, crooked grin, but he earned zip on the cuteness meter.
Uneasy, I stared at the box unsure what to do. I knew I didn’t want it in the house, but other than that I was at a loss.
Despite the fact I probably opened a portal to another realm in my kitchen, I was strangely calm. Numb, but calm, and the numbness had nothing to do with the cold.
I wasn’t about to open the box again. At least not inside. Chewing on my lip, I eyed the kitchen door leading to the small garden out back. The little café table and chairs outside would do for now, or at least until I got a better handle on the situation. Or Cade coughed up more of an explanation. Whichever came first.
Funny how twenty-four hours of absolute weird changes a person’s perspective. I should be scared. Any rational person would’ve passed shocked, sliding head long into freaked out by now, but knowing this was attached to Emmie made it okay. It shouldn’t be, but there it was. Surprise, surprise. I was good with weird.
I pushed the sheers away from the backdoor window to peer out into the garden, and then went for the box.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m putting this thing outside. I’d like to be able to sleep tonight without wondering if one of my new ethereal friends will want a slumber party.”
“What about reapers?”
Careful to sidestep the slime, I picked up the ghost box, surprised at how warm it felt in my hands considering the chill in my kitchen.
Cade’s question was obviously a test, not only to see if I was paying
attention, but if I could put two and two together without having to be told.
“The garden is my property, so an extension of me. Like the house. Since reapers can’t touch me, I’m assuming they can’t cross personal boundaries, either. They can keep a knockin’, but they can’t come in.” I looked at him for a yes or no.
His appraising smirk gave me my answer. “Not bad for a beginner, but don’t get too cocky. When it comes to reapers, it’s never black or white.”
Cade unlocked the deadbolt on the backdoor, stepping outside to hold it open for me to put the ghost box on the café table.
“This is cute,” he said, closing the kitchen door. “First a rooftop garden, and now a backyard. Very NYC unexpected.”
“I wouldn’t call it a yard, but it serves its purpose.”
From the small patio I surveyed my little patch of grass, with its gravel path and border flowers. A cement birdbath sat between two small trees that nearly reached the top of the six-foot security fence. He was right, though. By NYC standards, I had a personal patch of paradise.
Sunset faded into twilight. We sat at the wrought iron café table sharing a fresh bottle of merlot.
“So, old man, tell me about yourself.” I toyed with the stem of my glass. “All I know about you is you’re a Level Five Keeper conscripted into training me, and that you were probably born sometime in the late 1800s.”
“That’s a reasonable deduction. What do you want to know?”
Sitting back, I kept both hands on the base of my wine glass. “How did you find out you were a Keeper? Who nominated you?”
“Some of our kind come from familial lines. Families who have been Keepers for generations upon generations. A family member is nominated early on, and that person is trained. That was me.”
“So you had no choice?”
“I had the same choice as you. I took it as an honor. Not everyone can be a Keeper. There are criteria that have to be met.”
I nodded. “Selfless acts.”
“Not as much as you might think. That’s a consideration, but it has more to do with the weight of the soul. How much it has grown in each lifetime.”
“You make it sound as though there are multiples.”
Cade topped off my wine and then did the same for himself. “I’m not talking past lives like you see in movies, but if that makes it easier for you to wrap your head around, then so be it. Souls aren’t one and done. For a soul to grow enough to move onto higher planes, there are lessons that need learning.
“Lessons,” I repeated.
“Not anything concrete you learn in school. Lessons that govern a soul’s inner compass. And I don’t mean religious tenets, either. What I mean is something completely innate. Unconscious acts. Kneejerk selflessness. That inner voice that moves us to make life and lives better.”
“So philanthropists.”
“No. Most times those acts are performative. Done for notoriety or to craft a narrative. True growth is painful. That’s why it’s sometimes called dark night of the soul. Seeds planted during those dawning moments are what get examined. What gets audited.” He tapped the corner of his eye. “By ice cold eyes.”
“You’re not doing a great selling job, I gotta tell you.” I took a gulp of my wine.
He angled his head. “You want the truth, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“There is no but. You need to know what you’re up against.”
“So who nominated you?
His face grew nostalgic, and his gaze warmed. “My great-grandmother. She was a terrific lady, full of humor and love, despite the honest truth that Keepers usually lead a lonely life. Everyone they love ages and eventually dies, but we stay.”
“And we don’t age,” I added.
“Yes, so it can get sticky. That means we have to reinvent ourselves over time.”
I considered him. “That’s probably why Emmie had a driver’s license from 1967.”
“Probably. But it’s also one of the reasons she chose to live off the grid. Hidden in plain sight. She could do her job and stay under the radar because, sadly, homeless are invisible to society.”
Cade was right about that. I thought about George and the others. At the park earlier, Cade waited while I spoke to George, making sure he was okay. The old man seemed lost, and in that moment, I saw his mortal clock running down.
“George—” I began, but Cade interrupted.
“Don’t worry about the old man. Angelica already has a Keeper on notice.”
“So no limbo, then?”
He gave me a soft, close-lipped smile. “Consider it a gift. None of us want to see you suffer, knowing what you now know. Plus, Em will be waiting for him.”
“I thought you said there was no tunnel or white light with loved ones waiting.”
“There isn’t, but Angelica made an exception for you, and for Emily.”
“Jeez.” I exhaled hard. “If this is a Keeper thing, I gotta say, it kind of sucks. Is this what I have to look forward to along with departed souls swirling around my kitchen? Human life countdown clocks?”
Cade didn’t answer. The expression on his face told me he wasn’t about to engage. I also knew he was letting me rant. And why not? This was an emotional roller coaster. Fascination warred with unease and irritation, and it stemmed from the unknown. It boiled down to one thing. A leap of faith. If only I hadn’t misplaced my sneakers.
I inhaled through my nose, letting the breath out the same way. “Tell Angelica I’m grateful about George, but I don’t want to know anything else. When it happens, just let me grieve my own way.”
“Of course.” He gestured toward the ghost box with his wine. “Fun fact. My great-grandmother knew Emmie when your friend first became a Keeper.”
“Wow. Small world.” I should’ve been more interested, but my mind was churning, though I appreciated his redirect.
“Considering there are literally thousands of us, it sounds strange to think we can be in each other’s pockets.”
“Not to mention thousands of reapers,” I added, distracted.
“Indeed.”
“Cade,” I began again. “If Keepers are human, what about reapers? Are they entities that always were, or minions created to serve the Grim?”
He sat back in his chair, and I didn’t miss his quick glance at the shadows. “It depends.”
“You can do better than that. You gave me chapter and verse about souls and their journeys. I think you can explain reaper origins.”
The city echoed on the other side of my fence while I waited for Cade’s reply. I was caught in a triangle. It was as simple as that. Not something juicy like a threesome. No. A metaphysical triangle: my little patch of peace against the ghost box and the reminder of everyday life opposite my fence. So the question begged. Where exactly did I belong?
“You know what?” I interjected before he could answer my reaper question. “Maybe I’ve asked enough questions for one night.” I finished my drink and went to scrape my chair back.
“You haven’t asked nearly enough, but that’s okay. I’ll answer this for you, though. Reapers aren’t exclusively entities. Some humans make the choice to become reapers. It’s not common, but it happens. Of course, those who choose the darkness do have one advantage. To the naked eye, they look like everyday people. Like us. Except they’re not. Only Angelica and a few select Keepers can see their true form. Can see their darkness.”
“So I could’ve walked past reapers on the streets of Manhattan, or in the library or the corner deli? Or even in the park with George and Em—”
I stopped myself. Emmie was a Keeper. That meant the park was protected along with everyone in it.
I cringed inwardly knowing the park was fair game now, and that meant George. Angelica’s Keeper better not be asleep at the wheel, or they’d answer to me if anything happened to the old picker.
Cade didn’t answer, just swirled the remaining wine in his glass as if letting me figure it out on my
own.
“I’m going to take your silence as a yes, but I’m also going to take it as meaning reapers took no notice of me then, but certainly will now.” I paused. “Can you see them? I mean their inner reaper?”
“At times. It’s a process. But that doesn’t get in the way of my awareness of them.”
The rules of the game had changed, and Cade’s face told me I had not only hit the nail, but had hammered it into the dirt. His mouth curled in what was becoming a trademark crooked grin, making me wonder how kissing him would taste.
“I love how your mind works, Louisa. Unpredictable and wonderfully sharp. Free and independent. A triple threat. Beautiful, smart and unafraid to speak your mind.”
Two glasses of wine hit, making me fuzzy from drinking on an empty stomach. Cade’s compliments were sweet, melting like candy in my mouth. He was a little too close for butterfly comfort, and I didn’t want to say or do something I’d regret. A distinct possibility with the way he looked in the moonlight.
“So what’s next?” I kept my face coolly inquisitive, despite impulses screaming at me to jump his bones.
“The ghost box.” He tapped the top of the polished wood.
“Didn’t we cover that when we first got home?” I hiccupped. “The slime marks are still on my floor.”
“That was an introduction. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to free the spirits you saw from their bonds.”
“They looked pretty free whirling around my kitchen. What are they bound to?”
“The items inside the box. Newbies don’t interact with spirits along their audit. A Level One’s job is to prep the way by unfettering them from this plane.”
“How?”
“We crack the mystery of the item or event that forced the anchor. That renders the attachment null.”
“Okay, then. When? Do we need a full moon?”
His gaze softened, amused, and I really wanted to kiss him. “No full moon needed,” he replied. “Tomorrow morning is soon enough. Bright and early, so I suggest we get to bed.”
Jeepers Reapers: There Goes My Midlife Crisis Page 7
