by Cate Lawley
Mark was already toting their dishes to the sink. As he grabbed his car keys, wallet, and cell, he said, “I’ll drive.”
“Yeah. That’s probably smart. I don’t exactly remember all of the drive here this morning.”
Mark gave her a worried look. “That’s not okay. I’m definitely driving.”
Chapter 13
It took Mark and Zelda fifteen minutes to retrieve her dad’s ring from exactly where she’d remembered. Then another forty-five to get to San Marcos, the town where Natalie lived. When they arrived, Zelda was surprised to find they’d landed in a small, cute neighborhood full of mature trees and quirky houses that had morphed over the years to look nothing like one another.
They parked on a quiet cul-de-sac, but there was a bustling coffee shop within easy walking distance.
“Not what I expected.” Mark’s voice startled her.
She’d been so wrapped up in the surroundings—and maybe still overwhelmed by worry—that she hadn’t even seen him get out of the car. “Yeah, me either.” Although she wasn’t sure that she had expected anything in particular. She clutched the ring tight in her hand. “All right. Let’s go.”
They walked up the path to Natalie’s front door together. She was about to knock, but Mark beat her to it.
When Natalie opened the door, Zelda got another surprise. Natalie wasn’t any older than Zelda. Maybe younger. Zelda was about to ask if they were in the right place, when the girl stretched out a hand.
“Hi, I’m Natalie. You’re Zelda and Mark?”
Zelda switched the ring to her left hand and then shook Natalie’s.
Mark shook her hand and said, “Yes. And thank you for fitting us in.”
“Absolutely. Anything for Marv. He’s been a wonderful mentor and resource.” She swung the door wide and invited them to join her inside. “She pointed to the left and said, “The office is just there.”
The room was comfortably furnished with a settee and three armchairs. The furnishings were well-maintained but not new, and the focus had clearly been comfort over style. But the overall look worked to create an inviting atmosphere.
Natalie motioned for them to sit. “You have an item?”
Zelda handed her the ring.
Natalie took it, and then placed it on a small coffee table situated between her seat and Mark and Zelda’s settee. “Just give me a moment to see if I can make a connection to the owner.” She picked up the ring and closed her hands. Immediately, her eyes popped back open. “There’s a very strong connection to the ring.” Closing her eyes, she continued. “Joy, love, heartache, and sorrow—but that’s all in the past.” She held the ring lightly, running her fingers over the etchings. “A stretched place.” A frown formed. “A dark place.” Her breathing became audible. “Other, wrong. Time bounces and stretches.” She set the ring down, then opened her eyes and rubbed her temple.
“Are you okay?” Mark voice sounded tight.
Zelda thought that concern was for her father more than the psychic. The words she’d spoken were hardly reassuring.
“I don’t usually get a headache from readings. And it was hard to break through to the present. Does your father wear this ring frequently? Now, not just back when he was in high school?”
“Oh yes,” Zelda said. “All the time up until about two or three months ago. It’s gotten a bit tight over the years, so he was having it resized.”
“It’s just that the past was crisp. Really clear.” Natalie looked perplexed. “And when I reached for the present, it was like reaching through honey.”
Mark asked the question Zelda was too afraid to pose. “It didn’t sound like he was in a safe place. Can you tell…is he alive?”
Zelda’s breath hitched.
Natalie reached toward her, as if to comfort, but she was too far away. “I think so. I’ve never felt anything like it before, but I have read a great number of items that belonged to departed loved ones. This was nothing like that. Let me try again. Maybe I can get something more specific.”
As Natalie had spoken, Mark had reached down and clasped her hand. Zelda had the suspicion she might be squeezing his fingers lifeless, but she was too distracted to be sure. “Please, if you can.”
Natalie picked up the ring again. She held it cupped loosely in her palm this time. As the seconds passed, increasing strain showed on her face. Whatever was happening, Natalie was under great stress.
Glenda had finally tracked the duo down—in Limbo. Both the reaper and Bedivere had pinged present as she’d done a sweep of the realms several layers of reality away from the human realm. They couldn’t have been around the corner at the North Pole, a cold but pleasant destination. Or even just a bit further in Atlantis. She sighed. Atlantis was a such a lovely spot.
Trudging through waterlogged grass that was sure to ruin her shoes, she shook off any lingering thoughts of the temperate and welcoming land of Atlantis. No, Bedivere had landed in Limbo. Reaped souls did not travel to Limbo, so she had no idea what possible connection the reaper had with this place. But if the reaper was here in the company of Bedivere, souls were sure to be a part of the equation.
Limbo was much as she remembered it from a previous trip. A single, previous trip. Damp, chilly in a way that sank into her bones, and a depressing gray landscape that tugged down on her very being. It was a distasteful place, at best. She shivered as a misty cloud of fog gathered in the grove of trees ahead of her. Her destination. “Oh my.” She increased her pace until she was trotting over the uneven ground.
When she arrived at the trees, she called out, “Bedivere?”
“Here,” Bedivere’s voice emerged from the fog. “Quickly, woman. This way.”
A dense ball of light flashed ahead and to her right, then hung suspended in the air for several seconds before fading. Much as she disliked being called woman, Bedivere would only slip so far in a moment of extreme stress. She swallowed an annoyed grumble, and then she picked up her pace once again.
The fog grew denser as she closed in on Bedivere's—and she hoped the reaper’s—location. The mist prickled oddly at her skin, crawling across her arms, her legs, and her back like a living thing.
The swirling cloud was all wrong. She shivered almost uncontrollably now. Terribly wrong.
Her skin crawled with more than the cold as she realized what crept against her skin. The thick dampness surrounding her was no fog. Human souls, reaped from their bodies, gathered here. They coalesced in this copse, around her.
Another flare of light shot upwards, perhaps thirty feet away.
“I see it; I’m coming,” she called. She could hear the fear in her own voice.
As she moved closer and could see both Bedivere and a second man, she realized that the souls were converging not on her but on the strange man, on the reaper.
What terrible thing had happened here to bring these poor creatures to limbo? To put them in such an agitated and confused state? And to be pulled so violently toward the reaper?
“Quickly. I’ll drop the barrier, but you must hurry,” Bedivere held his oddly incongruous cell phone in one hand and was surrounded by a bubble of clear, soul-free air. “You’ve arrived just in time. Take over the barrier, so that I can place a call.”
He’d gone mad. Glenda mentally chastised herself. Of course he hadn’t. The man simply had more information—and knowledge and experience—than she did. But a call from Limbo?
Bedivere, looking surprisingly unruffled by the chaos around him, raised an eyebrow at her. “It can be done with great difficulty. And someone—likely Zelda—has reached through the veils separating the human realm from this one, searching for the reaper.”
“Making me a target.” The reaper lifted a hand in greeting. “Hi.”
“Yes, I see that now. All right.” She steeled herself for a rather uncomfortable transfer. Bedivere’s talents were not her own, and neither were they particularly compatible. “Ready.”
Bedivere muttered a few words, the mea
ning well outside her own limited spell vocabulary.
“Ugh, drat.” She couldn’t recall the words she needed.
“Plain English will do, but hurry.” Bedivere nodded in the direction of the yet denser fog outside the magical construct protecting them. “They grow increasingly agitated.”
Glenda frowned. Pressure certainly wouldn’t help. “Ah, strengthen these walls to push back our enemies and keep us safe.” She tried to imbue her non-magical words with some semblance of power, but the walls wavered.
Not enemies, just souls—that was her error. She loved math. Words were simply not her talent. “Make these walls strong to keep us three safe.”
The walls thinned more.
Bedivere made a disgruntled sound, but he was too busy with his phone to voice a complaint.
“Let no soul pass through these walls.” Glenda gave the words a good shove of magic. This time her spell—if it could be called that—stuck, and the bubble shifted to become a room with four walls. Quickly realizing her error, she blurted, “And let no soul pass through the ceiling either.”
After a moment had passed and no wisps leaked through, she decided the tiny room must be soul-proof. She shared a look of relief with the reaper.
“Well done,” the reaper said.
Bedivere didn’t comment. He’d begun tapping away on his cell. Glenda had no idea how one called out from Limbo, but she hoped it didn’t take him much longer.
A minute passed, and her hastily erected barrier started to get wobbly.
She reinforced the structure, but she could now feel the press of souls as they pushed against her magical construct.
She took a deep breath and shoved back with as much magic as she could muster. But imbuing the magical equivalent of a grass hut wasn’t going to keep out the raging storm of souls much longer. “Bedivere?”
The idiot man was still fiddling with his phone. “My app isn’t working as it should. Just a moment.”
“Your app?” Glenda managed to keep her voice under a scream, but incredulity dripped from each word. Holding back the press of humanity was becoming physically taxing, which was a sign of very poorly constructed magic. “Bedivere.” She looked at him from underneath the wisps of hair that had escaped her bun.
Bedivere waved an impatient hand at her as he muttered some arcane incantation over his phone.
Truly, she was getting tired.
Again Glenda tried to get his attention. “Bedivere! I have no special skill with word magic, or physical magic. You know I don’t. You need to hurry and finish whatever it is you’re attempting.” She tried to keep her tone even. “Now!”
“I’ve got it.” Bedivere finally lifted his gaze from his phone. His normally devilish brown eyes were much more subdued. “Hang on, Glenda.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d guess the indomitable Bedivere was wearing thin around the edges. Perhaps the man had a dash of humanity in him after all.
Suddenly, Zelda’s phone rang, the sound harsh in the midst of the intense environment. She jumped to silence it, but then saw that it was Uncle Bedivere. “Bedivere,” she murmured before tapping the accept button. “Yes? Uncle Bedivere?”
“Whatever you’re doing, stop. It’s not helping.” Bedivere sounded more tired than tense.
“What? Dad? Is he with you? Is he okay?”
“Your father’s fine.” Her whole body drooped in relief until her uncle continued. ”But whatever you’re doing is agitating the locals, and we don’t want to do that.”
Zelda looked up at Natalie. She’d placed the ring carefully on the table and was waiting. She lifted her hands to indicate she wasn’t doing anything.
“We’ve stopped. I gave a psychometric psychic Dad’s high school ring and—”
“Good grief. Stop.” Again, he sounded tired. Emphatic, but tired. “This is not a place she wants to visit, however slender her connection.”
“Uncle Bedivere, what in the world is going on?”
“There’s no time to tell you everything, but your dad is safe. How long have we been gone?”
“I saw Dad last about three days ago.” Zelda clutched the phone tight in her fingers. “Can I speak to him?”
“No. It’s difficult enough for me to maintain the connection. Three days…and still so much to do. Child. I must leave. Your father and I are in Limbo, and time passes strangely here. We have a job we must finish with all due haste. When we’ve completed it, we’ll return. You have my word that your father is safe and will return unharmed.”
“Okay.” The word came out soft and whispery. “Tell him I love him. And both of you be safe.”
“Of course we shall.” And Bedivere ended the call.
Zelda sat in stunned silence.
“Well?” Mark ducked his head to catch her eye. “Is your dad okay?”
“I guess? He’s in Limbo.”
“Whoa.” Natalie bounced up. “Heading to the kitchen for some booze,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Mark and Zelda sat in silence. Zelda in shock. She could only guess what Mark was thinking and feeling. Then she realized that he was probably feeling what she was. If ever there was a moment when she was emotionally yelling, she’d guess now was it. “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve got good defenses these days for extreme emotion. I’m fine. But you, on the other hand, you have to focus on the fact that your dad is okay, and he’s out there doing his job.”
Natalie returned with a tray of martini glasses and a shaker full of something. “It may not be appropriate to drink with clients, but whoa. I mean whoa. Limbo? I have definitely never gone to Limbo. That’s huge. Chocolate martini?”
Mark declined.
“Yes, thank you. I think I will.”
As she poured, Natalie said, “Sweet enough to make your teeth hurt and with enough kick to hopefully bring us back to reality.” She shook her head. “Limbo. What would have brought your dad there?”
Zelda accepted her drink and took a sip before answering. She needed a moment to think. She took another sip. It was good, and not quite so sweet as to make her teeth hurt. “I guess since you’ve been to Limbo today—psychically anyway—that not much will come as a surprise.” And for the second time in one day, she split the ultimate secret wide open. “My dad’s the Grim Reaper.”
“No way.” The wide-eyed, you’re-nuts look faded and Natalie smiled broadly. “Very cool.”
“I’m not sure how that landed him in spiritual no man’s land. I’m not up on the day-to-day details of Dad’s job, but from the way Uncle Bedivere sounded just now on the phone—trips to Limbo are not normal. Oh, and he had no idea how much time had passed. I wonder if that was the sense of stretching that you had, Natalie?”
“Time warping around me maybe? Oh, that is seriously cool. I’m really glad that your dad is okay—but this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience I couldn’t have even imagined. I didn’t even know I could leave this plane of existence.”
“Yeah. Don’t be surprised if a hooded guy comes calling and wants your toenails.” Zelda looked down at her martini glass and saw that is was empty.
“I’m not sure I know what that means… Would you like another martini?” Natalie picked up the shaker. “Today’s a day for serious booze.”
When Zelda declined, Natalie topped off her own drink and muttered, “Limbo.”
After Mark surreptitiously assured Zelda that Natalie was taking everything as well as she seemed to be, they said their goodbyes.
Zelda let Mark open the car door without protest. She was happy to be coddled. And she was a little tipsy. She wasn’t usually such a lightweight, but this was twice that she’d had a drink without much in her stomach. Apparently, that was a bad idea. Who knew? She liked to eat and didn’t usually skip meals, so it was a new experience for her. She made a mental note to be more cautious in future.
Mark’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “I think she was more fascinated than
anything else.”
“Natalie? That’s the impression I got.”
“Did Bedivere say when he expected your dad back?”
Trying not to look like the worrywart she was, Zelda said, “No. No clue, because of that weird passage of time. Uncle Bedivere sounded wiped. I can only imagine how my poor dad’s doing.”
“Hey. He’s the Grim Reaper. He has superpowers you don’t even know about. He’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah but until he’s back home, I’m going to be crazy worried.”
Mark sighed. “I know. I would be, too.”
At some point, Zelda fell asleep. She had no idea how. Maybe the partial release of worry—knowing that her dad was alive, even if he wasn’t coming home right away. Maybe the chocolate martini. Probably both.
She woke up as they pulled into her driveway. She blinked blearily. “I can’t believe I feel asleep.”
“I can. You probably haven’t slept well the last two nights.” He tipped his head to the left. “And you had a martini.”
“You have been a complete rock star. I honestly don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
Mark smiled. “You’re welcome. But I can tell you exactly what you’d have done. You’d have managed, because you’re that kind of person.”
“You think so, huh? Well, thank you.” Someone she respected as competent and together actually thought she was capable of handling a crisis. That was nice. Okay, really nice. It would be fabulous, but for the fact that the crisis was hardly over. When her dad walked through the door—then it would be over.
“Have you talked to your new bosses about what’s been going on?”
Zelda swallowed a smile. “Is that your way of asking if I’ve been going to work? I did until this morning. I told them I had a family emergency and both were surprisingly supportive given the fact I’ve only worked for them about two seconds. It probably helped that I hunted up volunteers to work my shifts.”
