by J. L. Powers
As the sun rises, other guys join us on the deck. Sean jumps one of the goths and they start wrestling. Soon everybody’s throwing cushions. Tomás smokes in the corner, watching and making jokes.
We all stop when the clanging of a ship’s bell breaks through the camaraderie.
“Breakfast!” Zachary roars, and charges up the hill toward the main house, leading the cavalry.
The rest of us follow more slowly. In the light of day, the farmhouse looks huge. It spreads across the top of the hill and engulfs what looks like an earlier, smaller barn. Clearly, this place was built in pieces over the years.
I follow the other guys into the old barn. It’s been converted into a cafeteria equipped with long, rough-cut plank tables, benches, and a random assortment of odd chairs. Lamps hang from the rafters and light the room. One of the plank tables groans under the weight of a buffet containing every kind of food, from eggs to pickled fish to strange fruits and stinky cheeses.
“Eat up,” Sean tells me. “It’s gonna be a long morning.” His own plate is piled high with French toast.
I get bacon and eggs and slide into the seat of an empty table just as the girls file into the room from one of the farmhouse’s many wings. Then about two dozen adults, ranging in age from twentysomething to seventysomething, wander into the dining room. They all have a strange look in their eyes and walk as if their bodies are here but their minds live in another reality. I know this look all too well—I see it on Dad’s face all the time.
Tomás sits next to me. “Are you from the Eastern Seaboard, Adam? You look and feel like you’re part of the Reaper clan.”
My dad’s words keep running through my mind. Don’t tell anyone where you’re from.
“I was born in St. Louis,” I lie.
“St. Louis?” Sean says. “That’s Dullahan territory. I should know you.” He screws up his face. “You’re not one of my funny cousins, are you? The ones my dad always said have one screw loose and an extra gene just to make everything stick together?”
We all laugh.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not a Dullahan,” I say. “No Irish blood in me.” But even as I say it, I wonder if I’m telling the truth. I have no idea what my mom’s background was. She did have red hair, I think. That’s Irish, isn’t it?
“As long as you’re not a Reaper,” Sean says.
“What’s wrong with being a Reaper?”
“Everybody hates the Reapers,” Sean says. “Even Reapers hate Reapers.”
“If there was anybody left to hate,” says Tomás. “They’re all dead now . . . well, except the Patriarch and his Caregiver.”
“Well, they are totally hateable,” Sean says.
Zachary sets his plate down beside us. “Are we talking about the horrible, hateful Reapers?” He bites a carrot in two, his teeth vicious and quick. The cracking sound makes me jump. “They’re gonna die off. All I can say is, good riddance.”
My stomach is lurching all over the place. Am I a Reaper?
“I’m sure the Synod is searching high and low for any possible Reaper connections,” Tomás says. “They’ll find somebody.”
“Don’t know who they’ll find,” Zachary says. “Or what they’ll find, more like it. My dad says the Reapers are totally incestuous, never married anybody but each other. Oh, and some Eurotrash.”
“Then they’ll find some fifth cousin with too many toes and goggle eyes, probably,” Tomás says. “That’ll kill all the upstarts who want a crack at the Reaper territory.”
The look Zachary gives Tomás could curdle the milk still inside a cow. “I’m not sure you would understand all the intricacies of territories anyway. Your family has that unfortunate island mentality.”
Tomás laughs. “Is that the best you can do, Zacky boy?”
“I just don’t see why you’re defending the Reapers.”
“I’m not defending anybody. But if the Reaper clan dies off, it’ll set off a territorial war like you’ve never seen,” Tomás says. “Believe me, that would be a disaster.”
“How come?” I ask.
“Everyone wants a piece of the Reaper territory.”
“Do you?”
“Shiiii-yeah,” Zachary says.
“The Reapers control the entire Eastern Seaboard,” Sean says. “Which makes them richer than God.”
“Before the Civil War, soul guides fought each other for souls,” Tomás says. “It was a bloody free-for-all. As part of the Civil War treaty, the Reaper Matriarch brokered a peace deal to assign territorial rights. She tricked the Dullahans, Cu Siths, and Ankou clans out of half their lands, which is why the Reapers control such a large territory today.”
“The Reapers are money-grubbing, power-hungry assholes,” Zachary says. “And now they’re all dead. Met their end in a series of unfortunate ‘accidents.’ One by one by one. Like dominoes. Karma, that’s what I say.”
“Yeah, payback’s a bitch,” Sean chimes in.
“That, or somebody’s trying to spark a civil war between the clans,” Tomás says.
“Shut up, Tomás,” Zachary hisses.
Tomás clamps his lips down so hard, he winces. Probably bit his tongue.
Everybody starts shoveling food into their mouths quickly. When Zachary finishes, he gets up for seconds but then sits back down at a different table.
As for me, I sit in silence, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Am I a Reaper? Do I belong to the clan everybody hates? From everything my grandfather and dad said—and everything the guys are telling me now—it sure sounds like it.
So. I’m a Reaper. And if people find out, they’ll hate me. Or they’re going to want to kill me.
Chapter 12.5
The Mors Patriarch and his wife, Leader of the Synod, Her Excellency, beseeched their wayward son and his lover-wife to choose the Mors clan. “We are facing a grave threat within our territorial borders,” the Mors Patriarch said. “The rise of La Luz.”
La Luz! That primordial immortality cult! That ancient archenemy of all that is sacred to those whose burden it is—
JESUS! Her Excellency cried. SPARE US THE THEATRICS!
Madam, he said, you asked me for the story. I am telling it.
The lover-husband and lover-wife walked the streets of Rome. “It is impossible,” the Grim Reaper declared. She opened her arms wide as though embracing the world. “Why must every choice we make be a choice for death? No matter what we choose . . .”
“We chose love,” the lover-husband reminded her.
“Perhaps we made a mistake,” she said. “The world has a solution for this problem.”
He cried out, “Divorce?”
“It is not one accepted or legal among our clans but it exists among non–soul guides,” she said. “We did not ask permission to marry; we do not have to ask permission to divorce.”
They were walking in the Parthenon—
The Parthenon is in Greece, said Elder #5, icily.
Oh hell, you’re right. Pardon me, they were walking in the Colosseum.
He stopped and held her beneath an arch, arms tightening around her waist. Already, life stirred in her belly. They sensed it. He was silent and still, waiting for her to speak.
“My love,” she answered his unasked question. “Come home with me. Choose me. Choose the Reapers.”
CHAPTER 13
Soul (n): The part of a human that passes from life through Limbo into the world beyond. The soul is the whole person, alive or in the afterlife. Human beings have a spirit but they are a soul.
Spirit (v, n): The life force that animates your body. Directly connected to the brain, which controls thought and emotion. The spirit animates your body but, unlike the soul, it isn’t the person itself, just as the physical body isn’t the person.
—From A Soul Guide Dictionary
I’m finishing my bacon when Aileen gestures for me to join her outside. I say goodbye to everybody, clear my plate, and join her. Rachel, the new girl with the rabbit shadow, is s
tanding beside her.
“I’m going to take you to Principal Armand Ankou’s office,” Aileen says. “It’s time for orientation. Then you can join everybody else for school.”
I nudge Rachel, who’s chewing her fingernail and staring out to sea. “So you’re a lost kid too.”
“Yeah, who knew?” She rips a hangnail with her teeth and her finger starts to bleed.
“Geez, get out much?” I say.
“Nope,” she replies. “Foster kid. With habits to match.” She holds up her hands facing out so I can see all her fingernails, bitten to nubs.
Now she has me laughing.
“Let’s get this funeral started, shall we?” Rachel says to Aileen.
“You’re a cheerful one, aren’t you?” Aileen quips.
“I thought the bedside manner was appropriate,” she says. “Given what we’re doing here.”
I’m liking this girl more and more. Her shadow is looking less and less like a rabbit and more like a tiny tiger, gripping something in its teeth.
“I see you’ve been talking to some of the girls. And you, Adam? Have the guys filled you in on your destiny here at the School for Soul Guides?”
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s still kind of confusing.”
“Well, hopefully Principal Armand can clear up any remaining questions.”
We follow Aileen into the farmhouse, then up and down several sets of stairs, tracking our way through the house’s many additions. Finally, we squeeze into a small corridor, walk up two steps, and stop outside a short, narrow door.
I wish I could puke up the eggs and bacon I just ate but I’m not sure I can find my way back through the labyrinth in time. I swallow it, bile stinging the back of my throat.
“Listen, you two,” Aileen says. “Some of what he’s going to tell you may seem shocking. You can choose another mentor if you’d prefer, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, come talk to me.”
We nod, both of us mute.
Aileen knocks on the door and a deep, scratchy voice calls, “Come in.”
We stoop to enter a small attic room. An elderly gentleman is sitting behind a desk. He stands as we enter. He’s so tall, he has to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling, and so large that his presence fills the room. His skin is mottled brown and white, his eyes startlingly blue in his wrinkled face, beautiful but icy, like jumping into a glacier-fed lake on a hot summer day. On the surface of it, he looks like a kindly old man, but when you see the way his shadow hides behind him—as if his own shadow is afraid of him—you know better than to cross him.
“This is Principal Armand,” Aileen says. “Principal Armand, these are the two lost kids, Adam Jones and Rachel Smith.” She winks at us and closes the door behind her as she leaves.
Principal Armand motions to two chairs facing his desk. “Have a seat.” He sits back down and uses his knuckles to tap a short rhythm on the wooden surface. “I’m sure by now you are both wondering what you’ll be learning in this school, perhaps even what it means to be a soul guide.”
We nod like little bobble-headed dolls. Why, yes, we are wondering.
He leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. “Have you ever thought about what happens to people when they die?”
Silence fills the room. He looks at each of us in turn. “Well? Adam? Rachel? Have you ever had questions about what happens after death? Do people cease to exist? Do they go on to a blissful state of nothingness? Are they reincarnated? Do they go to heaven or hell?”
I think about my other recurring dream—the one I’m not about to die in—the one with the woman in the yellow dress on a train. She has freckles and kind of looks like Rachel, if you want to know the truth, and I think she’s my mother but I’m not sure since Dad doesn’t exactly keep any pictures of her lying around the apartment.
Principal Armand nods like he can hear me thinking. “Of course you have. Well, this school is all about what happens to people right after they die. And by right after, I mean immediately after. As in, the first few seconds all the way up to forty-eight hours postmortem.”
“So what happens?” Rachel asks.
“As far as we can tell, who we are—what we refer to as the soul—has always been and will always be, just like the conservation of energy in physics. But our souls become attached to our physical bodies, which makes it very disorienting to die. To get a soul from this life to what we assume is the next life, we need a guide. A good guide is able to disentangle even the most obstinate soul from life, guide it through Limbo, and start it on its journey to the next world. We call it ‘breaking the circle.’ That is, our job is to break the circle of a person’s going round and round in life and shepherd them safely along the narrow passage that leads to the next world. This is what you will be learning to do.”
He points to the medallion hanging around my neck. “That’s the Broken Circle. It symbolizes what we do.” He straightens and starts waving his arms. “In school, you will learn about things that you didn’t know existed and how to do things that normal people only dream about in their wildest fantasies.”
I imagine careening through mountain peaks on a magic carpet, wearing a purple robe decorated with a moon and stars, as I smite the earth with my magic wand, or soaring up into the solar system and landing on a star where I unpack a picnic lunch; I gobble down my food—little sandwiches and cakes and a thermos of coffee—staring at the earth far beneath me.
“And no,” he says, “this is not a school for magic, although magic does exist. Magic is not something for humans to mess around with. It was not intended for our use. We soul guides use science as our tool.”
Rachel is sitting very still. “What’s Limbo?”
“Limbo is the space between life and the next world. To become a competent soul guide, you will learn to communicate with souls, travel in Limbo, and help souls find their way to the other side. If a soul does not traverse Limbo, it stays half-connected to this world and half to the next. This is an unfortunate state of being and causes much anxiety and frustration both for the stuck soul and for those in close proximity to it.”
“Do you mean ghosts?” Rachel asks.
He purses his lips. “That is what people call them. But they are not ghosts. They are simply souls who have become corrupted because of their inability to move on to the next life.”
I raise my hand.
“Yes, Adam?” Principal Armand places his index fingers in a steeple formation over his lips and waits for me to ask my question.
“If a soul gets stuck in Limbo, is it stuck forever?” In one layer of my brain, I’m still thinking about the dream of the woman in the yellow dress on the train. My mom. If she is my mom. In the dream, the train just goes around and around and around a circular track, never arriving at a destination and never stopping. But in another layer of my brain, I’m thinking about myself. About the endless fall.
Principal Armand frowns. “Yes. Well. There are ways to guide these stuck souls across Limbo, but only very accomplished soul guides should attempt it. I know of no living soul guide with the fortitude for it.”
Rachel and I look at each other.
“So we’re here because we’re related to spirit guides or whatever you call them?” I ask. “That’s what we do. What our dads or moms or other relatives do.”
“Yes. This school is exclusively for the offspring of soul guides. Psychopomps, as the ancient Greeks called them. The real deal. You will learn all you need to know about your family’s line of business over the next three years. Each year, you must pass a final examination at the end of the school term. If you don’t pass, you can’t continue. We are not about to let incompetent soul guides loose on the world.”
Rachel lets out a quivery sigh. “So you’re training us to be the Angel of Death.”
Principal Armand sits back in his chair and uses his pinky to play with his lower lip. “Well, I don’t know what your lineage is. The Angel of Death clan oversees the western ter
ritory of the United States. Other clans oversee other sections of the US. I am part of the Ankou clan. The Ankou was understood as the collector of dead souls in Breton cultures. He is the one who drove a cart and stopped at the house where a person had died, to cart their soul away. The Ankou clan oversees Louisiana. But . . . neither of you were assigned to a family when you were sent here.”
“Why not?” Rachel asks.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I want to know where you’re from so I can figure out what clan you belong to.”
We sit in silence. I’m not going to tell him anything. Rachel’s back is ramrod straight. I’m guessing she’s not telling much either. Still, he starts with her.
“Rachel, where are you from?”
“I don’t know. I’m an orphan.” She folds her arms. “I grew up in foster care.”
“Interesting.” His eyes bore into her.
I’ve seen my father do that. It usually takes a minute and when he’s done, the other person looks dazed. But Rachel just stares back, holding her own.
“And Smith is the surname on your birth certificate?”
She shrugs. Her unease is palpable. “Yes?”
He snorts. “Impossible. Adam’s last name isn’t Jones either. How did you come to be an orphan?”
“I was left in front of a hospital emergency room when I was a few days old. At least, that’s what they tell me.”
“Where?”
“Minneapolis.”
“Minneapolis!” He shakes his head. “That’s Pesta territory. Pesta, the Norwegian Personification of Death. I’m intrigued by the mystery. Direct lineage is a requirement to be a soul guide—so you have a clan affiliation. It may be Pesta, it may be something else. In any case, the Finders don’t make mistakes.”
“Finders?”
“They are the people responsible for locating lost kids. Children who were lost never had their birth reported to the Synod. It is a violation of the treaty we all signed. Nevertheless, it happens more often than you’d think. Some misguided parents don’t want their offspring to become soul guides.”
