by J. L. Powers
I start reading.
Coming, all is clear, no
doubt about it. Going, all is
clear, without a doubt.
What, then, is all?
—Hosshin, thirteenth century
I think about that for a minute. What is all? When you’re talking about that space between birth and death—that is, life—this thing called “all” seems pretty murky to me. If this poem is right, maybe that’s a good thing—it means I’m not going to die anytime soon. If it suddenly becomes clear, I’d better be worried—it means I’m on my way out.
But how can you ever be sure of anything, even when you’re sure of everything? How can you ever think you have a handle on “all”? Did my mother think about me when she died? Was I part of her “all”?
I’m fifteen. I’m supposed to “know it all.” Hah! Turns out I know nothing.
One thing I do know: I’m not ready to die, even if I’ve just learned that I’m heir to the world’s creepiest job.
* * *
Eleven fifty rolls around. Time to join the guys. I put on a sweatshirt and jacket and carefully open the door.
All clear. Somebody’s propped a chair up against the wall at the end of the hall. The window is high, located where the doors to the hayloft used to be. That little Jamaican must be a spider if he got through that window. I have to jump from the chair to reach it, then haul myself up to get my butt on the sill. I sit half on and half off, legs dangling over the edge, panting.
I almost have a heart attack when I look down. This window is freaking twenty feet off the ground. At least.
For a minute I huddle in the window—too afraid to do anything at all. And then I glimpse something dark and shadowy disappearing around the corner.
Crap. Only thing to do now is go up and I better not fall because She’s waiting for me. I close my eyes—gripping the top of the window—and breathe. In and out. In. Out. In. Out.
The old roof rail sticks out just above me. I crouch on the windowsill and lean out, holding onto the upper sill with one hand and reaching up to the roof with my other. I stand—everything but toes suspended in midair—and grab the rail with both hands. I swing my legs up, hooking the roofline with my heel, pulling myself up, bear-hugging the rail.
Panic grips me. Why did I do this again? Oh, right. Gotta be one of the guys.
Lunging with all my strength, I get my belly up and over the side of the roof, scrabbling on the shingles.
I lay on the slope, spread-eagled. I’m a crab, hugging the roof with my claws. Then I hear them whispering.
“Where the hell is he?” Sean’s poking his head out of the window. “Adam, are you still alive?” he whispers loudly to the grass below.
“I’m up here.”
His face blanches when he looks up and sees me. “You crazy shit.”
“Aren’t you guys coming up here?” I hate it that my voice is shaking. Maybe he won’t notice.
“No chance in hell,” he says. “We’ll meet you at the bottom of the silo.”
I crab walk across the roof. The barn shingles shine like tarnished silver in the moonlight. The silo, built into the side of the barn, isn’t as tall as the peak. I shoot for it, sliding to the wall and stretching my legs out as far as they can go toward the rungs, rusty metal U’s embedded into the wall.
Three inches short.
“You’ll have to commit, Adam,” Tomás calls.
Let my weight go out over the edge of the barn roof? My foot shakes, suspended over the roof rail. Something inside screams that I’m at the end of whatever rope fortune allotted me at birth.
“It’s only ten feet, dude,” Sean says. “You might break a leg but you won’t break your neck. It isn’t nearly as crazy as what you did climbing out that window!”
“I’ll break your neck.” I can’t do this. “When I get down there.”
But I can’t stay here forever, not in front of the guys. I glance around, checking to see if She’s nearby. When I don’t see Her, I lean out and catch a rung with my foot. In less than five seconds, I’m on the ground. I grip the side of the silo, knees trembling with relief.
We all burst into nervous laughter. Then we can’t stop laughing because we’re trying so hard not to laugh.
“That was some sick climbing,” Sean says.
“You must have a secret death wish,” Tomás says.
“You are okay, Adam,” Sean says. “For being a lost boy and knowing virtually nothing, you are okay.”
Suddenly, I’m glad to be here, glad to be hanging out with these two.
We skirt the farmhouse, taking the wood stairs on the side of the bluff and entering the boathouse from a side door, the shadow of an old lobster boat projecting against the wall. Pulling the aluminum rowboat out the door makes a shocking amount of noise. We use Tomás’s light to find the oars.
It must be high tide because the beach is just a few feet wide. We push off and jump in, holding our breath so we don’t bust up laughing again.
The Milky Way’s belted haze shines across the still waters. “What a glorious night!” Tomás leans back, stretching his arms out to rest on the boat’s gunwales.
Sean takes the oars and starts us out into the bay. When we reach the mouth, Tomás directs Sean westward along the face of the bluff. We bob up and down outside the protection of the bay, the ocean smell clean and sharp and salty in the cool air. Water slaps the aluminum sides and hisses as it cascades off the oars.
Once we cross the bluff, Sean turns north. He hands the oars to me and I row for another half hour, watching the bluffs, now a silver arch in the distance as the moon crawls higher across the sky.
I stop for a second.
What, then, is all?
The waves are higher out past the protection of the shoreline. Tomás’s skin blends into the darkness of the night and water, but the orange-red glow of his pipe lights up the whites of his eyes whenever he takes a drag.
“Smoking will kill you, you know.” Sean’s voice is half serious and half joking.
“Really?” Tomás sounds startled, as if he’s never heard this before.
“I’ll get you an ePipe the next time we’re in town. A fuschia-striped vape pipe.”
“Only if it has bright green LEDs on it,” Tomás replies gravely.
They start laughing again and I can’t help joining in. Tomás’s laugh is infectious.
“You have to live longer than me, Tomás,” Sean says. “When I die, you’re the one taking me to La La Land. I’m not letting anybody from my family near my soul. The Dullahans are completely crazy! But the Eshu know how to live. How can you die if you’ve never lived?”
Tomás grins.
Sean pulls a flask from his jacket pocket. “To the Eshu. May they always know peace and find their way in the darkest hour! And may they learn that lung cancer isn’t good for their long-term prospects!” He throws his head back, drinks deeply, and then hands the flask to me.
I take a small swig and immediately start coughing.
Sean grabs the flask back. “That’s fine Irish whiskey you’re coughing all over our boat. Stop it! This has to last until Christmas.”
He hands the flask to Tomás, who takes a small pull. Sean screws the cap on and puts it back in his pocket. He points to a small island a short distance away. “You guys up for a little exploring?”
Tomás and I look at each other. I don’t know about him, but I’m starting to think about being deep under the bedcovers in a warm room.
“We probably won’t get another chance,” Sean says. “It’ll be too cold or too windy to do this again until next summer. Don’t stop now, we’re almost there.”
Tomás takes a turn at the oars but he’s so small, it just looks funny. We start giggling and Sean takes over again.
We row up to a rock, level with the gunwales. Tomás hops out and ties the boat to it, heaving the rock into a crevice. I’m worried that with the tide going out, the rock will get dislodged and we’ll be strande
d, but Tomás and Sean don’t seem that concerned. They scramble to the top of the small island.
I put my hand on a rock and it comes back slick with white goo. “Did you guys notice the rocks are covered in bird poo?” I call.
I find a different path between some rocks and join them at the top. We all snicker at the state of Sean’s jeans, covered with white poo.
He groans. “How am I going to explain this to the guys who do our laundry?”
We start walking toward a stand of trees on the far side of the rock outcrop. But we don’t make it very far before the feeling creeps up on me—the black chill from my dreams.
She’s here.
For a moment I’m frozen. The moon and stars dissolve into pure darkness. I’m falling. Slamming into the darkness.
Tomás catches me with his shoulder and I come to, yelling something—I don’t even know what, “YAAAAG!” I think—and I’m flying back to the boat, my tennis shoes slipping on the rocks.
The guys are on my heels. We climb and stumble back to the boat. “Quick, man, quick!” Tomás yells. “Quick quick quick!”
I yank the rope free and we jump in. Sean takes one oar, I take the other. We row so hard, my muscles ache.
“What’s going on?” Sean asks finally.
We’re halfway back already. I focus on the water directly behind the boat as I pull the oars, afraid to look at the receding island, afraid of what I might see.
“What do you mean?” I’m breathless, but not because of rowing. “Didn’t you feel the demon or whatever the hell it was on that island?”
“No.” Sean stops rowing and the boat rotates in a slow circle because I keep going. “I ran because you did.”
“Did you feel it?” I ask Tomás.
Tomás shakes his head slowly. “No, but you felt some bad juju, serious. Just keep rowing. Whatever it was, we don’t want to mess with it.”
“All right.” Sean picks up the oar again but his heart isn’t in it. He sighs. “I’m sorry, I thought Adam saw something like Principal Armand in the trees. I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“You ever feel something like that before?” Tomás asks.
I nod but say nothing.
“I experienced a bad spirit like that one time,” Tomás says. “During Carnival a few years ago. A stuck soul got loose, somehow made its way out of Limbo, and five people were murdered in our village.”
Sean shudders and takes a pull on his flask. “All right, this isn’t fun anymore. Let’s get out of here.”
What if She had gotten Tomás and Sean? Collateral damage. Two deaths on my conscience.
The boat bobs from side to side as we pull the oars out of the water one second and plunge them back in the next. Cold water hits my face. I taste salt water mixing with my silent tears.
Chapter 15.5
And so the lover-husband left Rome for the New World, for the crass, glittering lights of Manhattan and . . . the Reapers.
Ay. Therein lay the rub. He had thrown away his fortune, his inheritance, his respectability. And for what? For this family with a reputation as thugs? For this family with a Patriarch who went bat-shit crazy with grief and depression and had long ago bequeathed the clan rights and responsibilities and territory to his only daughter, decades before expected?
Did you? Her Excellency asked.
Did I what?
Go crazy?
Madam, he said with great dignity, I would posit that all soul guides go crazy with grief—either that or we turn our emotions off and become hard, cold, dead things that lack heart. The only question is what choice we make. Which choice did you make, oh captain?
Hmph, she said and turned away.
And so the two lovers started a new life in the new world. And oh, they were happy! Oh, they loved each other. Every night was champagne and chocolates and truffles, not to mention their work together, the ushering of souls across the great divide between this life and the next.
It was as if they were made for each other. Imagine it, if you can. The beautiful Grim Reaper, young and full of life, skipping down the long avenue, cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind behind her.
Are there cherry trees in New York? asked Elder #1.
There should be, he said. There should be cherry trees everywhere.
Though the Mors son was dour of expression and lacked charisma, he made up for it in passion and intelligence and talent. It didn’t take long before he was compensating for the Reapers’ lack of numerical strength and then some . . .
Her Excellency had a tear in her eye. And did you accept your son-in-law? she asked. Did you feel he stole your daughter from you? Or were you glad to have him?
He has been my salvation, he said simply. All these years, I do not know what I would have done without him.
CHAPTER 16
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
—Hamlet
After a fabulous breakfast of Swedish pancakes lightly drizzled with maple syrup and powdered sugar and a bucketful of coffee—because I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t sleep a wink last night after we got back; there was no way I was going to risk falling asleep and finding myself in the cemetery, not after the experience on the island—I follow the other first years to the “reading room.” There are eight first years—me, Rachel, Tomás Eshu, Sean Dullahan, Zachary Angel, Emily Yamaraja, Gen Shinigami, and Sofia La Muerte.
It feels like I need to pry my eyelids open with a pair of crowbars. “Late night,” I mutter to Rachel.
She scoots over to make room for me beside her on the sofa. “So you guys really made it off the island?”
I yawn. “Shhhhh,” I say. Unnecessarily, I think. Rachel doesn’t seem like the type to tattle. She may be less than thrilled with the life we’ve been thrust into but she’s honest and real. She doesn’t hide what she thinks. I totally like that about her.
“Was it easy?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then take a good look at her eager face, her shadow a dazzling hopeful star dancing in the background. “But hey, I don’t think you should try it. I saw something out there that you don’t want to face alone.”
“I’ve faced everything alone my whole life,” she responds.
“Right. But this is different. Wait until Christmas and then just, you know, don’t come back. Much easier than running away.”
“You act as though we’re not alone here,” she hisses.
She’s right. I don’t feel alone, not anymore, not after becoming friends with Tomás and Sean. “You’re not alone,” I say. “I’m on your side.”
She acknowledges this with a curt nod. “Don’t you realize that if you become a soul guide, you’ll never have a normal life? You’ll be a complete and total freak.”
The word “freak” echoes around the room and several people look up from whatever they’re doing—mostly reading books.
“Your chances of having friends in the real world? Zilch.”
Does she mean that I can never be with Sarah? “It’s not that bad,” I say. But I already know I’m lying. I mean, I was a freak before I arrived here and I’d bet a boatload of money that Rachel was a freak too.
The look she gives me would seriously shrivel raisins. “I see you’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid.”
“No,” I say, “it’s just that my philosophy has always been, When in Rome . . . ”
Speaking of being in Rome, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing. I keep waiting for a teacher to come in and tell us what to do but so far none of them seems in a real hurry to do that. And all the other first years look like they’re already deep into something.
Zachary and Sean huddle over the same book, something that looks like it came off my dad’s shelves. They talk in low voices and occasionally trace an outline of something on the page.
“That’s just a myth!” Zachary exclaims loudly.
“Expand your worldview, dude.” Sean’s taken a pa
ge out of my old man’s book (minus the “dude,” that is). “There’s more truth in those old myths than people want to admit.”
Zachary snorts. “Next thing, you’re going to start calling me Horatio.”
“If the name fits,” Sean counters.
“So.” Sofia La Muerte—dressed completely in red, right down to the red bandanna slung around her neck and her richly, deeply red lips—plops down on the sofa beside me. “The girls have placed bets on which clan you’re from.”
“What?” Girls have never been curious about me. I don’t think Sarah’s even curious about me and she’s the closest thing I have to a romantic interest.
“We’ve known the rest of these guys all our lives. I mean, all our lives. Our families go on vacations together, or we see them every year at the annual North American Soul-Reaping Reunion. But you’re a great big blank.”
“What about me?” Rachel asks.
“Oh, we already have you pegged as a Reaper.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste.
“Do you think you’re a Reaper?” I ask Rachel.
She shrugs. “It would be just my luck. Nobody likes the Reapers. Story of my life.”
“Well, one of you has to be a Reaper,” Sofia says. “The Patriarch’s children all died in strange Reaper-like accidents. The only one left is his son-in-law. So they’ve been looking far and wide for possible candidates, anyone with the tiniest amount of Reaper blood who might be able to renounce their clan affiliation to be a Reaper instead.Where have you lived? Soul guides usually live in their territory.”
“I’ve lived all over; I’m an orphan,” Rachel says. “I didn’t even know I was a soul guide until a few weeks ago.”
My stomach clenches. I live in Reaper territory. Should I keep them thinking about Rachel to deflect attention from me? Because if I’m right, if I’m a Reaper, they’ll all hate me once they find out. “What about me? What clan do you think I’m from?”
