by J. L. Powers
“Okay.”
“Remember how we used to make tents in the living room using blankets? Remember the dolls we made from scraps out of Mom’s sewing basket?”
Silence follows.
“Good girl. Find your soul,” Amaros murmurs. “Now let it go. Let it drift away . . . That’s it. That’s better. Much better than yesterday. Now . . . let’s go!”
His shoes shift and I hear Rachel slump sideways.
“That’s it! That’s it!” Now he shouts with excitement, forgetting to soothe. “Come back and take me with you!”
A second later, his body thuds as it hits the floor. Through the crack under the sofa, I watch as Zachary’s face slackens. Eyes open but blank.
“Tomás, get your ass in here,” Liliana hisses.
I stand up to see Tomás easing his way into the room. “What’s happening?” he asks. Then he looks at Rachel and Amaros-in-Zachary’s-body. “Oh no. Oh no, this is not good.”
Liliana’s whispering in Rachel’s ear now, shaking her gently, patting her cheek. No response.
I place two fingers on Zachary’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive,” I say.
Sean pokes his head around the corner from the other direction. “All clear?”
“All clear, as far as we know,” Liliana responds.
Sean joins us. He elbows me briefly and flashes a grin in my direction. “Glad you’re okay, bro.”
Liliana sits next to Zachary and hugs her knees to her chest. Tomás tugs handfuls of dreadlocks as he leans back and groans.
“How the hell did they go to Limbo in Reaper territory?” Sean asks in a loud voice, too loud, especially if there’s anybody else on the island besides Amaros and the lumberjack.
The reality sinks in to all three of them at the same time.
“Rachel must be a Reaper,” Liliana says, milky-sweet tones stained bitter by something poisonous in the bottom of it all. “Guess they’re not going to die off after all.”
I wince and try to change the subject back to safer ground. “Okay, should we load them up on a boat and take them back to somebody who knows what to do with them?”
Tomás groans again, deeper this time. Liliana hugs her knees closer, one hand reaching out to gently smooth a strand of hair back from Zachary’s face. Sean crosses his arms.
“Guys?” I prompt.
Finally, Liliana says, “If we remove them from this spot, who knows what’ll happen. In any case, by the time we get help, Rachel or Zachary or both of them might be dead.”
“We don’t even know where Zachary is,” Sean says.
“He’s right here,” I say, but I know what Sean means and he knows I know it, so he doesn’t bother answering.
“We need an experienced soul guide,” Tomás says. “And not just any experienced soul guide. A Reaper soul guide. We’re in Reaper territory, nobody else can get in there to salvage what’s left of Zachary and Rachel. Which means we somehow have to reach the Patriarch.” He beats a brown fist against the white couch.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen to them in Limbo?” I ask.
“What do you mean? They could die!” Sean bursts out.
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s call my dad.”
They all give me strange looks. “Anyway, none of our dads can help us now,” Liliana says.
Mine can. But that’s not the point. “Just . . . do you have a phone or not?” I ask. “Mine’s dead.”
“No phone,” Liliana says. “I hate those things.”
“I forgot mine,” Sean says.
“Battery’s dead,” Tomás says.
My hands start shaking. I don’t want to go to Limbo. But maybe if I do, Dad will come rescue me before She eats me up and then he can rescue Zachary and Rachel. And maybe I’ll have enough time to warn him about Amaros too, so he can avoid whatever ambush that guy is surely planning.
Fear crushes my lungs. I imagine eternity as a bottomless pit. One I’m falling into. In darkness. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. I just know I’m the only choice. If I don’t do it, Rachel and Zachary are as good as dead.
“I’ll go.” My voice breaks the way it used to when it was changing.
“Go where?” Tomás asks.
“Where do you think?” Fear makes my voice sharp. “To Limbo.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “They aren’t dead yet, Adam, but they will be unless one of us finds a Reaper, and quick.”
Sean stands up. “What are we waiting for? Two of us stay, two of us go find a phone so we can try to track down the Reaper Patriarch. I’ll go. Who’s coming with me? Adam?”
“You do what you have to do,” I say. “But I’m going to Limbo. Right now.”
What I’m trying to say is that I can get to Limbo. Right here. Right now. Because I’m a Reaper too. I say this in my head but my thoughts must be loud enough for them to hear because the three of them stare at me with great focus and attention.
“What?” Sean inhales sharply. “What what what?”
Liliana jumps up. “No way.” Her face gets all red. She peers into my eyes, head tilted, like she’s just noticing something.
“Yeah, I am, okay?” My fingers curl into fists. I don’t like the awkward, apologetic way Sean and Tomás are looking at me.
“You can’t be a Reaper,” Liliana says. “You don’t feel like a Reaper at all. You’re—I liked you.”
Liked. Past tense. This is why Dad didn’t want anybody to know my clan affiliation.
“Look. I don’t care what you’ve heard or what you think you know. My dad’s the Reaper Patriarch. So I’m going in and I’m going to get Rachel and Zachary. Sean, you can say whatever prayer you want to, whatever saint you think can protect me in Limbo, cuz I’m going to need it bad.”
Now I know what they mean when they say it’s like someone grew a third head. “Oh man, oh man,” Sean groans. “Man oh man oh man. We came here to save two Reapers?”
“We came here to save Zachary,” Liliana snaps. “If we need two Reapers to help us, so be it.”
Sean makes the sign of the cross. Then he drops his gaze and he doesn’t look at me again.
“Good luck, Adam,” Tomás says. “Give ’em hell. Or not. Whatever you think is best.”
And there it is. Give ’em hell. Well, that’s where I’m going. No point in delaying it. At least Tomás still looks halfway friendly, grinning awkwardly at me. But I’m the one who feels awkward now. “I really don’t know how to get to Limbo . . .”
“Good LORD,” Liliana says.
“Will you coach me?” I ask. Tomás is the one I turn to. He’s the one who seems least likely to judge me for my family.
He claps a hand on my shoulder. “It’s easy, man,” he says. “You’ve been there before, you know how to do this. Just close your eyes. Breathe deep. Let this world—everything that worries you—just fall away. Just let it fall away, man. Then understand that the conscious state of your soul is already in Limbo and you’ll find yourself there.”
And so I do. I breathe in, out. In, out. Just like my meditation instructor drilled into me. Good old Dad, keeping everything secret and lying to me, making my whole growing-up years confusing, but at the same time giving me all the tools I need for this life.
Speaking of Dad . . . he’s the thing I concentrate on. His lined face, his grim smile. Then I let it all go.
Coming, all is clear, no
doubt about it.
My soul tumbles toward me, a leaf sailing along a gust of wind. It trembles, tries to dance out of reach. I grab it and drag the quivering mess right into my worst nightmare.
Falling begins almost immediately.
Light has disappeared. Infinity stretches below me.
It doesn’t take long for Her to find me. This time, instead of a dragon’s tail and bat’s wings, She looks just like the woman in the yellow dress, the woman on the endless looping train, three days dead. The fish-white flesh peels away, exposing crumbling black bones. Her blue ey
es are bleached white. Her pale skin glows, illuminating the space between us.
Between flashes of light, I feel a faint . . . stirring. I think I know her. I think I know her.
I push Her arms away but she returns, teeth bared, hands clutching and scraping at flesh, hooking talons inside and pulling away. Blood drips down my arms and neck. I glance down at my chest, its bloody ribbons of muscle.
She claws my face. I grab Her slippery wrists to protect my eyes, my nose. Her death-softened muscles slide up Her forearms like the sleeve of a shirt.
Reeling backward, I kick Her as we fall, foot smashing through Her stomach and into her vertebrae. She kicks my kidneys in retaliation.
Going, all is
clear, without a doubt.
I sink into a memory, pillow-soft. I’m lying on a bed and my mother is sitting on the mattress beside me. Her red hair is pulled back off her forehead in a ponytail. She smiles down at me, her blue eyes loving. Her hands caress the hair off my forehead, then the nape of my neck.
She bites my skull at the back of my neck.
My mother is pulling me down the sidewalk in a wagon. The wind is blowing her hair askew. We’re smiling at each other. She starts singing a song and I sing along with her:
We went to the animal fair
The birds and the beasts were there
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair . . .
The monster stops singing and looks at me. And my mother and the monster are suddenly one and the same.
The monkey he got drunk
And fell on the elephant’s trunk
teeth scrape scalp
chipped bone searing
pain
Going, all is clear.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
The elephant sneezed, went down on his knees
And that was the end of the monk
The monk the monk . . .
I’m going to die. Alone.
Alone with Her. The monster who might be my mother.
no doubt about it
Was my life really ever under my control anyway?
What, then, is all?
What, then, is all?
I don’t know. I don’t know what “all” is. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on that one,” I tell the darkness. “I’m going to have to—”
A spark of light flares for a moment.
Not the sickly glow of the leviathan but fire, growing. A soul.
It’s not my dad or Jacob or Aileen. It’s not Zachary. I’ve seen them all in this place and this blue flame is different from all of them.
Who is it?
I grab Her, this dead person, the leviathan, and I pull Her over my head so She’s in front of me. I hold Her arms so She can’t kick or grab or tear and I pull Her toward me. Clutch Her tight. Tighter.
And I know the truth in an instant. She’s mine. This is my mother.
Whatever She is—She is my mother.
No wonder I’m always searching for her grave in my dreams. Because She doesn’t have one. She’s been stuck here in Limbo for years.
without a doubt
I’m running toward Her, a little kid, eager, crying, “Mama! Mama!” She’s sitting on a moving train, looking out the window. The blanket covering Her frail body falls away and reveals a skeleton arm. She turns to look at me, dark eyes huge in Her face, skeleton arm reaching out to me. “My son,” She says. “My little love.”
Somebody grabs me from behind and pulls me backward.
“I love you, my boy,” She calls. “I love you!”
“Goodbye, Mama, goodbye!” I call. “I love you!”
“I love you, my boy,” She says. Her eyes heave huge tears.
“I love you, Mom,” I say. “I love you.” Oh, how I wish I’d known You longer.
The monster goes limp in my arms.
“Goodbye, Mama,” I call. “Goodbye.”
I look down. The Thing in my arms is no longer my mother. She’s turned into a toddler—a little boy with dark, unruly hair, skin that is neither light nor dark but somewhere in between, deep-set eyes and bushy eyebrows.
It’s me.
We fall. Me and the monster. The monster who was my mother and now is . . . me.
The blue flame of my soul goes out and suddenly I’m alone in the darkness, embracing my own corpse.
We fall.
Is this what it feels like to be dead? But . . . how can I hold my own corpse? As soon as I ask, the corpse disappears. But I’m still falling.
What, then, is all?
If I’m dead, I’d like to pass on to the other side, get away from this endless fall. I wish I knew what it was like. If I make it there, will I recognize my mother or anybody else who might be there? Or are things so different, I won’t recognize anybody because it’s all brand new, like being born?
I’d like to think that my “all” will gather together on the other side someday, with me. And that I’ll recognize them. I don’t want to lose them. Even if half of them hate me, just because I’m a Reaper.
The scattered thoughts running ramshackle through my brain begin to coalesce around a single person.
Rachel. I need to find her.
I jerk upright. And suddenly, just like that, I’m sitting in the dark, the motion of perpetual falling gone.
Get up, Adam, I tell myself.
Everything’s still black. With my mind’s eye, I sense a soul to my right and another to my left. The one to my left exudes a sense of comfort, of being at home, of being with somebody he or she loves. The one to the right is scared and angry and alone. I’m guessing one’s Rachel and one’s Zachary but I have no idea which one is which.
I’ll tell you what I want. I want to go left, toward the promise of happiness. So I turn to the right instead. If Amaros had stolen my soul, I’d be pretty freaking scared too.
Sand crunches under my feet. I take another step but something springy, like a trampoline, pushes me back every time I push against it. I feel up the sides and down and over the invisible wall. Whatever it is, it’s impenetrable.
So I head back toward happiness, toward the smell of cut grass, and walk into a world of sepia colors—although the sunshine is so bright, it lights up a post-WWII-era housing development somewhere in Suburbia, USA.
I head toward a house in the middle of the street. It’s brighter than the other ones, as if there are more pixels in this part of the street than the rest. A split-level house with a single-car garage. Freshly cut, impossibly green grass.
I press my ear up against the front door. Muffled sounds filter through the wood. Should I knock? I don’t really know who—or what—is in there.
I open the door quietly and slip inside. A short flight of stairs leads up and another short flight leads down. The noises come from the lower level. I inch my way down the stairs. It’s dim down here, lit only by the light filtering through a crack of the door at the end of the hall. I tiptoe toward the light, the muffled sound separating out into two distinct voices. Two teenage girls.
“We have to talk about this.” The first girl sounds intense but there’s something odd about her voice, like wrinkles on a baby’s face. “What would you do if an intruder broke in?”
“It won’t happen.” It’s Rachel, sounding peaceful, serene, almost . . . drugged. “The neighborhood is safe. The town is safe. That’s why Mom and Dad moved us here. They wanted to get us away from all that crime in the South Side.”
“I wish that were true,” the other girl says. “But somebody’s coming here to take me away.”
“Nobody can hurt you here,” Rachel insists. “I won’t let them.”
“What will you do?”
“Why, I’ll—” Rachel pauses. “If somebody tries to hurt us or take you away, I’ll protect you. With Dad’s gun.”
The second girl’s voice quickly fills with greed, a swimming pool overflowing. “Oh, Dad has a gun? I should know where i
t is just in case something happens to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Rachel says. “Not here. This is heaven.”
“Listen to me,” the first girl says. “Have you heard of the Grim Reaper? The Angel of Death?”
Rachel stays silent for a long time. When she speaks, I can barely hear her. She sounds uncertain now. “Ye-es.”
The other girl’s voice gets louder, insistent: “Well, you can’t keep the Grim Reaper away, and that’s who’s coming for me. He wants to steal my soul and take it to hell. He wants your soul too. And Mom’s. And Dad’s. He wants it all.”
A voice whispers in my head: What, then, is all?
“I don’t believe it,” Rachel says. “People like the Grim Reaper can’t take souls just because they want to. There are rules about these sorts of things.”
“Nice, real nice,” the other girl sneers. “They’ve already filled your head with a pack of horrible lies.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Rachel asks.
“You know who they are,” the girl spits. “They’re the reason we’re in this god-forsaken place.”
“I like this place,” Rachel says.
“You would.” She whines, then begins to plead: “Rachel, we need to protect ourselves. The Grim Reaper is a monster. We don’t have much time. Tell me where Dad keeps the gun.”
The cadence of her voice is familiar. The last time, that voice sounded like Zachary, but it wasn’t. And now it isn’t Rachel’s sister either. It’s Amaros. How’s he controlling her?
I peer through the crack in the door. Rachel’s sitting on a lacy white bed in a pale pink room, a bedroom for a girl much younger than she actually is. The girl sitting beside her looks vaguely like Rachel but older. She strokes Rachel’s hand gently.
I blink. In the fraction of a second between eyes closed and eyes fully open, I catch a glimpse of a leathery beast, sucking on a large wound on Rachel’s hand. Its disgusting head is all teeth, the nose just a tiny bump with huge flaring nostrils beneath its red, beady eyes.
As soon as the light filters into my pupils, the beast disappears. Rachel’s “sister” is back, gently massaging her hand.
