by Amele, Quinn
Since I died, I haven't picked up a book. I haven't really thought about them.
"I am sorry, Estella, for the way I acted last night," he apologizes.
I study him, trying to tell the truth from another one of his mind tricks. "That was a real dick move last night."
"I realize."
"And you're sorry."
He nods once, but I purse my lips and refuse to acknowledge it, wanting him to say it aloud again. It might be the only time I'll ever hear it. He's acting so weird. He's never apologized before. Then again, he's never gone completely ape-shit like he did last night.
Was it because I told Vic?
Even though he wasn't even Vic. Thinking about that makes me squirm, because I'd been so trusting, and it had been Jack the whole time. Vic knows absolutely nothing, and somehow that breaks my heart because Jack played along so well.
He says sharply, "Yes. Yes, I'm sorry."
"You're..." but then my breath catches in my throat. My eyes go wide. "You just said 'I'm'."
He rubs the stitch on the side of his neck apprehensively. "And?"
"And you don't use contractions."
"Says who?"
"Says you. First night. I asked why you're so proper and you told me—"
"'Because humans are flawed, and I am not a human.'" Even as he says it, something about the way he holds himself changes. It melts, like ice cream on the hot cement. His shoulders slump, and he rubs his forehead as if he's tired. "Forgive me, I'm not quite myself anymore."
Even as he says it, he winces at the contraction.
Is it weird that I want to hug him? He sounds so lost. And not in an I-Can't-Find-My-Way-Home sort of way, but a type of lostness that doesn't have to do with physical destinations, but something deeper. Like he's lost inside himself.
I settle for resting a hand on his forearm. "Well, bygones and all."
"Yeah, bygones," he sighs and pulls a hand through his clumpy hair, only it's not that clumpy anymore. It's just dark and shiny, as if he's forgotten to wash it in a really long time. He flicks his pitless eyes to me. "Do you care to walk for a while?"
"Don't you have... you know..." I shoot a look at the other people gathering around the bus stop, but no one's paying attention to us, "business to do?"
The edges of his lips twitch. "I do."
"Then shouldn't you..."
He extends his hand toward the sidewalk, away from the bus station and toward an empty, dilapidated part of town. I hesitate, but begin walking. I don't really want to finish the paperwork that's probably piled like skyscrapers on the dining room table. It'll take all night to finish them, anyway. He catches up to me easily, placing his hands behind his back.
We walk in silence for a long while, passing rundown laundry mats and delis with graffiti on the windows. There are worse places in Connection than this, but it isn't so much as a bad area as just old, and uncared for. A lot like Nate, I realize. Uncared for. How many assistants has he had over the past few millenniums? How many assistants really cared to talk to him?
"You never told me about your family."
His voice startles me, since we've been walking in silence for so long. A dump truck passes, kicking up dry sand and dust on the road, howling black smoke through its exhaust as it passes. He gives me a sideways glance expectantly.
I shrug. "What'd you wanna know? My parents are nice people. Mom's a little too vain sometimes, and Dad loves his crosswords about as much as his children." I smile, remembering all those Saturday mornings Gage and I sat watching cartoons while he finished his morning crossword. "My brother's something else, though. I think he takes after our granddad, who was a fighter pilot in one of those World Wars."
"Two," he says.
"Right, World War II. Did you..."
"He went down in a plane on July 23rd, I remember it well. His wingman survived."
I give him a shocked look, but I realize that I shouldn't be shocked at all. He's death, after all. "Right. Yeah, and brought home his dogtags to Grams."
"Who died a few years ago in her sleep." He snorts a laugh, as if remembering it exactly. "She was dreaming about cats." Before I can ask if they were mauling her to death, he added, "A good dream about cats. They were nice cats."
"She did love cats," I murmur, remembering all the cat trinkets we had to gather up after she had died, and store in boxes in a rented storage space. Dad never had the heart to give them away. "Do you remember everyone like that?"
I seem to arouse him from his thoughts. "Hmm?"
"Do you remember everyone in stories? Everyone who ever existed?" At the very thought of it, I blanch in horror. Think of all the people who died, and all the people who didn't die dreaming about cats.
He must see me pale, because he replies in a soft voice, "Yes. Every one of them."
"I'm sorry."
"Someone must remember them," is his reply. He looks down, and pretends to tightrope across the cracks, reminding me of a kid. He hops over a weed, and continues. The last time I've been alone with Nate without being mad at him was three months ago, when we first made the deal. My heart thrums in my throat nervously—or is it excitedly? I can't tell. He is the one person who could cut my lifeline at any moment for no reason at all, so I should be afraid of him. I have every reason to be. Nate's like a lion. Sometimes he's a big, ferocious monster... but other times he's docile and sweet.
Like now.
"Hey, Nate?" I ask, and he looks up, spinning around to face me.
"Hmm?"
"What's it like?"
"What is what like?"
"To..." I make a motion upward with my hand. "To move on."
He stops and stares with a blank, uncomprehending look. Then, as my words sink in, the blank look transforms into annoyance. An inkling of anger leaks into his coal eyes. He again rubs the stitch on his neck, this time coming back with a drop of vibrant red blood on the ends of his pale fingertips, and quickly wipes it off on his dark jeans
Nate doesn't bleed.
"I am not privy to that information," he finally replies.
That doesn't make sense. "You kill people and you don't know what it's like to die?"
"Do you?"
"I don't kill them."
"But you help them to the" —he fashions his fingers into quotations— "'other side.'"
"Did you just air quote me?" I ask in disbelief.
He crosses his arms over his chest awkwardly. "And if I did?"
"Sassy much?" I wave my hand in the air. "I mean, I'm not angry or anything, it's just if anyone should know about death shouldn't it be the Grim Reaper himself?"
Straightening his shoulders, he lets out a long sigh through pursed lips. His hair is darker still in the lamplight, and curls in against his neck. Another couple passes on their way to the laundry mat, not even glancing twice at us. Why does no one else notice him? It's like no one pays attention enough to care. We pass the sketch Chinese restaurant, and a pet shop, before finally whirling back toward the house.
I'm becoming breathless, puffs of white clouds escaping my mouth like an ailing smokestack. I notice Nate is breathing the same way, hot breath falling from his pale lips in long, steady breaths.
We stop at a stoplight and wait for the crosswalk signal. I clear my throat nervously. "I didn't mean to offend you."
"You did not." It sounds like it takes effort for him to say the words separately, as if he has to actively think about them. "Just forget about it. You are right, of course."
Surprised, I ask, "I am?"
"Yes."
I almost laugh. "Can you say that one more time? Or, maybe in writing...?"
His eyes spark with annoyance. "Stella."
"Sorry..." I clasp my hands together tightly and train my eyes on the red crosswalk sign across the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as he smirks and trains his eyes on the same sign, as if it's a far-off star.
He takes a deep breath. "I'm glad I will go through this now. With you as my assis
tant."
I blink at him. "What?"
The light turns green, and he crosses the street. I stumble to follow, and fall in step beside him, wanting to ask what he meant, but then I get a look at his face and my question stops in my throat. I shouldn't ask. I really don't know if I want to know. Dad always told me to not ask questions to things I'd rather not know. So we walk together in silence, and to my surprise end up on the other side of Bradley Park.
How long we walk, I have no idea, but we end up on the nice side of town. My parent's house is only a few blocks away. I want to say as much, but it seems like he read my mind.
The house is dark when we get there, all of the windows pits of black, the door a ghostly gray. It was probably dark the night I killed my family, too, so dark and sleepy, unaware of the car still running in the garage and the suffocation that leaked into our lungs and filled our lungs with poison.
I lean back against one of the big oaks lining the street and watch the sleepy house silently. Nate leans on the oak beside me, and we slide down to the cool earth together. My family will wake up tomorrow and go to work and school. They'll come home and ignore each other, moving around the house in an intricate waltz, and when they go to bed they probably won't even tell each other goodnight, and they won't know how lucky they are.
It's ironic, and depressing.
I'd give anything to tell Gage "goodnight" one last time.
Nate tilts his head, and in the streetlight there is something odd about his face. It's something about his stitch lips and bruised face. Something not quite as far from human as he would think. Sympathy? Maybe. Compassion, perhaps. For my family, and this tiny house, somewhere I used to wake up and go to sleep, one more set of footsteps in the waltz of everyday life.
A pinkish purple hue begins to eat the edges of the horizon, and the coldness is slowly lifting. Somewhere in a tree above us, a songbird begins to twitter, and a raven takes off from a higher branch to chase it away.
And life goes on.
Chapter Eight
To the Death
The sun pulls gold across the rooftop as it rises, making the frost in the naked tree limbs shimmer like crystals. They crackle as the warmth thaws them out. Movement in my parent's window catches my eye, and I hold my breath even though I know my parents won't notice me in the front lawn.
There's only so long we can sit here and not look suspicious to the paperboy, who's sure to come around soon enough.
"I think we should get going," I say aloud.
Nate doesn't respond.
I glance, eyebrow raised, in his direction. He's slouched against the tree, head lolling onto his chest, his face so peaceful it almost looks foreign. It looks teenaged and timeless at the same time, and maybe if his skin wasn't pale, his eyes weren’t bruised, and the stitches didn't patch him together like a ragdoll, he could've even looked like someone the popular girls at my high school would totally date.
The problem is, Nate doesn't sleep.
I shake his shoulder. His head tilts to the side, his mouth parting slightly as he murmurs something, and his eyebrows furrow together.
"Oh, come on Nate. We know you can't sleep." I push him a little harder, but he doesn't wake up. "Nate?" Fright leaks into my voice. "Nate?"
His lips press together. "Mmmh..."
"Nate?"
His eyebrows crumple together as if he's trying to pull himself out of sleep. Nate doesn't sleep. Then he blinks his bleary eyes, and lifts his head to me. His eyes meet mine, and then he pales. I open my mouth to say something, and he does too, but when his lips move the stitch on his bottom lip tumbles off.
Does Nate molt?
It's a small stitch—silvery green, like the type the doctors used at the turn of the century. How long has he had those stitches? And why? At one point, I thought they were used to keep his lips sealed, and maybe they were, but most of them were already missing by the time I became his assistant. And how the last stitch, like a lip ring, is gone.
He curses, his voice shaking.
"What's wrong?" I ask, putting a hand on his arm again. He jerks it away, as if my touch burns him.
In the past day, he's eaten, used a contraction, and slept. Normal things, if he was human. But he isn't. Death is immortal. Death doesn't need to eat, sleep, or use imperfect words.
He pulls a finger through his curly dark hair stressfully and begins to stand. His hair isn't silver anymore, or dull-looking. "Let's... Let us get home."
I scatter to my feet beside him. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, don't worry," he replies too coolly.
We lock eyes, but he can't meet mine, and downturns his. They're still black pits, but they're frightful black pits. He used three more contractions. I hold them up as if to count them.
"Three," I tell him.
"Three," he deadpans.
Three.
"It's nothing. I'm fine. Let's go—Let us go home. I have work to do and—" When he rubs his stitch, he winces and pulls his fingers away. Bright blood shines against his alabaster fingers like wet paint. It's just a slight smear, but his neck begins to bleed down his neck and run into his dark shirt. His hands begin to shake, and he leans against the oak for support.
"Estella?" His voice is calm despite the surprise on his face.
Someone in my parent's house peeks out of the dining room window. I can't tell whether it's my dad or brother—they're the same height now—but whoever it is, is watching us.
"Estella," he repeats, and I whirl back around to him, and freeze. The blood that coats both of his hands is his own, draining from the lacerations across his wrists and the wounds that snake up his arms like lattice. Drops pool on the edge of his fingers and drop down onto the ground.
Without thinking, I put my hands into his, and squeeze them tightly. His hands are warm.
He notices, too. His whole body is shaking. "You're hands are cold," he murmurs, staring at our hands as if they're a foreign part of his body.
And then, suddenly, his knees give way and he crumples onto the ground like dead weight.
"Ohmygod!" I gasp, pulling him onto his back."Shit! What do I do? Nate?!"
He grimaces, closing his eyes tightly. That's when I notice the blood seeping from the stitches along his wrists. Without thinking, I press my hands against them to keep them from bleeding, and he bucks, hissing in pain.
"What's happening?" I ask him frightfully. "What do I do—is there another you somewhere around here that can..."
But I don't even finish the sentence, because there is a shift then. It's not in the air, or under the earth, but it's a shift in the back of my mind, like the whispers, only it's a solitary sound, like wind sucked through a fan. Everything around us goes hazy and brilliant for a moment, like the inside of a fractured lens, and a crack of thunder resounds across the sky.
Nate gasps, arching his back in pain, before his eyes fly open. Instead of black, they are a brilliant, all-consuming gold. His skin begins to glow—no, it begins to come to life, adopting this honey-colored Italian tint, his hair darkening to black. The stitches along his arms begin to pop off as the sinews underneath stretch and grow, until he isn't a skeleton anymore but a man. Even the stitches across his face unravel, falling off like loose ribbons, the holes they made knitting themselves together.
He turns his face away, cringing, almost sobbing because it must hurt so much. I don't know what to do—I don't even know what's happening.
"What can I do?" I whisper helplessly. "What can I do?"
Almost as if on queue, a twig snaps behind me. "Gage," as I say his name, relief builds in my chest. He looks between death on the ground, and me, and purses his lips together.
"Who is he?"
"I don't know," I reply somewhat truthfully. I thought he was Death, but my jeans are soaked with his blood, and Death doesn't bleed.
"Do you work for him? Or is he your..."
"I don't know!" I snap, rocking back and forth. His eyes are closed again, and it doesn
't look like he's breathing. Does Nate breath? I can't remember anymore. I can't remember if he smells, either, or what he looks like when he's death.
And then the creeping, terrible feeling returns. The coldness at the center of my spine. Like I felt in the alleyway. No, do something Estella! I coach myself, because I won't let anything happen to Nate. Not if I have anything to do about it.
Even though he trapped me in his house, made me his assistant, and called me fat, I'd do anything to help. I'm just a human though—a dead one at that. What can I do?
What could I ever do against something like death? And what if Nate dies here? Now? Or what if something worse is happening? No—he protected me, and somewhere inside me I always knew I'd do the same.
The moment I come to that conviction, something stirs in my middle, like fire, and it leaks down into my hands, searing across his wrists. When I pull my hands away, the bleeding has stopped, and the wounds are cauterized.
Behind me, Gage gasps. "How did you..."
"I don't know..." I reply, but swallow my fear. I pull one of Nate's arms around my neck, and ask Gage to take the other side. "Help me get him inside."
"Shouldn't we call an ambulance?"
"No, but I know who we can call." Even though I've never met her before in my entire life. I know exactly who to call. His polar opposite, and the only person who might know what's going on. Eshe.
Halfway up the stairs, Nate comes to enough for him to walk up the rest of the way, and halfway shuffle inside.
In the doorway, I hear something land in the lawn behind me, and laugh. I freeze. I know that laugh. I let Gage haul Nate the rest of the way to the couch in the living room as I turn around in the doorway, steeling myself for another mirage.
But this time it's really Jack, flesh and bone. He smiles at me with a sinister sort of smile and summons a swirling gust of ice into his hand.
"Dear me, what have we here?" he asks.
I slam the door closed and bar him from getting inside with my body. Whatever he wants, I'm positive it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with Nate. He saunters closer, and I remember every ridge in his body from the vision...and it tears me between wanting to kiss him, and fight him.
