by Eva Brandt
“You know that’s not true, Lila. You’re our daughter. We want our best for our family. We’re just having some problems. That doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”
“You don’t need to tell me that, Mom. I’m not five. And I won’t keel over and die either if you guys get a divorce.”
The truth was that I’d have preferred permanent separation over the long, drawn-out agony of the past couple of years. To this day, I didn’t know who had cheated first, but I suspected it had been my mother because of some of the arguments I’d overheard. At one point, my father had found out, but instead of breaking up with her, he’d cheated back, and the whole thing had escalated into a childish, epic battle of who could cuckold the other person more dramatically.
They hadn’t stopped until I’d walked in on my mother being tag-teamed by our gardener and our cook. It really pissed me off, because the cook had made the best cheesecake on the East Coast. I was now deprived of that because my mom couldn’t look for her entertainment elsewhere.
But pointing that out would’ve been insensitive and probably made me crave cheesecake more than I already did. So instead, I fell onto my usual strategy, pretending the problem wasn’t there. “Anyway, you’re trying to do better, right? So I have nothing to be angry about.”
“Right,” my mother said, a little weakly. “Of course.”
We’d exhausted this topic, just like I’d exhausted the tube of sunscreen. I wiped my hands of the leftover cream and reached for my e-book reader. “Do you need me for anything? I wanted to finish my book.”
My mother tried to hide her relief, but utterly failed. “No, it’s fine. Have fun, sweetie.”
As I watched her walk away and go below deck, a mix of anger and grief surged through me. It was stupid, but for some reason, every time we ended such a conversation, I had this strange feeling of finality. I felt as if I was living a dream and I’d wake up, only to find my parents had abandoned me a long time ago, to build their own separate happy families.
I shook off my bout of self-pity. I was fine. We were fine. My parents were still together. We were on a fun, traditional vacation that would help them rebuild their relationship. Once we got home, everything would be perfect. Maybe we’d even find another cook, one who could make great cheesecake and keep his dick to himself.
It was a little silly to hope, but I hoped anyway, and the thought allowed me to drift back into the fantasy world of my novel.
It was a good book, and for a couple of hours, it distracted me from my problems. I only realized evening had fallen when I finished the final chapter and found a satisfying happy ending.
My fantasy romance-induced good mood dissolved into renewed apprehension. The deck was empty and it was so quiet. The full moon shone brightly in the sky, but the sight I would have normally deemed beautiful just sent a chill down my spine.
We went boating regularly, but we always returned to shore at night. My father was an excellent boater, but he was also very safety-conscious and didn’t want to take any chances with our well-being. When out at sea, anything could happen, so he tried to keep our trips short, but enjoyable.
Allowing my e-book reader to go into ‘sleep’ mode, I got up from my chaise-longue and headed inside. “Dad?” I called out. “Everything okay?”
Had we had an engine malfunction? I hadn’t heard or felt anything wrong, but I wasn’t known for my talents with machines.
I never received a reply. Just as I was about to go downstairs, to investigate the mystery, a bright light erupted in the distance, practically turning the night into day.
I stumbled back onto the deck, leaning against the banister to get a better look at the strange phenomenon. The light was coming from a good distance away, a few miles, at least, so I couldn’t distinguish the source. Had there been some kind of accident? If so, we had to report it.
The light pulsed rhythmically, like it had a heartbeat, a life of its own. If I reached out, if I extended my fingers, I could almost touch it.
I’d go warn my parents soon, in a minute. I just needed to look at the light, for a few seconds longer. Would it come to me if I asked?
The sky lit up, flames licking over the edges of the dark clouds. I didn’t think I’d seen anything so beautiful in my life.
The sound of my father’s familiar voice snapped me out of my trance. “Lila, what are you doing?” he asked as he rushed to my side. “Get down!”
I blinked back into awareness, realizing that I’d been standing on the deck frozen while a disaster had unfolded around me. The light I’d admired so much hadn’t left the yacht or the sea untouched. The waves crashed angrily against our small vessel, so powerful that my dad had to hold me up to keep me from falling. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me under the awning he often used to shield himself from the sun.
“Dad?” I asked, confused. “What’s going on?”
“I have no idea, but the engine isn’t working. I think there’s a storm coming or something like that. We need to get you out of here.”
Out of here? And where exactly was I supposed to go? We had life preservers, but when I looked at the burning sky, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they wouldn’t help us.
With a dose of distant hysteria, I thought that I should’ve used a little more sunscreen. It might have been useful if we had to fight the fire raining on us from the sky.
Before I could fall apart altogether, my mother manifested by our side, carrying a life preserver. “There you are. Let’s get this on, all right, Lila?”
I nodded, but couldn’t make myself move. I was having trouble processing our situation. What was this light? Where had the fire come from? And… Was that the sound of trumpets I could hear in the distance?
My head started to hurt and my vision went a little woozy. My father’s hold on me tightened. “Lila, breathe. Don’t worry. We’re here for you.”
I focused on him and his steady presence calmed me. My mother tried to help too. Her hands shook as she struggled to pull on my life preserver. Still, she offered me a tremulous smile. “We’re going to be fine. We’ll make it out of this one too. You’ll see.”
I doubted that very much, but I didn’t say it. She didn’t believe her own words, but she was trying to stay strong, for my sake. I could do the same.
“You’re right,” I said. “Go ahead and put on your own life preservers. I can finish this.”
My mother looked like she wanted to protest, but I took the choice from her hands when I pulled away. “Lila…”
“You keep telling me to be more careful, right?” I cut her off. “So take your own advice and put the damn life preserver on.”
My parents complied—or at least, I thought they did. Everything happened so fast after that. A heavy blast echoed in the distance, so loud I thought I might lose my hearing. I didn’t, because the next thing I was aware of was the sound of my mother screaming and my father’s desperate cry, “No… God, no. God, please.”
I stole a look over my shoulder and every muscle in my body froze. I knew I should be trying to escape. But where could we possibly go, when a giant tidal wave was heading straight for us?
I didn’t get the chance to dwell on it for too long. The furious water swept over the deck, impossible to stop. Everything turned indistinct and chaotic as I was thrown off the yacht and into the angry ocean.
I was a good swimmer, but trying to fight the storm was an exercise in futility. The water dragged me down almost instantly. At first, I tried to struggle. I couldn’t die like this. This couldn’t be happening to me. I was only nineteen. I had plans, a whole life ahead of me.
But I was only an insignificant speck of flesh, easily squashed by the overwhelming might of the ocean. My whole body started to scream for air, but there was no one who could hear the cry. My lungs were burning, but the water around me fed the flame instead of quenching it. My desperation and desire to live meant nothing.
I didn’t know how long I forced myself to fight
the inevitable, but in the end, I couldn’t continue my battle. An icy numbness settled over me. A feeling of comforting calm enveloped me, reminding me a little of my mother’s embrace. She had been so much warmer than this, but the change was oddly soothing.
Helpless, I let myself drift and closed my eyes. I knew I would never open them again. But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad.
I was wrong—on both counts.
When I came to once again, I didn’t know what I expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t… nothing. I appeared to be in a strange void, floating through the darkness like a piece of space rock adrift through the universe. At first, I was so confused I just lay there and waited for something to happen. I snapped out of that pretty quickly and tried to move around. My limbs felt stiff and heavy, but they obeyed. It didn’t make much difference, since the only thing I could do was spin around through the darkness like a demented starfish.
Time passed. I screamed, cried, and clawed at myself. I couldn’t feel any pain, nor could I taste the salt of my own tears.
If this was death, it really sucked. I’d expected more fire and brimstone from hell. I supposed that the devil must’ve gone with the ‘less is more’ option and had decided on a new approach. Or maybe everyone who’d made guesses on the afterlife had just been wrong.
After what seemed like forever, a light shone through the darkness. The rays zeroed in on me and surrounded my body, gripping my arms in a tight, but gentle hold. An unfamiliar voice echoed in my head. “Delilah St. John, awaken!”
I didn’t hear the words, and yet, somehow, they registered, in some part of my consciousness that transcended time and space. Instinctively, I followed the command. I had no idea who’d uttered it, but anything was better than being stuck in this in-between.
The moment I cracked my eyes open, I wished I hadn’t been so hasty in making my decision.
I was lying on a stone slab in an indistinct, empty room. A dark-haired woman stood by my side, her figure glowing ominously in the gloom.
Her dress seemed made entirely out of black feathers and she was holding a wickedly sharp sword in her hand.
Her companion was even more unnerving. The creature in question was a gigantic skeleton. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female and its clothes were blurry, swirling shadows, which gave me no clues. But I couldn’t be bothered to care about irrelevant details like that. I was too busy worrying about the scythe that floated in front of the skeleton and the threatening light in its fiery eyes.
I wanted to believe they were cosplayers who’d taken the wrong turn and missed the most recent Comic Con, but somehow, I knew better.
There was nothing fake about the terrifying auras they emanated. That sword had seen blood and death, and that scythe reaped people, not crops.
No, it couldn’t be. I had to… I had to stay rational about this. I had to find out what was going on.
“W-What is this?” I asked shakily. “Who are you people? Am I dead? Am I hallucinating?”
The skeleton lifted a bony hand, stopping the avalanche of words. “We’ll answer all your questions, but first, you must take a moment to allow your soul to settle. The process you went through is very taxing on a mortal. You have to calm down.”
What the actual fuck? Allow my soul to settle? What did that even mean?
“No offense, Mr…. Whoever You Are, but I don’t find you or your friend very calming.”
I had a vague idea on the possible identity of the skeleton, but I wanted to be wrong. God, I hoped I was wrong.
“That’s understandable,” the woman replied, her voice mellow and soothing. “A soul who has tasted death will always sense deities associated with it and will be leery.”
“D-Deities,” I repeated like an automaton. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. “This is… This is all a bad dream, isn’t it? I fell asleep on the deck. Or I got sunstroke and I’ll wake up in the hospital. This can’t be happening.”
The woman shot me a strikingly compassionate look. “I’m afraid it’s the truth. We’d have liked to break it to you a little more gently, but the types of methods we use always require a degree of forcefulness.”
I stared at her, torn between confusion, grief, and rage. In the end, the rage won out. “I think I noticed your forcefulness when I drowned, yeah. What did we ever do to you? Why did you kill me and my family?”
“We weren’t the ones who attacked you,” the skeleton answered. “As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t your time to die.”
“Then, why? I don’t understand…”
I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Thankfully, I didn’t have to say or ask anything else.
The skeleton took a step forward and bowed lightly. “Let us start with the beginning and introduce ourselves. I am the Grim Reaper and this is the Lady Morrigan. We are both aspects and avatars of death, although in very different ways.”
Their names shocked me, even if I’d already guessed at least part of their identity. The Grim Reaper was actually a thing. The Celtic goddess of war, fate, and death existed. How had I gotten myself into this mess?
I hugged my knees to my chest, feeling impossibly naked in my bathing suit. The stone slab felt colder than ever before, but I tried to ignore it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said automatically. I didn’t really mean the words, but it paid to be polite to deities. Or at least I thought it did. I’d never met a god before. It was a day for new experiences.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Delilah,” Morrigan said. “We both wish it had been under different circumstances.”
Right. My death. Here was my chance to get some real answers. “What exactly happened?”
“Your yacht drifted a little too close to a very dangerous location, an island that held a school for demons,” the Grim Reaper replied. The Academy of the Devil, it was called. The island was involved in a battle between groups of angels and demons. Lucifer Morningstar was one of the leaders involved in the fight. The shields around the school attempted to keep him out and he forcibly cracked them, leading to a backlash of magic that created the tidal wave.”
Well, fuck. I didn’t even know where to begin with that one. A school for demons? The Academy of the Devil? A battle between angels and demons? Lucifer? This was crazy.
I supposed that, if death deities existed, anything was possible. Still, it was a little hard to believe.
The Grim Reaper seemed to read my mind. He waved a bony hand and his scythe started to spin. I yelped and instinctively pulled away. I needn’t have worried, since the weapon was no danger to me.
Instead, the scythe sliced straight through the fabric of reality. It shouldn’t have been possible, but the sharp edge ripped apart the air between me and the dynamic duo. Ghostly figures slid out of the hole like noxious, icy fumes. They coalesced into an image of the ocean, as it had been the day of my death.
I could see myself, talking to my mother, then picking up my e-book reader. I could see my parents, arguing below deck. As night fell, I caught a glimpse of my father checking the engine.
And then, the source of the problem became obvious. The image shifted, revealing the massive figure of a four-winged angel. He looked bestial, but in a divine way. Whenever I’d thought about angels in the past, the image that had come to mind had been similar to what I’d seen in Renaissance paintings. He was nothing like that. He had four faces—only one of them humanoid—and four wings. Somehow, though, he was beautiful, not monstrous.
He was also holding a fiery blade in his hand, and he brought it down again and again on a set of transparent shields. The moment the protective magic cracked, a wave of power swept over the ocean.
The yacht holding my parents and me was destroyed in seconds. I was distantly surprised I’d remained cognizant for as long as I had.
“So… Lucifer,” I whispered. “Satan is the one who killed my parents.”
“He’s the one who caused the boating accident, yes,” the Grim Reaper replied. “Your bodies were
never recovered.”
Helpless tears burned at the corner of my eyes. “Why are you showing me this? Are you trying to make things more difficult for me?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. We’re merely giving you the explanation you need and you asked for. You might deem it cruel of us, but life is just as cruel as death, if not more so.”
He had a point. “Okay. Assuming I believe you, why are you talking to me in the first place? I mean, I doubt two aspects of death regularly visit every person Satan killed.”
“Indeed. We’re here to give you a chance to live again. In a way. Your mortality is gone, but that doesn’t mean your story is over.”
His cryptic words did nothing to clarify the situation. He seemed to be contradicting himself, but he wasn’t. God, this was complicated.
Having noticed my confusion, Morrigan began to elaborate. “We can’t send you back to where you were. As Delilah St. John, you died, and there’s no coming back from that. But your parents aren’t beyond our aid. There is a way in which you can help them, a method that will allow you to save them.”
The three latter words sliced through my haze as neatly as the Grim Reaper’s scythe. “How?” I croaked out, stealing another glance at the image. Our boat was no longer visible, but when I reached out, the ocean turned into a memory of the three of us, the way we’d been before everything had gone wrong.
I was only eight and I was kneeling underneath our Christmas tree, opening my presents. My mother sat behind me, watching me with a warm, indulgent expression. My father was helping me with a stubborn ribbon, all the while making funny faces at me. “Oh, this one’s interesting. I wonder what it’ll hold.”
“It has to be a new Wii! I was good and Santa promised.”
“Of course he did. And we know Santa always keeps his promises.”
The new gaming platform was indeed in the box and my child self let out a happy cry. “I got it! Mom, we have to make some great cookies for Santa next year to thank him.”