by Bryce Moore
“What?”
“Zubatá is a character from a children’s movie. Those damned Communists make one lousy kids’ movie in 1985—1985!—and the entire country starts thinking I’m this woman with gold teeth and a scythe. It’s an outrage!”
What? “Gold teeth?”
She sniffed. “You haven’t seen it?”
“Seen what?”
“Perinbaba. The Feather Fairy.”
“No.” If it was anything like the movie with the woman’s nose that takes an international vacation, I didn’t blame her for being upset.
“Good,” she said. “My name is Morena. Not Zubatá. I’m the goddess of death, thank you very much. And winter, when I feel like it. But these days, mostly death. Don’t forget it.”
Had I lapsed into blissful insanity? I was still there on the castle grounds, a pool of light spilling out from the break room door twenty feet to my right. Then again, what did that have to do with being sane? “What do you want with me?”
“Mind if I put this down?” she asked, and gestured with the scythe. “Technically it doesn’t weigh anything, but carry it around long enough, and you’ll swear that’s not true.” She let it clatter to the ground, then she stretched and cracked her neck, the movement revealing her white dress again. “Come on over here—let’s sit down.” She gestured at the amphitheater seats and headed toward them.
I held back. “I don’t know,” I said. “My uncle—”
“Won’t notice a thing. I’ve messed with time.”
“Well, still. I don’t know if I should be . . . talking to . . .”
“Death?” she said. “Ol’ Morena? Why not? You can see me, and you seemed comfortable enough screwing around with my job earlier today. Why not have a little chitchat?” She narrowed her eyes. “There are other things I could do instead. My scythe can be wonderfully sharp if I want it to be.”
I rushed to sit down across from her so fast I stumbled and almost fell. She laughed again, though this sounded much warmer and less freaky than before.
“I’ve forgotten how easy you new ones are to scare,” she said. “It’s so much fun.”
I lowered myself slowly to the bench, not wanting to make any sudden movements and risk making her reconsider her apparent decision to not slice me like a salami. “You’re not going to kill me?” I asked.
“Maybe not. It depends on how this chat goes. Unless you pull another stunt like that one you did earlier. I couldn’t believe it! Oh, I was peeved at the time. But I got to thinking, maybe it would be nice to talk with another human. It’s not every day I find someone able to see me. Anyone I’m not about to kill, of course.” She snapped her fingers, and the image of a skull and crossbones appeared above her hand. “Interfere with my work again, and it won’t be the same story, no matter what happens tonight.”
“Oh. Um. Sorry.” Because that’s what you say when Death tells you off for saving people’s lives.
“No, you’re not. But that’s all right. It’s already taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Adam choked to death this evening on a piece of steak.”
It felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. “Are you serious?”
She nodded, took out a compact, and checked out her reflection, primping her hair just a tad.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did he have to die?”
“Rules. Everyone has a time and place they’re supposed to die. It’s my job to make sure that happens. There’s a bit of room for error—enough that I can fix situations like today, for example—but on the whole, everything has to be just so. If it’s not, I never hear the end of it from the higher ups. Throat lozenge?” She reached inside her cloak to put back the compact and take out an ancient paper-wrapped candy.
I shook my head, too numb to think. Adam was dead? Dead dead? What would happen to his wife? I saw her at the pool with their children. Their children.
She ate the candy herself. “Death used to be much simpler a hundred years ago. I could keep everything organized just up here.” She tapped her head. “Now, it’s all a rush. Did you know six people die every hour in Slovakia? On average, of course. There are good times and bad times, but I haven’t had a real vacation in decades. The only time I get is like this: when I stop it. And you can’t do anything then. Everything’s frozen stiff. It’s awful.”
Now that she mentioned it, it hit me. Everything was motionless. Even the trees were still, stopped in midbreeze as if they were in a picture. A bird was frozen in place above the glass building. I turned back to Morena, angry. “Death is something natural. It just happens. You don’t need to stick your nose in and murder innocent people.”
She laughed. “Whatever you want to believe.” She reached back inside her cloak and took out a leather packet, brittle with age. Morena opened it, revealing a series of yellowed bound papers that looked like a primitive day planner, like one Benjamin Franklin’s great-grandfather might have had. “Miss a death, and worse things happen. Famines, wars, pestilences. Even seemingly inconsequential people like your Adam can have a huge effect. They say something they shouldn’t have said. Have a child that was never supposed to exist.” She tsked. “No no no. It won’t do. I have here the death times of everyone in Slovakia. Everything has to be done in order—you can’t go back in time, of course. If I miss just one death, it can throw my entire schedule. Look.”
I took the planner gingerly, afraid it would break or I might kill someone by holding it wrong. It didn’t seem possible for it to hold much information; it wasn’t thicker than a paperback. It had very thin pages that, despite their age, felt sturdy in my hands. And there were lots of tabs: day, week, month, year, and decade.
“Go ahead,” Morena said. “Browse through it.”
For Death, I supposed she was technologically savvy. She could have still been writing on clay tablets. I found today. Sure enough, right at 18:09:53, Adam was listed as dying by a crushed skull, then that had been neatly crossed off and corrected with the real time and manner of death.
I flipped through the days and weeks, trying to make sense of it. So many names, so many places, so many ways to die. “Can you know when specific people will die?” I asked. “Is there an index?”
She laughed. “I’m not going to tell you how you die, or when. It only works for others.”
“Not me. Anybody.”
“You say a name out loud, and the corresponding page lights up.”
I didn’t waste a moment. “Katka Kováčová.”
A page lit up. I flipped it open to read.
August 25th, 23:57:09, death by brain cancer.
“What year?” I asked.
“This year.”
It was already July fourth. That was less than two months away. “This can’t be right. She’s only sixteen.”
Morena plucked the planner from my hands. “That’s when she’s slated to go.”
“Take me, instead.” I said without thinking.
“No. I don’t do deals. I tried it in past, and it didn’t turn out well. Far too much work on my part, and humans are never appreciative enough. Besides, one life doesn’t equal another. They all do different things, have different effects on the world. You can’t trade one for another.”
“Give her more time.”
She shook her head and let the planner go back to nonexistence, then leaned down and picked up her scythe again. “I run a tight ship. No exceptions. If she doesn’t die then, that means someone else has to go. And that someone else always has his or her own family and friends who whine and complain about how they don’t want their loved one to die. It’s not worth the trouble.”
I stood up. “Come on! There has to be a way. Anything.”
Morena stood up too. “Anything?”
It almost sounded like she was waiting for me to say that. That made me pause. “You mean you have an offer?”
She walked around me, smiling as she wove her way between the benches. She hopped up
on one and walked across it, using her scythe for balance, her long black hair flowing out behind her. “I like you, Tomas. You’ve got spunk, when you’re not wetting your pants. Spunk is good. I won’t accept your life instead of hers. You’re more valuable to me. It would be nice to have someone to talk to on a regular basis. But I might accept someone else’s soul instead.”
“Do you mean . . . if I kill someone else, then Katka could live?”
“That’s the way it works. Someone’s got to die then. Find a substitute before the deathday, and she’s free.”
“Would she still have the cancer?” I asked. “I don’t want to save her just to have you kill her the next day.”
“If you fill your part of the bargain, I’ll take care of the cancer. She won’t live forever, but I’ll guarantee a death of old age.”
This wasn’t a decision I could make right on the spot, but Morena took care of that.
“I have to go,” she said. “Time will only wait for so long. But my offer stands. You don’t need to sign anything. No contracts in blood; my word is binding. It’ll be interesting to see what you do.”
She disappeared. The wind finished brushing through the trees, the bird flew off undisturbed. I sat down on the bench, wondering what in the world came next. My mind was a car put up on cinder blocks, the accelerator jammed down. Running wildly, but going nowhere.
Some time later, footsteps from the path leading to the castle broke me out of my trance. “Tomas?” It was my uncle. I raised my head, but I didn’t turn around from where I was slumped on the bench. I followed his footsteps by ear, listening as he left the dirt path and walked through the grass to where I was.
“What happened?”
“I met her,” I said. There was no need to tell him about Katka. Knowing the exact date wouldn’t help anybody—not unless I could do something to stop it.
He sat down next to me. “What did she say?”
“Adam’s dead.”
L’uboš bowed his head. “As I said, you don’t cheat Zubatá.”
“Morena,” I said. “Her name’s Morena. Zubatá is just a character name from some Slovak movie.”
“Oh.”
We were both silent. He was taking it much better than I had thought he would. Then again, what would my reaction have been if someone told me the Grim Reaper was real, and that they’d just angered him? I’d probably think whatever resulted was as inevitable as an earthquake. “Is she done with you?” he asked.
I nodded. “She told me she’d kill me if I did it again.”
My uncle put a meaty arm around my shoulders. “This is not your fault. You tried to do what was right. How would you have felt if you stayed silent, and Adam died in front of you? He was going to die one way or another.”
I felt bad for using Adam this way, but I was thankful that L’uboš had something to explain my depression that didn’t involve revealing Katka’s death date. I sat up straighter. “That’s true.”
“Of course it is,” he said.
We stared across the lit up city. I didn’t know what L’uboš was thinking, but I was going over my current situation. If I did nothing, and Katka died, how would I feel? But I couldn’t kill someone—I wasn’t a murderer. But if I didn’t find a way out of it, I knew I’d feel just as responsible for Katka’s death as if I had caused it.
“Of course it is,” I echoed, more to say something than to express any real meaning. I had a month and a half. I would think of something.
While there has been a movement of late to romanticize the vampire, the reality leaves much to be desired. Vampires are a lazy, slovenly lot, prone to long bouts of diarrhea and cursed with some of the worst body odor on this plane of existence. Their public relations effort, on the other hand, is top rate.
I woke up early in the morning, having had a half night of crap-for-sleep. When L’uboš came to get me, the sun had not yet risen above the castle walls. “You should go home,” he said. “I must prepare for the joust, but maybe you’ll be able to sleep better in your own bed.” He looked tired as well, though that might have been from being up all night keeping an eye on the castle. When did the man rest?
My feet felt like bricks, and I struggled to keep my eyes open, but I couldn’t stop thinking as I walked down into the city. The place was practically a ghost town, with no sounds but my footsteps echoing from the walls to either side of me. What was I going to tell Katka? What I knew was important to her, but telling her might give her false hope. What if I couldn’t fill the pact, and she died anyway? But maybe by telling her, she could help me, and we’d solve the dilemma. But if we didn’t—
Someone tripped me, and I went sprawling face first to the cobblestone. That woke me up. I shook my head and turned to see Jabba step out of a storefront, laughing. “Clumsy Gypsy. Had a bit too much to drink?”
Just what I needed. I stood up and brushed myself off, then moved to keep walking. Ignore the jerk. But Gollum and Draco had appeared in front of me. The three of them must have seen me coming and planned this. The street was little more than an alley connecting the path to the castle with downtown, and the place was deserted.
Prime real estate for an ambush.
“Listen, guys,” I started.
“No, you listen.” Draco stepped up to me and poked a finger to my chest. “No wannabe knights are going to save you this time.”
“Why?” I said. “What is it you have against me?”
Gollum started a laugh that morphed into a cough. “Don’t talk to us like you’re our equal, with your American money and your fancy English. You still reek of wagon and horse, Gypsy.”
“Give us your money,” Draco said. “And maybe we’ll leave you alive.”
Were they serious?
Jabba rushed forward and punched me in the stomach, hard. I oofed in pain.
Definitely serious.
It took me a second to recover from the blow, but once I did, I reached into my pocket and took out my wallet, fishing through it for all one hundred of the Crowns I had on me. That was less than five bucks, American. Gollum plucked the bills from my hand.
“Can I go?” I said.
Gollum and Draco laughed. Jabba punched me in the stomach again. I bent over in pain, my insides feeling like they were on fire. I stumbled away from him, but Draco shoved me back. Jabba’s fist slammed into the right side of my jaw. My vision clouded, and I fell to the ground.
That’s when the kicking started.
I curled up in a ball, protecting my head while every other part of me got treated like a soccer ball. My legs, my shoulders, my arms. The kicks that fell on my back were the most painful. I could barely think, but I was clear enough to panic that they’d kick my spine the wrong way and paralyze me. I rolled to my back, and the kicks dug into my sides and shoulders, continuing for what felt like forever.
I had to get out of there. They might kill me. No one was there to stop them. What could I do to make it end? Tears were streaming down my face, and I realized I was sobbing, my eyes clenched closed.
At last, the kicking stopped. Two of them spat on me, huge wads of phlegm. Gollum had a lot of mucus to go around. I opened my eyes. Jabba and Gollum were walking back down the street, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Draco was still standing there. I could see his skinny jeans, but I didn’t look up at his face.
That’s when he peed on me.
And I just lay there and suffered through it. Another human, urinating on me, and I did nothing about it. Once he was finished, he followed his cronies.
I lay there in the middle of the alley, hurting, humiliated, and crying. Why had we moved here? Why had our house burned down? Why did I have to be Roma? Was I so different? I’d thought I knew how this racism thing worked. It was like bullying, but without the school walls.
This was more than bullying. This was mindless hate.
At last I tried standing. My sides and legs hurt, but I could put weight on both legs. Still, I wasn’t going to walk all the wa
y back to my apartment in this condition. I limped back to the castle.
L’uboš was unlocking the main doors when he saw me. He hurried forward and put his arm around me to support me. “What happened? Was it Morena?”
I shook my head. “A group of guys,” I said. My cheek hurt when I spoke.
My uncle’s face hardened. “Come. Let us get you fixed.”
He took me back to the watchman’s apartment, where he had a bag full of herbs and bandages and—more importantly—a shower and a change of clothes. “Sometimes there are accidents at the joust,” he explained while testing my injuries, probing with his fingers into my side, checking my eyes with a flashlight. A half hour later, I was feeling a bit better, though my pride would take longer to heal. Pain still lanced through me when I moved my torso too much, but L’uboš hadn’t found any major injuries. It had helped that they’d been wearing sneakers instead of boots, he said. It could have been much worse. I worked my jaw back and forth. It wasn’t broken, but it hurt.
Katka walked in while he was putting away the last of his healing supplies. She gasped when she saw me. “What happened?”
“Those three idiots from the town,” I said.
L’uboš frowned. “It will not happen again. I will see to it.”
“Really?” Katka said, her face darkening. “What will you do? Beat them up? Get them arrested? Who will believe a Rom?”
“I will make them believe,” L’uboš said. “I have friends—”
“Even if you got the police to do something, do you think that would help? They would give the bigots a slap on the wrist, and it would put a target on Tomas’s back for every other Roma hater in this city.”
“Then what do you want to do?” L’uboš asked.
“Nothing,” I said, speaking before Katka could answer. “I’ll just do a better job watching where I’m going. I shouldn’t have let myself get cornered like that. It won’t—”
“Don’t be silly,” Katka said. “This is not your fault. We will—”
“No.” L’uboš stood to his full height, looming over Katka. “Tomas must handle this problem on his own.”