Ember (Death Collectors, Book 1)

by Jessica Sorensen

  “You know he swears it’s not a Grim Reaper.” Raven observes the drawing closely. “But it sure as hell looks like one. If I didn’t know better I’d swear your brother put it there on purpose, because he knows about your little death thing and wants to drive you mad.”

  “He doesn’t know about it,” I remind her. “No one does but you.”

  She squints up at the Reaper’s hand. “And what’s with the hourglass?”

  I shrug. “It’s one of the symbols of the Reaper, like, ‘your time is in my hands.’”

  She traces the hourglass with her finger. “Well, your brother could have at least put sand in it then, so it wasn’t like your time had expired.”

  “I’m sure he wasn’t thinking that far into it,” I assure her. “Besides, he only did it to impress you. He wanted to show you that you two share an artistic side.”

  She chews on her bottom lip. “You know I would never date him, right? I’ve had one too many manic depressives in my life.” She pulls a guilty face. “Sorry, Em. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

  “It’s okay. I know my brother has problems. And I know you’ve been through too much to want to deal with it.” I pause. “How’s your mom doing?”

  She shrugs, staring at the drawing. “Fine, I guess. I haven’t gone to visit her in a while.”

  Raven’s mom is in a drug treatment facility. She suffers from depression and self-medicates. Her illness has been going on for years. A couple of months ago, Raven came home from school and found her mom on the living room floor with a lit cigarette in her hand. She wasn’t breathing and barely registered a pulse. Raven called an ambulance and the paramedics resuscitated her. Raven chewed me out for not telling her it was coming. I realized that day that there were many negatives to my gift. I didn’t tell Raven her mom was going to die, because I knew she wasn’t going to die that day. I refuse to tell Raven when anyone in her family will die—including herself—because no one needs that burden on their shoulders.

  Raven was mad at me for two weeks and wouldn’t talk to me at school. It was the loneliest two weeks of my life. Raven is my one and only friend. When I get older, I’ll probably end up a spinster with ten cats and maybe a bird. Raven will pay me visits every so often with her children and make sure I stay sane.

  “What is that?” She stands on her tiptoes, leaning in my face. With her pink fingernail, she chips away a flake of mud off my cheek. “Why do you have dirt on your face?” She turns my hand. “And your fingers are rubbed raw.”

  I pull my hand away. “Last night, while I was in the cemetery—”

  “I thought you stopped going there so much,” she interrupts with disapproval written all over her face. Raven has never understood my need to be alone—my need for the quiet.

  I grab a purple and black T-shirt with torn sides and a pair of black jeans out of the dresser. “I haven’t been sleeping very well and it’s relaxing, being there.”

  She twists a strand of her shoulder-length, bubblegum pink hair around her finger. “I don’t understand you sometimes. I told you to come to my house whenever you want. You don’t need to go hang out in a graveyard—it’s creepy.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her that her house is one of the worst places, chock full of death, even after her mother went away. Her brother, Todd, has an early death. He will get lung cancer from the two packs of cigarettes a day he’s been smoking since he was thirteen.

  “The cops busted me,” I admit, knowing she’ll find it humorous.

  Her lips quirk. “Oh yeah, did you run?”

  I nodded. “Yup. Really, really fast.”

  Her smile broadens. “Did they chase you?”

  I nod again. “I’m pretty sure he stumbled and landed on his face, too,” I exaggerate, knowing she’ll love it—Raven’s all about the drama.

  A laugh sputters from her lips. “Okay, I’m kind of jealous. I wish I could have been there to see it.”

  “It was pretty funny,” I admit. “Except for…”

  “Except for what?” She presses. “Come on, Em, tell me please. Don’t do your secret-keeping thing.”

  I sink down on the bed and ball the clothes up on my lap. “There were these guys there, digging up a grave.”

  Her forehead scrunches and she sits down beside me. “Ew, like grave robbers?”

  “I’m not sure what they were doing, but it was kind of creepy.”

  “Did they take anything from the grave?”

  “I have no idea. I was too busy running from the cops…” It dawns on me. “Shit. I think one of the grave robber guys might have my notebook.”

  “The one you’re always writing your deepest darkest secrets in?” she asks.

  I nod. “And it has my name on it.”

  Tapping her finger on her chin, she muses over something. “Was he hot?”

  I fiddle with a loose string on my pajama pants. “Are you seriously asking if the grave robber was hot?”

  “Grave robbers are people too,” she says with attitude. “And just because they like to dig up graves, doesn’t mean they can’t be hot.”’

  Hot? More like intense and frightening. Shaking my head, I stand up. “You are a weirdo. I’m going to go get dressed.”

  She eyeballs me with suspicion. “Quit trying to change the subject, Emmy.”

  I head for the closet. “You know I hate it when you call me that.” It’s the nickname my dad gave me and I hate being reminded of him.

  “You know you always do this,” she calls out. “You always run away from guys. If you keep it up, you’re going to end up a lonely old spinster.”

  “Which is just what I want.” I pause at the curtain. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess we’re going to a party.”

  Her mood suddenly lifts and she grins impishly. “What gave it away?”

  I eye her outfit and count down on my fingers. “Four things: leather shorts, pink high heels, knee high socks, and a sparkling top.”

  She sticks out her hip and pops up her foot, striking a pose. “Come on, admit it, I look hot.”

  “You look like a—”

  She tosses a pillow at me. “Watch that dirty mouth of yours, Death Girl.”

  Laughing, I duck through the curtain into my closet. Immediately, my lips sink to a frown. Parties equal lots of people. And lots of people mean lots of death omens. But I have to go with Raven to protect her from herself because she tends to get reckless.

  “So whose party are we going to tonight?” I slip my plaid pajama bottoms off and tug on my jeans.

  “Remy’s,” Raven replies, and I can hear her delving through my jewelry drawer.

  Pulling a face, I slip on my shirt. “Doesn’t she live all the way up by the lake?”

  She pokes her head inside the closet. “Don’t be such a party pooper. Just for once can’t you let loose and have some fun?” She moves back as I step into my room.

  “I’m not being a party pooper.” I collect my car keys from the dresser, clip on my maroon pendant necklace, and set the feather in the jewelry drawer. “I just hate driving my car all the way up there. It gets such crappy gas mileage. And there’s just so many people at Remy’s parties.”

  She pouts out her lip and bats her eyelashes at me. “Pretty please, Em. Just for once can’t we go have fun like two normal teenage girls?”

  I force a smile. “We always go to parties.”

  She pokes my arm playfully. “But you never have fun, so just for the night, can’t you try?”

  I sigh and nod. “All right, I’ll try. But it’s kind of hard to have fun when people look at you like you might kill them.”

  “No one still blames you for your dad’s death. The cops even said there was no way it could be you—that’s why they dropped the charges.”

  “Actually, they didn’t say that. They just didn’t have enough evidence to push the investigation further.”

  “Yeah, but no one thinks you really killed him,” she reassures me.
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br />   “Everyone in this town does,” I disagree. “They think that’s why I disappeared for a week—that I was on the run from the cops.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d tell someone where you were…” She waits, but my lips stayed sealed—and they will stay sealed until the day I die. She rolls her eyes and crooks her pinkie finger in front of her. “No one thinks you’re a killer. Now swear on it that you’ll have fun.”

  “Fine,” I grimace and hook my pinkie to hers. “I swear I’ll try to have fun.”

  She tightens her pinkie. “Not try—will.”

  “I promise I will have fun,” I sulk.

  She jumps up and down, clapping her hands excitedly. I fasten my studded bracelet to my wrist and we head out the door.

  “And remember what happens if you go back on your word,” she says, skipping down the stairs.

  “Yeah, yeah, the bad karma will catch up with me,” I say, lacing my boot up as I hop down the last step. Raven is very big on karma. But karma has had me by the throat since I was four when I accidently took my grandmother’s life.

  “Dude, why do you look like you’re about to commit murder?” My brother, Ian, leans against the kitchen doorway, singeing a stray thread on his hoodie with a lighter. His scraggily brown hair is hidden beneath a grey beanie and, as usual, he has paint all over his hands.

  I shake my head and steal the lighter from his hands. “Why do you insist on being such a pyro?”

  He lunges for the lighter, but I dodge around him and dash into the kitchen where the carpet switches to tile. I smash the lighter against the floor.

  “What the heck is wrong with you?” Ian shouts, picking up the broken pieces.

  Ian is nineteen, two years older than me. But more often than not, people think he’s the younger one. Ian is the same height as me—five-foot-eight—and he’s kind of scrawny. At sixteen, he declared himself a struggling artist, which meant he would forever live here, raiding the refrigerator and hanging out in the attic—his “studio.”

  He snatches hold of my hand. “Why do you have to be such a bitch sometimes?”

  I tense. Fire everywhere, the roof of our house roaring in flames. Ian lies on the floor, dying—he wants to be there. I jerk away and inhale sharply through my nose. I’ve seen his death before, and each time is equally as painful. In a beautiful world full of roses and sunshine, I would be able to change his self-inflicting death. But as far as I know, death omens are irrevocable. Death is as permanent as the ink that stains the pages of my journal.

  He rubs the black and yellow paint off his cheeks. “Look Em, I’m sorry, okay.” He glances at Raven, worried about her reaction. “I just haven’t been sleeping that great lately.”

  “It’s okay. And I’m sorry I broke your lighter.” I pick up the rest of the pieces of the lighter and toss them into the trash. “Are you taking your medication still?”

  He rubs the back of his neck tensely. “I am, but I’m not sure I need to anymore. It’s been two years since Alyssa… And I’m feeling pretty good these days.”

  The fact that he can’t talk about her death proves he’s not ready to get off his medication. Ian never forgave himself for the disappearance of Alyssa, his high school girlfriend, which ultimately led to her body being discovered in the lake.

  After her body was found, Ian spent his entire senior year drunk and stoned. He even tried to kill himself once. He denies it to this day, saying he accidently swallowed too many pills, but I know the truth—I read his goodbye note.

  When I discovered him on the bathroom floor, unconscious and barely breathing, I knew he wasn’t going to die, but it stilled scared the shit out of me. He loved Alyssa so much and the guilt of her loss consumes his life and poisons his head with dark thoughts he may never get rid of.

  His arms open for a hug, but I evade around him. “Raven and I are headed out. Let mom know I’ll be home late… if she shows up.”

  He goes to the cupboard and takes out a box of cereal. “Even if she comes home, she’ll be too drunk to notice.”

  “I know.” I collect the dirty dishes off the table and put them in the sink. “But I thought I’d let you know just in case by some small miracle she comes home sober and notices I’m not here.”

  He waves at us as we head for the front door. “Yeah, yeah, will do.”

  Raven blows him a flirty kiss. “Thanks, Hun.”

  Ian raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Hun?”

  I jerk the door open. “I thought you said you would never go out with him?”

  She shrugs and whisks out the front door. “I won’t, but I never said I wouldn’t flirt with him.”

  I wave goodbye to Ian. “See you later and if you need anything, call me.”

  “Oh yeah, I almost forgot.” He backs into the kitchen and, seconds later, returns with my journal. “This was on the front porch this morning.”

  Astonished, I take my journal, brushing the dirt off the black leather cover. “Do you know how it got there?”

  “I thought you dropped it or something.” He shrugs. “I didn’t see anyone come in this morning, except for you.”

  I swallow hard and flip through the pages. It looks normal, except for the last page.

  Blinded by the opaque veil of mortality, her eyes are always sealed, like a tomb

  She wants to know—wants to feel that fire, the brightness of the moon

  So she searches for light, only to realize it’s in her, like an ember equipped to ignite.

  The handwriting is flawless, as if each curve of the pen meant something. I touch the page delicately like it’s something precious.

  Raven peeks over my shoulder. “I thought you lost that?”

  “I guess I was wrong.” I shut the journal. “Wait for me in the car?”

  She nods, but shimmies toward Ian. “So I have a beef to pick with you.”

  I leave them to their flirting, go upstairs to my room, and stare at the poem. It’s beautiful, but who wrote it? The guy from the cemetery? I tear the page out and tack it up beside my bed. I read over the words again before heading out the door.

  Will I ever see the mysterious stranger again? And what will happen if I do?

  Chapter 3

  Raven and I have been best friends since we were in diapers. Our parents were friends in high school and they moved next door to each other after they married. Our moms were pregnant together—twice—and our dads worked at the local auto shop. It was the picture perfect scene, until two years after Raven and I were born. Then the perfection withered like a famished rose.

  My parents started fighting a lot. At first it wasn’t bad, but then it started happening every night. My mom said my dad didn’t want to spend time with us—that he was too caught up in his job and hanging out at the bar. And she was right—my dad was drunk all the time. Finally, he moved out and Ian and I barely saw him.

  Raven’s dad bailed on her family a few years later. Just up and left. Poof. Not too long after, our moms developed drug habits. And our brothers live in their own world. Actually, Raven’s brother Todd isn’t too bad, just a little unconventional. But I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Raven. She’s my stability.

  Remy’s party is more lively than usual. A mob of teenagers are jam-packed in the tiny living room, swaying to “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. Beer bottles and cigarette butts litter the hardwood floor and the air reeks of sweat and beer. Death is everywhere.

  I hang out in the emptiest corner of the house, near the stairway. By accident, I ran into three people and their death omens still tint my skin like small bruises. Sipping my punch and watching people dance, my thoughts keep drifting to the guy from the graveyard. What is he doing right now? In my head, he’s sitting in his Victorian home, scribbling beautiful words in his notebook. His house is secluded from the world by a dark forest, constantly haunted by fog. I’m sure this isn’t accurate, but that’s the beauty of an imagination.

  “Ember!” Raven shouts over the music.
She dances through the crowd, her bubblegum pink wig popping out in the sea of bodies. Sweat trickles down her skin. “What are you doing? You promised to have fun.” She points an accusing finger at me and blinks her blurry eyes. “In fact you swore on it.”

  I take the plastic cup from her hand. “I know and I’m trying, I promise.” I swish the drink around and the stench of Jack is intoxicating. “No more drinks, okay?”

  She pouts out her bottom lip. “Come on, Em. You promised.”

  I fake an excited dance move. “I’m having a blast, I swear. Now go. Dance. Have some fun for the both of us.”