Still, I’m not going to let him talk about her like she is some sort of insect. She is – was – unique. I don’t feel any grief from my attempt to put him in his place for his disrespect for Becky’s spirit.
He takes a moment to continue glaring at me before answering my question. His expression relaxes a bit when he speaks.
“The girl is gone.”
Well, he sort of answered my question.
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” I inform him.
I’m sure he is aware of that, but I feel like pointing out the obvious to him. Maybe it will show him how unhelpful he is being.
“You shouldn’t be able to see me,” he whispers to himself.
His voice travels through the air like wind as it caresses my ears. The incredulity in his tone rattles me a little.
“Why are you here if you aren’t going to answer my questions?” I challenge.
I’m really annoyed, but trying to keep my cool. He doesn’t look like he would run off, but he does look pretty spooked about something.
He stands his ground, looking at me as if he isn’t sure what to make of me. Almost like I’m a creature he’s never seen before. It seems like something within him is holding him back and keeping him from opening up to me.
We remain silent as he gathers his thoughts. I can see in his eyes there’s an internal struggle going on. The somewhat scary part is if I want to leave and go home, I have to pass him to do it. However, it doesn’t look like he is going to let me get around him. He would probably tear my arm off for real if I tried a trick like that.
I’m not ready to leave, though. I want answers.
“The girl --”
“Becky,” I interrupt.
I want to hear what he has to say, but he’s going to respect her memory if I have any say in the matter. He looks at me as if he’s biting back anger towards my interruption. I’m not sure why it angers him so much when he’s the one being so disrespectful of the dead. Becky deserves better.
“Becky was no longer herself,” he manages to say through clenched teeth.
He emphasizes her name to make sure I hear him.
“She had turned into an angry and violent spirit which we call Malighosts,” he explains to me. “They are spirits who have lingered too long in this world and begin lashing out at things around them.”
“I just saw her yesterday and she wasn’t angry or violent at all,” I announce, confused.
“It can happen very quickly. It is different for all spirits.”
His stiff stance doesn’t change at all. He continues to look at me like he’s trying to understand why I can see him, or what I am. Almost like I’m going to suddenly sprout antennae out of my forehead. I would explain it to him if I could. I don’t even know why I can see spirits – sometimes I wish I knew.
“Then, what happened to her?” I continue. “Where did she go? And who the hell is ‘we’?”
He pauses before responding. His entire body seems frozen in place, like he’s trying to anticipate what my reaction is going to be. I can tell I’m not going to like his response.
“I had to dispose of her.”
I stare at him like a deer facing the headlights of a car driving eighty miles per hour straight towards me on a raining evening. Also, I try to ignore how he disregards one of my questions. I’m too upset from the sheer lack of feeling he expresses when he speaks. If I don’t, I will become too angry to ask him anymore questions.
“What exactly does that mean? What did you do to Becky?” I demand.
His eyes soften slightly, as if he feels bad for what he’s about to tell me. He seems to relax a little, and let go of whatever is holding him back from talking to me. He adjusts something on his back and a sheathed sword comes into view I didn’t notice before.
Why the hell does he have that when a gun would be so much more useful as a weapon?
“I had to kill her using my sword,” he says. “She had become something that wasn’t human and was going to hurt innocent bystanders if I didn’t deal with her.”
I can’t stand hearing him talk about Becky as if she’s a pest – a bug he needs to squash. I have to hold myself back from punching him in the face.
“Why did you wait until she became violent?”
“What?”
He seems shocked and perplexed, like he doesn’t understand what I’m asking.
“Why didn’t you come and try to help before she was past saving?” I repeat. “That way you wouldn’t have had to kill her. Why didn’t you help her pass on some other way before she became an angry and violent spirit? And who the hell is the ‘we’ that does this?”
He doesn’t seem sure how to answer my questions. I’m sure he’s thrown off by how accepting I am of the information he gave me. It shocks me a bit, myself. I’m not sure I fully comprehend it, but I know in my gut he isn’t lying.
Why question what you know beyond the shadow of a doubt to be true?
“It doesn’t always work that way,” he says gently, choosing his words carefully. “I am what you would call a Reaper. I help souls move on from this world.”
“Sometimes, we Reapers are unable to get to them before they turn harmful,” he continues, “and our top priority is to protect humanity from that danger if we can’t save the soul before it changes. There are thousands of Reapers stationed all over the world and watching over it from Eden.”
“If there are thousands of you, then why is it you couldn’t get to her before she was lost in her misery?”
“I’m sorry you are hurting,” he comforts.
I search his eyes. He genuinely feels bad for causing me pain over what he’s telling me, but that’s all I can read.
“There are many of us, but we cannot always sense spirits waiting to move on until it is too late,” he says. “Life is not perfect while living and neither is it perfect in the afterlife.”
Chapter 4
He watches me closely, trying to read my reactions. I don’t know what to say to that response. It isn’t fair that this wonderful six-year-old girl had to lose her life to the cowardly drunk driver.
Then she had to suffer for years waiting for her family without knowing she was dead, only to become angry and violent in the end. She did not deserve that ending. I might wish that on my worst enemy, maybe, but not a sweet little girl.
I take a few deep breaths to let all the information sink in before asking more questions. I even lower myself down to sit back on the tire again. I don’t hear him move at all, but within moments, he’s next to me, kneeling down as if worried for my well-being.
Like he feels protective of me. I can’t help noticing that he smells of freshly fallen snow…
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“I think so,” I reply. “It’s just a lot to take in.”
“I understand.”
“What is Eden?”
I look up and into his eyes. Regretting it, I try to look away but I can’t. My heart skips a beat gazing into those blue orbs.
“It is what humans call heaven, but it is, also, not what humans expect it to be.”
He pauses there, and doesn’t continue. He really doesn’t like giving me explanations without me asking a certain way, apparently. It’s extremely frustrating. There’s, also, that internal battle he’s dealing with.
Maybe the information is top secret and he’s not supposed to tell anyone? More likely, it’s because I’m alive.
“What do you mean? How is it different than what people think of heaven?”
“It’s a sort of society that souls inhabit while they wait to be reborn,” he reveals, his guard lowering a little with each word. “It is, also, where we Reapers are essentially born.”
“We are souls who have passed on, but have the ability to harness our soul energy,” he explains. “We can use it to keep humanity safe by assisting others to move on, and making sure those who have become Malighosts do not disrupt life.”
“We are trained in t
he heart of Eden,” he continues, “and those souls who are simply waiting to be reborn into the Living World, remain on the outskirts surrounding the Reaper Valley.”
“Some of the colonies and districts the souls have created are wealthy and thriving with little to no problems,” he says, “whereas others are very dangerous and is failing. There is no telling where you end up in the Outskirts once you’ve pass on.”
I sit, staring into his eyes, drinking in every word and every breath. His face is less than a foot away from mine, and I can feel a faint chill from his body.
“So…does that mean you’re dead?” I ask.
It’s a question with an obvious answer, but the words slip from my mouth before I can stop them. I throw him off-guard again with my question. His eyes widen slightly and he pulls away from me a few inches.
It’s as if he’s ashamed of something, or afraid I’ll run away if he doesn’t say what I want to hear.
I just want the truth though, and I don’t care what the answer is. Still, I can feel myself cringe while I wait to hear what he’s going to say. He’s crouched down on the balls of his feet, gazing into my eyes like they will tell him what to say.
“Yes.”
His voice is barely audible.
“How old are you?” I retort.
He swallows before opening his mouth. He looks down at the edge of the tire between us as he speaks – he seems nervous about how I’m going to react.
“I am not exactly sure,” he admits. “We do not recognize birth or death days in Eden. If I had to wager a guess, I am around 210 years of age.”
“How old where you when you died?” I shoot at him.
He peeks up at me, surprised that I’m unfazed.
“I was 14,” he answers.
He gains a little confidence back and is able to look into my face without shame now. His voice has more certainty in it, too.
“Do you remember how it happened?” I ask.
I’m not sure why I’m so curious about this boy – I don’t even know his name. I should be asking more about what happened to Becky, but something inside me keeps pushing to know more about him and what happened for him to be where he is now.
I want to know every detail of his Reaper position, his life before death, and his life after death and before becoming a Reaper. I want to know his name, so I can browse the internet and see if I can find any record of him from when he was alive.
“No,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I don’t remember how I died.”
He doesn’t seem to care at all about that reality, though. However, a shiver runs down my spine. It’s a little off-putting seeing how unconcerned he is about his life before being a Reaper.
“Really?” I ask, incredulously. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should it?” he counters.
“I don’t know,” I admit, “but I think it would bother me to not remember how I died.”
“Having a purpose keeps me from focusing on the past or having regrets.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I concede. “But, if you died when you were 14, then how come you look like you’re 19 or 20 now?”
“It’s a symptom of having strong spiritual energy,” he explains. “Part of knowing you have the capability to become a Reaper is when your body ages in Eden. It is a great deal slower than the aging process while alive, but it’s still present. It’s why I appear to be an adolescence rather than my dying age, or spiritual age.”
“Does it happen to everyone?”
“No, only those with strong spiritual energy. Everyone else in Eden continues to look the age of when they passed on.”
I lean back against the building behind me and look up at the stars, thinking. I’ve never felt like I had a purpose on earth. What will it be like when I pass on?
Will I feel like I belong somewhere and have a purpose? Or just more of the same?
“What’s your name?” he inquires, startling me slightly.
He takes me out of my own head. I look at him a moment, staring into his eyes, and hesitate. My conscience tells me that I shouldn’t trust someone I just met. Especially someone who almost tore off my arm, but my heart is already fooled. I trust him.
“Sunny Siebel.”
He looks away and up at the night sky, leaning back on his toes. I don’t know why, though, and can’t read his face. I, also, can’t imagine how kneeling on the ground is comfortable, but he never complains.
“Sunny Siebel.”
He repeats my name, as if tasting it on his tongue. There’s no sign of bitterness in his features, nothing besides curiosity and hesitation, which I hope is a good sign. His tone gives a hint of recognition, even though I know we have never met before today.
The hesitation makes me nervous, but it seems more about whether he should let go of pretense and allow himself to feel something for me.
Hearing him say my name causes a thrilling shudder to run through my body, and warm my spirit. It’s invigorating hearing my name roll off his tongue. He looks away from the stars and back at me, smiling.
“I like it,” he announces.
“Thanks,” I blush. “Do you have a name?”
“That’s a silly question,” he muses.
My face turns even redder at his statement. He doesn’t say it in a mean or harsh way, but he seems more amused than anything.
“Of course, I have a name,” he continues. “We are all given a name at birth, and we take it with us in death. Mine is Degory Alden. I am Captain of Division Six, out of the Ten we have within Eden. The white jacket is what shows my rank.”
“All other Reapers have the black uniform, but not the jacket,” he says. “It’s actually strange being in this world. I don’t normally leave Eden unless there are particularly violent and strong Malighosts wreaking havoc in the Living World. This was supposed to be a routine sector check.”
“When are you supposed to go back?”
I have no idea what makes me ask that, or why I care besides the nagging attraction I have growing in my heart and spreading through me with each beat. It’s another moment where my mouth lets words escape before my brain can think of something more appropriate to say. He sighs before responding.
“I was actually supposed to be back after our skirmish this afternoon,” he admits.
I can see a pink blush color his cheeks.
He looks down at his feet, ashamed and embarrassed. I think for a moment what he could be so ashamed about, but then it clicks in my head, as if I should have known from the first time he spoke to me this evening.
“Oh, you’ve been following me,” I acknowledge, unconcerned.
I should have been scared, or at the very least freaked out by that fact, but it doesn’t affect me one way or the other. It’s merely a statement, one that neither scares nor flatters me. I can’t help but think the red tint on his cheeks makes him all the more handsome, too.
“Yes, that was me,” he admits. “I didn’t think you could see me, but I suppose I wasn’t being my usual cautious self.”
He peeks up at me, a small section of his white hair falling in his face as he addresses me.
“You aren’t angry or upset with me for watching you?”
“I know that I probably should be,” I sigh.
I have never been so open with someone before, but it feels so natural with him. My head tells me to hesitate, to hold back, don’t trust a stranger. Yet, my heart whispers to me that he isn’t a stranger.
“But I look into your eyes and I know that you would never hurt me,” I tell him.
I feel really vulnerable and exposed, but I like his company. I’m not so lonely anymore. I should really laugh at the irony of having feelings for a ghost, but I’m too distracted by his careful gaze. I don’t want to go back home where no one seems to care that I exist.
He cares a lot, even though we just met. I can see it in his beautiful eyes.
“Are you going to get into trouble for not returning to Eden right
away?” I inquire.
“Captains essentially have free reign with their time as long as they do not shirk their duties. I have sent word back that I have stayed longer than anticipated, but as long as I am not disobeying a direct order from the Head Captain, there will be no repercussions. My lieutenant will be curious as to where I have been, but she is annoying that way.”
“What do you need to do to become a Captain?”
He glances at me hesitantly. It looks like he’s trying to read my features to judge how I will handle the information. There’s another internal battle rumbling in his eyes. He must be fighting with himself about whether it’s okay to tell me or not, to trust me or not. He must feel the same way I do about him, because he decides to answer my question.
“You must become a member of Eden’s Divisions first. To do this, you must have abilities that set you apart from others. Not everyone is capable of these feats, but those that are, join one of the Ten Divisions. They train themselves to hone their gifts and become stronger to more effectively protect the Living World from any dangers.”
“What is your gift?” I interrupt, smiling somewhat devilishly.
I know that I shouldn’t be prying since he’s struggling with himself to tell me all this as it is, but I can’t help myself. I’m curious. He smiles back and my heart melts.
“Would you like to see?” he teases.
I can feel his walls slowly falling a bit more as he lets me into his world. The one he’s never let another soul touch. I assume anyway, with how much he’s struggled with himself just to continue talking to me. He’s allowing himself to be vulnerable.
“Yes, please,” I cheer.
I’m as giddy as a kid on show-and-tell day.
“Alright, but you have to promise you won’t tell anyone,” he urges.
“I promise!”
I’m sitting straight up and facing him, now anxiously waiting to see what he’s about to show me. I don’t even know what to expect. He raises his hand so it’s between us. At first, it doesn’t seem like anything is happening, but it doesn’t take long before his fingertips start to freeze over.
Waiting a Lifetime (The Waiting Series Book 1) Page 3