“I’m sorry,” she whispered before extending her delicate hand to touch my forehead with her fingertip.
Images exploded behind my eyelids: Rocky, the dog I’d gotten for my sixth birthday, cuddled at the foot of my bed, the monster truck show dad took me to when I was nine, going to Six Flags with Travis and Wade when we were twelve, the first time I ever saw Celeste.
When the images ceased, I opened my eyes and took in the sight of my mangled, swollen face and my deflated body before realizing how such a thing was possible. I glanced around, an explanation swimming to the surface of my mind. Two crows sat perched on a rock near the river’s edge, staring at me, unblinking. Two more joined them before I forced my eyes closed and hung my head as the reality of my situation began to sink in.
“Am I…,” I whispered, unable to finish my sentence.
“Yes, I’m afraid you’re dead,” she confirmed softly, sympathy dripping from her every word.
“So, what happens now?” I asked, opening my eyes to look at her.
“They should be here any moment and then you’ll know.”
“They… who are they?” I questioned. “Am I supposed to be judged now or something?” My eyes traveled back to my slumped-over, lifeless body and I tried to add up all the good and bad I’d ever done to prepare.
“Not really; it’s best if I let them do all the explaining.”
I glanced at her then and realized she was pointing behind me. Four figures in hooded, long, black cloaks stood near the river’s edge.
“Don’t be afraid, but don’t keep them waiting either,” the petite brunette insisted.
“Okay,” I muttered. Shoving my hands deep in my pockets, I started toward them.
“Damaris, Evelyn, Cassandra, William,” said the soft-spoken girl beside me, before bowing to the four figures.
“Lindsey,” they replied in unison while lowering their hoods.
“Jet Donavan Mathews,” the first, presumably Damrais, stated while gazing intensely into my eyes.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“We are sorry to inform you,” Evelyn, the blonde with piercing blue eyes, said, “but, you were not intended to die on this day.”
“Or in that way,” added Cassandra, a lady with black waves of hair and stunning green eyes. I picked up on the sympathetic tone of her voice and shifted my eyes away, preferring to gaze at the ground.
“We leave you with a choice,” the chestnut-haired boy close to my own age stated.
“A choice?” I asked, confused by more than just his words and unsure of how I felt about the glint in his grayish eyes. “Who are you people? What are you people?”
“We are the Reaper’s Council and your choice is one of two things,” Damaris replied.
“One, you crossover and become reborn immediately,” Evelyn said, lacking emotion.
“Or two, you become a Reaper,” Cassandra finished.
“Those are your options. Choose now and choose wisely, because once you do there is no turning back,” William said.
I remained staring at all four of them, taking in each set of firm, cold eyes, wondering exactly how I should answer. After a moment, I shifted my gaze to Lindsey and her warm, concerned stare.
“A Reaper… is that what you are?” I asked her.
She smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
“What does a Reaper do?” I wondered, picturing a black-cloaked figure—similar to what the Council had looked like when I’d first seen them—carrying a scythe.
“Release souls from the dying. You then are responsible for taking those who accept their death to the Spiritual Realm where they will reside until they are ready to crossover and be reborn,” Damaris answered.
I thought of my options and came to the only decision that seemed reasonable.
“I choose to become a Reaper, then,” I said, because crossing over seemed too final.
All four of them nodded in unison, either in approval of my decision or to seal the deal, I couldn’t be sure. I watched, baffled, as each of them extended a hand, filling me with a hazy white light which seemed to pull me closer toward them. Once I was close enough to be touched by their fingertips, images from the last few moments swirled through my mind like an instant replay, until an old image lingered behind my eyes—the crows from in my front yard.
When the Council members released me from their hypnotic touch, I opened my eyes and realized with a certainty a great change had taken place. I was no longer alive, nor was I dead, but merely some place in-between.
I, Jet Donavan Mathews, had become a Reaper.
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Jet and Rowan’s story isn’t over. Read on for a sneak peek of
HEREAFTER
A Reaper Novella, Book Two
AVAILABLE NOW!
In Death I could finally see the importance of Life…
After being forced to become a Reaper Council member and being torn away from the one she loves, Rowan Harper must learn to accept her altered Fate as well as her death and move on. A task easier said than done, especially when witnessing those you love suffer in the wake of your death.
When an unlikely ally provides information that could change everything, Rowan sets out on a journey through Purgatory with her beloved by her side and a nonchalant Tracker to learn the true meaning of the word sacrifice. Another task which seems easier said than done, especially with the threat of Purgatory’s ability to corrupt your soul the longer you’re in its grip looming above their heads.
Please Continue Reading For A Sneak Peek…
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins? — Edgar Allen Poe
PART ONE ~ ROWAN
CHAPTER ONE
I felt hollow inside. Complete emptiness swam through me as depression darkened my thoughts. How does a soul go on when they’re stuck here after death?
I drew my legs into me, letting myself slump into a little ball while I rested my head against my knees. He couldn’t see me, he couldn’t feel me, he couldn’t even hear me, but I was there. I’d watched him for the last two months as he mourned my death. Between the suicide of my mother nearly eight months ago and my own recent tragic death, my father was barely recognizable. He was nothing but a hollowed shell of the man he used to be.
At the moment, he sat in the center of our couch, staring down a half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels. It was only 9 a.m. He hadn’t taken his first sip yet, but I could see the battle already beginning to wage within him on whether or not he should. He was broken and I was dead, with no capabilities of fixing him.
I glanced around the room, taking in how chaotic our living room had become. Boxes of all shapes and sizes were stacked sporadically throughout the room. All that remained of the room, which I’d never given much thought to while I had been alive, was a couch, one recliner, a coffee table, one silver-rimmed family photo, a half-drunken bottle of Jack Daniels, and a completely broken man.
Dad’s cell phone chimed, echoing off the bare walls and making him jump. Even this loud, sudden noise didn’t frighten me like it normally would have. Maybe when you’re dead there’s nothing left to be afraid of.
“Hey,” he answered with a sigh. His chest caved in as his body slumped forward; it was a phone call he obviously didn’t want to take.
I could hear a female voice on the other end e
cho through the silent house—Aunt Karen, the motivation behind all of the packed boxes that littered the floor.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve got most of it packed,” Dad said, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “I know they’re coming tomorrow. I just haven’t been able to go into her room yet.”
I couldn’t hear her reply, but I could hear the tension in my father’s voice when he said, “I’ll get it. Don’t worry.”
After he hung up, Dad didn’t hesitate in swiping the bottle up off the coffee table before heading to what used to be my bedroom. I remained where I was, unsure if I wanted to follow. Witnessing him pack my things seemed like torture, but so did the thought of him doing it alone.
My bare feet padded across the hardwood floor, and I wasn’t sure if it was my memory or if I was actually feeling its coldness against my skin. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Dad stood in the doorway to my room, his shoulders sagging with a crippling sadness etched into his features. I moved past him and into the familiar room.
“God, I miss you, sweetheart,” Dad breathed, and for a split second I almost thought he was aware I was here with him, as if he could feel my presence as I passed the threshold.
He raised the bottle of whiskey to his lips, and then stepped inside the room and gave it a sweeping glance as he shifted to face me. His gaze became fixated on a picture of me and Mom from three summers ago that rested at the corner of my dresser. I knew what he was thinking—how unfair life had been to him—without him having to utter a single word aloud. The unspoken words dripped through my mind like icy droplets of rain.
“If there was anything I could do to come back to you, I would,” I whispered, even though I knew my words would be mute to his ears.
The fact that I was here, but entirely unheard and unnoticed was something I swore I’d never grow accustomed to. It was like being invisible and mute to others in an unchanging body, or at least that was what I imagined it would be like for me until the end of my forever.
I wasn’t just dead. I was a Reaper, but unlike others, I was a member of the Reaper Council. This was something passed on through the women in my family along my mother’s side. Something that was supposed to skip a generation, but then my mother committed suicide and I inherited her fate. Since I had been taken before my time because of her actions, I wasn’t sure what would happen to me or who would eventually take my place when it was my turn to Fade Out.
I trailed my fingertips across the edge of my dresser and watched as the dust remained just the way it was, entirely untouched, behind my finger. My eyes shifted to the mirror. Its surface was hazy with built-up dust from the month-long period of time this room had been sealed up like a tomb. Could I leave him a message? Maybe scroll a simple I’m here with you across its pane?
It was possible, that much I was sure of. I’d moved tiny objects with enough concentration over the last month, but it had always left me feeling drained. No, the question was not whether or not it was possible to leave a message etched in the dust of my mirror, it was, was it a smart thing to do? Dad was still grieving for me; he was still fragile. Would my message be the very thing that broke him completely? The very thing that pushed him over the edge?
My eyes shifted toward him, and I watched as he folded cardboard into the shape of a box and carefully began to move all the books from my shelf into it. The tattered copy of Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, my all-time favorite book, rested in his hands a moment longer than all the others. And then, I heard them. His sobs filled the deafening silence of my room and trembled through my soul.
Maybe I shouldn’t write I’m here with you, but instead, I’m okay and I love you. It was staggering how much the need to tell my father that I loved him filled me, a yearning I’d never felt when I was still alive. It was something I had taken for granted completely.
Our relationship had never been the greatest, especially not after my mother ended her life. Part of this was because of the similarities she and I shared in our appearance, and the other was because she was his best friend, the missing piece to his soul, his better half. Losing her was like not being able to breathe. His face had been blank at her funeral, but his pain had still swirled within his eyes, as if each breath literally pained him because she was no longer here.
Now, he looked even worse. Broken beyond repair.
Sadness swallowed me, erasing the emptiness I’d felt earlier. I touched my fingertip to the edge of the glass and focused all of my energy into moving the dust beneath. I felt the coldness of the glass finally meet with my fingertip and glanced to my dad, taking in his sobbing frame as I concentrated harder on moving the dust partials beneath my finger. As I lifted my finger away to be sure I’d succeeded in making an imprint at all within the dust, I felt the familiar tugging of my soul and noticed the first few tendrils of blackness snake around my ankles.
Dread filled me.
Blackness swirled around me like a dense fog, making me lose my concentration before I could do anything more with my message. Dread turned into panic and panic turned into frustration quickly as I took one last glance at my father. I watched as he tipped back the bottle he’d held in his hand and stared at the old picture of my mother and me.
I wouldn’t get the chance to console him with my dust-written message today.
The blackness swirled around my hips moving upward, slowly encasing my shoulders in its thick fog as it formed my cloak. The tugging grew stronger with each second that passed, until I could feel the summoning of the ruling humming through my soul. It was a sensation not to be ignored, although I had tried to before. It left me feeling as though my soul were a rubber band stretched too tight, to the point of snapping, and if I didn’t close my eyes right then and release myself from my unwillingness to go, then I surly would have ripped my soul in half.
This tugging was nothing new. I knew exactly what was about to happen—I was being called to another Reaper Ruling.
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About The Author:
Jennifer Snyder lives in North Carolina where she spends most of her time writing New Adult and Young Adult Fiction, reading, and struggling to stay on top of housework. She is a tea lover with an obsession for Post-it notes and smooth writing pens. Jennifer lives with her husband and two children, who endure listening to songs that spur inspiration on repeat and tolerate her love for all paranormal, teenage-targeted TV shows.
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Touch (A Reaper Novella) Page 7