I know I shouldn't need someone to tell me they weren't hanging out with me because they had to, but it's still nice to hear that she wants to actually spend time with me.
I've never had friends like I do here. One more reason to make sure I don't return to the Shadow Association's care and get to stay at Scythe Grove Academy.
3
I glance at the empty seat next to me while wondering where Mathias is. For all of his joking about skipping classes, I've never known him to actually do it. Though maybe he's just trying to impress me with his attendance record.
Now that I think about it, I find that unlikely. He's probably busy with something or other.
Professor Haines drones on about the first reaper to allegedly fashion a scythe. It should be interesting, and yet he has a way of sapping every last drop of intriguing fact from his subject. The only thing keeping me listening is that I don't know any of this, and it's the quickest way for me to learn it. Though I do have some history books back in my dorm that are helping too. One way or another, I'm going to catch up with my peers on the theory of being a reaper.
The door to the classroom swings open, drawing everyone's attention to it.
Mathias walks in, and heads straight for the Professor, ignoring the sour expression on the man's face. He hands the teacher a slip of paper.
Haines resettles his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looks down at the paper.
"Miss Weston, you're required for ghost duty," he says without sparing me a second glance. I'm not convinced he'd be able to pick me out of a lineup of our class.
I scrape back my chair and get to my feet, packing my notebook and pens up quickly. I've never been pulled out of class for a ghost before. I know it happens as I've seen other students disappear to deal with that part of being a reaper, but all of the ghosts I've had a hand in reaping have all been found during the afternoons assigned to searching.
Mathias holds the door open for me so I can slip through. He follows behind, not saying a word until we're safely in the hall and away from the other students.
"Is there really a ghost or is this your way of getting me to skip class?" I ask.
He chuckles. "I promise there's a ghost. It's been assigned to us."
"Why us?" I ask.
"We're a team. It's not like just one of us can go," he points out.
"I know that. I mean why us and not another set of students?"
"Oh, it's just our turn. All of the teams with a certain amount of reaper points are put on a rotation so when a ghost comes up that isn't found during the normal searches, it's assigned to whoever is next on the list. This time, it's us," he explains.
"So not because we're the best for the job?" I ask.
"I'm sorry, no."
Well, that's disappointing. I'd have liked it if we were the best team for the job.
The two of us head back to the Sakura dorms so we can grab our scythes. It's common for students to leave them in their rooms during none practical classes. Everyone treats them with the respect they deserve, but it definitely cuts down on accidents to not have hundreds of students walking around with huge weapons made of wood and metal strapped to their backs. There's no need for them in history lessons.
I unlock my door and step inside, glancing around the room to make sure everything is as I left it the same as I always do.
Nothing has changed. There isn't even a note under the door to say a parcel arrived for me. It's disappointing, but not unexpected, the results for the genealogy test will probably come by email first. I managed to send it off when we were in town ghost hunting last Wednesday. I need to be patient.
I push thoughts of my heritage out of my mind and focus on today's task instead. I unhook my scythe from the specially designed wall mounts and swing it onto my back. It fits snuggly, as it should. Everything about it has been made specifically for me. As far as I know, I can use another reaper's scythe without any problems, it's just that this one is better suited to me.
Not that I really need it. I'm the seer on our team, the one who can talk to the dead. Mathias is the porter who opens the port to the next world with his scythe and guides the ghost through. I'm not sure why I even have one. Maybe it's an aesthetic thing. Nothing says I'm a reaper like a huge blade hanging over your shoulder.
I make sure to lock my room up tightly and head down the corridor towards where Mathias' is. At least it isn't far of a walk.
"Are you ready?" he asks as he leaves his room and spots me, his own scythe peeking out from over his shoulder. It's bigger than mine, with a thicker blade and a less intricate finish. In other words, it suits him.
"As I'll ever be. Do you know what we're facing?"
He shakes his head. "We've just got a report of a ghost in a house that's for sale. No one with any reaper blood has been there up until now, so it took a while for them to realise what was happening, but a lot of people were saying it didn't feel right to buy it."
"So they want us to go do our thing so they can make money off a house sale?"
He lets out a light laugh. "Effectively. But also because it's our job."
"I hope we get a bonus from the estate agents."
"We will," he assures me. "At least, that's how it normally works."
Actually being paid for the work we do is a bonus I never expected when I discovered I was a reaper. While we do get a reduced rate compared to the reaper guard, it's more than enough to fund what we need. I've never had so much money to my own name before, and it's still a confusing entity for me. "Well then, what are we waiting for?"
"Literally nothing. We're heading to the portal room now," he points out.
"You know what I mean. Hopefully, this is an easy one."
"I don't know, it could be a ghost who misplaced one of their socks," Mathias teases.
"How wouldn't that be easy?"
"Have you ever tried to search for a specific sock of a person you don't know?"
"Well, no."
"Then that's how it isn't an easy one. It has to be the right sock or there's a problem."
"How long did it take you to find it?" I ask, sensing from the frustration in his voice that he's speaking from personal experience.
"Three weeks."
"Ouch."
"The ghost was really grateful," he says as if that makes it all better.
I suppose in some ways it does. Our entire purpose as a species is to help the dead move on to their next existence. We should take pride in that, even if it means finding socks for them.
"We're here," he says, indicating to the door I've come to know well.
I don't know how the portal into town works, but it makes things so much easier for us moving back and forth. Going by car takes forty-five minutes, whereas this way, one second we're in the academy, and the next we're in the centre of town and much closer to where we need to be.
Sometimes, I wonder why the academy wasn't just built closer to town in the first place, but then I remember the sacred grove in the centre. The trees that grow there are part of what give our scythes power. Every time I step inside the trees, I can feel the power thrum through me, calling to me. I can't harness any of it directly, but I know it's there.
Mathias pushes open the door to the portal room and gestures for me to go through first. I smile as I brush past him and step straight through. A few months of using it and it no longer makes me nervous.
A brief tingle travels through my body as I step through the magic and to the other side. It's gone the moment I step onto pavement, leaving me momentarily disoriented despite knowing precisely where I am. I can't explain the way travelling like this makes me feel, but it's not like anything I've ever experienced before.
Mathias appears next to me and pulls out his phone to type in the address of the house we need to check out. Hopefully, it isn't too far away. I don't like arriving at a destination out of breath, it makes the whole process harder than it should be.
"Ten minutes," Mathias says, answering my
unspoken question.
I nod. It could be worse.
4
The house is surprisingly nice compared to some of the others we've found ghosts in, though maybe that shouldn't surprise me. The reason anyone found this ghost to start with is because they've been haunting the place and stopping it from selling.
Just how the ghost has been doing that is a mystery to me, but I'll probably just have to add that to the list of things I don't know about being a reaper. Sometimes it's frustrating how long it is, but I've not been doing too badly, even with my lack of knowledge.
Which is probably down to Juliet and the twins' influences.
"Are you ready?" Mathias asks.
I nod, feeling a little bit nervous, but otherwise okay. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to feel completely steady while entering a ghost's home. Though I might do. I'm already better about it than in the beginning.
Mathias slots the key in the door and twists, letting us into the property.
I wrinkle my nose at the stench of newly dried paint. At least the previous owners thought to tidy the place up before putting it on the market, but I'd be able to do my job better if I wasn't distracted by a smell I hate.
It's better than some of the scenes I've heard rumours about.
"Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh," a woman's voice calls from behind us.
I turn to find a ghost floating in the middle of the room with her arms waving in the air. I think she's trying to haunt us.
"Hello," I say, tapping into the seer powers that allow me to communicate with the dead.
She does a double-take. "Hi?"
"I'm Syxe. This is Mathias." I gesture to him.
"You...can see me?" she asks.
I nod. "We're reapers."
"Oh. You've come for me then."
That is what we're supposed to do.
I don't say the words out loud, I don't think she'd be very impressed by them, and while ghosts can't give us reviews for our service once they've moved over to the other side, I don't want to alienate her.
"We've come to help you with your unfinished business," I reply. "Whatever that is, that's what we're here for." There are a few caveats. We're not allowed to hurt anyone. I'm not actually sure what happens if that's a ghost's business. I suspect it involves filling out one of the forms Juliet has promised to take me through.
"Help?" she echoes.
Oh no. We seem to have gotten the one ghost who doesn't know about us.
I take a deep breath. Whether or not we can complete this reaping is going to depend on how good of a job I do right now. Mathias can't help talk to ghosts, as the porter of our team, he can't understand them.
It seems like a flawed system to me, but who is going to question how magic works? It's the kind of thing most people just accept and get on with.
"Do you know what we do?" I ask.
"No..."
"Okay, well our job is to help you work out what your unfinished business is and fulfil it so you can move on to the next realm. That's what Mathias here is going to do. I talk to you to help you work out what's going on, and he opens the portal to the next realm." I smother my wince at how badly I explained that. I need to come up with a better description of our job for the next time I'm faced with a ghost who doesn't know what's supposed to happen.
But that's a problem for another day.
"Unfinished business," the ghost echoes.
"Yes. It can be anything, big or small. There are some things that we'll need to pass on to our superiors, but we'll be able to help with most things," I assure her.
We've only had to pass on one ghost as a team, which I assume is a good thing. No one really talks about their porting rates very much. I make a mental note to ask Juliet later if there's anything I should know.
"We can start easy," I suggest. "Why don't you tell me your name?"
She nods. "Erica Ferris," she responds.
"It's nice to meet you, Erica."
She raises a pale eyebrow. "Is it?"
"Well, there could have been a better set of circumstances for us to meet under," I admit.
"I'd say."
"Is there anything you left behind when you died that's still worrying you?"
She chews on her bottom lip. "Just my baby."
My heart sinks. That's not good.
"I miss him. I want to know he's okay." A distressed note enters her voice and she starts to pull at her hair. She won't lose any of it now she's a ghost, but that doesn't mean it's easy to watch.
Pity floods through me, but I push it to the side. I need to focus on the woman herself, and not on the way she's making me feel.
"Maybe part of your unfinished business is that you want to find out what happened to him," I say softly. "We can do that for you. We know your name already, can you tell me his?"
"Mika." She sniffs
"Okay, we can find out what happened to him and let you know."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. It's our job to do everything we can to help you with this," I promise. "We won't stop until we manage."
"And you think this is my unfinished business?" If I'm not mistaken, there's a hint of hope taking over from the sadness now.
We can work with this.
"I honestly don't know," I tell her. "But we can try this. If we're wrong and this isn't your unfinished business, then we'll try something else. And then something different. We'll keep going until we find what it is."
"Thank you," Erica whispers.
I smile at her, hoping for light and breezy, but not quite managing. "You're welcome. We need to get going now, but we'll be back as soon as we have new."
She nods. "Goodbye."
"Bye, Erica." I wave at her, mostly to signal to Mathias that we're done.
We turn and head out the door, not saying a word to one another in the process. Mathias may not be able to understand Erica, but that doesn't mean she can't understand him, and it feels rude to discuss her while she's not able to take part in the conversation.
"So, what happened?" Mathias asks once we're a safe distance away.
"She has a baby she misses and wants to know is safe.
Mathias nods. "That's a lot of paperwork to fill out, but it should be easy enough to do."
My shoulder sag with relief. If tracking down her baby isn't going to be too problematic, then maybe we stand a chance of helping Erica after all.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I spin around, searching for whatever it is that might be causing it. Nothing raises my suspicions. The other side of the street looks just the same as it did when we entered Erica's house.
I shake my head to rid myself of any more superstitions.
"Is everything all right?" Mathias asks.
"Yes. I'm just thinking about the baby," I lie. I'm not sure why I don't tell him the truth. Maybe I don't want him thinking that I'm paranoid? It's better to brush it off and not worry him. "Why don't we head back to the academy and you can show me which forms we need to fill in for this?"
"That's not the most exciting way to spend an evening..."
"You can't do my forms for the rest of our training," I point out. "I need to learn at some point."
A guilty expression crosses his face. He knows I'm right, but for some reason, he isn't ready to admit it.
That's fine, so long as I get my way and we start sharing the workload.
"Fine. Let's go fill out some forms. But after this case, you need to get one of the fancy coffee machines Juliet has for your room."
"We can go halves on it."
"Deal."
He starts to head down the street and I follow, still a little itchy from before. I know no one was watching me, but it still feels as if they were. And even if it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, the effect is something I can't ignore.
5
It's nice to have a night off from searching for Erica's baby. What should have been as simple as filling out one form has turned out to be a bit more
complicated. I'm not precisely sure why, but it seems as if the baby doesn't want to be found. Which is ridiculous, it's not like the baby had any choice in the matter.
After spending a rather frustrating afternoon trying to get hold of social workers, Mathias suggested the two of us switched off for the night and put on a movie with popcorn.
I lean my head against Mathias' shoulder, enjoying the warmth his embrace gives me. I'm not sure precisely when we got so comfortable with one another, but there's something about this situation that feels right.
The film carries on playing in front of us. I'm barely paying any attention, but I don't care. Getting to spend time with Mathias while we're not trying to hunt down a ghost's unfinished business, or having to study for class is a welcome change.
"We should do this more often," I whisper without thinking about it.
"We should," he agrees. "It's nice."
"Even without a fancy coffee machine?" I tease.
He laughs lightly. "We can always message Jules and get her to bring us some."
"How about no. We're not disturbing her evening just because you want coffee."
"All the more reason to get one for ourselves."
"If you like it so much, why haven't you gotten yourself one before now?" I ask.
"Hmm. That's a good question."
"One you don't have an answer for?"
"Maybe that's my unfinished business," he jokes.
"It seems rather mundane," I admit.
"A lot of them seem to be."
"True."
He does have a point. I expected to be faced with murder and missing family members more often than I have been. But the reality is that a lot of what the ghosts think of as their unfinished business is quite dull. Though I've never been faced with anything quite as bad as Mathias' sock losing ghost.
We lapse into comfortable silence, enjoying the movie playing in front of us. The company is the best bit, though. At least for me.
Sounds come from outside the room as other students go about their evening. I don't pay any attention to them. People are almost always moving around the dorms to visit their friends, go to parties and generally enjoy themselves. Nobody pays much attention to the others unless they're joining them.
Shadow Prophet (Scythe Grove Academy Book 2) Page 2