The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 20.1: To Die is an Awfully Big Adventure

Tracking mud into the house from my miscalculated landing in the marsh of the pond, I only got to take two steps before Ethel scolded me, “Noa, please, not in the house.”

I shrugged and started to remove my right shoe, telling her my plans for the night, “I’m going to go out with a couple friends around eight o’clock.”

Ethel adjusted her glasses as she looked over at Julius, “Don’t you think you’re burning the candle at both ends? Maybe spend some quality time with us tonight? We’re going to the movies later.”

This touched my un-beating heart but it was all lies. Lies that I poisoned them with in my own selfish pursuit of belonging. These people had a life before me. Their struggles must have been minimal. I brought my burdens to their home.

I slipped off the left sneaker and shuffled away from the doormat, “I’m sorry. I understand where you’re coming from. Just not tonight, please, I already promised my friends.”

Ethel gave a small chuckle and patted me on the back, “That’s alright, Noa. We just want you to be happy. Don’t want you exhausting yourself on a school night.”

Without any warnings I clung to Ethel for a hug. Her arms were unsure of how to react at first but I didn’t take it personally. Eventually she wrapped her small arms around my shoulders, “We just miss you is all, Noa.”

I didn’t want her to see my face so I just kept clinging onto her hug. My lip quivered and my eyes ached for the moisture of tears. Anything to release the pressure of broken pipes that rusted in my heart. I didn’t deserve Ethel and Julius. They didn’t deserve what I had thrown onto them.

Julius’s hand gripped my shoulder and turned me out of my hug with Ethel. Both of his bear hands hung on my shoulders as he told me, “Noa, we’re so happy that you’re ours.”

His hug engulfed me into his small, round belly. Ethel patted me on the back and they both took a step back from this moment to look at me, with teary eyes and smiles of acceptance and love.

I hated myself for this. These were all lies. None of this was true. They didn’t actually love me. I brainwashed them to. I sowed these words on their tongues. Like a leech I attached myself to their futures and had slowly begun to suck out any chances of them having normal lives. 

My throat knotting from my overwhelming sensation of love and guilt I whispered, “I’m so happy to be your daughter,” the words hit the memory of my parents like a cinderblock. We all looked at each other and gave small laughs over how emotional we were getting, “I’m just going to go upstairs to change.” 

In reality I just wanted to be alone so that I wouldn’t have to face the fables I forged into their lovely hearts.

The vulture had beaten me to my room, cawing to be let in. Reluctantly, I opened the squeaky window and allowed the vulture in. It entered with a stumbled landing on the foot of my bed. 

Not paying anymore attention to the spirit, I threw off my clothes and suited up in a solid, dark green tunic. It was loose enough to give way for my feathered sails. Lastly, adding an leather jacket and sneakers to make myself look more casual.

At the pace I was moving I was winding up for an anxiety attack. It took the abrupt caw of the spirit to make me stop and be still. I stared at my bed. The bed I have never slept in. The bed I will never sleep in.

The street lamps that illuminated the roads reflected off my window and cast shadows across every frame and crevice in my room. Those shadows were my bed. Those shadows were my home. 

I will be alright. As long as the sun rises each morning to cast more shadows. I will be alright.

I shut my eyes and repeated the phrase again and again. I wanted the words to stitch themselves into my ears. So that any thing to come my way will always echo off these words first. 

I will be alright. I will be alright. I will be alright.

Ethel yelled from at the foot of the stairs, “Noa, dear, your friends are here.”

Clamoring from my bedroom door and down the stairs I arrived to my company. It was just Senson and Senoi. Of course, they were standing like soldiers: head high, feet together, arms crossed behind their backs. Embarrassing enough they were both wearing suits. 

Ethel sure brought them off their high horse, “Oh, don’t you two look dashing.” She played with the collars on their suits, as they exchanged nervously glances at each other. Ethel stepped back and laughed, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just being embarrassing.”

I squinted a judgmental smile, “Guys, we’re seeing Peter Pan, not visiting the Queen.” 

Finally, they relaxed their posture in a sigh of laughter. I invited them to the backyard as we waited for Phoebe. Ethel handed me twenty dollars and the keys to their other car before heading off with Julius to the movies. 

Senoi and Senson followed me to the back porch. I caught them as they unbuttoned their coats to act more casual. 

The porch creaked on every floorboard. I invited them to sit on the swinging bench. Awkwardly, they scooted on the edge and fumbled over one another trying to get comfortable. It was clear to me that they didn’t get out much.

I asked, “Is this really a first? I mean… like… spending an evening with other daemons for purposes outside your sentencing.”

Senson and Senoi swapped looks again, they always seemed to look to each other before ever answering a question, or maybe they didn’t know how to act without Samel. Their eyes were both filled with uncertainty towards a proper response. Senson was the first to stir up an answer, “Truth is… this is not a sentencing for us.”

Adjusting in my seat, my face couldn’t hide my puzzlement, “What do you mean?”

Senoi interjected, “We volunteered for this position.”

“Volunteered? Why?”

Senoi began scuffing his feet on the porch to make the bench sway as he responded, “In hopes of someday being a guardian.”

“Angel? Guardian angel? There are rankings of angels?”

“Yes, just as there are rankings of daemons there are rankings of angels.”

Senson continued, “We were just simple angels who wanted to be promoted to guardianship. But in order to, one must prove do the work, so we had to give up being angels and became daemons… Cardinals. So that we may earn the title Guardian.”

A part of me felt betrayed that I didn’t know this before. That they really weren’t one of my kind. They were blessings who wanted more responsibilities. They were not forced into this. On the other hand, being a Cardinal didn’t seem like it was a punishment so I should have known better. 

Senoi could sense my dissatisfaction to this news. In his attempt to lighten the mood, “But a reaper who’s done their time gets automatic Guardian rights. That’s what’s so special about them.”

I stood in defiance, “So my only reward to this is more responsibilities? It will never end for me even when it does?”

Senson, not knowing me well, raised his voice in return, “It is a high honor and accomplishment to receive the title Guardian! You should appreciate that you were seen as worthy over every-,”

I interrupted speaking over him, “This means nothing to me!”

Senson and I were upright in a fighting stance. Using our words as weapons we spat back and forth over the differences between blessings and burdens. 

Senoi leapt up, tugged the cuff on Senson’s shirt, he begged, “Enough! Come on, guys, I thought this was suppose to be a good night. Can’t we just pretend for a second we’re not daemons?”

Senson locked his sight on me and relaxed his tense shoulders, “Normal night. Normal people.”

I nodded, “Normal night. Normal people. Simple and ordinary.”

From behind the screen door, “Okay good, so are ya’ll ready?” 

We snapped our heads to sliding door where a girl stood. She had her hair decorated into several braids that assembled into a bun. She wore black pants that were large and flared at the bottom with a tight white top that clung to her torso tightly. I guessed that this person was Phoebe. Phoebe snickered while continuing, “I’ve been standing here for a while but when I heard hell break loose, I waited.”

Senoi directed his response at all of us, “Then it’s settled. We are normal kids and are going to have a simple, ordinary night. No daemon stuff. We are all off duty.”

Senson sarcastically exclaimed, “Swell… so can we go then?

I walked over to Senoi and hooked his arm, half wanting to push the thoughts of Aaron from my conscience, “We’ll take Ethel and Julius’s car… normal people… no flying or shadow stuff.”

We collected ourselves into Ethel and Julius’s minivan and rode our way to this strange evening. Not much was said in the car ride, I don’t think any of them have ever spent this long of time with other daemons. I was comfortable with silence and all but this was just embarrassing. None of them knew how to communicate or begin small talk… or talk about anything but work.

Phoebe finally broke the silence by giving us the schedule for the rest of the night, “After the play, as soon as Lillian and Samel arrive, we will all need to recollect ourselves in our daemon appearances. We only have about… in mortal time… a minute and twenty nine seconds before the Nest collapses and becomes a vacuum. So we’ll have to find it quickly, it should be in the vicinity of house left.”

Senson and Senoi gave their confirmations and continued to speak business and I gathered a lot about Senson and Senoi’s relationship. Senson was much more open and direct, whereas Senoi was shy and a bit of a pushover. I had yet to get to know Samel, but I could only guess he was an opposite in his own special way.

We made it to the play five-minutes late but still managed to find a good spot in the grass. I found it difficult to pay attention, this sudden rising of tension between Lilli and I was a concern in every crack of thought. The vulture skulked around every tree, watching me. Having this spirit be a part of me, even for just a few hours, was haunting and heavy. This feeling kept following me… It’s like the feeling of being startled awake… you try to go back to sleep… but you know someones watching you.

I sensed a change in Phoebe when the famous line, “To die would be an awfully big adventure” was spoken.

She then looked at me, I noticed and looked back at her. I didn’t know Phoebe’s story but I imagined prior to this she was alive like me… and something dark brought her here. I could tell we were thinking the same thing, that not all adventures are filled with glory, pirates, gold, and happy endings. Some adventures break you, they make you look in the mirror and prove that the world can turn you into almost anything if you let it. Senoi and Senson didn’t understand this. But Phoebe and I did.

Senoi nudged me, he whispered, “I’m actually having a really good time.” 

I smiled at Senoi and whispered back, “I’m glad.” 

Near the end of the play, Phoebe tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me to follow her. The team gathered behind a thick arrangement of trees.

Phoebe, “They should be here any moment. We should change now.”

As the applause began for the closing bows, Lilli and Samel came from the darkest shadows of the woods and joined us. Phoebe directed, “Everyone change and follow me.”

The three brothers skin became a charcoal grey and sprouted blood red wings, they looks like stones. Lilli bloomed her misty grey wings and wrapped them around herself, I repeated the motion after her. Phoebe held her hands against her face and upon removing her hands she revealed her face to look like it did when we first met. 

She nodded and we all followed her lead. 

“Trade pouches with me,” demanded Lilli.

“Why?”

Lilli forcefully exchanged our pouches and continued ahead of me without another word.

No one noticed us as we snaked our way through the dispersing crowd. Even when people bumped into me… they still didn’t see.

“We’re not invisible,” Senoi said, probably noticing the confusion on my face, “It’s just how the mortal mind works, they can’t see or hear us because they’re mind doesn’t want them too… it’s too much for them to comprehend. They’re minds correct them to just think or see something else.”

Phoebe shouted, “Hurry, I found it.”

We collected around Phoebe, she was pointing at the bottom the stage left staircase. Where the grass and wooden stairs met there was a small outpour of black water bubbling and spilling. 

“I was afraid of this,” said Phoebe, “Part of the stage is covering up about half of the Nest. We need to hurry, it will get bigger in just a few moments. I’m going to try to make it wider without upsetting it. When I tell you, I need you both to sink your left arm in and reach around for anything round and pull it out. Then throw a stone in from your pouches.”

Phoebe rolled up her sleeves and dug her hands into the black puddle forming. As she shifted her hands around the Nest began to sink inward. The water became thicker, like mud. Phoebe seemed to be having a hard time keeping steady on her knees, Senoi stood behind her and held her by the collar of her shirt. By a strong force, her left arm was ranked all the way in. 

Senoi just about tried to pull her from it but she commanded, “No, no! Wait! I think I got it.” She dragged her arm back a few inches and the Nest began to widen, “There! Go, go, put your hands in!”

Lilli and I dropped to the floor and sunk our hand and arm into the falling circle of mud. 

I asked urgently, “What are we looking for again?!”

“Something round, shouldn’t be any bigger that your hand, think of it like a plug for a drain.”

Something grabbed onto my wrist, it felt like another hand, like the bones of one and it pulled me with several yanks.

“Help! Help!” I was shoulder deep when Senson grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back a few inches. He held onto me while I continued to reach for nothing.

“We only have a minute left,” warned Phoebe.

Inside this portal were a world of shaped and textures knocking against and into my hand and arm. It was hard to make sense of any of it. Something smooth and small kept knocking into my hand, I tried to get a grasp on it but it was slippery. When I finally felt a hold upon the object I felt the same bony hand now fighting me over it.

“I think I got it!” I twisted the ball from the bony hand and brought my knees in front of my chest to push myself from the grasp of the Nest. With the help of Senson I was successful in retrieving the orb but with the result of us landing backside to the ground.

“Quick! Now close it!” commanded Phoebe, “Throw an Ebenezer in! Both of you!”

I stumbled to my knees, retrieving a stone from my pouch and tossing it in with Lilli doing the same. 

Phoebe snapped her arm out of the Nest and the portal began making a horrible cracking sound as it hardened. All that was left was a sharp, deep indent in the ground. All three of us, our arms were coated in this black tar that smelt of death.

I wiped away the black tar from the orb and it held up to the glow of the stage lights. It was a clear ball with a single, minuscule ball of light in the center. “What is it?”