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Right now, I’m picking up Ethel Bagley, an elderly (by human standards) woman who had a merciful death after a bout of pneumonia. My brother, Tuonen, says he never cares to know anything about the people he’s picking up, but I always tap inside myself for knowledge. I want to know something about the person I’m transporting.
Ethel is standing at the shoreline, hunched over and alone, looking so incredibly small as the ever-present mist wisps past her. This is the part that always gets me about this job—nearly everyone dies alone and, as the ferrywoman, I am the first to lay eyes on the recently deceased, seeing humanity at its most vulnerable, when the shackles of life have been taken off and they’re truly unmoored in time ever after.
I sigh as the boat scrapes against the shiny black rocks of the shore. I have this strange feeling in my gut that twists and turns, but I can’t figure out why. Perhaps I’m just tired and bitter that everyone in my family is in Inmost, the Hellish level of the City of Death, watching an exciting Bone Match while I’m having to deliver a little old lady to her eternal afterlife.
“Ethel,” I call to the woman. “Ethel Bagley.”
She looks up at me with cloudy eyes, though they seem to be clearing by the minute. Though she won’t age backwards, the longer she’s in Tuonela, or more specifically, The City of Death,the more she’ll become the best version of herself. Her aches and pains will disappear, she’ll become limber and quick, and her mind will sharpen, along with all her senses. Even those bound for Inmost will become as strong as they were in their youth, even if they might rot to their bones. Once upon a time, before my father came into power as the God of Death, they would have remained old and in pain, lost to theKaaos, but my father is a fair God and, in his opinion, even the worst of the worst don’t deserve an afterlife of pain. Living in Inmost is punishment enough for the most depraved.
“Where am I?” Ethel asks, looking around. “Who are you? A deer woman?”
I smile beneath the deer skull mask. We wear masks to put on an air of authority and mystery, though, honestly, I don’t think it makes a lick of difference to the new arrivals. “I am here to bring you to your afterlife.”
“I’m dead?” Ethel asks. They always seem surprised at first, often pushing back against the idea for a bit until they realize the truth. “But last I remember, I was…”
“You were dying. Now, you’re here. Come,” I say, gesturing to the boat.
“I can’t climb up on that,” she scoffs, crossing her arms. But even that movement seems to have surprised her, how much spryer she is than she remembers.
I hold out my hands toward her, palms up, and hum under my breath.
“Tassa nostan sinut kuolemanjalkeisen elaman tyttareni.”
Elderly Ethel Bagley begins to rise off the stones as I lift my hands. She moves gently through the air until she’s placed delicately beside me. I don’t always move the dead into the boat in such a dramatic, magical manner, but this lady looks like she could use a little fun. Plus, it usually helps them acceptdeath quicker once they see something they’d once considered impossible.
“I must be dreaming,” Ethel says, gazing around the boat. “Yep, one of them dreams I get from having too much sherry before bed.”
Perhaps she’ll be a little more stubborn than most.
“It’s not a dream,” I tell her. “You had pneumonia and died, one of the best deaths you can have. You know, aside from that whole gasping for air business.”
She fixes a shrewd eye on me. “And what would you know about dying, deer girl? Have you ever died?”
She’s got me there. “Well, no,” I say as I steer the boat, heading to the river that will take us up through the Land of the Dead. “But I’ll have you know that a death here is worse than a death there.”
“You’re making no sense,” she mutters, the breeze ruffling her thinning gray hair that seems to get thicker as the moments tick on.
“I’m the Goddess of Death,” I tell her. “Death’s daughter. I am an immortal, but if I were to somehow die here, I would be sent to Oblivion, which is just floating around in the void for eons. At least you get to live your eternity in the Eternal City.”
“And what’s that? Heaven?”
I shrug. “It depends which level you go to.”
“I hope it’s not where my husband George is. That wouldn’t be my idea of heaven.”
I look at her in surprise. “You don’t want to be reunited with him in the afterlife?”
She shakes her head, her lips curled bitterly. “I should have divorced that bastard before he kicked the bucket. Knowing him, he’s probably…do you have a Hell here?”
“Something like that…”
“Then that’s where he probably is,” she grumbles. “Would serve him right for having an affair with Betsy McGuffin for fourteen years.”
I’m about to tell Ethel that having an affair doesn’t mean you’ll be sent to Inmost, but I decide to keep that to myself. Wouldn’t want to spoil her time here already. Besides, once Ethel meets the Magician, who will pull the card and let her know what section of the City she’ll be staying in, she’ll feel better about things. Once the person truly accepts their death, which usually happens on the way to the City, then the memories of their life in the Upper World start to fade away. They never disappear completely, but they don’t have a hold on them like they would if they were alive. Otherwise, people would spend eternity pining for their previous life, and that doesn’t sound like heaven to me.
And yet, I’m doing that to myself. Sure, I’m not dead, but I feel like I’m forever pining for a life in the Upper World. If only my father could just let me leave Tuonela and my duties and explore the human realm. I know he thinks of it with disdain (aside from the fact that they produce the coffee to which he’s addicted), but he’s never even been there. He has always sent others to go. He doesn’t even know what he’s missing.
But I do.
