“I’ve been right where you left me.”
My fingers absentmindedly straighten the edge of the folded paper still resting on the stall before I smooth a wrinkle from my apron, suddenly not knowing what to do with my hands. A silence settles between us, but I say nothing. Not knowing what it is I should do or say at this moment. His gaze never leaves me.
“Where have you been?”
The question drifts through my mind for a moment before quietly floating away again. I glance down at my empty crates.
“I should really get these back.”
“Tell me.”
His voice is firmer this time as I slip the last coil of rope over the stacked crates before giving it a tug to make sure everything is secure. I can feel his eyesstudying me as I work, waiting for an answer I don’t know how to give so I pretend not to notice. There are still things to do. There always are. I lean my weight against the little cart until the wheels surrender with a reluctant groan, cutting two narrow tracks through the snow as I leave the warmth of the market stall behind. For a few steps, all I hear is the soft crunch beneath my feet. Then, another pair of footsteps joins them. I look sideways, noticing that Death has fallen into step beside me.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t spare me a glance as he walks with me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
I consider that for a moment, watching in my periphery his much larger frame towering over mine. He is taller than I remember. Or perhaps I’d simply forgotten. It has been two years or so.
“You’re taller than the last time I saw you,” I say, tipping my head back to look at him properly as another snowflake catches in the dark stubble dusting his jaw.
“I was always taller.”
“No…” I study him thoughtfully, measuring him against a memory that suddenly feels much smaller than the man walking beside me. “You’ve grown.”
“Hm,” he says, glancing toward the road ahead as though the answer isn’t nearly as interesting as the factthat I remembered him at all. “Or maybe you just remember me differently.”
I look down at the tracks we’re leaving behind, his deep and certain, mine broken where my steps keep slipping into softer patches of white.
“I remember you exactly as you were.”
“That right?”
“Yes.” I glance at him again, because it feels important that he knows this. Whenever the walls of the cottage became too small and too much, he is who I’d picture. I would close my eyes and there he was, real enough to reach for. I think I’d know if something about him had changed.
And it has.
The boy I left behind has disappeared somewhere inside the man walking beside me. His shoulders are broader now, stretching the black leather of his jacket in ways they never used to. Every easy stride carries the quiet confidence of someone who has long since learned exactly how dangerous he is. Dark ink winds over the backs of his hands before disappearing beneath his sleeves, swallowing skin I’d once remembered bare, while the faint shadow of stubble along his chiseled jaw softens nothing at all. If anything, it makes him look older. Harder. Like life had taken a knife to every gentle edge and left only the ones sharp enough to survive. Once, I thought he looked frightening. Not that he ever frightened me, because Deathhas never scared me. But now, he looks like the sort of darkness people run from. The kind of darkness I had spent two years hoping would come for me, but didn’t.
“You’re staring,” he says, one dark brow arching as he keeps his eyes fixed ahead. “Stop it.”
“Why did you put drawings all over yourself?” I ask, watching the way the winter light catches the ink peeking through his clothes in places. His head turns just enough for me to catch the corner of his eye. They aren’t nearly as dark as I thought they were. I’d convinced myself they were almost black, but standing this close, I can see the amber hiding beneath them, warm like honey trapped beneath smoke. I wonder if they’d always been that color or if collecting souls affects their pigment somehow. The thought follows us down the snowy path, curling quietly through my mind until I decide it’s a question worth keeping.
“What do they mean?” I ask, my attention drifting back to him, unwilling to let the question wander away unanswered as the cart groans softly over another path of frozen earth. “People don’t wear stories on their skin unless they want someone to read them.”
He doesn’t answer. Again. The silence folds comfortably between us, broken only by the rhythmic groan of timber and the soft scrape of wooden wheelsas we move across the snow. Then, without warning, his arm reaches across in front of me, the warmth of his body briefly cutting through the cold air as broad hands close gently around my own. The leather of his sleeve brushes against the fabric of my cloak, and I stop dead in my tracks, unsure of what is happening. One by one, he pries them from the handles with surprising care, as though he expects me to resist. I don’t. His fingers linger for the briefest of moments, not holding me, merely making sure I’d truly let go before he wraps his hand around the handle instead.
“There,” he says simply, the cart shifting as he pushes forward, leaving me with nothing to do now but to follow. As if relieving me was the most ordinary thing to do in the world. I hurry after him, my bare feet sinking into the ice until I fall back into step beside him, glancing from the cart to his hand and back again several times before the words finally escape me.
“Why don’t you answer any of my questions?” My words don’t sound accusing. They sound genuinely curious I think, because I cannot seem to make sense of him. Have the years that separated our last encounter changed him like they have me? It seems incredibly inefficient carrying around so many unanswered things. I wonder if they pile up somewhere inside a person, collecting dust beside all the things they wished they’d said but never did. If they becomeheavier the longer they’re carried. If that’s why he seems so tired.
“Why would I?” He finally speaks, almost absently as he guides the cart over another frozen rut, waiting for me to discover the answer on my own rather than handing it to me. There’s no irritation in his voice, only patience that doesn’t quite belong to someone in such a hurry to keep his thoughts to himself. I turn that over for a while. If he truly wanted me gone, he could have walked away back at the market. Instead, he stole my cart from me. That has to mean something. People don’t willingly spend time with someone they don’t like. At least… I don’t think they do. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t killed me yet. Maybe I’d mistaken patience for kindness all those years ago. Maybe death had simply been waiting for a more convenient moment. That would certainly explain why he’d come back now.
“Because I asked them.”
The words leave me with far more confidence than I actually feel. It seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation. He says nothing, as though he’s weighing my answer instead of dismissing it.
