It would take me out of the silence of this mid-region and back to the roaring world of the living. A place to which I’d once belonged, even if I couldn’t recall a single hour of the time, the years, I’d spent there. Or even my name—my real name.
That I’d shed with my skin, my self. Right along with the answer to what I’d done to land myself here in the first place.
And I liked it that way.
Another reason why I was going to have to figure this shit out with the librarian.
Only now, apparently, I was going to have to do that before Cedric could interfere a second time.
The alternative certainly didn’t bode well for me.
Or for her…
8HELENA
Seated on my living room couch in my tiny fourth-floor apartment, reading glasses still on, I stared at the slim volume I’d already read cover to cover—twice.
The book stated that, contrary to popular belief, the Grim Reaper didn’t end the lives of those whose souls he went to reap. Rather, he was a symbolic figure meant to help explain the mystery of death. A figure who, as I’d hypothesized—to theactualGrim Reaper’s face—was said to only collect and usher the souls of the dead.
Still, Ihadseen him kill. And the book hadn’t been written from a standpoint that presumed the Grim Reaper was, in fact, real. Even if the note that had been stuffed within, addressed to me, claimed exactly that.
Who had written the note, though? And who had the blond man been?
I frowned, hunkering into the cushions, a chill scampering along my arms.
I seized the overlarge, smiling pineapple Squishmallow I’d bought to use as a throw pillow and hugged her close, bringing my knees up.
“That young man,” I said through a sigh. “He was probably onlya few years older than Hunter. His poor family… If they’ve been notified, they must be devastated.”
But whoever he was, what had he been looking for in the elevator?
The doors of which he’d apparently used mystical green mojo to command apart.
And then there was the biggest question of all: Why and how had the Grim Reaper become invested in saving my life rather than letting fate take its course before reaping my soul?
Wasn’t that his job? The book confirmed that it was…
Maybe, in this one instance, the answers I sought couldn’t be found in a book.
I took off my glasses and, frustrated, flopped them onto my notes. Frowning, I stood, and with Maui the ginormous pineapple tucked under one arm, I went to add more “pumpkin spice” oil to my aromatherapy diffuser.
Except the calming scent wasn’t calming me.
Then again, Ihadalmost died that day. Almost diedagain.
Keeping an eye on that book, which lay in the center of my coffee table next to all the notes I’d scribbled down in hot-pink ink, I paced behind my yellow couch, chewing my thumbnail, Maui cinched in a headlock while I fretted. Because it couldn’t be a good sign that the infamous harvester of souls had shown up to rescue me from death a second time. That alone suggested that there could be a third time coming.
I also had no ideawhyany of this was happening, or why my mysterious rescuer had bothered warning me to “not engage with” and to “hide” from someone he’d then proceeded to take out.
Murder?
Maybe hewasa serial killer…
Fighting off another shudder, I shook my head, unable to make sense of anything.
“Even my internet search for people who’ve encountered the Grim Reaper has come up short,” I told the plushie. “Right before leading me down a rabbit hole of Reddit stories that read like fan fiction.”
That said, I hadn’t worked up enough courage to post my own story. Yet.
