Curious, I made my way down the aisles, checking each as I passed them.
But… there wasn’t anybody.
I paused to examine the book next, noting something I hadn’t before. Someone had bookmarked a set of pages in the middle with a bit of what looked to be… parchment?
After taking my reading glasses off the top of my head and sliding them into place, I opened the book to that page to find an etching of a figure in swathing black, scythe gripped in one skeletal hand, an oversized hourglass clutched in the other.
Someone, or something, peered out from the shadows nested within a black hood.
As had been the case at the party, though… there was no telling what.
Who?
Hehadbeen a who to have done what he had, right? Meaning, there wassomeonein that hood. A person. Or a… being. A collector of souls who could, himself, even be a soul?
I wanted to believe that was the case.
Especially since the alternative was that I had imagined him, or that I was going batty.
My fingers went to the torn bit of parchment that marked the pages, and pulling the thick and aged paper free, I turned it over.
I gasped to find a message there, which had me dropping the book—and stifling a scream with one hand.
“Yes, Helena,” the blue-ink note read in beautiful, scripted handwriting, “he’s real.”
4GRIM
The following night, I entered the Basins to find the doctor missing from his station. His witless bird, too.
Except Johann rarely left his desk. When he did, Pluto, the proverbial eyes in the back of his head, went with him.
I abandoned my scythe, which stood waiting for me as it had last night, its cool silver blade reflected in the shining black marble floor.
Slowing my steps as I approached the swirling vats, I glared down Johann’s vacant chair.
A missing Johann never failed to make me nervous. Theoretically, he was safe here, in the Netherworld—at least he should be—but that did little to erase the fact that hedidhave a stalker.
A dangerous one.
“Doctor?” I called, but I didn’t receive an answer.
A strange and unshakable foreboding needled me as I made my way to the White Basin, unhooking my hourglass from my belt along the way. I unscrewed the lid, and the soft squeaking of metal against metal loud in this chamber that I rarely found myself alone in.
While I poured out the portion of the souls due to the White Basin, I glanced toward Flora’s statue, which offered its usual stone lily to some unseen passerby. Whenever Flora was in, her statue’seyes would open. They were closed. Which meant she was still out gathering souls.
As I made my way to the Blue Basin, I checked Johann’s statue.
Just as was the case with my scythe, Johann would deposit his quill in the statue’s grip to gain access to his chambers. At the moment, the feather quill protruded from the inkwell on his desk. So Johann hadn’t retired early. And since he never—ever—left the Netherworld, well, he and his feathered beast had to be around here somewhere.
If I didn’t find him before withdrawing for the night myself, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my music—or anything.
“Old man,” I called into the chamber, my voice echoing down the four open archways and halls that led out of the Basins—to the library, the courtyard, the apothecary, and the cloisters.
Again, I received no answer.
“Where did you get off to?” I grumbled before moving on to the Green Basin.
The Red Basin came next, and in went the souls destined for it. Thankfully, tonight, I didn’t have any souls for the Black Basin, which meant my shift had reached its end.
