Page 127 of Grim Tidings

It takes him a long time to answer. “No, darling. I do not want your memories.”

“Great.” Aelia spins her scythe. “I can find a human. Stay there. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

A throat clears on the outer edge of the circle. Frank edges slowly forward, his daisies still balanced in his arms. “No need to go searching for a bag of bones when there’s one right here.” He flattens the front of his shirt with one shaking hand. “I’d very much like to take the young man’s place.”

Gideon sighs and pinches his nose. “And who are you?”

Frank smiles. Just barely. “A very old man in need of a rest.” His eyes slide to mine. “A man who would very much like to see his wife again.”

I glance at the flowers in his arms. They’re not just daisies. But peonies and lavender, too. Held together at the base with twine.

Understanding steals my breath.

“Were you coming to find me, Frank?”

“Can’t say I expected to happen upon all of this, but it suits my needs just fine.” His eyes shift to Gideon. “Let the boy go and take me instead. Surely, even death makes exceptions.”

Gideon studies Frank carefully, a sharp smile working its way across his mouth. “Very rarely.”

Frank huffs. “Well, you’re going to this time.” He arches a bushy eyebrow in my direction. “Consider it the favor you owe me.”

A favor carved in blood and tears on the side of a dirt road.

Maybe all of this has been a predestined path. A narrow one, through a dark thicket of woods to lead me exactly here. Right here. Fate doesn’t make mistakes. She doesn’t cut corners. Maybe I was always supposed to end up in this place, exasperated and heartbroken, looking for something different. Maybe I was supposed to find Frank, the man I took everything from years and years ago.

Maybe I’m supposed to be the one who gives him something back.

I stood before the tree, and I asked for something different.

Now, I begin to see it. The blurry outline of a new picture.

“Please,” Frank adds, and he steps forward. In between me and Gideon. Gabriel is suspiciously silent at my back, but I can feel the way his body is trembling against mine. “I’m not afraid. Take me to the beach. Take me to my girls.”

Please, I whispered to a woman with the kind eyes who took my hands and made all the pain go away. Please.

All I ever wanted was for my suffering to end. To have another chance. But when I died and became this, I thought I was being punished. An afterlife of delivering death. Collecting souls and depositing them somewhere else.

I’ve been fighting against it, not wanting to become the villain of the story. But death doesn’t have to be the end. It doesn’t even have to be the middle. For Frank, it’s a beach with craggy rocks and inquisitive, bossy seagulls. Wet sand beneath his feet. A little girl digging for shells and a woman with hair like strawberries laughing over the surf.

For me, it’s a man with ocean eyes. Tattoos on his skin and his mouth shaped around my name.

I wouldn’t have found him if I wasn’t this.

“Ah.” Across from me, Gideon’s gaze is fixed right on me. His mouth splits into a wild grin. “You understand now, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I do.”

I lived a lonely life. If I had moved on in death, I would have lived a lonely afterlife, too. Instead, I became a Reaper and experienced hundreds of tiny miracles. All sorts of people, from all sorts of places. Fragments that when you stitch them together become something else entirely. Something whole. Something beautiful. I’ve seen things I could have only imagined from my life before. And I—I was waiting, I think. To come here. To this place. To him.

I tip my face back so I can look at Gabriel, stone-faced and silent. So, so strong. I stare up at him, and I see it. Clear as day.

His eyes find mine.

“Darcy,” he whispers, and I smile.

I asked the tree for something different, and I got it.

That old, curved door in the center of my chest blows open, star-flecked magic pouring out. I’ve always thought it was dark as ash, but it’s not. It’s a million shades of purple and blue, swirling together. The night is never truly dark, is it? It’s littered with stars. Comets. Entire universes spinning wild and unchecked.