Page 196 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

Maybe he was thinking of me.

“I’m coming, Damien,” I whisper again as I drift into the cradle of deepest sleep.

ㅤ

It feels a lot like coming out of a seizure, weirdly enough.

I always thought that dying would feel more final—more permanent. I thought waking up in whatever afterlife would have felt like waking up from a perfect nap. Acheless and energized and hopeful.

Instead, it’s disorienting and segmented.

Like usual, the sound returns first; echoing and bizarre. There’s the rush of water, loud enough to leave me irritated. The light is too bright, pouring into my eyes that I don’t even realize I’ve opened. My body aches. My head pounds.

This is some bullshit. You’re telling me I still have body aches in the afterlife?

I inhale through my nose as I sit up, squinting in the idyllic light, trying to take in the details around me. Black spots pockmark my vision, but it slowly comes together. Tall grasses that look straight out of a Studio Ghibli movie. Golden sunlight coming through the trees sideways. Right—trees. Willows and oaks and maples. Even the smell of honey greets me.

“Are you awake?” A familiar voice says. It takes a moment to parse where I’ve heard it.

“Uhm—” I blink toward the source of the voice, but the black spots still hinder my ability to see him. “I—think so?”

I focus, trying to force my eyes to see. My vision clears at the same time that the stranger wrings out a bloodied cloth and gently swipes it across—across Damien’s face. Damien’s face is almost clean of the sludge— his caretaker focused his efforts on the other parts of his body first.

“Wh—what are you doing?” I ask him.

“He has to be cleansed of these impurities,” he says. “You both do.”

I look at him again, and with my adjusted vision I’m finally able to absorb what’s happening before me.

It’s a man—or... It might be a man. His face is beautiful in an unearthly way—in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Huge antlers protrude from his brow and form a crown over the middle of his head, velveted in pristine, white fur.

What I’d assumed were clothes are actually more of this velvet, clinging to the musculature of his chest and torso before vanishing into flaxen pants. His cloven feet fold beneath him, elegant.

His golden eyes meet mine. They sparkle like glitter in the setting sun.

“How did you... get out?” I ask him. The Stag God. “He said—”

“I stayed with that wretch consensually. To protect My Lady. His arrogance convinced him otherwise, and I had no interest in correcting him. Not until now,” he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “You humans—always assuming that nature bends its will to you because you tell it to. It simply moves in the same direction as you because it wishes to.”

“C-Can you save him?” I blurt out. The hope of it is far too tempting to deny myself. “Can you bring him back?”

“Such impatience,” he tuts as he finishes cleaning Damien’s face. “I suppose you do have such little lives, though, don’t you? I suppose I would be in a hurry, too, if I only had the single life.”

I sit up a little straighter, still sticky and stinking of the void. I don’t say anything. I don’t really know what there is to say. Yes? I’m impatient? Please save the love of my life?

He sighs and lifts a hand, waving me over to him. “Come here, child.”

I get onto shaky feet and stumble over. He leaves his hand open, offered as a gesture, waiting for me to place mine into it.

When I do, energy floods into me. The sensation is like the current of a river as his magic tightens, mending some tapestry deep inside me. The raw edges of my soul where the Aberrant shredded my power away from me fill in again, and I feel more whole than I ever have before.

He drops his hand and pats the loam next to him.

“Sit,” he says. “A show of good faith, as the bargain I have for you may not be one that you like.”

I obey. What else is there to do when an actual god tells you to sit with him? Once I settle, folding my legs under my knees the same way he’s done, I allow myself to look at Damien. It appears even more like he’s sleeping now. He would hate the clothes the Stag God put him in, and the thought of that makes me chuckle to myself. He’s got him wearing a rough spun linen tunic and some loose, green pants.

It looks bizarre against his spooky tattoos and his piercings. So does the dusty blond of his natural hair color. I’m reminded of just how young he is—only in his twenties.