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“It was years ago,” he began. “I met your mother on a pretty nasty job in Bulgaria. My scythe started glowing red, I teleported to the location, and there I was, in a dingy alley, in the middle of the night, and this woman… this beautiful angel with blond hair and blue eyes was screaming and fighting a gorilla of a man who was trying to subdue her. And I used to be good at my job, you know? But for one second, in that whole commotion, I didn?
??t know whose string of life I was supposed to cut. The blond angel got the upper hand, though. She managed to get her pepper spray from her bag, blinded her aggressor, and when he took a few steps back, she pulled a knife out of her boot and planted it right in his throat. I swung my scythe and released his soul from his body. The blond angel didn’t even see me. But I saw her. And from that day on, I followed her. I couldn’t resist, couldn’t stay away… She was perfect. I found out her name was Katerina.”
“Perfect? She was a prostitute.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “No, she wasn’t. She did odd jobs, worked as a waitress for a while, even took a job as a stripper when things got really tough, but she was never a… sex worker.”
“Hm. In my universe, that’s what she was.”
“Oh.”
“Go on.”
“I was in love. She’d stolen my heart, and I couldn’t hide from her anymore. I needed her to see me, I needed to know if she could ever love me back. So, I removed my Grim Reaper cloak one night, and went to see her at the club where she was dancing. I bought her a drink when she got off the stage, and we talked and talked… It was as if we’d known each other since forever, as if we’d been together before, in another life.”
“Or in all the other parallel dimensions out there.”
He smiled. “I didn’t know anything about parallel dimensions back then. I only knew what I’d learned at the Academy. Heaven, Hell, the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, Goblin Mountain, the Carnelian City… What year are you in?”
“Three. Second semester.”
“You must have visited all by now.”
I laughed bitterly. “I wish. Story for another time. Finish yours.”
“Right. Katia and I became friends. Then lovers. Then we got married. I told her the truth, of course. About who I was, what I was, about my job. She took it fairly well. She got pregnant. With you. We chose the name… She wanted to call you Mila, and I wanted to call you Josephine. We agreed you’d be Mila Josephine Morningstar. Our life was perfect. We were living in Scotland, in an old castle I’d inherited from my family. She loved it so much. While I was away reaping, she redecorated it and gave it a modern vibe. When the day came, I had a doctor, two midwives, and half a dozen assistants brought in. Still, they couldn’t do a thing. They couldn’t stop the bleeding, couldn’t save the baby’s life, couldn’t save her life…” His voice sounded choked, but he pushed through. “I lost my Katia, and I lost my Josephine. I lost my will to live, to reap. I retired and locked my scythe in a closet.”
We were both silent for a long while, sipping our coffee, and processing. He – his pain, and I – what I’d just learned. The puzzle was complicated. So many pieces… I could barely put it together, but I was starting to glimpse the truth.
“Do you still have your scythe?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “I gave it away.”
“You gave it away?! What Grim Reaper gives his scythe away?”
“A Grim Reaper who wants his wife back.”
“Life?”
“No, wife. My wife, Katia. I exchanged my scythe for her.”
I blinked a few times, confused. He probably thought I had something in my eye. How silly of me to think I could solve this puzzle.
“I don’t understand.”
“He showed up two years after I lost them. The Valentine Morningstar from your world. He’d been traveling a lot, dream after dream, jump after jump, trying to find a solution for his… predicament.”
“What predicament?” But I already knew, didn’t I?
“He’d broken his scythe. He didn’t tell me how, and I didn’t ask. We agreed to an exchange. He would bring me his Katia, and I would give him my scythe.”
I felt like I was suffocating. I was still breathing, in and out, but my lungs refused to acknowledge they were getting the air they needed. I felt myself slipping out of the dream, waking up in the real world, and I fought to stay focused. This was not the time to lose my shit.
“He gave you Katia… my mother… from my universe.”
“He said he could do it. He said… she was one of the few dream travelers who could exchange bodies with themselves in other parallel universes. But he warned me that she was not okay, that she’d been locked in a mental institution for years, that she had delusions, thought she had a daughter…”
“Delusions? No! She did have a daughter. Me!”
