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She took a breath and pushed through the white noise in the space where the souls were gathered. There, in what she could only describe as ‘at a distance,’ she heard a ringing sound.
“There! I hear it!” she exclaimed excitedly, pleased that she was actually doing this right. “It’s far away, but it’s definitely there.”
She felt a movement on the bed beside her that might have been Death nodding his head.
“That’s this soul’s vessel. The woman you need to ensoul.”
“Oooooh,” she cooed, fascinated.
“You just said the echo is far away,” he said, “but as you can guess, traveling to and from countries across the world to ensoul all the women you need to ensoul every day isn’t feasible if you’re gonna stay sane. That’s why you’re gonna split yourself up and pass through other dimensions to get the job done.”
That was almost enough to make Bunny drop away from both the echo and the soul. She struggled to hold on to both. “Wait, what?” she asked, her voice climbing a few notes higher. “I have to… split myself up?”
“It’ll be fine,” Death assured her. “You’re a human, but you’re also a celestial. Therefore, you have powers that other humans don’t have. One of those is the ability to break down your mortal molecules so you can travel through space and time.”
“Sounds terrifying,” she replied, wishing she had his level of confidence. She paused for a moment, thinking about what could possibly go wrong with rearranging herself on a molecular level. She suddenly wasn’t sure that she wanted to go through with all of this. But did she really have a choice? “How do I do it?”
“I’ll show you that in a bit,” he replied, with a smirk evident in his voice. “Hone in tighter on the echo. But keep a hold of the soul in your pendant.”
Bunny did as she was told, focusing her mind more sharply on the woman while keeping hold of the soul within her pendant. “Okay,” she murmured, taking in the woman’s dark curls and rosy cheeks. “I can see her face!”
“Good,” Death approved. “Now, reach out in your mind and touch her, very gently. Try not to let her feel it.”
Bunny stretched her fingers out carefully towards the woman. She touched the woman’s shoulder and a zing bolted through her, like a shock from static electricity. The jolt reverberated through Bunny until it reached the soul she had been holding on to, and then passed back through her again like a boomerang. The woman felt it too and jumped, but in that instant, her bright white glow turned a pretty blue.
Bunny severed the connection so fast that she came back to the present with a gasp, breathless and excited. She sat upright on the bed, turning to look at Death lying on the bed beside her.
“I did it!” she gasped, completely surprised. “Holy crap, I actually did that!”
Death’s answering smile was mysterious. “Yes. You did. Now do it again.”
She briefly considered flinging back a smartass remark, but they were running short on time as it was. One soul down, only millions to go.
Bunny took a bolstering breath. “Okay, lemme just nab a soul…”
Sometime later, she had managed to zip in and out of time to perform another thirty or so ensoulments. With each trip into the void, she felt more and more capable; each zap bringing her more and more satisfaction as she even learned to fend off the shock that accompanied the action. After she’d dipped in and out in record time, Death nodded to her.
“Now it’s time to learn how to split.”
Bunny turned to look at him, their eyes meeting across the bed.
A serene smile had settled on his face, the most genuinely human expression Bunny had ever seen from him. It threw her for a second, as if her eyes were deceiving her. She smiled back, but it was awkward and stiff. She forced herself to turn away, looking up at the ceiling for a second before she closed her eyes once again.
“I’m ready.”
“Do the same as before—find the soul, and the echo,” he instructed.
She managed both within a matter of seconds.
“Now pause that and find another pairing.”
A flicker of concern passed over Bunny’s face as she passed the current pairing to the back-burner in her mind, moving forward to find another. She collected the soul first, then searched for its echo. Before long, she had those two paired up, too. “And then?”
“Another.”
Whoa. Was he really suggesting that she line up souls like shots on a bar?
With a deep breath of concentration, she did as she was told. But no sooner were they paired up, Death’s voice found her.
