Page 12 of Guarded By the Reaper

“And your father?” Grim prompted, tilting his head slightly as if to catch my every word.

“My father… He was a force of nature. Always had to be doing something, fixing something, building something. He built that boathouse,” I said, gesturing vaguely towards the lake. “From scratch. Said it was his legacy.” My voice caught in my throat. It was strange how easily these memories, so cherished, could morph into weapons, stabbing at my heart, reminding me of everything I’d lost.

“He enjoyed a good project,” Grim murmured. “Most fathers do.”

And then, because the silence that followed was too heavy to bear, I told him about the accident. About the day that had started like any other, with the smell of coffee and Chef Pierre’s famous blueberry pancakes, and ended with the screech of tires on asphalt, the sickening crunch of metal, and a silence so profound it felt like the world itself had stopped breathing.

“It was a rainy night,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “They were driving back from the city. A fundraiser. My mother was on the board of… well, it doesn’t matter. They were on their way home, and…” I trailed off, unable to finish.

Grim didn’t push me. He just sat there and listened to whatever I was able to tell him. He listened to my words, but also to my silence.

“The police said it was instant,” I finally managed. “That they didn’t suffer. But…” I shook my head, the image of the mangled wreckage, of the EMT pulling a white sheet over… I cleared my throat and blinked fast to stop the tears. It had only been a year, and the pain was still fresh and raw.

“But a part of you doesn’t believe them,” Grim finished.

“I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye,” I whispered. The words hung in the air between us, heavy with grief.

He leaned forward, his skeletal hands resting on his knees. “And this house,” he said. “It’s been quiet since then.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and it wasn’t from the cold. It was as if he’d read my mind, had plucked the thought from the tangled mess of my grief and held it up for both of us to see. It was true. Even before the Poppets, even before the deal with Ma-Vasha, Asterhaven had felt different. Empty. Like the heart of the house had been ripped out, leaving behind a gaping wound that refused to close.

“It’s like they’re still here, you know?” I said softly, my gaze sweeping over the living room. “Their presence. It’s everywhere.” I could almost feel them – my parents – a warmth that lingered just beyond the reach of my senses. Their laughter echoing in the halls, the scent of my mother’s perfume in the air, the ghost of my father’s hand resting on my shoulder.

“Their love,” Grim said. “It’s protecting this place, Millie. Protecting you.” He hesitated. “But how long can it last? Can even the strongest love withstand…” He trailed off, leaving the question hanging in the air.

How long? I didn’t know the answer any more than he did. And suddenly, the shadows in the room seemed to deepen, pressing in on me, suffocating me. I took a shaky breath, the scent of lavender and chamomile doing little to calm the rising panic in my chest.

Grim shifted in his armchair. “How long has it been since they passed?”

“A year.”

He nodded. There wasn’t much else to say, so we fell silent, me sipping my tea, him staring at an indefinite point on the carpet.

A soft tapping, like ghostly fingernails drumming on glass, filtered through the quiet murmur of the old grandfather clock in the hall. I tried to ignore it, to focus on the warmth radiating from the cup of tea in my hand. But the tapping persisted,growing louder, more insistent. It was as if those things knew I was trying to block them out, knew they were getting to me.

Grim didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he was just choosing to ignore it. Either way, his silence was both a comfort and a curse. I wished he would say something, anything, to break the tension that seemed to crackle in the air like static electricity. But he just sat there, his skeletal form a study in stillness.

And then, through the tapping, I heard them – their voices. Faint whispers, slithering through the cracks of my consciousness, like snakes coiling around my thoughts.

“We are here, Camellia.”

The whispers were soft, insidious. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the voices away, but they were relentless, echoing in that place between sleep and wakefulness.

“You can’t hide forever. We can see you, feel you, we know what’s in your soul.”

I pressed my lips together, trying to swallow down the fear that threatened to rise up, choking me. I glanced at Grim. He didn’t seem to have noticed. Which meant either their whispers couldn’t penetrate his defenses, or that he was choosing not to acknowledge them. Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. Besides, the Poppets were whispering things I didn’t want to think about. Things that chipped away at the fragile scaffolding of my sanity.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Grim said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in my chest.

I jumped, sloshing tea over the rim of my mug. “It’s nothing,” I said, quickly dabbing at the spill with the sleeve of my nightgown. “Just thinking about the Poppets. Wondering what they want.”

Grim shifted in his armchair, the movement strangely graceful for a creature made of bones. “They want what theirmistress wants. Your soul, Millie. It’s the price you agreed to pay.”

I knew he was right. But some part of me – some ridiculous, hopeful part – clung to the belief that maybe, just maybe, there was another way.

We sat in silence for a while, the grandfather clock in the hall ticking away the seconds like a metronome counting down to an inevitable doom. My eyelids felt heavy, weighed down by exhaustion and a gnawing sense of dread.

I must’ve dozed off because the next thing I knew, I was back in the nightmare from before. The air was thick and cloying – the scent of decaying flowers heavy in my nostrils. I was running, my bare feet slapping against cold stone, my lungs burning with each ragged breath. The Poppets were everywhere, their straw limbs flailing, their button eyes glowing with malice. One of them lunged, its claws raking down my arm, and I screamed.

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