Page 20 of The Reluctant Reaper
“And he will be, too.”
“Mom.” She’d known her mother was preternaturally strong—as a child she’d assumed every mother could move a loaded china hutch with one hand—but she hadn’t manhandled Amara in years. “I wouldn’t say you’re scaring me, but you’re definitely uneasying me.” That was a word, right? And if not, she’d make it one. Right now.
“It’s just so lovely that you’re here.”
Lovely.Not the adverb she would have chosen.
“It’s just such a—a thrill!”
Another descriptor that didn’t fit.
As her mother hauled her down the hall and into the next wing, Amara had time to take in the walls and note that they had changed exactly nothing in the decade since she moved to Minnesota. More dead mammals and waterfowl, stuffed and mounted, including the lesser scaup drake, Amara’s favorite due to its purple head, and the trumpeter swan, her least fave, because swans were jerks. And hey! Can’t forget the hunted-to-extinction birds (great job, Dad, really) also adorning their walls: the Labrador duck, the great auk, and the Eskimo curlew, which was just dumb. Who killed curlews?
Now the art: The occasional federal duck stamp painting long before there was a federal duck stamp. Some of John James Audubon’s original sketches. Van Gogh’sThe Kingfisher(the one in the museum was a brilliant fake).
And there, just before her father’s door, the sketch of her mother, courtesy of Loki and never intended to be seen by Death, never mind mounted in his house. It was part of the reason her folks decided her dad should go be Death in North America. Amara used to worry the trickster god would come for it, but it had been centuries.
She planted her feet. “Mom. Stopdraggingme.” Home five minutes and she could already hear the teenager whine creep into her tone.
Her mother released her, then grabbed her again, since Hilly hadn’t anticipated immediate obedience. “Sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just... I know it will do him good. Seeing you.” Her mother yanked the bedroom door open and all but shoved Amara inside. “Look who finally showed up!”
Then her mother shut the door. And Amara trudged toward the bed for a long-overdue face-to-face with Death.
ChapterTen
Death was lying in the middle of his beautiful bed, and had been tucked in with no small amount of care, which almost distracted from his ghastly visage. His vivid, bloodred hair was fading to a mottled dark pink. His eyes, normally a match for his hair, were a muddied red. His hand, when he lifted it in greeting, was a bundle of sticks and dry skin.
“How’re you so pretty when you do that to your hair and eyes?” he croaked. “Enough with the dyeing already.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Amara swallowed her shock at his appearance. “And a backhanded compliment right out of the gate? Thanks, Dad.”
“It’s just silly, is all I’m saying. Beyou. Look likeyou.”
“You mean look like you. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with the good people at L’Oreal and Bausch & Lomb.”
Her father let out a wheeze that might have been a chuckle. “Missed you. C’mere.”
“If that’s my social cue to say I missed you, too, you might have a bit of a wait.” She sat on the bed and accepted the (alarmingly) weak semitriangle hug practiced by nonhuggers the world over: elbows out, cheeks not-quite-touching while leaning away from each other. Death smelled like cotton, cough drops, and Vicks. “The kind that taxes even your patience.”
“Smart-ass.”
She grinned. “I am as you made me, Father.”
“Oh, stop it, cripe’s sake.” She laughed as he scoffed, and then he was seized with a dry coughing fit so sudden and sharp it bent him in half and scared her off the bed. She hurried to the en suite bathroom, got him a glass of water, came right back. He waved her away, but after a few more racking coughs...
If he yarks up a lung I am OUT.
...he accepted the glass and drained it in three monster swallows. He cleared his throat, then chased the last few drops. “Thanks. I’ve got a little fridge right over there, y’know.”
“What idiot put it so far out of your reach?” she snapped, even as she knew she wasn’t angry at said idiot. She wasn’t sure who she was angry with. Her father, maybe. Her mother, often. Herself, always. She went to the teeny fridge, opened it, beheld bottles of ice-cold water and fresh-squeezed orange juice. “I think this is the fridge you got me when I left for college.”
“It is,” he croaked. “Had to scrub all the spilled Coke out of it.”
“Oh, please, like you were the one doing any of the scrubbing. And it’s not my fault the thing was permanently set to Arctic.”
Death rolled his eyes. “The ‘not my fault’ mantra.”
“So one or two or ten cans blew up. It was years ago and I regret nothing because it was how I discovered the joy of homemade Coke slushies. Now please hush and drink more. Your voice sounds like a mudslide.”
