Page 24 of The Reluctant Reaper
“Couldn’t give you a ground-floor room and a ladder, huh? So tell me about your dad. Wait—first, check this out, your mom got me settled and left a platter of—well, it sounded like she saidloofah, but that can’t be right.”
“Lefse with fresh butter and brown sugar,” Amara said, smiling to see the snack setup. “She used to bring it to me when I was studying. Or grounded. Or sulking. So every couple of days, now I think about it. Once it was four times on the same day.”
“Do I even want to know what constitutes a grounding offense inCasa El Death?”
“Your Spanish sucks, and the usual. Lying about giving my lutefisk to the dog. ‘Forgetting’ to get their signatures for the in-school-suspension slips.”
“Slips, plural, huh?”
“And hiding the crown. I was young and dumb and thought Death couldn’t do the job without it.”
Gray raised his eyebrows. “So you thought a world without Death was a plan?”
“Young and dumb.” She shrugged. “Like I said.”
“I know this isn’t helpful right now, but everything you say is fascinating and scary and wonderful and terrible.”
“Warned you. You know you’re ridiculously brave, correct? Because most people would avoid Death’s domicile. Most people would have dropped me like a bag of dirt when they found out what I was.”
“A cute bundle of nonsense wrapped in a bow of bitchery?”
“Stop it.” She plopped down on the chair, then spread butter on a small triangle of lefse, sprinkled it with a staggering amount of brown sugar...
“Oh my God.”
...then rolled it into an eight-inch cigar...
“Ohhhhhh my God, Amara! You’re gonna unhinge your jaw now. I’ve never been more terrified.”
...and gobbled it down in two bites.
“I saw it and don’t believe it. Do me, too, please, but instead of half a pound of sugar, maybe half of an eighth of a cup max. And instead of eight inches, maybe three?”
“Boring.” But she obliged, and smiled to see Gray’s enjoyment.?1
“Your mom says this is made out of potatoes. Super-thin potatoes.”
“Potatoes and butter and cream. Don’t tell me you’ve lived in Minnesota for years and never had lefse.”
“I’ve lived in Minnesota for years and never had lefse. I guess it’s more popular up here by the border. Don’t worry, I’m rectifying even as we speak. How’s your dad?”
“Concerning.”
“... Okay. Is he really dying?”
“He thinks he is. Or he wants me to think he is. Or maybe he is.” She fixed herself another brown sugar / butter / potato cigar. “Coughing up blood—nobody does that for fun.”
“That is true. Nobody coughs up blood for the hilarity factor.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but he wants me to take over the family business.” She masticated, then added, “Which, to be fair, I already knew.”
Gray, who’d just popped the last lefse inch into his mouth, nearly choked. “Yeah. It’s one of the reasons you left... what? A decade ago?”
“One reason, yes.”
“So you’re taking up the scythe? Or the twenty-first-century equivalent?”
“Of course not. I’m going to find out what’s making my dad sick and fix that instead. With luck, by the end of the week, we’ll be back in Minnesota guzzling virgin margs by the pitcher and wishing we had lefse on the side.”
