Page 47 of The Reluctant Reaper
But it seemed she was getting a respite. She tossed the covers aside and stood, feeling lighter and happier than she had in months. “Wow! I really do think that did the trick. Holy shit, it’s like I got a jumbo shot of penicillin or something. Can I get you two anything before you go? I’ve got a fridge full of iced tea and a freezer full of pudding pops. I know, not great, right? They’re the only things I’ve been able to keep down in forever but I’ll tell you what, kids, I could murder a stack of pancakes right now. You guys want some pancakes? Will DoorDash bring pancakes?”
“Probably, but no thank you.”
“God, I don’t know what I should do first, shower or eat.” She looked down at herself and sniffed. “I don’t actually stink, though. Or is it one of those things where you can’t smell your own bad smells, but everyone else can? You kids would tell me if I stank, right?” As Amara opened her mouth to reply, Bevvie rushed ahead: “I feel sogood, you have no idea. Whyareyou here?”
Again, Amara began to answer just as Bevvie’s brow furrowed and she turned to look at the bed she never left.
“I look so... frail,” she said softly, gazing down at her wasted body, the puffy, waxy face, the sunken eyes. “And a little gross, to be frank.” She bent and sniffed. “And Idostink, apparently.” Then, to Amara, “I know who you are now. I can’t think why I didn’t recognize you earlier.”
“It happens that way sometimes,” she replied.
“I, ah, didn’t know you worked in pairs.”
“She doesn’t. I’m just shadowing her this weekend,” Gray said. “Part of the Death Lite Internship Program.”
“Good God, Gray.”
“So... what now?” Bevvie asked, and reached out as if she wanted to shake hands.
Amara took her hand and held it. “Now is when you find out what comes next, Bevvie.”
She smiled. “I feel great. I forgot what being healthy was like. Though I guess I’mnothealthy.” She spared the corpse one more glance. “It’s weird I’m not scared, isn’t it?”
When neither replied to the rhetorical question, Bevvie squared her narrow shoulders. “Whatever’s next, it’s not a lonely, smelly sickbed with neighbors who slowly forget about you. So I guess we’d better get going.”
“It’s your journey, Bevvie. I’m just here to see you off.”
“I’m gonna meet the Almighty in my nightgown?” Bevvie looked down at herself with a shrug. “Well, He’s probably seen worse. Thank Christ I didn’t die in the bath.”
And then Bevvie Lundergard was giggling beside her sickbed, and her smiling eyes were the brightest things in the room.
ChapterTwenty-Four
The sun was sliding away and the dark was rushing in after they finished their last Reap du jour. Gray broke the silence with, “I’m confused.”
“Warned you.”
“No, you freaked out about it fucking me up. You didn’t say anything about upending the laws of space/time. And possibly physics. And how confusing that would be. To me. Or anyone, I bet.”
They were back at the compound. Gray had coaxed the small garbage can out of Amara’s grasp and they had an early supper of lefse and brown sugar, which they gobbled while standing over the sink.
“Hurry, if my mother catches us, her wrath will be terrible, she’ll have questions I don’t want to answer, and the lefse supply might get cut off.”
“I get that you want to avoid your mom while you process living your literal worst nightmare, but there are about a hundred better spots to eat than over the sink. Especially in this place! And it’s not that I don’t like a dessert for supper, but there are three pies in the fridge: chicken, apple,andchocolate cream. We could be gobbling down pies over the sink like kings of old.”
“Faster, dammit!”
Death was still comatose, and Amara had her suspicions. So she washed the butter and brown sugar off her hands, grabbed Gray, and led him down the kitchen stairs into the main basement.
“This wasn’t on the tour.”
“There are a lot of things that aren’t on the tour.”
“Awww. Thanks for making me feel special.”
Amara hit the lights, then led him to the wooden doors beneath the stairs, unlocked them, and slid them wide like a barn door.
Gray peeked over her shoulder. “It’s a small fake cave! For some reason.”
