Page 58 of The Reluctant Reaper
“He does and it is and he’s here.”
“Why didn’t you lead with that? I’ve been wondering about him since yesterday. Have you seen him? Did he admit to a plot to kill your father?”
“Yes, and no. And he’s a platinum blond now. So calm down.”
“Calm down? The creepy death god who runs around at night dyed his hair and you think that makes him less terrifying? Is he here right now? He is, isn’t he?” Gray shot upright, and the move seemed instantaneous as he wasn’t encumbered by a dozen quilts. “Oh my God, is Chernobog in the bathroom? Is he standing right over us? I can’t see shit, he could be here right now! Why thehelldon’t you have a night-light?”
“Because I outgrew them decades ago?”
“Well, the fact that you’re calm is helping me get back to calm. And lefse would make me more calm. I know you hid some from me, you perfidious bitch.”
She smacked him in the face with a pillow and he obligingly laughed so they could pretend nothing had changed.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Years earlier...
When Amara realized her favorite teacher was going to be dead by dinner, she kicked over the recycling can in the front of the room and set the papers on fire. This provoked several reactions from the audience: the bully she’d stolen the lighter from, the track nitwit who’d never liked her, and the teacher who did.
“Damn. That’s hard-core.”
“Oh Em Gee,whyare you so weird and crazyallthetime?”
“Amara Morrigan!” Mrs. Mickel had tossed her cardigan on the small blaze and was now stamping wool into the embers. “Hallway,now. And Karen, use the latte I know you smuggled to class to put out this mess.”
“It’s not a latte. It’s a flat white.”
“Empty it all and I won’t ding you for detention. As for you, young lady...”
“I know. Detention.” Even better, detention on Mickel’s watch.
“My own fault,” Mickel grumbled, scribbling the dreaded blue slip while Karen dumped out her overpriced coffee du jour. “Saw there weren’t any students in detention today and foolishly made plans.”
“Thatwasfoolish,” Amara observed.
“Just for that,twohours.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
“That was as unlike you as anything I could imagine,” Mrs. Mickel said hours later. There was a run in her pantyhose, her updo was well on the way to being an updon’t, and her glasses magnified her pretty brown eyes so they looked comically huge. She was, as always, an adorable wreck with a fine brain. “What got into you? Is there tension at home?”
“I’m a teenager. Of course there’s tension at home.”
Mickel chuckled. She was young, about a decade older than Amara; she’d gotten her degree just two years ago. “Right. Silly question. And I understand if you don’t want to discuss it, but I’d hate to see ‘firebug’ go into your permanent record.”
“My permanent record is the least of my problems.”And yours.“I just needed to make a fiery statement denouncing tyranny in all forms that would result in Karen having to dump out her drink and then whine about it for an hour afterward.”
“Is this about the cafeteria running out of tater tots again?”
“It only happens tome. Three weeks in a row I had to make do with a lack of tots!”
“Oh, Amara. You’ve got to let Totgate go.”
“Never!” Amara realized she’d jumped to her feet and sat down. “Everybody else is drowning in tots but they run out when it’s my turn? Three times in a row? How does Principal Hecker not see what’s happening?”
“I have some chips, would you like some?”
