First Grave on the Right

“No buts!” I had serious issues with the p-s word. We’d never really bonded. I threw my hands over my ears and started humming to myself.

“That’s mature.”

He was right. I stuck out my tongue anyway, then put my hands down. “Listen, even I have more questions than answers. I’m fairly certain my abilities are more closely related to schizophrenia than to anything supernatural. Ask anyone. If I were edible, I’d be a fruitcake.”

“Schizophrenia,” he said doubtfully.

“I hear voices in my head. How much more schizophrenic does it get?”

“But you just said—”

I held up an index finger to stop him. Though a middle one would have been more to the point, I had to explain before I lost the ground I’d just gained. “Look, when people are in the position you’re in now, when they’re almost to the point of believing in what I can do, they pull out all the stops. They quiz me, ask me stupid questions, want to know where the next earthquake will hit or what the winning lottery numbers will be. Seriously, have you ever read the headline ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’? I’m not psychic. I don’t even know if such a thing exists.”

“Tell him what you are,” Elizabeth chimed in excitedly while Garrett flipped through his notepad.

I flashed her a desperate shut-up-or-die look. It didn’t work. Probably because she was already dead.

“Seriously,” she said, “just tell him. He’s starting to believe you now. He’ll think it’s cool.”

“No, he won’t,” I whispered through my teeth, forgetting that I was the only living person in the room who could hear her.

“A person sensitive to things beyond the natural range of perception.” Garrett looked up at me. “The definition of psychic.”

“Oh, well, okay. Maybe,” I said. “But I still hate the word. And its implications.”

“Fair enough,” he said with a shrug. “And I won’t what?”

“Think it’s cool.”

“What? Your abilities?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

Then what? I guess if he really wanted to know, I’d hit him with the whole enchilada dinner. I was on a roll, after all. Why stop now? Not even my dad or Uncle Bob really knew the extent of what I was. I’d never needed to tell them. They believed me, and that was good enough. But since I really didn’t care what Garrett thought of me …

“Fine,” I said with a challenging edge to my voice. “I’ll tell you everything. If I do, will you leave?”

After a pause, he agreed with an almost imperceptible nod.

“I’m a … I’m kind of a … I’m sort of like a … well, damn.” I gritted my teeth and just blurted it out: “I’m a grim reaper. Well, the grim reaper, actually.”

There. I’d said it. I laid it all out on the table, cleared the air, bared my soul, all the while vowing that no cliche be left unturned. But he didn’t flinch. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t shoot out of his chair or stalk out the door. In fact, he didn’t move at all. Not an inch. I wondered if he was still breathing; then it dawned on me. This was his poker face. His gray eyes stayed locked on mine as I waited for his reaction, but he wasn’t going to give me one. I had to admit, his poker face was pretty good. I had no idea what he was thinking.

“I think he believes you,” Elizabeth said as she bent over and looked at him before glancing back at me.

So she would have no choice but to see the doubt in every line of my face, I formed my expression carefully.

“How does that work?” Garrett asked at last.

I refocused my attention on him. “You said you would leave.”

“If,” he countered, “you told me everything.”

Dammit. “Okay, how does it work? Hell, I don’t know. It just does.”

“I mean, what do you do?”

“Oh. I help people cross.”

“Cross?”

“Um, to the other side?” I said, wondering just how clueless he was.

“How?”

Geez, he was persistent. “Excuse me.” I jumped up, scooted the office-furniture version of a love seat forward, then sat back down. The lawyers had eased closer, wanting to hear every word of the story as well. “Can you guys sit down? You’re making me nervous hovering like that.”

“Oh, sure,” they said, and all three squeezed into the seat. I fought back a chuckle.

“How?” Garrett repeated.

Back to the third degree. A long breath slipped through my lips as I considered everything I’d been telling him. This stuff could be used as ammunition against me. It had happened before, by people I’d trusted much more than Garrett. Still, we’d come this far.

“Basically,” I said, exaggerating my reluctance in the tone of my voice, “I try to help them figure out why they didn’t cross. Then I lead them to the light.”

“What light?”

“The light. The only light I know of,” I replied, using the escape and evasion tactics I’d learned from a first lieutenant I dated in college.

“Uh-huh,” he said, not falling for it. “What light?”

I hesitated. Some bits of information were just more sacred than others. Some were reserved for the departed only. It wasn’t like the truth of what I do would help him believe me. More likely, it would send him running for the door. Come to think of it …

“Me,” I said with a hint of self-righteous arrogance lifting my chin. I felt like I was back in middle school, begging the bully to challenge me.

After a thoughtful moment, he asked, “You?”

“Me,” I repeated, with just as much arrogance. Go ahead, Mr. Skeptic, make my day. Challenge me. Prove me wrong. As if. “Apparently, I’m very bright.”

I suddenly realized what I’d done. I’d said too much. I’d let my pride go to the party, and it ended up auditioning for Girls Gone Wild. It was so grounded.

Garrett sat back in his chair and let his gaze travel over every inch of me that he could see before relocking with mine. “So you help them figure out why they didn’t cross.”

No way to weasel out of the damned conversation now. No wonder pride was one of the seven deadlies. “Yes,” I answered.

“And then you lead them to the light.”

“Yes.”

“Which is you.”

“Yes.”

“So when we cross,” Sussman said, “it’ll be through you?”

I glanced at him. I figured he was creeped out by the concept — one that could be considered sacrilegious on a thousand different planets — but he seemed fascinated. “Yes, you’ll cross through me. Grim reaper,” I said by way of explanation.

“Wow,” Barber said. “That’s about the coolest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“You’re a portal,” Garrett said.

I shrugged. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

An intrigued smile spread across his face as he studied me, making my nerve endings prickly with suspicion.

“He is so into you,” Elizabeth said.

I ignored her and glanced at my watch. “Gosh, look at the time.” Where the heck was Uncle Bob?

“So the spirits that don’t cross are just hanging out on earth, walking through us without a care in the world?” Garrett asked, not ready to give up his quest.

I sighed. This could go on for days.

“No. They exist in the same time and space but on a different plane. Like a double-exposed picture. I’m just