Death watched me with a bored expression, like, “Yes, and your point is?”
“You forced me to visit you, gave Charlie the ability to sense your presence and watch you work. But Charlie couldn’t really communicate with you.” I shook my head. “Not like I could. Despite that, I hated you. So you kept your distance from me. We rarely spoke and when we did it was in anger.”
Like two sisters, I realized, we were bound together by familial obligation, hanging out because we had to, stuck in a resentful, jealous phase because I had what she wanted and she had the freedom I wanted.
“But you couldn’t make me love you,” I went on, my voice considerably softer now. “You were too proud to try. So you continued to be unhappy.”
Death’s rigid stance grew more lax until she was practically leaning over with the weight of her sadness and fatigue. She watched the birds roosting in their nests, sitting side by side on branches, bathing happily in the fountains. There was such a human longing on her face; for a second, I almost forgot she wasn’t from this world.
“You had exhausted yourself twice already and had come up with disappointing results, so you abandoned your hopes for friendship and family.” I swallowed my pity and forged ahead because I wasn’t too sure about this last part. “Or maybe you just changed your strategy.”
At this she looked up, one eyebrow quirked suspiciously.
“Maybe you started sharing more of yourself, teaching me about your job, to gain my sympathy. Maybe you thought it would change my mind about you. Make us friends.”
She scoffed and looked away. But didn’t contradict me.
“Or maybe you were grooming me.” I licked my chapped lips. “To take your place.”
Death slowly swiveled around to face me, her mouth open. There was shock, then hope, then resignation. “It is impossible.”
“You admitted that you have the power to change the body and soul, but you have no idea what the limits of your abilities are.”
Shaking her head, she backed away from me. “It could kill me, kill us both.”
“But what if it didn’t?” I insisted, stepping toward her. “What if it ended up saving us?”
“You know not what you ask,” she shrieked.
I scrambled back with a curse. The birds leapt away from their resting places and crowded the air, crying out to each other in a frenzy.
Power radiated from this otherworldly creature. It made her dress and hair crackle as if with electricity. It made her skin glow brighter, her eyes sharpen into purple diamonds. Yet she made fists at her sides and spoke through gritted teeth. Such human displays of emotion.
“You would be bound to your duty, dictated by your instincts, imprisoned by your power, accosted and scorned by the selfish, ungrateful souls you collect!” The surge of power weakened as her anger waned. She gulped back tears before whispering, “Only able to watch the world evolve as you stay the same, and separate. Forever.”
Tears dribbled down my face. I rubbed the cuff of my sleeve against my nose before it could start dripping. “But I would have a purpose. I would have a reason for existing, and the power to help the people I love. Those are things I’ve never had before.”
Death threw an incredulous look my way. “You are so naive.”
“Maybe.” I kept talking before she could. “Look, you’re afraid of trying it because you don’t know what’s going to happen. Me? I’m not afraid. Because I know exactly what’s waiting for me on the other side. And I’ve accepted it. You want to know what’s waiting for you if you become human?” I counted them off on my fingers. “Sickness, pain, sorrow, heartbreak, joy, love, friendship, education, travel…The potential to do something good for someone else. The ability to make this world a better place. And yes, eventually death, but you know better than anyone that death comes with permanent, peaceful rest.”
There it was. A wistful longing that was so painfully familiar. I knew she was about to say “yes.” But then suspicion swept in, rearranging the lines of her face.
“You would do this for free, asking nothing in return?”
I mimicked her scoff, one full of superiority. “Of course not. There’s still the matter of the curses.”
“I cannot undo them,” she said flatly.
“I think you can.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Death snarled, stalking toward me. She stopped when we were nose to nose. “Then tell me how. You, who knows all. Enlighten me.”
I shoved her back to give myself some breathing room. The bloody side of the knife left a spot on her dress which slowly faded away until it was gone. Like a drop of food coloring in a tub of water.
“How were you able to curse us?” I asked instead. “You were supposed to take me and Charlie when we were babies, but you didn’t. How?”
“I ignored the silent but pressing command to collect your souls, which was terribly painful,” she said, as if expecting an apology or something. “Instead, I focused on what I desired to do and extended some of my power toward you.”
“Easy enough.” I used the knife to draw a circle in the air at chest level. “Pretend the immortals, along with Charlie, are standing here with us.”
Death laughed as if that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
I raised my voice to be heard over her cackling. “Then take back the power you gave us, call it to yourself as well as the abilities you gave me and Charlie.”
“That will never work. It is far too simple.”
“You’re just saying that because you didn’t think of it first,” I said in true baby sister fashion. I even stuck my tongue out at her.
Death’s hair started crackling again. The look she gave me...I had to focus all of my energy on not whimpering.
“Will you just try it?” My voice came out a pitch or so higher. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms like I couldn’t care
