I am just about to slip through the door myself when I all but collide with a chest as hard and real as the world around me—that which I can only peer into, but never touch.
I stumble back with the impact, having not made physical contact with another being other than Vladimir in over seven years.
I am going to hit the ground, but strong hands catch me, steady me, place me back on my feet.
The senior reaper meets my gaze, holds it along with my body for a few heartbeats. His hands are cold, his eyes even colder.
“Cecilia,” he says, speaking the name as though it is a prayer, voice deep and low and threatening. The power of it makes me pause.
“If you go in there, you are going to set off a chain of events. Once that happens, there will be no hope in saving you.”
Fear rolls over me, but I glance around his broad shoulders and catch sight of my niece beyond the glass door. She smiles as she carefully places a book onto a shelf.
I meet the reaper’s eyes. “I don’t need to be saved,” I say as I push past him.
This time, he does not stop me.
5 2:00 p.m.
I perch at the end of the counter, my legs crossed beneath me, chin resting in my hands.
Rosie rings up another customer less than five feet away from me. Neither of them are aware of my presence. I am a ghost even among ghosts.
But my niece’s smile is like sunlight, warming whatever it touches.
“Thank you so much for your help,” says the woman making the purchase. “My daughter loves to read, but I can never seem to pick things she likes. But she absolutely loved the last series you recommended. She didn’t lift her nose from those books for days.”
This makes both of them smile wider. The interaction is so simple, so sweet, so beautiful, especially from the perspective of someone who can no longer interact with other souls, save for to reap them.
“I’m glad I could help,” says Rose. “It’s what I’m here for.”
They wish each other a good day and the woman departs with her book haul. Rose’s smile lingers a bit after she is gone. She loves this job, and what’s not to love?
The bell above the shop chimes again, and the smile on Rose’s face turns into a jubilant grin. She sweeps out from behind the counter, dark hair drifting over her shoulders, big eyes gleaming with love.
Kai Chang has entered the bookstore, and the look on his face matches that of my niece. I sigh at the sight of it, hardly aware of doing so. In moments like these, all the things I’ve done over the last seven years, the choice I made that fateful night, seem so obviously worth it.
They come together as though tugged by an internal gravity. Since they met a year ago, one of my few pleasures has been watching them orbit each other in the same way. They are young and in love. Watching them, I know that I left the living realm too early to have ever truly known the feeling. It is a good thing my existence does not depend upon the ticking of my heart. It would be too broken to beat.
“Good afternoon, my love,” Rose says to Kai.
Kai tugs her closer at the waist, buries his nose in her neck, breathes deeply, then pulls back so that he can look at her. “Good afternoon, my dear,” Kai says.
They kiss. It is sweet and gentle, as innocent as their love.
I watch from my perch. A fuckin’ creeper move if there ever was one, but I cannot help myself. Rose’s happiness is often the only reason I have to go on, the only reason this existence is preferable to being shredded.
I turn from that thought quickly.
Kai lifts my niece’s left hand. The one on which he placed a ring only three weeks ago. It had marked one of the best moments of my life.
Or afterlife.
Whatever.
He kisses her fingers. She runs hers through his jet-black hair.
“I have something to tell you,” Rose says.
Kai tucks a piece of her dark hair behind her ear, listens.
Rose takes his hand and places it over her lower belly. It takes a moment to sink in, but the look that floods his face is both heartbreaking and heart-healing in one shot. The cold place where my own heart rests clenches, aches. I place a hand there, though I’m not entirely aware of doing so.
“Truly?” Kai asks, wonder ringing the words.
Rose grins, full pink lips parting as she tips back her head to better see him, to capture the look in his eyes. She nods.
“We’re going to have a baby, Kai.”
Kai lifts her into his arms, spins her in a circle. He carries her around the book shop, in a world all their own for this fleeting moment, laughing and kissing. Their happiness is enough to alter the colors of the skies.
All the while, I watch the sand slip through the neck of the hourglass hanging over Rose’s head.
I should not be here, but here I am.
The sentiment sounds an awful lot like the one Samael tried to offer.
“If you go in there, you are going to set off a chain of events... Once that happens, there will be no hope in saving you.”
I kill the engine of my motorcycle and dismount. I’ve barely both feet on the ground when Vladimir lights on my shoulder.
“Still on a suicide mission, I see,” says the bird.
“I thought you gave up on me.”
His velvety feathers ruffle, head cocking this way and that, beady eyes staring. “You’re the one who has given up,” he squawks.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I reply, even as I stride toward the building at which I have zero business being. “I haven’t broken any rules.”
Not yet, anyway.
Vlad snaps his beak at my neck, a sensation I can actually feel, as
