Something Deadly This Way Comes

Slowly I reached out, fingers closing on air an instant before I touched it. “B-but,” I stammered as I looked at it still in the seraph’s possession. “I found my body. Claimed it.”

The seraph lowered its arm as Ron began to pace, his sword between us. “Do you want to be the dark timekeeper?” the seraph asked.

“Yes!” I exclaimed, looking at my amulet. “But I want to be alive, too!”

The seraph shrugged. “So you changed your mind,” it said, smiling. “We knew you would. It was fated such. Take your amulet. It has been adjusted.”

Not breathing, I reached out, hesitating.

“Take it!” the seraph thundered, and I jumped, grabbing it.

“There once was a girl named Madison,” sang a familiar voice, and my eyes shot to the seraph’s shoulder. It was Grace, and I could see her. I mean, really see her! She was beautiful, glowing with spiderwebs and dew. I couldn’t seem to breathe, and she laughed, almost falling off the seraph’s shoulder.

“Check out the time line,” she suggested, and I closed my eyes, gasping. It was so clear, so precise, and tears pricked at my eyes. I could see everything intertwined, one thing affecting the other, until it was singing a glorious, resonant hum of existence. My dad was worried about me. Shoe was thinking of me, curious after having talked to Tammy. Josh was at home, sending me a worried text message. Wendy wasn’t thinking about me at all— and that was okay. She was living her life . . . joyfully.

“I’m the dark timekeeper,” I whispered, and my eyes flew open to see Grace beaming.

“You always have been,” the seraph said, kneeling as if trying to get closer to my happiness. “But now you have the chance to be a person, too, to live as those you’re trying to save. Even a superhero needs a place to be normal,” it finished with a wry smile.

I sat on the tile and blinked. Far above us, the clouds thickened. It was raining, but the drops were evaporating before reaching the ground. I had my amulet. I had my body. They were going to let me do things my way. “Then you agree?” I said, needing to hear it. “No more scythings?”

Again the seraph laughed, an echo of thunder above following it. “The scythings will continue,” it said, and Ron, standing before his sword with his hands fisted, grunted.

“But you agreed . . .” I started, not caring I was arguing with one of God’s angels.

The seraph shifted, standing up to tower over me. “Your plans are sound. But, Madison, the reapers are a different drawer of spoons.”

My shoulders slumped as Ron harrumphed. “Not so easy, Madison,” he taunted, almost reaching for his sword, but not yet ready to consign his memory of Paul’s intent to the crapper.

“Reapers serve their timekeepers out of respect,” the seraph said, frowning at Ron’s glee. “It is their . . . choice to change or not. The guardian angels are behind this shift as one, but the reapers?”

Depressed, I slumped on Ron’s patio, hating his smile at me. “Then I’ve gained nothing,” I whispered.

The seraph’s touch was almost not there, it was so soft as it tilted my chin up to look me in the eye. Grace was behind it, smiling, and my head hurt at their combined beauty. “You’ve gained everything. You will work with reapers as they come to you seeking answers. And they will come seeking answers. Word of what has happened is echoing between heaven and earth. That you and Paul have worked together has reapers questioning. Both the light and dark. Light and dark, they will come to you, and light and dark, you will send them out together as one to save or damn souls. That’s why we sent Demus to you. He has doubt. Your questions will be his answers.”

My eyebrows rose. They had sent Demus to me because he might listen? “Then the cullings will stop?” I whispered.

But the seraph was shaking its head, smiling benevolently. “I told you, light and dark, you will pair them up, and light and dark, you will send them out. Together the reapers will try to change fate, but if it is determined that the soul will remain steadfast to ruin despite their efforts, a dark reaper will cull their soul, and a light reaper will weep.”

“I don’t understand,” I stammered.

“The cullings will continue,” the seraph insisted. “But it will be the light reaper who deems the soul lost, not the dark.”

My mouth made an O of understanding. The light, who once assigned the guardian angels, would be less likely to write a soul off. A person would have to truly be beyond hope for that to happen. It was enough. This, I decided, I could do.

Seeing my resolve reflected in my eyes, the seraph nodded and drew back. “If a change can be made, then fate will intervene and a life will be lived. I hope this happens. It’s up to you.” The seraph smiled, and I almost burst with happiness. “And your reapers. There is no more using the ancient law, though. It worked this time, but you are not to risk yourself in such a way again. Understand?”

I exhaled, smiling wryly up at it. “This is the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

The seraph arced its wings to touch over its head, an angel’s version of a shrug I’d seen Barnabas do. It extended a hand for me, and feeling renewed, I slipped my hand among the angel’s fingers as we turned to the sun.

A clear light filled me at the touch, thrilling me down to my toes. The desert vanished with a crack of real lightning. I gasped, and then felt myself go misty. The first patters of large, heavy drops of rain hit my face. I was both there to feel it, and gone, half of me feeling the warm plops of rain, and half the emptiness of nothing. And then the warm wetness vanished and I was nowhere.

I panicked, disembodied and unreal. I clutched at my amulet as if it could save me, but I wasn’t sure I even had hands anymore.

A girl once dared walk the line, came Grace’s thought into mine, and I grasped it. Seeking union of soul and divine. Light and dark work together, for now, perhaps forever, but it’s going to take eons of time.

Eons of time, I mused, calming as I realized I was safe. I just wasn’t sure where I was anymore. I felt my body seem to lift, finishing the move that the angel had started in the Arizona desert. I took a breath not knowing if it was real. It made my heart beat and my blood move.

A blinding light pulsed over me, and I cowered, my hand that had been in the seraph’s grip falling to my side. Blinking, I brought my head up to see that I was standing in my room, not Ron’s patio. My reflection stared back at me from my mirror, and Grace darted over everything as if she hadn’t seen it in years. Numb, I stared at myself in that ridiculous black outfit. I looked tired, small, and really dirty.

Heart pounding, I turned, not believing it. I was home. Alive.

I looked down, the hand clenching my amulet falling open.

And I still had my amulet.

“Now what?” I wondered aloud, peering into its depths to see sparkles and rainbows.

Chapter Thirteen

The mall was pleasantly busy, the weekend traffic moving quickly past the displayed photographs, most people not seeing them apart from being something to avoid on the way to a new pair of jeans or an iced mocha. But that was how we lived our lives, most times—unless something smacked us hard enough to realize that life is fleeting—too busy with the details of existence to recognize the things that turn existing into living. No, I wasn’t depressed, just introspective, and as I stood before Nakita’s photograph of a silent hospital at night, I hoped no one noticed the out-of-state plates. She’d taken it at a slant, then went on to blur it to make the lights glow and overtake everything, almost like what I saw in a far-distant flash forward. But still . . . if you looked close . . .

“Did she blur it intentionally?” my dad asked from behind me, and I jumped, almost spilling the milk shake I was slamming down. Josh had gotten it for me before excusing himself to lurk in the nearby food court. He liked my photography, but after five minutes of it, he’d had his fill. Barnabas and Nakita were AWOL, but I figured they were around, avoiding my mother like most people. Yes, my mother. She had shown up unannounced this morning claiming to be here for the mall show, but I think she had been on her way to a California youth detention center