Call Me Grim (5 page)

There’s no response to my knock, so I try again and press my ear to the door. Nothing. No talking. No TV. No soft snore of someone sleeping. Nada.

Then a thump and a small, feminine gasp. If I wasn’t straining to hear, I would have missed it.

Whether it’s Rosie in there or Aaron or both, the strange sensation in my head is leading me into that room. I turn the knob, nudge the door open with my elbow, and almost scream.

As soon as I see her I know the old woman on the bed is the Rosie I heard in my head. She’s on her back with the blanket bunched at her feet, as if she was thrashing to wake herself from a nightmare. Her short white curls fan the pillow around her head like a halo, but the light I’ve seen on every other person since I met Aaron this afternoon is missing from her. It’s as if someone came along and flipped her light switch off. Her wide blue eyes are fixed on the young man standing beside her, holding her hand.

Aaron Shepherd’s skin is on fire, easily three times more brilliant than Max or anyone I’ve seen today. I can hardly look at him. His head snaps up at the squeak of the door, and his eyes find me.

“You’re late,” he says. “I thought I said to meet me at six.”

He drops Rosie’s hand. It flops to her chest and slowly slides across her body to dangle off the edge of the bed.

Dead. Rosie is dead.

I want to save your life.
Aaron’s words to me this afternoon replay in my memory.
And believe me, Libbi, saving lives is not something I do often.

I stumble back, and my butt pushes the door behind me closed. Now I know why Aaron said he doesn’t often save lives. He’s the opposite of a lifesaver. He’s a murderer.

“Oh,” is all I can say as my hand scrambles for the doorknob. A scream builds in my throat.

“No, Libbi! Don’t leave, and don’t scream. I know this looks bad, but it isn’t what you think it is.” Other than the bruise from the punch I gave him earlier, Aaron’s face is pale. I suddenly wish I’d punched him harder. Added a little more color to those white cheeks of his.

My stupid fingers scramble over the door behind me, but I can’t find the doorknob. Aaron takes a step toward me with one hand raised. I yelp and leap away from him and the door—my only means of escape—like an idiot.

Aaron takes the opportunity my stupidity creates and blocks my exit. He raises both hands to the level of his chest, palms out, like my father used to do when he tried to calm Mom during a balls-out fight.

“Look,” Aaron says, his eyes earnest. “There’s no need to be scared. I’m just doing my job. If you had been here on time, you’d know that.”

“Killing old people is your job?” I say. “What are you? Some freaky, psychic hit man to the elderly or something?” I scoot deeper into the room, moving closer to Rosie’s dead body, but farther away from her killer. My fingers close around a glass of water on Rosie’s table. He may be able to predict my death and psychically lead me around town with a headache, but I know I can hurt him if he’s surprised. The greenish-purple mark on his chin is proof. Maybe Aaron will stumble away from the door if I throw the glass at him. Then I can rush out and sprint down the hallway, yelling for help the whole way.

“What? No! I didn’t kill her,” Aaron says. “She was dying. It was her time. Didn’t you feel it? The headache? The pulling in your head?”

“Yeah, I know about the headache.” I lift the glass off the table behind me and prepare to lob it at his head. “I’m not sure how you did it, but I felt it.”

“I didn’t do it, Libbi, but I’m the reason you had it.” Aaron says this like the pounding explosion between my ears is some precious gift. “I can prove it.”

“Oh yeah? You can prove you’re the reason I had a headache? Well, I’ve pretty much had a headache since I met you.”

“Rosie told me she was ready to go. She called me Bruce. You heard that inside your head, right? How would I know that?”

I don’t know how he knows that, and I don’t care. The guy can do a lot of freaky things; he can probably read minds too.

“Now, I won’t keep you from leaving, if you want, but please don’t interrupt me anymore. It’s getting late and I need to finish this. Let me finish my job. Rosie has somewhere important to be, very soon.”

I glance over at the still form on the bed. Rosie isn’t going anywhere very soon, unless the morgue counts.

Aaron keeps his hands up in front of him as he steps away from the door, true to his word. The sleeve of his shirt brushes my arm as he returns to his place next to the bed, and chills roll over my body. It’s as if the guy has an eerie force field surrounding him.

My fingers release the rim of the glass. I don’t trust him—he totally creeps me out—but I no longer need to throw the glass at him. My escape route is clear.

And my curiosity is up to full throttle.

“Where does she have to be?” I say. “Where are you taking her?”

“Well, that’s a little advanced for you.” He scowls down at Rosie. “I’ll show you that later. But you should really watch this part closely.” His frown drifts back up to me. “I really wish you’d been here earlier. This would make more sense. But there’s no time to explain now, so let’s call this ‘Lesson One.’”

“Lesson one? Are you teaching me something?”

“I’m offering you a job, if you want to learn it.” He looks over his shoulder at me and raises his eyebrows. His blue eyes sparkle in his own unnatural light.

“What? If I want to learn what?”

“How to be a Grim Reaper.”

“A what?”

Aaron opens his mouth, either to repeat what he just said or to say something else that’s completely insane, but he doesn’t get the chance. A quiet knock sounds, and the door creaks open.

“Mrs. Benson?” The tall, gray-haired woman from the front desk glides into the room to find me standing with Aaron, beside Rosie’s dead body.

“Ah, you found her.” She smiles at me. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost. Mrs. Benson changed rooms a few days ago. You took off so fast I couldn’t tell you, but I guess you already knew.”

I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve been caught taking the five-finger discount at the grocery store, except this involves a dead body and not a pack of gum. I’m not even sure what to say, so I just point at Rosie.

The good humor drains from the woman’s eyes when she follows the direction of my finger. She takes three long strides and almost collides with Aaron, but he steps aside right before she would hit him. She doesn’t even blink.

“She can’t see you,” I say.

“No, she can’t.” Aaron shuffles his feet and studies the secretary as she leans over Rosie’s bed.

At the same time, the woman turns to me from the bed and says, “I know she can’t see me, sweetie. I’m sorry, but I think she’s passed away.”

A light touch on my shoulder. Aaron is at my side. He leans in close, and his hair tickles my ear. I think he’s about to kiss my cheek for some reason, and I’m surprised. Not that he would do such a thing, but that I would let him. My heart races in anticipation, but he doesn’t kiss me.

“I’m running out of time, Libbi,” he whispers. “Lesson one will have to wait. Do you want me to explain everything?”

I nod instead of answering. I don’t want the woman to think I’m talking to her again.

“Go home and wait. Meet me at Jumpers’ Bridge at midnight and I’ll explain everything.”

He walks around the secretary to the other side of Rosie’s bed. The woman slowly turns and faces me. Black-mascara tears streak her cheeks.

“You know, I’ve worked here for twenty years, and I can never get used to seeing the residents pass on.” She swipes at the black tracks with the palm of her hand. “Rosie didn’t want to be resuscitated, but I’ll go get the nurse anyway. You can stay here, if you’d like.”

“Okay,” I say.

She touches my arm as she passes.

“I’m really sorry for your loss, honey. But I’m sure she knows you’re going to Harvard now. And I bet she’s very proud of you.”

Warmth flushes my cheeks at the reminder of my little white lie, but she doesn’t see my blush. She’s already scurried out of the room.

Aaron hurries to the bed and grasps both of Rosie’s hands in his. The silver ring on his right thumb blazes with fiery light when his hands touch hers. He leans back as if he’s helping Rosie out of bed, but her body doesn’t move. Her hands remain completely still, as if she’s made of stone, one arm draped across her abdomen and the other dangling off the bed.

He pulls harder. Tendrils of light shoot out of the ring and wrap Rosie’s wrist. The muscles in Aaron’s arms flex, and his overly brilliant aura dims as the light that was missing from Rosie’s skin when I first walked in the door surges. The aura surrounding her dangling arm separates and comes away from her body in a bright and fully formed hand and arm. Young, feminine, glowing fingers curl around Aaron’s hand. The light surrounding the arm draped across her abdomen separates as well, making Rosie appear to have four arms: two wrinkled, dead, and unmoving, and two young, alive, and held firmly in Aaron’s hands.

He steps back and pulls the glowing arms with him, and a young woman sits up out of Rosie’s old body. She looks up at Aaron with shimmery eyes and smiles.

“Bruce,” she sighs.

“It’s time to go, Rosie. Are you ready?”

Young Rosie looks back at the body of the old woman she had become. She gives a small nod then turns back to Aaron and nods again.

“I’m ready. Will it hurt?”

“It shouldn’t.”

Young Rosie considers him and cocks her head to one side.

“You’re not my Bruce, are you?”

“No, I’m not Bruce.”

“Can you show me who you really are?” Rosie shivers and her eyes grow wide. “Or is the real you too frightening?”

The image of a skeleton draped in a black shroud carrying a blood-stained sickle intrudes upon my thoughts. I shiver along with Rosie.

Aaron agrees with a shrug.

A moment later Rosie gasps, but I don’t see anything different. Aaron looks exactly the same to me: tall with dark, black hair and faded-blue eyes. Even the bright light surrounding him stays the same, but Rosie’s eyes brighten, and her lips curl into a smile.

“Oh. Well, you’re not frightening at all.” She giggles. “You’re quite handsome, actually.”

“Thank you.” Aaron meets my gaze for a brief moment, and his cheeks redden. He looks away. “Okay, Rosie, we have to go.”

He helps her step out of her body and leads her around the bed to the closed door. Her eyes lock on mine as she passes me, and she stops.

“I guess you’re not Kate, either.”

“Um, no,” I say. My slick hands tremble.

“Are you joining us?”

I look up at Aaron. There’s a part of me that’s dying for him to say yes, but a larger part of me hopes he says no. I need more time to digest all of this before I scamper off into the moonlight with the Grim Reaper and his newly acquired soul.

“Not this time.” He shakes his head, and I try not to sigh too loudly.

“Well, I guess you don’t have to show me what you really look like then.” Rosie pats my arm with her icy, glowing hand and lets Aaron lead her to the door.

“Tonight. Jumpers’ Bridge. Midnight. You’ll be there?” Aaron asks.

I whisper, “I’ll be there.”

I may not be ready to join him and Rosie on a moonlit trek to wherever the hell they’re going, but I’m sure ready for some answers. And I don’t care if I have to go to the creepiest place in town, in the dark, to get them. This has got to be the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in my life. But it’s also the most exciting. Adrenaline tingles in my fingertips.

Aaron nods and then steps through the closed door without opening it, taking Rosie with him.

“Libbi Piper, where have you been?” Mom stands in the archway separating the living room from the foyer with her fists planted firmly on her hips. Her green eyes burn into me, and I freeze, one hand on the doorknob.

Less than twenty minutes ago, I watched the Grim Reaper collect a soul and take it God knows where (literally). That was scary as hell, but when I see my mother’s face, I momentarily forget it all. She’s livid, and her furious eyes are set on me.

“I thought you were at work,” I say, as if it’s a valid argument that will get me out of this mountain of trouble.

“I was.” Strands of auburn hair fall out of her hairclip and brush her angry-red cheeks. “I came home when Max called me, scared out of his mind, and told me you left him home alone.”

I glance to the top of the stairs. A shock of red hair disappears behind the banister.

Thanks for ratting me out, traitor.

“He was supposed to call me on my cell if he had any trouble. I specifically told him not to call you.” Jeez. I can’t stop digging myself into a deeper and dirtier hole with every word.

“I guess you had a fool-proof plan then, didn’t you? Except your cell phone’s turned off.”

“What?” I rummage through my purse for my phone and flip it open. She’s right. The battery’s dead. “I didn’t know.”

“Obviously. So where were you? Max says you’ve been acting weird today.” Her face shifts from seriously pissed to concerned. “Are you taking drugs?”

“No!” I can’t believe she would think that. What kind of a girl does she think I am? “I went out with a friend.”

“Is that so?” She crosses her arms over her middle. “Which friend? Because you weren’t with the twins. I called the Dennises’ and could hear Kyle and Haley in the background.”

“I have other friends, you know.” It’s not true, and she knows it. Sure, I talk to other kids at school—I’m not a complete dork—but none of them are really friends. Acquaintances, maybe, but not friends. I slip my hands in my pockets. My fingers brush Aaron’s crumpled origami flower, and I get an idea. “Actually, I had a date.”

“A date?” A stray piece of hair blows away from her purple face with the force of her words. “You left your eight-year-old brother alone in this house to go out with some boy on a date? Are you insane?”

“No. It was just a date, and I wasn’t gone that long. Max is fine.”

“I don’t care. You can’t do that, Libbi! What if something happened to him? He’s your responsibility when I’m not here.”