The Reaping of Norah Bentley (39 page)

“It would have snapped him out of his delusion,” Sam said.

“It wasn’t a delusion!”

“
All
love is a delusion. Human love in particular.”

“Well he wasn’t exactly human, was he?” Past tense. Why was I referring to him in the past tense? “He
isn’t
exactly human,” I corrected, even though it seemed too little, too late.

“He was always more human than reaper,” Sam said flatly. “I had a feeling he was going to be trouble because of that—his attachment to Earth was unusually strong.”

Is
unusually strong, I corrected to myself.

“I think that’s why he never moved completely on in the first place. Most of them just aren’t good enough to get to Heaven yet. But with Eli… I think he was just too in love with living to leave it all behind so readily. Stupid kid.”

I pictured Eli’s face, the easy curve of his smile and his musical laugh; and it made sense. It made sense, that he would have clung to his mortal life. Because he
was
life. How many times had I told him that? That even while his soul struggled to stay on Earth, he was still more alive than anybody I’d ever met.

“I saved him that first time. I pulled him from the in-between myself.” Sam hesitated, and then said, “So no—to answer your earlier question— I suppose you could say it wasn’t my
greatest
wish that he would end up stuck there, in the indefinite state of Purgatory for the rest of eternity. If only because I put a great deal of work into making him a decent reaper.”

“But you did it anyways. You sent him there anyway.”

“We all do things we don’t want to do. We have to.” He rested a hand on his chin, and stared off into space for a long time before adding, “That’s the way the world works, darling.”

“It’s not the end. You could help me save him.” The words sounded even stranger out loud than they did in my head. Had I really just asked Sam for help? This Sam? The same Sam who had chased me down in a dark alley that night, and who’d terrorized me with death omens for the past week?

And was this Sam really
not
laughing out loud at the thought?

No, he wasn’t laughing. But he wasn’t exactly nodding along enthusiastically with the idea, either. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “I had a difficult enough time convincing the council to let me take him from the in-between the first time. A love of life is a dangerous trait for a reaper to have. He would have been better off as a ghost, fragments of his soul haunting those earthly places he loved so much.”

A crazy thought struck me. One I would have kept to myself, if I thought I had time to come up with anything better. “So send him back to Earth. His complete soul, I mean—and let him stay there.”

This time, Sam did laugh. And then he said, “I don’t think so.”

“What? You can’t do it then?”

“It’s not a matter of
can
or
can’t.
” He sounded more like Sam now, with an impatient snarl grabbing on to the end of his sentence.

“Right. Because you brought his soul out of the in-between once—so you can do it again.” I meant for it to sound like a challenge, something I didn’t think his pride would let him ignore. It occurred to me, only after I said it, that poking a rattlesnake with a stick probably would have been safer than pushing him like this.

To my surprise, though, Sam didn’t bite. He just crouched down at the ocean’s edge, and ran his fingers over its surface. He never quite touched it, but it swirled underneath him anyway, looking more like a shimmering, spilled pool of thick black ink than water.

“My part in this is over,” he said. “And so is yours. Go home. Get back to your body before it’s too late.”

I’d been ready to argue, to keep trying to convince him to help me, but those last few words stopped me short.

“…What do you mean, before it’s too late?”

“A soul without a body is one thing,” he said, turning and quickly looking me up and down. “But the physical body can’t last without a soul to give it purpose. Wherever you managed to transcend from, your body’s still there waiting. Not for long, though.”

Luke.

He was the first thing I thought of. I pictured my cold, lifeless body lying in his arms—and the agony I must have been causing him. Him shaking and yelling at me again, but unable to get me to open my eyes this time. After I promised him I’d come back. Him, and everybody else—Rachel and Helen and Dad—and even Mom. I had to see their faces again. I had to talk to them again, to tell them all those things I’d never managed to say.

“I would imagine your body’s getting very tired by now,” Sam said.

I wasn’t ready to give up on Eli. But I wasn’t ready to give up on living, either. My thoughts were crumbling, falling apart under the weight of the inevitable decision and the panic circling me, smothering me.

Sam moved quick, a blur of color that made my decision for me. His hand shot out, two fingers hitting just below my collarbone. I only knew he’d touched me because I was looking straight at the ghostly indention he’d left in what should have been my skin. I wasn’t solid. He hadn’t been lying. Somehow, without realizing it, I’d left my body behind—and so it wasn’t physical pain I felt at Sam’s touch; it was just a feeling, a cold deep enough to penetrate its way into my soul and then my mind, numbing my thoughts.

“Go home,” Sam said again. And then he ripped his fingers across where my heart would have been.

I was falling.

Tumbling

spinning

spiraling

out of control.

There was a sudden, intense weight on my chest. I heard Eli’s voice, and I crashed to a stop.

My soul felt heavier, more solid maybe, but when I lifted my hands in front of my face, the edges of my fingers were still blurred and lacking complete definition. It was hard to tell, because I didn’t have a very clear sense of gravity, but I think I was lying on my back. I could see that grey, cracked ground spreading out on either side of me, and the dark expanse of nothingness directly above. It was a long time before lucid thoughts materialized in my head.

What was I doing here?

I don’t know.

How did I get here?

I don’t know that, either.

What is this place, anyway?

I. Don’t. Know.

Why am I here?

I don’t—

“No.” My own voice startled me as it echoed through the empty air. I did know why I was here, didn’t I? Or I felt it, at least. I couldn’t form the words, or the thoughts to explain
why
, to prove I knew anything. It was just a feeling. Something deep inside me; something that ached terribly, while at the same time filled me with a warmth that made me want to move and try to fight my way upright. There was a reason I’d stopped here. I’d heard a voice.

Eli’s voice.

Coming from where, though? I glanced around, hoping, praying—but there was no sound here; only the pure, empty silence of a fresh snowfall. I didn’t make any noise, either, as I finally managed to get to my feet and try to move. Emphasis on
try
. The pressure from before was still here, only now it was worse, crushing in from every side until my attempt was less like walking and more like treading water. Even if I was moving, it was hard to tell if I was getting anywhere—every step just brought more of the same broken ground, the same empty gray horizon in the distance, never getting any closer.

Maybe there was no point in moving, anyway. Maybe I’d just imagined his voice. Or it had been a memory. He couldn’t have called my name, because he was gone. Gone, gone,
gone.
And I was alone.

I called out his name anyway, over and over, trying to cut through the silence, the emptiness— those things that right then seemed synonymous with defeat. I couldn’t let them win. I had to keep searching, I had to keep shouting, keep moving.

But not for very long.

Because he was suddenly there. Lying on his side, a short distance from me. Not moving. His eyes were closed in the peaceful slumber of death, and instantly reminded me of the only funeral I’d ever been to—my Uncle Edward’s. Open-casket. Pale, waxy cold skin. Body so obviously posed to imitate comfort. So obviously anything but.

My first thought was that he couldn’t really be here. This was a trick. But I couldn’t stop myself from pushing my way over, falling to my knees at his side and reaching for him with trembling hands. I was scared to touch him. He looked so faint, even less solid then me, and I was afraid of what I might feel.

I reached for his arm anyway. My fingers treaded nothing but empty air.

“No.”

I tried again, had the same results.

“No…”

I’d finally made it back to him, and now I couldn’t even hold him. I wanted to be able to gather him in my arms, to pull him against me and somehow get rid of the cold that had stolen the life from his body.

And I wanted to keep thinking this was some kind of cruel prank, even though I knew it wasn’t. Knew it, because through all of the pain, the regret, I felt what was so obviously
him.
It was faint, but the calmness that always lingered around him was there. Even now, in the face of everything, it still soothed me—just like it had the very first day we’d met. I would have given anything to be able to do what he’d done that day, to reach out and touch him and whisper
not yet
. To bring him back with me.

I’d managed to keep him on earth for so long. Why couldn’t I be strong enough to bring him back with me?

I reached out my hand, rested the tips of my fingers within a breath of his. I couldn’t bring myself to try and touch him again, when I knew it would just go right through him. I should have been crying. Nobody would have heard it, but I wanted to cry anyway. But my ghost of a body didn’t have a solid cheek for the tears to fall on, so they just stayed inside, a ball of misery sinking into the pit of my soul.

“Please wake up, please…”

I clenched my hand into a fist and drew it back to my heart. It sunk into me, almost through me, and Sam’s words were suddenly agonizingly close.
The physical body can’t last without a soul to give it purpose.

“I don’t have much time.” My voice was pleading, as if it would make a difference to his deaf ears. How much time did I have? Was it already too late, and now I was stuck here? I reached for Eli’s hand again, but stopped halfway, distracted by the rice-paper transparency of my own.

“Please. You have to come with me.” But the words were empty now, as see-through as my soul’s imitation of skin. I knew he wasn’t coming. I knew he couldn’t hear me.

There was something I needed to say, anyway.

I stretched out next to him, brought my face just inches from his, and I tried to lose myself in another memory. Our memory. That day at his house, when I’d curled up next to him on the bed. I’d been so afraid of losing him then. Too afraid to tell him what seemed like the only thing worth saying now.

“I love you,” I whispered. I would have shouted it, if I’d thought it would make a difference. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

Part of me, I think, had hoped there would be something magical about those words. That if I just said them, meant them so much it hurt, then it would be enough to bring him back. But he didn’t move, and I just had the same feeling as before: too little, too late. I didn’t love him. I’d loved him.

Past tense.

I closed my eyes. My insides reeled, made me feel as though I was careening through the air—even though I knew I was perfectly still. And I wondered if this is what Eli had meant when he’d talked about the pull he had to fight. Had he felt this, this force shoving and tugging from every corner of his soul? I couldn’t imagine struggling against it for as long as he had. I was already so tired.

It was dangerous, clinging to him like this. I knew that. I should have been trying to find my way back before it was too late.

I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes with the exhale.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding small in the vast emptiness around us. “Sorry times infinity. But I have to go. I have to go. I have to—”

He opened his eyes. Slowly blinking them open, as if he’d just been napping the whole time.

I could only stare, not really believing. Afraid that the moment was too fragile, that if I tried to touch it— tried to force it into something tangible— then it might shatter right there in front of me.

Then he said my name. Just my name.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the sound of his voice, savoring it. I could picture his mouth, the movement of his lips as he pronounced every syllable. After everything that had happened— after all the lines between the real and imaginary had been shot to hell over and over these past few weeks—I was afraid to open my eyes now. Afraid that what I’d just seen was imaginary, and when I opened my eyes again, I’d have to face the truth.