Becoming Death (22 page)

“Can you pick up some more milk later? I got some last time,” I asked.

He responded with an unintelligible grunt in my direction.

I frowned, tapping my spoon against the side of the bowl. “I’ve paid the cable bill, so you won’t have to worry about it this month.” My words were met with his continued silence as he tugged open the fridge.

He searched inside before finally picking up a tiny square of cheese and asking, “Can I have this?”

My shoulder raised, shocked by another voice other than my own in the room. “Yeah, of course, go ahead,” I answered, the words tumbling for my mouth.

He was already grating the square by the time I responded.

“Does this mean we’re on speaking terms again?” I asked.

He glared at me and his voice came out cold. “We never weren’t.”

“Really?”

After more silence while he finished his cooking, he joined me at the table with his breakfast. It looked delicious. Any other time I would reach across the table to steal a bite, but I knew better today. Instead I moved back in my chair, adjusting the sleeves of my sweatshirt so it engulfed my hands. Aaron was too close to take any chances.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Are you cold?”

I shoved my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt. “I think I might be coming down with something.”

He reached across to touch my forehead and I scrambled off my chair. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I need to get ready for work.”

Working at Happy Mourners hadn’t been the same since Harrison and Cindy had died. I sat on the uncomfortable wooden benches of the Sea View Funeral Home staring out the window, trying to figure out how this place had gotten its name. Ironically, the view from the window didn’t include any bodies of water, just a crowded parking lot and office buildings.

I watched Barbara dig into her oversized purse and pull out a third butterscotch candy. I swear the woman ate nothing else. She offered the candy to me and I quickly shook my head. I didn’t deserve candy. I focused on the coffin in front of me. Time was running out and I still needed to find a way to keep Aaron out of Death’s clutches.

Derek noticed my lowered shoulders and tapped my knee. “You okay, kid?”

I blinked. “Yeah, I’m okay. My mind is just elsewhere.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve got to figure out how to tell someone a secret, but I’m not allowed to tell them so they need to figure it out themselves,” I explained.

“Madison, if you have a crush on me that’s alright. Most woman do.” He winked.

I quickly shook my head. “No, it’s not you. The secret affects someone else and they are really important to me. I just don’t want them to get hurt,” I said.

“So you have a
Fight Club
situation. You need to talk about
Fight Club
but you can’t because the number one rule is you don’t talk about
Fight Club
.”

I gave him a half-nod. “Yeah… exactly. I need to talk about it but I can’t.”

“How good are they at Pictionary?”

I rolled my eyes and started to giggle.

Derek waggled a finger at me before pointing with his thumb to the front. “No laughing at funerals.”

I sat back in my seat, taking in the corpse of Mr. Martin Peters. I couldn’t let that happen to Aaron. Death was in for a nasty surprise: I was canceling Aaron’s death certificate.

On my way home from the funeral I assembled my arsenal. Every book, film, game or CD that contained any mention of grim reapers—and, of course,
Pictionary
. Even with my best efforts the results were disappointing; I had only a hand full of things on the subject. Grim reapers weren’t scary or realistic—we were jokes in
The Sims, Bill and Ted;
and
Dead Like Me
.

“Hey, want to watch a DVD?” I asked Aaron, carrying through my bag of grim reaper paraphernalia through to the living room where he was playing a racing game.

“Okay, why not? I’m nearly done here.”

I pushed the
Dead Like Me
DVD set at him. “How about this one?”

He saved his game, picked up the box set and let his eyes scan over the other things on the table. “Grim reapers? Are they like the new vampires or something?”

“Yeah, they seem to be really trendy. The movie store had this huge display of glum ra-pur-ers stuff,” I choked out.

“You okay, Mads?” he asked, opening the DVD and placing the first disk in the player.

“Yeah, fine. Grim reapers have just always fascinated me.” Aaron’s use of my nickname made me blush and I parked myself on the safe end of the sofa.

He dropped down next to me onto the sofa, a little too close for comfort. I inched away to the far side, unable to pay any attention to what was happening on the screen when he was in so much danger. I pulled my sleeves over my hands. I was starting to finally make progress—we couldn’t afford a mishap.

Aaron laughed at a joke on the screen and my eyes darted towards him. I was completely lost. The main character seemed to be some sort of temp. She didn’t look like a reaper, but then again neither did I. Where was her black robe from the theme song anyway?

Aaron jumped in his seat as the temp was killed by a toilet seat falling from the sky. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Neither was she.” If she was dead, where was Death, and all the flames and the smoke I had seen? Didn’t she even get a choosing ceremony? No wonder humans didn’t think we were real when this was their source material on the subject.

“Has she been tur-uped?”

“What?” Aaron crinkled his nose at me.

“Never mind.”

He leaned forwards, looking through the pile of grim reaper items on the table. “I had no idea you were such a nerd, but this proves it.” He patted my shoulder.

I shot up, shaking from his touch, and stumbled away. I ran my hand over my sleeve praying there weren’t any holes.

“You okay?” Aaron pointed to my arm.

“Fine, fine, my arm has just been bothering me. I think I pulled something.”

“Do you want a back rub?” He winked at me.

“No, no, I’m fine. It feels much better already,” I said, sitting down in the chair.

His eyes lowered back to the screen. “I think she’s dead now. Too bad, it looks like she won’t be able to tell anyone about her secret identity. That must suck.”

“I willed myself to say “You don’t know the half of it” but it came out as “Ou doh thee of ooo knit.”

I was at my wits’ end when my mother called. I toyed with the idea of ignoring her but the guilt of my voluntary suicide made me pick up the call.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Madison, hello dear. I’ve been going through my files and I’ve noticed you haven’t been sending me the paper work for your victims. Didn’t Clarissa explain the proper process to you?” my mother asked.

“I’ve been sending the forms through the app,” I said.

I could practically hear my mother roll her eyes. “The pregnancy must be affecting Clarissa’s memory. The head of the family needs a hard copy of all forms.”

“Seriously, Mom, do you really need them right now? You know I’m trying to deal with the whole Aaron situation,” I said.

“Well, you know what will happen if you don’t mark Aaron, and I can’t have any outstanding paperwork.” I heard her tut me on the other end of the phone. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

I stayed silent at the other end.

“I’m sorry, but one of us needs to be realistic. Can you please bring over the forms? I have Death breathing down my neck.”

“Literally?”

“No, don’t be silly—only figuratively of course,” my mother said.

“Fine, I’ll come over, but I can’t be away from Aaron too long. I have to keep trying. It’s not hopeless yet.”

“I know better than anyone how you are feeling right now, sweetie. We’ll make the visit quick but I need to see you, just in case.” I could hear the shakiness in my mother’s tone.

“I’ll be right over.”

I made my way up the drive wishing I could turn around and go home, but my mother had a point. If I didn’t find a way to get Aaron to call me a grim reaper, this could be the last time I saw her. I wasn’t really in the mood for filling out paperwork, but I figured Death was unavoidable. At least if my mother had dragged me half way across town, I could hound her for information on what she’d done to try to save my dad. There must be something she regretted not trying.

I knocked on my mother’s blue door and she opened it instantly with a stony expression that finally made her look the part for her occupation.

“Let’s get this over with.” I walked past her, plopping down on her sofa more softly than I had a few weeks back.

“I printed out the forms I sent from the app. Is this good enough or do I need to do them all again by hand?” I said, pushing my forms towards my mother as she sat down next to me.

My mother flipped through the pages. “There are only nine, correct?”

“Yeah, you know I won’t be marking Aaron.”

“No, you’ve made that quite clear. In that case, these seem to be in good order. I’ll hand copy them for you; I know your time is precious.”

I jumped up. “Great, I should really get back.”

“Madison, please sit. I found a few books that may interest you. I know you don’t have time to study them completely so I’ve marked some passages.”

I sat back down and leaned forwards to scan through the titles of the books on the table:
The History of the Grim Reaper, Soul Taking for the Inexperienced
and
The Grim Reaper Survival Guide
.

My mother held my knee. “I’m not happy with your decision but I understand why you’ve made it. I would have done anything to have saved your father, if I’d had a second chance.” Tears formed in the corner of her eyes. “I’m just not prepared to lose you when we’ve just started to be a real family again.”

“Mom, I don’t want to lose you either but I don’t really have a choice,” I said, looking down at the rug where the trunk was hidden.

“Promise me, what ever happens you’ll come to Sunday brunch tomorrow,” she said, holding my chin.

“Of course.” I hugged her, collapsing my weight against her. My eyes drifted to the forms on the table. “Where does this paperwork go anyway?”