She’s gone. Really, truly gone.
And she left me this journal which might be full of warnings that I don’t know if I’m strong enough to heed. Or it might be one final piece of her I can keep. Just an old woman’s final thoughts. I don’t know, but I do know I can’t read it right now. I can’t hear her voice in my head right now.
I tuck the journal into my jacket, zip it closed against my chest. Feel the weight settle there, warm and heavy. Like carrying a piece of her with me.
Later. I’ll read it later. When I’m home. When I’m alone. When I can afford to fall apart without witnesses.
Right now, I need to keep it together. Dolores nods at me from behind the counter as I stand, but says nothing. Just acknowledges my departure with the same tired efficiency she acknowledged my arrival.
I leave more money on the table and walk out into the cool evening air.
Outside, the air is sharp and clean after the grease-heavy atmosphere of the diner. The sun has set completely, and the streetlights are flickering on one by one. I walk to my car, get in, and sit there in the growing dark with my hands on the steering wheel and the journal pressed against my chest.
The journal feels warm through my jacket. Heavy with secrets I’m not ready to read. With words from a grandmother who’s gone but somehow still here, still trying to prepare me, still trying to protect me even from beyond the grave.
I’ll read it. Eventually.
When I’m strong enough to see her fear written out in black and white.
When I’m ready to know what she knew.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I need to go home. Need to sleep. Need to pretend for a few more hours that I’m just a sin eater with a normal life and normal problems, before I walk into the House of Gold and everything changes forever.
I start the engine, pull out of the parking lot. The diner recedes in my rearview mirror, neon sign flickering, windows glowing warm against the dark. So normal. So steady. So much that I wish I were too. Normal, that is.
5
The apartment feels too small when I get back from the diner.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m too aware of everything now, the way the floorboards creak under my boots, the musty smell that no amount of cleaning ever quite eliminates, the water stain on the ceiling that looks like a continent. Not sure which one. All the small details that make up my life, the life I’m about to leave behind for a year. Or seven, who knows if I’ll ever be able to come back here.
Maybe longer, if time moves differently in the houses like I’ve been told.
I drop my keys on the kitchen counter, shrug out of my jacket. The journal is still in the inner pocket, heavy and warm. I pull it out, set it on the counter next to the drawer where I tucked the seven letters this morning.
Evidence. That’s what this is. Evidence of a life that’s about to change irrevocably.
I should read more of the journal. Should study it, absorb every warning Gramms left for me. But every time I think about opening it again, about seeing her handwriting, about reading her fear,
I can’t.
Not yet.
Instead, I do what I always do when I can’t deal with emotions: I clean.
The apartment doesn’t need it. I’m compulsively tidy as a rule, after too many years of living in small spaces, too many times I’ve had to pack up and run. Luna in tow like we were going on an adventure. Everything has a place. Everything is organized. But I clean anyway.
Wipe down the kitchen counter even though it’s already clean. Sweep the floor. Organize the ritual room, checking my supplies: salt, iron filings, candles, herbs. Make sure everything is stocked, labeled, and ready if I get to come home.
Sin eaters don’t exactly advertise. Most of my potential clients find me through word of mouth, through desperate whisper networks of people who know someone who knows someone who can break an angel contract. Without me here, they’ll have to find someone else.
Or live with their chains.
The thought makes me feel guilty, which is stupid. I didn’t choose this. I’m being forced into servitude to pay a debt I never agreed to. My clients will have to manage without me.
But still. The guilt sits heavy in my chest.
