We’d go to the river. We’d have to. And besides, I really did like it there. It was home. First, I just wanted a little more cuddle time with my mate.
I was standing at the river again.
I looked over at Corbin, who was, of course, right next to me. He smiled and grabbed my hand.
“Sorry about that. I think I dozed off,” I admitted.
He stepped over to give me a peck on the lips. “Don’t ever be sorry. You go where you go, and I go with you.”
I smiled, and then I sighed. “I guess we should get it over with.”
Corbin nodded his head against me, and then he was a hellhound standing next to me. We walked across the field to the man who was waiting. The man who had tried to stab the sheriff. He was an awful man. Maybe he hadn’t been bound for hell before he tried stabbing the sheriff, but if he had succeeded…
“You are not welcome on my boat,” I told the man.
He noticed my presence—he’d sort of been staring off into nothing—and he sneered at me. Then he went to lunge for me, but Hellhound Corbin met him halfway, clamping his fiery jaws onto the man’s arm. It was over very quickly, and I breathed deeply, feeling like the air was cleaner now that he was gone.
I still had questions, though. And I thought, perhaps, it was time to finally get answers. Maybe it was time to face my past. I looked down at Corbin, who was lolling his tongue at me and giving a hellhound grin. He was my future, and maybe I needed to deal with my past so we could go on to live that future together with less of a burden.
I sensed a presence, as if I had conjured him, and I turned to see the man in black sitting on the dock. Crow cawed from the sky, coming down to land on Corbin’s back. We all walked over to the dock together, although I noticed Hellhound Corbin baring his teeth a little as we got closer.
The man in black turned, but he only smiled at Corbin’s hostility.
“You chose well, old friend,” he said to me.
I sat down next to him on the dock, our feet dangling down toward the water. I knew it couldn't hurt the man in black, and it couldn’t hurt me, either. It was, after all, my river.
“How do these stories always start? Is it ‘Once upon a time’?” the man asked.
I looked at him, and his name came to me. Luce. The man in black was Luce. At least, that’s what I had called him in another lifetime.
“It wasn’t once upon a time, though, was it? It was before time began,” I said, not sure how I knew that.
Luce nodded, and we both looked out across the water. “Our story does not start at the beginning, though. At the beginning, everyone was satisfied with what they did. Afterlifers were destined to love their jobs, and so it was. You loved your job. You ferried souls to the afterlife. You cherished them, and you took joy in the journey.
“But times changed, and people’s vision of the afterlife is what shapes their experiences. Fewer and fewer people needed or wanted to take the journey. You were being used less and less. You would sit here in your boat by the river, waiting. Always waiting.”
“Always alone,” I said, a tear slipping from my eye. I didn’t remember, not really, but it was a feeling I had. A heaviness of heart.
“Yes. I visited when I could, but I saw that you grew more sad and depressed as the decades passed. Things in the afterlife began to change. That is a long story for another day, but I saw that perhaps there was something I could do to bring joy to a very old friend.”
“You asked me,” I stated, suddenly very sure of that fact.
“Yes. I gave you an option. I offered to give you a new life. I offered to make your existence more than just the river. You didn’t even care to hear the details. You wanted that,” Luce told me.
“How did you do it?” I asked. Maybe old me hadn’t wanted to hear the details, but new me kind of wanted my origin story.
“I thought that I could cross a mortal soul with your soul, thus giving you a life on the mortal plane. I had the perfect soul for it, too—one so very full of light and joy that I knew it would be a perfect match for you.” Luce paused, looking across the water.
He hadn’t just crossed the ferryman and the human, though. “Why the reaper?” I asked.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this part, old friend. To give you a mortal soul meant that you would be able to ferry souls across the river, but your mortal soul would not be able to return. That was the way of things. You needed to have some control over life and death. Some way to move safely between planes.
“There are many reapers in the world. They were… anathema to you. You cherished human souls, providing safe passage to their loved ones on the other side. You were a beginning, and you saw reapers as an ending. But it was all that I could do. You needed a way to have safe passage, and a reaper soul would provide that.
“I found one who was also growing weary, and they were happy to try out a new existence. I combined the three souls, and you were born.” Luce turned and smiled at me. “You were, even as a child, so exuberant and filled with joy. I could see traces of my old friend in you, and your new happiness made everything worth it. I knew you hadn’t embraced your reaper side. It lay sleeping, in a way, and I thought perhaps it always would. But”—Luce shrugged—“we cannot hide parts of ourselves away.”
“I don’t remember anything from before,” I admit.
