“Yes,” she says.
And suddenly it’s obvious in a way that makes my throat tighten. If I truly didn’t care about life, if all I wanted from thebeginning was peace, I wouldn’t have done any of it. I wouldn’t have fought. I wouldn’t have clawed at endings like they were enemies. I wouldn’t have dragged him back. The other me is right. Everything I did, from the start to the end, was because I refused to move on.
But if that’s the case, then what does it mean?
Did Death even create me?
Or did he simply give structure to the chaos already reigning inside me?
“You cannot force someone to become a Grim Reaper, Skye,” the other me says. “Death gave you a deal to codify what you’ve already become.”
“Is this why I felt like me and the wraith are two sides of the same coin?”
“Yes.”
The rest of the answer arrives without her needing to speak it aloud, unfolding in the quiet space behind my thoughts. A reaper is a soul that refuses to move on and channels that attachment into purpose. A wraith is a soul that refuses to move on and loses coherence, consumed by the hunger of unresolved emotion.
The difference is achoice.
“What about the other Grim Reapers? Is this also what they want? They just want to live?” I ask, thinking about Rhea, and Alex, and the others.
“That’s right,” the other me says. “But it’s easy to lose track of this feeling. Injustice and grief can twist it into something else. A soul gets sidetracked on their way.”
I sit with that in the quiet. The scenery in front of us shifts one last time, and now the thing we are sitting on has changed into the end row of the bus.
Minutes pass with both of us just sitting there. I am simmering in everything I’ve just learned, and the other me is waiting.I don’t know what for, until I finally remember the thing she wanted to tell me in the first place.
“What is the source of a Grim Reaper’s power, then?” I ask.
The other me exhales and looks at me. “Do you really not know yet?”
I blink at her.
I think I do, but it feels insane to admit it. It feels too crazy, like I have always been able to move mountains without realizing it.
“It’s the same as the reason you’re still here.”
I look down at my hands.
“You called it grief once,” she says softly, “but grief is only love with nowhere to go.”
The world around us begins to shimmer. The glass walls of the bus ripple like water, and for a second I catch the reflection of my living self, laughing and crying and suffocating all at once. I swallow hard.
The other me smiles again, dimmer now, fading at the edges like smoke.
Then something drops from the ceiling. I can almost see it falling in slow motion, a small, shiny little thing tumbling through the air. I could let it hit the floor. I could catch it.
The choice is mine.
I extend my hand and let it fall into my palm. It lands with a faint, echoing jingle, and the bus engine rumbles back into focus. The shadows collapse. My reflection vanishes. I squeeze the little object once, and power floods back into my veins.
When I wake with my hand pressed over my heart, there is still something in my fingers. A miniature version of my scythe, shiny and white.
I could have let it fall forever, but instead I chose to catch it. With that choice, I found my way back to my powers. I have merged the split in my soul.
I am whole again.
“Skye,” someone says. “We’re here.”
