Eloise Brightly is walking down the sidewalk on a Wednesday afternoon in July, the concrete sticky with heat, when she quite suddenly stops.
There’s no reason for her to stop. Not only has she not yet reached her destination, but she’s only been walking for a short while, leaving her legs and lungs perfectly capable of continuing for quite a while longer before they call out for a pause.
She bends her head downward and, from a distance, seems to fall asleep, right there in the middle of the sidewalk on Heritage Lane, right next to the oak tree whose roots have slowly been encroaching on the sidewalk for a generation. Her shoulders lift and then fall back down in a heavy sigh. When asked later why she stopped then and there, she hadn’t the foggiest.
Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t change the fact that, while standing on the sidewalk with her chin against her chest, and her shoulders drooping forward, a stolen vehicle originally owned by Hammersmith Security and Armored Car Services turns hastily around the corner of Main and Heritage, tires squealing.
As the truck careens to the left, the driver overcorrects, and powered by the momentum of its own weight and the anxious grip of the driver, the van continues to barrel on two wheels, up over the sidewalk and into the oak tree.
Eloise Brightly is knocked backward by a rogue tree branch. The doors of the van open, and as two figures clad in black jump out, so too do a million’s worth of shiny copper pennies, fleeing their armored car like a hive of bees disturbed by an ignorant child. The avalanche smothers Eloise Brightly, the sound of a thousand copper voices in the wind muffling her startled cry. A second later, she is blinking at the face of a young girl with glasses so large that she resembles a frog.
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Despite the fact that Frankie Hart knew exactly when and how she would die from the age of five, she still finds herself slightly surprised every time she wakes up in Death.
Death is cold and tedious, and if she had had any choice in the matter, she would have preferred to spend a little more time alive.
But, of course, family traditions must be upheld.
A year into her afterlife, she does not think on her death with any type of fondness. She recalls the surprisingly sweet taste of the drink her grandmother made for the occasion; the sugary liquid spread through her bloodstream like fire until she fell down, her lungs shaking with her final breath. The only good thing about the entire day was Beau and what has since been dubbed, in her own head, as the Moment.
The Moment was perfect, but it was fleeting. And so, she entered her afterlife with a broken heart and unshed tears in the corners of her eyes.
It’s an honor to be selected for Reaper, as her Aunt Frank told her then, and, on some level, she agrees. Not everyone can pass Reaper training with such high scores. Not everyone can shed their earthly connections in order to transcend to a higher calling. Not everyone can walk to their death with their head held high.
And yet, she can’t help but question why she had been selected for this role in the first place.
She’s truly quite terrible at it.
She knew her first few clients would be difficult, as she navigated her newly appointed afterlife and job title. But, really, after a year of making this trip, she thought it would be easier by now. Sometimes, she almost wishes scythes weren’t ceremonial.
Her standard uniform, sans scythe, consists of one wool vest (which she never wears), a badge (which she keeps in a smooth leather wallet in the inside pocket of her coat, next to her passport and a kind-of-sort-of-illegal Nokia flip phone purchased from a demon in a Souls Town back alley), and a standard-issue messenger bag linked to a pocket universe created for her own personal use.
The messenger bag holds all of her personal belongings, such as clothing, beret collection, a spare pair of glasses (just in case), a handful of hand-me-down coats, a tattered copy of the Reaper Handbook, and a surprisingly robust collection of grimoires and esoteric texts (also just in case).
In addition, there is a mini-fridge (which is woefully empty ninety percent of the time) and three tubes of lip balm floating around; there should be a fourth, but it appears to be lost.
She lives in a dormitory that she shares with five other Reapers and despite the fact that she is hardly ever alone, either with a client or a roommate, she has never felt lonelier.
Frankie watches the Styx’s impassive black facade ripple with incoming vessels as Eloise Brightly reminds her, not for the first time, that she is not fond of the cold. If you wore the coat I offered you, thinks Frankie, as Eloise runs her hands up and down her arms with an exaggerated shiver.
At first, Frankie was pleased to learn that her client was older. She had a young client last week who was tragic and rather unmanageable. It took her hours to convince the toddler to walk through the door, traveling from Life into Death where she would receive her housing arrangements and welcome packet.
An older client, however, would surely have already begun the process of accepting their death, being all that much closer to it. Right?
It didn’t take long for Frankie to see the error in her assumption. Then again, if everyone handled their death well enough, Frankie would be without a job. One can dream.
Eloise Brightly, thus far, has proven even more unmanageable than the three-year-old, as she staunchly refuses to walk through the doorway, even after an hour of listing the benefits of doing so.
At long last, Eloise Brightly finally agreed to travel by boat, and so, here they are, in Souls Town, awaiting the Stygian Jewel.
The ticket booth attendant calls them forward and Frankie informs her that she is checking in with Mrs. Eloise Brightly of Number Four Breezeway Court, deceased July 13th, 1994.
The attendant, a portly frog-daughter of Heqet named Carla, tells them to report to dock two to board the Danse Macabre. There is some confusion as Frankie attempts to ask what exactly is the Danse Macabre and why aren’t they reporting to dock one for the Stygian Jewel.
The attendant croaks something about pennies and then calls for the next in line.
“It’s your lucky day, Eloise,” Frankie says. “We’ve been upgraded.”
“I’m still dead. How is that lucky?” Eloise replies. “And it’s Mrs. Brightly to you.”
Frankie chokes back a retort and follows Mrs. Brightly through to the departure lounge, wondering when this whole Reaping business will get easier.
As she approaches the building, she experiences a familiar wave of dizziness. Although she faithfully fulfilled the required hours in Death needed to become a Reaper, her training did not dwell on the practical day-to-day procedures of the role. There was a highly prevalent assumption that she would need more experience opening a door directly to Death, and not so much experience taking the long way around, as she thinks of it.
In theory, the Reaping process should be simple. Someone dies, a Reaper shows up, provides them with the brochure and answers their questions. Then, they hold their hand while they walk through an officially sanctioned door, arriving right in the Next Step offices New Arrivals room.
With Frankie, the process seems to stall after the questions and before the door. She never seems to explain things quite the right way. She doesn’t know how to comfort the recently deceased, and she’s even worse at the hand-holding bit. Her familiarity with Souls Town is lacking, too, due to the fact that her training took place mainly in a cold, dusty office room at the Next Step offices. Even a year into the job, she still finds herself overwhelmed by the makeshift city that straddles the threshold between Life and Death.
As a result, Frankie can’t help but think, not for the first time, that Souls Town is…weird.
Not weird in a spooky or intimidating way. It is like nothing she has ever seen in her life, and now, afterlife. The only way to describe the facade of the Souls Town gate is that it is, without a doubt, architecture. Not a particular style of architecture–just architecture.
Ionian columns, massive Neolithic stone blocks, red steel I-beams, and what looks like a palm tree trunk support a Buddhist stupa-cum-Mesoamerican pyramid topped with brightly colored onion domes and a glass Art Deco steeple. Bas reliefs from a thousand different human (and very much non-human) religions and cultures decorate the frontage.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
There is Papa Gede raising a fat tumbler of coffee-dark rum to a bleary-eyed Shiva. A sprightly Mercury rubs the belly of doggy Xolotl while an uncharacteristically jolly Anubis attempts a few playful nips. Winged, stony-faced Azrael stands next to a stoical Izanami while both look upon the whole affair with detached bemusement. Surrounding the deities are a whirling mix of diverse daemons, sprites, satyrs, nymphs, fawns, and fae of every conceivable shape, size, species, gender, and arrangement of limbs and extremities.
And they are all moving.
To say that the storm of imagery is disorienting would be to say that the Big Bang was a pretty decent light show.
There is, however, one image in the fantastical, metaphysical mess that remains still. The robed figure, larger than any other relief by several degrees, stands astride the entrance to the departure lounge.
This figure, Frankie knows, is Charon, the ferryman who carries souls across the River Styx to Death. Or at least, he used to. He hasn’t been seen in centuries.
She wonders briefly what she would say to him if she ever met him. The stern, robed figure her family has followed for centuries, whose decree, filtered down through the generations, meant that one Hart must be sacrificed every third generation? She’d like to think she’d tell him what a jerk he is, but, truthfully, she probably wouldn’t say anything at all.
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Penelope Church is dead—but she’s not going to let that get in the way of her social life. This is why, when the brochure for the new luxury cruise ship, Danse Macabre, fluttered its way into her path, quite literally, she didn’t hesitate to fill out the section in the back and mail in her request for two first-class tickets.
The brochure, printed with the highest quality of purple dragon ink (much classier than hydra ink, which has the tendency to flake off if subjected to any measure of temperature fluctuation), proclaimed the many benefits of the ship over the standard ferries that call Souls Town their destination. However, it wasn’t the gilded decorations, the centaur-leather chairs, or even the deluxe hot troll massages that drew her attention.
It was the proximity to Death’s movers and shakers and the crème de la mort that Penelope craved. She convinced herself that her refusal to take the ferry with the hoi polloi was a practical choice—not a sign that she was a total snob. She needed a job, and the sort of folks that would take the Danse Macabre are also the sort of folks who could help her land one.
Souls-Town-on-the-Styx may not be the high society to which Penelope Church had been accustomed to while still alive, but it is difficult to start building a reputation of one’s own while bereft of a family name in the cold realities of Death. She has the distinct feeling that, after a year, she will finally have the opportunity to get a foothold on the upper echelons of afterlife High Society after all.
She could have some business cards printed and finally begin her career as a personal stylist. So what if her clients may have hoofs or wings or fish tails or any amount of otherwise non-human style requirements?
She has a sketchbook filled with stylish solutions for the discerning dead; she just needs the connections to get started.
And frankly, the quality of the dragon ink bodes well.
She stands on the dock in Souls Town, looking down at the River Styx below, dark as blackberries. It reflects the stars like a mirror, and makes Penelope feel, briefly, that she is suspended in nothingness.
The sounds and smells of Souls-Town-on-the-Styx are never far away, and they quickly bring her back to reality. She is enveloped in controlled chaos, a rambunctious, yet steady mix of voices talking loudly, laughing, or yelling hoarsely, underscored by the gently lapping waves of the river that surrounds them. The air smells like seaweed and sulfur, with hints of fried batter and honey.
Her boyfriend, Beau, stands next to her. She’s glad he agreed to accompany her. The tickets arrived while she was visiting him in Life, and she was already dreading returning to the coldness of Death for the umpteenth time. It’s not that she misses being alive—being dead is really not that different from being alive—but the constant travel can be a burden on their relationship. She knows she should be grateful: not everyone is given a special issuance passport upon their untimely demise and not everyone has a boyfriend that would stay even after their death.
Their relationship has continued, more or less, as it had done so before. There have been some adjustments, naturally. The long distance, for one, means planning has to be meticulous, in order to maximize their time together until she has to travel back to Souls Town and renew her visa. And of course, it is rather bothersome that when she is in Life, he can’t touch her, and no one, besides him, can see her. She relishes their time together, though. The warmth, the sunshine, the bright, vibrant colors.
Sometimes, she thinks about the moment when their paths converged upon the Passport Services office and how touched she had been to see him in the midst of the dreary grayness of Death, his whole countenance filled with warmth and something so beautiful it made her sad. It took her some time to realize that it was life that she saw in him. He is a warm presence against her side, and she is grateful for it.
Despite having a passport of his own, Beau has only visited her once. Penelope tries not to read too much into Beau’s reluctance to visit her. He’s been a bit aimless since he graduated high school, refusing to go to college and spending most of his time working at the coffee shop below his studio apartment.
Not that he needs the money.
The apartment is owned by his family, as is the coffee shop, and his parents are happy to have him living there if it means that he is working, instead of languishing away like his cousin Delia, whose idea of a busy day is spending hours by the pool drinking daiquiris and smoking cigarettes imported at great expense from Italy.
He’s depressed, is all. And maybe still feeling guilty for her death, despite the fact that they established it wasn’t actually his fault.
A bell rings in the distance, prompting a weather-beaten dock worker to call out, “Ferry!” He repeats the word in a couple of different languages, a few that Penelope recognizes but even more that sound otherworldly.
Perhaps this is because surrounding her on the dock are a variety of guests awaiting the arrival of a standard ferry, just as much as they may be waiting for the new luxury cruise liner, the Danse Macabre. A skinny fae with bright silvery wings stands next to a pointy-eared imp. An alligator wearing cowboy boots and a bolo tie converses with a cloven-footed nymph whose long golden curls hide her bare chest.
There are a few humans as well, including a man in a dark suit with neatly cut hair who had been very loud about how many coins he had won at a poker game the night before. “Enough to finally get me passage. It’s only been twenty-bloody-years since I got here. ‘Bout time.”
Penelope wonders who will be boarding with her and Beau. Perhaps the confused vampire in the dark suit who looks quite rich, or the tall elven creature with high cheekbones and eyes that look like silver ponds. They look quite important, she thinks.
Certainly not Frankie Hart, who is currently making her way through to the departure lounge with her elderly client in tow.
The dock worker yells “Ferry!” in one last language (Trollish, because naturally, you can’t expect the eight-foot blue-skinned troll standing behind Penelope to understand English, let alone Spanish or French; as it is, however, Penelope knows that the troll, whose name is Oscar, is fluent in French and German, and is teaching himself Arabic).
The Stygian Jewel docks and a moment later, the cruise ship appears behind it. Much like the port-of-call that it serves, the Danse Macabre is helter-skelter with different cultural approaches to nautical technology.
While it is obviously large and luxurious, neither Penelope nor Beau can quite work out how it actually moves. The boat sports a Polynesian outrigger, sails from a Chinese junk, the profile of an Age-of-Sail brigantine, and what looks like a figurehead from a Fae swan-boat. Penelope hopes Beau doesn’t notice that bit; he abhors swans.
In the middle is a large blocky unit that houses three cabins on each side, with a dining area and observation deck up top.
Beau makes his way to the turnstile and converses with the ticket booth attendant. Penelope waits patiently and looks up at the shiny white mass of the cruise ship, pristine against the darkness of the river.
“You going to stand there all eternity, or do you want to get on the boat?” a voice croaks, bursting the bubble of Penelope’s silent reverie.
Penelope wrenches her gaze away from the ship. Her eyes land on the ticket booth and its occupant. Not so long ago, the sight of a giant, surly frog in horn-rimmed glasses and gaudy naval garb straight out of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta would have somewhat perturbed Penelope.
That was before she died, of course.
Penelope smiles at the amphibian ticket-taker. “Sorry, Carla. I was miles away for a—”
“We take drachmae, solidi, Kai Yuan Tong Bao, PayPal, Venmo—” begins Carla.
“—I know, Carla. I’ve got a passport, remember? We’ve done this several times now.”
“We also take Visa, MasterCard, Diner’s Club, pieces-of-eight, chicken bones, AmEx, gold florins, cowrie shells, dinars…” continues Carla without a lick of recognition for the person with whom she’s had this exact same exchange several times.
“How about Discover?”
“Oh gods no. Who in their right mind takes Discover?” gurgles Carla, annoyed at the very thought.
“Well, I guess this will have to do,” says Penelope, handing the clerk her passport to stamp.
Carla burbles and harrumphs, as she uses a disconcertingly raccoon-like paw to stamp the booklet.
“Next!” croaks Carla, causing Penelope to wince slightly.
Taking back her freshly stamped passport with as polite a “thank you” as she can manage, Penelope makes her way through the turnstile next to Carla’s booth, and toward the door to the departure lounge to await the next leg of her journey.
“Right on time,” she says, checking the faceless clock on the wall.
If pressed, Penelope will admit that Death is…not ideal. But she has made the most of it, even finding comfort in her routine. Routines, her mother told her once, help us cope. A proper lady always has a routine.
Of course, time doesn’t mean anything in Death, so there isn’t technically a natural way to divide the day. Instead, there is more of a vague, universally agreed upon window for starting one’s “waking” hours. Penelope’s “morning” starts with a good bit of stretching and calisthenics. Ectoplasm gets a little unseemly if it’s not properly worked out. After that, despite lacking the need to actually eat, she has a healthy bowl of porridge with a splash of honey from the Trollish lands (trolls are renowned throughout the dimensions for their beekeeping skills).
After breakfast, it’s time for Penelope’s daily ablutions. Then, she has language study (Trollish; she practices with Oscar) followed by a light Caesar salad (she got the recipe from Nero, who’s actually a lot nicer than you’d expect) for lunch, and on and on and on…
Routine, Penelope thinks, is what keeps Death livable.