Matilda O’Brien has never once seen the merit of a routine. At least, not after she found herself Quite Dead. Life was another story entirely, one with rules and carefully measured morsels of times dedicated to rather specific things. For instance:
6:45 am to 6:47 am: brush teeth.
3:46 pm to 4:02 pm: peruse the latest Reader’s Digest.
5:16 pm to 5:45 pm: Eat dinner—chicken, Brussels sprouts, and one glass of milk.
One can imagine her surprise, when, on a clear summer’s day, Matilda O’Brien was shot straight through the chest with a hunting rifle illegally acquired by the neighbor’s son. After all, it had not been on the day’s schedule.
Perhaps if she hadn’t been quite so focused on following her routine, she wouldn’t have been standing right there, in front of the window, when Billy sneezed at the last second. His rifle, originally aimed on a rabbit by the tree, found a new target at the most inopportune moment.
Death had been an unexpected release from the routines of Life (this point was, in fact, the first on the list of pros and cons she requested from her Reaper when she died), and as soon as she stepped foot in Souls Town, she swore to never stand by a routine again.
Of course, this proves quite difficult, where, in her duties as Second Assistant Courier, she finds herself beholden to ferry schedules and appointment times.
This is why Matilda O’Brien is late.
Again.
Of course, it doesn’t help that clocks are nonexistent in Death, appearing as a solid white circle, despite the maker’s intention. She rushes through the departure lounge, squeezing by the short girl with huge glasses and her elderly companion. She’s not as lucky as she passes by a couple, one tall with glossy black curls, the other just as tall, though only because of her shoes, with long blonde hair. As Matilda collides with the boy—the dark haired one—she drops the package she is carrying for a client and hears a gut-wrenching rattle from inside the wooden confines. The brown wrapping paper rips as it lands.
The boy picks up the package, looking at the exposed corner with a furrowed brow. She nods a thank you as she accepts the package, wondering if the dark-haired young man gleaned too much from that tiny corner. It would be fitting, she thinks, to have her career ended because of a small tear of paper.
She doesn’t have time to properly worry though. She skids to a stop at the front of the Danse Macabre.
“Ticket,” she says to herself, patting her pockets. “Ticket, ticket… Ah, ticket!”
Ticket stamped, she makes her way onto the vessel, balancing her suitcase and the rectangular package, her hand clutching at the corner as she tries fastidiously to keep the tiny flap of torn paper from revealing too much of the box’s contents.
The horn of the Stygian Jewel sounds in the distance, reminding Matilda why she is boarding a cruise ship in the first place. She had been quite distraught when she realized that the ferry had been fully booked and about to leave. It is imperative that she deliver this package on time.
Carla had almost gurgled with amusement at Matilda’s predicament. “There’s a room left on the Danse Macabre,” she suggested with a hiss.
Matilda contemplated the schedule board. Technically, the trip on the cruiseship will take more time; the boat’s course will take them along the Gorgon’s Trail, which circumnavigates a tiny, unnamed island between here and there, and which the standard ferries embarking from Souls Town typically travel through the middle of, making liberal use of a series of lochs built centuries ago. The view around the island, of course, is rather more picturesque, so she supposes it makes sense, in the grand scheme of things.
Yet even accounting for the detour, the Danse Macabre is scheduled to arrive in Death proper only a day later than the Stygian Jewel. If she were to wait for the next economy ticket out of Souls Town, she would be waiting two days, arriving in Death proper three whole days late.
One day seems like a much smaller sacrifice.
Yes, she can make do with just one day late.
She paid for the ticket with her own money, trying not to balk at the price. Though she must admit she is getting her money’s worth. On the Danse Macabre, even the diamonds are gilded. The floors are sparkling, freshly polished wood. The scent of lemon cleaner hangs lightly in the air, and she lets her fingers trail against the smooth gold railing as she makes her way down the walkway to the cabins.
When she finds her room (Cabin Three, starboard), she locks the door behind her and places the package on the bed. She sits next to it and places a hand atop the box.
“Everything will be okay,” she says to the empty room. “We’ll get there on time.”
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The sound of violins, tinny and hectic, crinkles its way out of the speaker affixed to the wall in the corner. Beau sips his drink, the smooth finish of whiskey coating the back of his throat.
Although the whiskey is of the highest quality, he wishes it was a cigarette. Despite the fact that he told Penelope he would quit, he still packed a box, and he reaches into the pocket of his coat—the old army coat that belonged to Frankie’s grandfather, the one he wore when they first ventured into Death and which he has since begun to claim some sort of ownership over—and fingers the corner of the cardboard packet, wondering vaguely if anyone on board has a lighter.
Penelope, of course, doesn’t need a coat. She sits next to him, pale and beautiful in a sleeveless dress that tucks in at her waist and then flows down her legs in a satiny pink fabric. Frankie, on the opposite side of him, doesn’t technically need a coat either, but she wears one anyway, tugging it around herself like armor. To be honest, Beau would be quite sad if Frankie wasn’t wearing her coat. She wouldn’t look like Frankie without it, her round glasses, and her crooked beret.
The dining room of the Danse Macabre reminds Beau of his grandmother’s house. The walls are a dark navy, dotted with golden decorative anchors. The settee in the corner is upholstered in an emerald velvet that looks pretty but uncomfortable, and the wood floors are covered in plush rugs with aquatic motifs. The round rug, in the very center of the room, features a large squid whose tentacles reach out to the edges. On the opposite side of the room is a smaller table covered in green felt for playing cards. Against the back wall is a well-stocked bar, rows of variously shaped bottles glistening in the soft light of the room.
The dining table is placed parallel to the windows that stretch across the far end of the room, showing the dusky river beyond. The glossy wood of the table is inlaid with a winding marble design that Beau assumes replicates the current of the river, or possibly even a snake.
“Thank you all for attending the maiden voyage of the Danse Macabre, sponsored by William Shakespeare in honor of his latest play Othello in Space.” The captain of the ship, an alligator named Jasper, motions toward the stained-glass section of the window that depicts an image from the play. The two figures embroiled in a glowing-sword fight glance away from each other to lightly bow in the direction of their audience before returning to the intense gaze of battle.
“Please, enjoy dinner,” says Jasper, with a sweep of his arm. His drink (a cocktail called Pond Water that is probably delicious but suffers from a very unfortunate color) splashes onto the table. Jasper doesn’t notice as he smiles and holds his glass up in cheers. The guests raise their glasses in turn.
Beau can’t eat or drink anything produced in Death, which is why he packed his own provisions, his duffel bag filled more with protein bars and large flasks of water than clothing. He unwraps his protein bar as the food appears on the table for the more pulse-challenged guests.
The liquor, however, has all been imported from Life and seems to have the same effect on the dead as it does on the living. Pushing the craving for a cigarette to the back of his mind, Beau tries to savor another sip of his drink, tasting notes of smoke, caramel, and cinnamon on the tip of his tongue.
Frankie is sitting on his right, and he recalls, briefly, the last time they were in Death together. After spending more than three hours stuck in a waiting room at the Passport Services office, Beau had very dearly wanted to kiss her.
He has since done that, of course.
And he would very much like to do it again, if he’s honest with himself.
He wonders not for the first time why he’s here at all, let alone with Penelope. He recalls the conversation he had with Frankie at her Death Day party. She told him she was going to be too busy for him. He should have challenged her. He should have pointed out that he could see the fear in her eyes but that it was going to be okay, because whatever death brought, he would be there with her, to help her through it all. He should have broken up with Penelope before he went to the party. He should have…He should have done so many things. Then again, he knows Frankie well enough to know that she would not have taken kindly to such honesty. She might have even said the same thing; he’s fairly certain she has a fear of commitment and intimacy.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Her dismissal of the kiss, no matter how false, still makes his chest hurt. She took the easy way out, but so did he. He went back to Penelope, told he loved her, and swore to himself to never tell her about the kiss with Frankie. He took the coward’s way out, and he comforted himself with the thought that Frankie did the same.
It still doesn’t change his feelings for her. But, honestly, he’s not sure how to end his relationship with one dead girlfriend, if only to start a relationship with an equally dead girlfriend (assuming, of course, that Frankie wants to be in a relationship with him).
His etiquette classes didn’t account for this particular situation.
Really though, as far as dead girlfriends go, the arrangement with Penelope is surprisingly doable. Despite the fact that Frankie has a passport and certain privileges that come from her position as Reaper, her main priority will forever be her job and it’s true that it keeps her busy. Though they speak often on the phone (a brick-like chunk of plastic that Frankie bought him for his birthday; a sticker on the back claims it can reach at least four other dimensions, but they have not had a chance to test that yet), in the year that she’s been working as a Reaper, he has only been able to see her twice. At least with Penelope, she can visit Life and stay a while.
Besides, if he’s being completely honest with himself, he still feels the burn of guilt at the back of his throat when he thinks about Penelope’s death. He knows it was Frankie’s spell that killed Penelope, as far as the paperwork goes. He can’t help but wonder if he did have a part in it, though. Perhaps his mango-tini brought her to Death’s door, allowing Frankie’s spell to give her that last push over the threshold. Penelope had been incredibly allergic to mangoes, after all.
Regardless of who is at fault, Penelope’s death did something he never thought possible: it brought Frankie back into his life.
Frankie Hart—who was his best friend when he was a kid.
Frankie Hart—who was his first kiss.
Frankie Hart—who he is probably, most likely, in love with.
The whiskey has gone to his head, he thinks, and he sits his glass down, his hand returning to his pocket and to his pack of cigarettes.
He glances at Penelope who is sitting on his left. He leans against her slightly, feeling the weight of her shoulder pressed against his. She gives him a distracted smile and a pat on his knee. It had been quite the shock when she first visited him in Life, only to find that she is not-quite-solid. If anything, he might get lucky on this trip, he thinks, but the thought does little to bolster his mood and even less to assuage his guilt over his current predicament.
As the other guests tuck into their dinner, Beau chews his protein bar and looks around thoughtfully. There are only three other guests on board, including Frankie’s client, Mrs. Brightly.
The elderly woman sits beside Frankie, her face wrinkle-lined and shrewd, crystal-blue eyes scanning the table with scrutiny. When Mrs. Brightly’s inspection ends at Beau, he smiles politely and nods his greeting. She scowls at him.
She scowls deeper at Frankie, though.
The recently deceased vampire across from Beau looks wary but still mildly amused by the proceedings as he sips a spoonful of soup. His eyes light up briefly, before flickering shut in lightly concealed appreciation. The cut of the vampire’s suit and the sharpness of his jawline remind Beau of his own father, a stilted sort of elegance that speaks of clipped tones and well-practiced sneers.
The skittish middle-aged woman beside the vampire is the same woman who nearly knocked into him and Penelope earlier. She nervously brushes back a small tendril of hair that’s escaped her braid and takes a delicate bite of her dinner. All of her movements seem fragile and fleeting, like a butterfly hopping from one petal to the next. He’s fairly certain she’s carrying some sort of contraband based on the symbol he saw on the package she dropped; surely, anything with a skull stamped on it is illegal?
There doesn’t seem to be any other staff besides the captain. The food appears on the table, and their drinks are automatically refilled as Beau discovers just now, when he sits his glass down, only to lift it up again and find it filled to the brim. The room is silent, awkwardly so, and the sound of silverware clinking against porcelain begins to annoy Beau.
“So,” he says, breaking the silence, “Why don’t we introduce ourselves? My name is Beau Astor and a fun fact about me is that—”
Penelope clears her throat and gives him a curt shake of her head. “This is not the place for ice breakers,” she says, sotto voce.
“I was just trying to get to know the other guests,” he replies between gritted teeth.
Frankie clears her throat. “My name is Frankie,” she says, addressing the room. Her cheeks are slightly pink, or at least, he assumes they are. To him, they look gray, like a storm cloud, and he smiles gently as she picks up the conversation he started. “I’m a Reaper. My client was upgraded, which is why we’re here. A fun fact about me is that I am a descendant of the Charon Order. Which is why I’m here. Why I’m a Reaper. In the first place.”
“Way to name drop,” mutters Penelope, unkindly.
Mrs. Brightly puts down her fork with a clatter, and pretends to arrange a stray blue-rinsed curl behind her ear. “Well, I guess I’m next…” Her tone is reluctant, but her words flow easily.
Perhaps too easily.
While Mrs. Brightly talks about her childhood in a New York City brownstone (“I don’t remember much, but we lived on Woodruff, right across from the church, on the third floor and our phone number was—”), Beau glances down at Frankie. “Thanks,” he says, bumping his shoulder against hers.
Her cheeks turn darker, a lovely shade of dove gray. “Of course.” She takes a small sip of her drink, the corners of her mouth threatening to turn upward. He understands the feeling, as he attempts to school his expression into something neutral, something other than what it wants to do, which is smile with giddiness.
The conversations flit around them and while Beau catches wisps of the words and the stories held within, he feels, for a moment, as if it is just him and Frankie. They are far away from the Danse Macabre with its cold marble tables and gilded fixtures that look tarnished to his eyes.
He is swept away by her, lost among the waves of the Styx and he is quite happy to be in such a state for an eternity.
“How are you?” He favors her with a smile, pleased when she returns it so easily.
“Oh, you know.” She shrugs lightly, glancing away for a moment. He knows the movement so well; it means she is going to tell him the truth even if she’s embarrassed by it. “A little too dead for my liking but okay otherwise. It was nice of you to begin the introductions. I can’t imagine spending two whole days on this ship with complete strangers.”
“A proper Astor controls the conversation,” he says, affecting a voice that sounds eerily like his father. “Plus, I hate awkward silences.”
The introductions move onward to the vampire. Beau briefly registers that the vampire’s name is Alistair and that he was brutally killed by a vampire hunter, or so he believes (“I think I remember a knife or perhaps a stake. There were symbols on it, I remember that much.”)
Beau leans closer to Frankie. “How’s your latest client handling Death?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
“She keeps complaining about the cold,” replies Frankie, leaning closer so she can keep her voice low. “I gave her a coat, but she refuses to wear it.”
Beau smirks and takes a sip of his drink. “She seems like a handful.”
Although he saw her in the departure lounge, Beau takes a moment to look at Frankie up close. She looks tired, he thinks. Can dead girls be tired? They’re probably more tired than alive ones, he supposes.
“I lived there for some time, too,” says Mrs. Brightly suddenly. She seems startled that she’s shared this tidbit, though Beau thinks it’s a false sense of modesty; she was perfectly able to share information about herself during her introduction. “But I don’t remember you,” she adds.
“The memories of mortals can be a fickle thing,” says Alistair, in what Beau feels is an unnecessarily enigmatic tone.
“Before I died, I had never been outside of England,” says the middle-aged woman. She introduces herself as Matilda. “I had plans to travel when I was younger but something always got in the way. I would have loved to visit New York, especially. It was the forties then, and I’ve heard the loveliest stories from others who were there. Of course, now that I travel all the time in my job as Second Assistant Courier, all I want to do sometimes is stay home.”
“Where is there to travel in Death?” asks Mrs. Brightly, keenly.
“Oh, mostly my travel consists of this—a ferry between Death proper and Souls Town. However, there are a few other realms that branch off of Souls Town, and of course there are the other rivers, which have places all their own. I’ve been lucky enough to see things like the Great Opal Falls of Faerie and the Storm-Keep of Perkunnos.”
“That sounds quite lovely. Are those places as cold as here?” asks Mrs. Brightly.
“The cold fades,” interjects Penelope, knowingly, waving her fork in the air for emphasis. “It takes a bit of time, but you’ll get used to it.”
Beau takes another sip of his drink, only to find it empty. He sits his glass back down on the table with a heavy thud.
“What about the flashbacks to…well, my death?” asks Alistair, sheepishly.
Penelope nods. “Those fade too, though I still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I’m suffocating.” She casts a glance in Frankie’s direction. “But really being dead isn’t all that different from being alive.” Penelope pauses and adds quietly, almost to herself, “Though maybe that means I was doing something wrong. There should be some difference between the two.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that hogwash,” says Captain Jasper with a hiss. “Death and Life are two sides of the same penny.”
Mrs. Brightly winces ever-so-slightly at the mention of pennies.
“Which side is Life and which is Death? Heads or tails?” asks Matilda, with an amused smile and a hiccup of a laugh. Her drink, too, is empty. Her cheeks are a deep charcoal gray.
This begins a rousing debate.
“Well, now I think—” says Mrs. Brightly.
“Oh, I imagine it would be—” begins Penelope.
“I vote for heads for Death, personally—” interjects the captain.
Beau glances at Frankie who is listening to the debate with a detached sort of interest. He’s seen that look on her face before, usually in Chemistry class. He watches as she adjusts her glasses, pressing a knuckle against the corner of the frame to push them further up her nose.
He is startled away from his observations when Penelope’s hand on his thigh brings his attention back to the table. “Sure,” he says, in answer to a question half-heard.
Penelope scowls. “You didn’t hear the question.”
“Sorry. It’s the whiskey. Bit distracted.”
She makes an unconvinced noise in the back of her throat. “Maybe if you weren’t drooling over Frankie, you’d pay more attention to your girlfriend,” she says, her voice low and scathing.
“Maybe the whiskey is getting to you too, Penelope.” He shoves his chair back, the screeching unheard amongst the ongoing debate.
“No, I still think Death is the heads of it all,” Matilda is saying, with a shake of her head.
“I’m inclined to agree with Captain Jasper on this one,” says Alistair.
“Where are you going?” hisses Penelope.
“To find a lighter,” he mumbles.