I hadn't expected that the first contract would lead us straight to a river, we're standing right in the middle – on top of the water. It isn't even moving under Clover's shoes, but for me every step feels like I'm about to fall into the cold depth of the river.
I gently touch the stone Blomst gave me. I let it slide through my fingers, imagining how it would feel against my fingertips if I was alive. It's in my skirt pocket until I have to use it, something I don't look forward to.
A body floats downstream, its white-clad torso bopping above the water's surface. It doesn't have the blue glow that Emma had, but neither can I see the soul.
Clover sighs heavily. He bends forward over the body, reaches down and grabs the t-shirt. With a steady and forceful grip he pulls out the very soul of the now life-less shell. It's a man in his thirties with strong Eastern European features. Even though his head has been under water his hair is as dry as gravel on a warm summer day. He looks around with confusion while the solid, dead body floats downstream.
"Where am I?" the man asks in perfect Swedish.
We're in the middle of a broad river and are surrounded by trees on each side. It can be anywhere.
Clover's grip around the t-shirt is strong, in his free hand one of the stone tablets appears.
"Igor Volkov," Clover reads out loud.
He has never read or said my name out loud. I'm jealous that this man gets to hear it one last time from someone else's lips. I can't even utter mine without it sounding awkward and wrong.
The man widens his eyes. "How do you know my name?"
"Because you're dead and I'm here to harvest your soul," Clover says in a calm and composed tone.
"Are you death?"
"I am."
Clover had shown me this side as well. He had been cold and indifferent, now he's even more unpleasant. When he came for my soul it seemed like there was some sort of mercy in him, this Clover in front of me – the one who has an iron grip around the dead man's collar – has no emotions. This was how I'd imagined death. Composed, calm and ruthless.
Igor kicks and hits until Clover's grip loosens, and he falls down into the depth. Clover quickly submerges his whole arm. He pulls the man up again with an iron grip around the hair. Igor is as dry as he was before but Clover's jacket sleeve is soaked. I stare down at the river. If I focus enough, then maybe I can break this invisible barrier.
"I don't want to die!" the man cries.
"You're already dead," says Clover.
The black stone tablet disappear from his free hand, he moves it over to the man's throat and grabs it tightly before he let go of the disheveled hair. He brings forth the stone with its blue gleam and holds it up.
"Go to hell!" Igor yells and spits in Clover's face.
I take a step closer and glance at Clover, he pulls the sleeve over his face to wipe away the spit. He hadn't given me a choice either. Blomst told me the possibility to stay existed, but he pushed that stone into my face and waited for me to give in. It was only when he couldn't take my soul that he told me I could stay.
Clover moves his open hand towards Igor again. The stone vibrates in a way I've never seen and it opens like it had split into two parts. Half of the stone floats upwards and a vortex of blue dust swirls around itself between the two halves. The man narrows his eyes and grinds his teeth.
"Nothing will happen if you don't accept it," Clover says and eases his grip around Igor's throat, "it will close, and I will not take your soul."
The man stops trying to get away from Clover and stares at him.
"Will I live again?"
He already knows the answer but was still able to force himself to ask the question. I can see the little hope in his eyes that's left, even though deep down he knows it's impossible.
"No, you'll become a water specter if you stay here and then you'll never know peace again."
"And if I let you take my soul?"
"You'll be reborn or you'll move on."
I'm surprised that he's so honest, he never was with me.
"Move on?"
"Paradise, heaven, whatever you think eternal happiness is."
Igor moves the mournful and hopeless gaze to the swirling blue dust between the stone halves. It opens wider. Slowly, painfully slowly, the man's shape changes. It starts with his face that shift into light blue gleaming dust, like stars on a night sky. You can see the form of a face – an unbelievable mournful, hopeless face. It continues down his body, eventually there's only the form of a human in a glittery cloud of light blue dust. Clover pulls out his hand out of the body, the face slowly floats in between the stone halves and dances around the rest of the gleaming dust, thereafter the body does the same. When the form of the man is completely gone the stone halves float back together and become one. It falls into Clover's open palm.
It leaves an empty feeling in my chest, but I can't let go of the thought that it looked like some kind of poetic dance.
"Your stone, take it out."
His voice is still cold and detached, like he hasn't yet removed the mask. I still have my fingers around the stone, it feels heavier against my hand. I take it out of my pocket and hold out my open palm. Clover takes my stone between the thumb and the index finger, he lays it next to the it in his other hand. Both opens and a small part of the blue dust is transferred over to mine.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Clover hands me my stone. "A small part of the soul-dust from Igor Volkov."
It now has a weak blue shine to it, I put it back in my pocket and close my hand over it again.
"Are you usually like this when you harvest?"
"No, only for some. You notice quickly what kind of soul wanderers the dead needs. Igor needed to feel fear and anger, otherwise he wouldn't have accepted that we took his soul. He would have felt too safe if I comforted him, when he realized he didn't have much of a choice, he let us take his soul."
"Isn't that manipulation?"
Maybe I don't have a right to judge him on this when I was constantly carrying a mask out of pride when I was alive.
Clover moves his fingers over the stone. "Maybe. But a water specter is worse than most specters, it wouldn't be a nice after life for neither Igor or the people that would run into him. He would have drowned them if he became strong enough. And they always do."
I shiver of the thought that someone – something – underneath the surface is looking to cause the same death itself had gone through. Maybe Clover had done Igor a favor.
"I did the same thing with you," he says after a long time of silence.
"What do you mean?"
My voice doesn't hold, it feels like something is crawling under my skin when he is staring at me like that. I already knew he had played something else when he came for my soul, that part had been obvious. I'm not sure I want to know more.
When Clover finally says something, it feels like we've stood here for an eternity. "You were hurt and miserably alone. You blamed yourself, thought it was your fault that you ended up in a car accident, that you died and left your sister to handle everything herself. If you had listened to her and not argued she would have been more aware of the road and seen the truck coming sooner, or if you had persuaded her to stay. If you had been wearing your seatbelt."
He mentions all of my inner, painful thoughts I have and had that night. My mouth feels bone-dry and my eyes are burning.
"How do you know that?" I try to make my voice sound steady.
"You didn't have to say anything. You're connected to the ones you harvest and feel their emotions and thoughts. When you have reaped for one hundred years you start to understand the souls' torments. I gave you what you needed. I let you mourn your sister and see what you needed to see, and I didn't say a word of what it meant to follow me. Because you would have stayed on that dark country road. And a hurt, lonely and self-pitying road specter was the worst thing you could be, so I played my game."
My chest hurt and my eyes are burning, I open my dry mouth to protest. "I would have said yes if you told me the truth."
"Would you really?" He doesn't believe me. "If you knew that it would mean all this, would you have said yes?"
I can't answer. I'd started to think I would say yes, but I can't be sure anymore.
"Where are we?" I'm able to force out, anything to kill this uncomfortable conversation and mood between us.
Clover looks down the stream. "The river Volga, in Russia."
"Did Igor speak Russian?"
My voice still feels fragile.
"Yes, he did. You hear Swedish because that's your mother tongue. When you speak to me I hear English."
"Are you American?"
"English," he answers.
I should have realized that it was not logical that everyone I met was from Sweden or talked Swedish. Clover had even mentioned Kuwait when spoke about Artemis' breakfast. Which meant that Artemis most likely heard everything spoken in Arabic.
I know that the reason why we're going down this river and having this shallow conversation is to remove this mood between us before we head to the next contract. He was right in everything he said, the thoughts I had on that dark road are still haunting me. I often think about what I could have done to stop it. I remember what Clover had said, that death is always part of destiny, unless it has something to do with suicide. There's no point in worrying about the past because it's written in stone. Yet I can't stop.
We arrive at the next place too early, and we have to wait in what feels like hours. According to Clover it's only been an hour. It's on a narrow asphalt road in the forest, I don't need to ask to know that a car accident will happen.
We're sitting in a ditch and waiting, Clover gives me the second stone tablet with the white writing.
"This time it's four," he says and points a finger at the names.
Mary and David Johnson, it says they are thirty-seven and forty, married. The other two is Heather and Joseph Wilson, they are seventeen and forty-one.
"USA, Kentucky," I read out loud. "Will you hear them in British or American English?"
"As long as I can understand them, I'll hear them in their American accent."
If it was that easy I should be able to hear Clover speak English instead of Swedish, yet I don't.
"How long do we have to sit here?"
"Five more minutes according to the stone tablet. Sometimes the time can change."
"I thought you said that death was always part of destiny?"
"Yes, but the time isn't always right. Death will always happen, but it can shift a few minutes. The only thing that can stop death is a Stormcoin."
He goes silent for a while.
"You know, Orchid," I try to not look gloomy when he mentions my new name, "you ask a lot of questions."
"You did say I could ask as many questions as I wanted ," I remind him.
"Hm, that was yesterday."
Everything is different here compared to the Eleven. The grass is green, and the bark isn't giving off any strange melodies. Here the wind sweeps through the trees and shakes my hair even though I don't have a body. If we weren't waiting for death to sweep by and take four people's lives, I would close my eyes and try and remember how it felt when the wind caressed my cheek. Now it feels like if I close my eyes I'll miss the crash, something I probably would prefer than having to relive it again.
"I understand why you have so many questions," he says.
"Oh?"
"You've stepped into a completely different world. It makes sense to have questions."
"Did you ask a lot of things when you first arrived?" I ask and he smiles like he remembered something.
"It was a hundred and ten years ago, but I remember I asked so many questions that the Raven almost lost his mind."
"Is the Raven a skeleton. Like Wolf?"
It's hard to imagine a skeleton with a raven skull as a head.
"No, he was a soul wanderer like us. One of the oldest."
I don't dare to ask what he meant with that the Raven was a soul wanderer. I pull my knees against my chest. I listen to all of the forest's calm sounds. The sound of the wind against the trees, the birds' chirping, and the insects' song. The Eleven has no such sounds, nothing that makes me feel like I fit in or feel at home.
It doesn't stay calm for very long, the sound of cars fills the forest. Clover stands up and makes a gesture with his head that tells me to get up from the ditch.
It happens so quickly that I barely see it. How they try to break but aren't early enough, how they drive to the side like Emma did but somehow ends up colliding into each other.
There's glass and blood, it's similar to the scene I woke up to after dying. Now it's bright outside and I can see everything with clearer eyes. I try to put up an indifferent wall that makes it so I can handle this without emotions and empathy. It's hard, impossible even, but then I notice it, this feeling of death.
It's not supposed to feel like this. When Clover harvested Igor it was unpleasant, but this is something completely else. A taste of something burnt. The pressure around my eyes are so aggressive that it feels like they're going to fall out. This feels wrong.
"There are four people, if you find one of them you can use the stone," Clover says; he sounds strained.
"Wasn't I just supposed to watch?"
"That was the plan, yes. But a soul has shattered, they do that sometimes in violent and sudden deaths. Besides," he says and his voice breaks. "I thought I saw one of the Fractured. We have to find the souls – quickly. If you run into a Fractured one, don't trust a word it says, they lie for every breath they take."
"What am I supposed to do?" I ask when Clover gets out of the ditch.
Both my eyes and skin are stinging. In some twisted way I prefer this eerie, foul and painful feeling that crawls right into my bones over feeling nothing at all.
"Search," Clover snarls.