The Grim's Daughter

Chapter Sixteen:

Nothing was right anymore, not with Luko around and knowing that Nevaeh knew something. She ran to her room, collected her things and opened the front door to Reaper Manor, with Phantom and Dawn following behind. She was going home- to her real home. 

It was a long travel to her house, miles even across the snowly hills. Dawn panted as she clawed the floor to walk, and Phantom almost the same. 

When she had reached her old home, it looked completely different with it's dusy windows, stone walls and sleeping swallows on the house. The door was on it's last hinge, like something had pushed it open with great force. Some swallows were sleeping in the dirt of the dead rose beds and in the shade of the dying willow tree. 

"We'll have to stay here for a while," said Nevaeh, stroking Dawn's head. 

Dawn crept into the house first, and them Phantom, sniffing around the house. Everything smelt so strange. 

"You'll soon get use to it," said Nevaeh, "It feels very strange after all these months."

Phantom ran into the kitchen. Nevaeh chased after him, giving Dawn time to rest her paws. Phantom sniffed at the bottom of a broken cupboard. "What's happened to this place?" Nevaeh gasped. The plates and cutlery, which had been set out before Death and her left their home, was now shattered on the floor and across the table. The majority of cupboards in the room hung from the wall, they're doors ripped apart. "Who would have done this?"

Dawn scratched deeply into what was left of the cupboard door. "I bet your hungry," said Nevaeh, bending down to see if their was anything inside that was still classed as edible. Nevaeh opened one of the higher cupboards, but something hit her on the head. "Owww..." she cried, rubbing her head until her black her stuck out. 

Nevaeh bent down to pick up a chain hiding under a broken slate. It was a locket in the shape of a heart, with few cracks in the gold. "I knew I'd forgotten something," Nevaeh exclaimed. Nevaeh placed the beautiful locket around her neck after wiping off the dust that stuck.  

"I need to look for something upstairs," she told Phantom, "I'll be down in a minute." Nevaeh ran upstairs into her father's room. 

 The dark wallpaper cracked in most places like her necklace, and the blanket on her father's bed was ripped to shreads. "What's going on?" she gasped. 

The bed was split in half and the large mirror like Luko's. Nevaeh sat on the bed and took out the two pictures she had taken from behind Luko's mirror. One was of a boy, and the second of the same boy, standing beside her father with a smile stretched across his face. Nevaeh stroked the picture, but moved her hand to her ear when she heard shouting. A vision played inside her mind.

Luko stood against the fireplace, stroking a scar on across his eye. 

"I see that scar hasn't healed up yet," said Death, who was sitting on the arm of the sofa. "So, what did you want?"

"A job."

Death raised an eyebrow. "A job? After what I offered?"

"I don't want that job- I'm not a killer," said Luko, stepping away from the burning firewood. 

"And look where that got you!" Death snapped. "Anyway, you come back after all these years and expect me to give you a job? Why couldn't you just ask that gravedigger of yours?"

"Don't bring him into this. You know I do not speak to that traitor anymore."

"At least you have something left in your head," said Death. "If you want a job, it's all yours. We need a new reaper in that house, we only have Dusk left."

Luko frowned. "Just know, this isn't because I want to."

"It's because Beetle is a worthless liar, and now, you have nowhere to go."

Luko's eyes turned dark, before he stormed out of the room. "I feel sympathy for your new Grim Reaper!"

"I'll see you at work tomorrow," laughed Death. "Let's hope you can do one thing right!"

Nevaeh stood up, her hands over her ears as the voices replayed. "Get out my head! Why can I see you?" Was it a memory? Nevaeh remembered the scar shown across his face. "Your the demon from my dream! But I don't even know you!"

She ran downstairs and woke the hell hounds up "We have to go to the cemetary- I need to speak to Beetle!"