White Orchids {BOOK 1 COMPLETED}

Chapter 19

For each soul Clover reaped I haven't said anything. I've stepped aside and observed. The only time I spoke was when one of the souls shattered. It feels like if I speak to them then I'll really be here. It's a way to fight the fact that I am dead. It's something I'll be doing as long as I can. It's also so I don't have to feel responsible for the ones Clover reaped. Maybe it's selfish to put all the blame on Clover, but if he has noticed he hasn't mentioned it. Not that I think he'd care. The point of this is for me to see how everything works and ready myself for reaping on my own. That's when I have no choice. I'll have to speak to them.

Eclipse is not the same. She spoke to the souls from the first one we reaped. She consoled the sad and calmed the angry. In a way she reminds me of Clover. Yet this was no planned out strategy of hers, this was who she truly was. Eventually she's likely to meet one that won't let her take their soul, but the four souls from today's contract have trusted her. Clover had even stepped aside and let her control the reaping while he watched.

I hate to admit it but I'm jealous. I wish it had been that easy to accept everything when I first came here, or that I at least can accept it now. I don't understand how she does it.

I'll have to force away these thoughts earlier than I thought, because I'll have to talk to the souls - reap them - before my apprenticeship is over. "It will go faster," said Clover when he read the next contract out loud. He never read the names. All he needed to say was the cause of death for me to realize how many souls we'd reap. How many I'd have to reap.

We're still at the same place as the last contract. The grass is brown, and the sun lays high upon the sky. If we were alive, it would have been unbearably hot. We cannot feel heat nor cold, at least not the living kind. I haven't forgotten the wraith's hand pushed against my throat and I'm not sure I'll ever forget it.

Clover watches me as he opens the door. He's more worried how I'll handle the death that awaits us, even though Eclipse only was introduced to reaping today. I give him a glare that tells him to hurry up. He lets his eyes linger for just a few more seconds before he and Eclipse walk through the doorway. I prepare myself for what I'll witness, all the souls I'll have to reap and speak with. I take a deep breath and step through the door.

We find ourselves in the middle of the airplane. It has already crashed and is cut in half like it was made of ceramic. We're in the bottom part of the plane, the one that is mostly intact compared to the part that fell down the mountain. Oxygen masks hang down from the ceiling and sunlight enters through the large opening, where cables dangle in the wind like vines.

"Blomst gave you the gate-stone, right?" Clover asks as he looks out over our half of the plane.

I squeeze the stones in my pocket. "Yes."

"You can use the stone to find souls. I imagine they're spread out."

Which means I have to jump between gate to gate to look for the hundreds of souls we - I have to reap.

"Alright."

I squeeze the stones once again. I'm not ready, words I desperately want to say but cannot form. Eclipse watches me with a somber expression, she knows that I don't find this as easy as she does.

She tiptoes down the plane, towards the large opening with the cables. Sobs are heard from the direction she's heading and two small hands stick out behind a seat, hiding a child.

Eclipse crouches down and extends a hand towards the child's soul. I cannot see them behind the seats. Nor do I want to see it. I take out the orange stone, a gate folds itself out in the middle of the plane. While there are similarities between mine and Clover's gate, it still looks different. It has the same orange crystallized veins growing at its surface, and in the middle forms an Orchid. The door is white, it makes me think of the white orchids I gave my father on his funeral.