Parallel Lines- *RAYOR*

Chapter 4

I was as untouchable as what I had been named after: a star in the night sky.

I go back to check on Nicco and Levy. Blake says that Gabriel returned home a while ago. Mum isn't home yet of course. She never gets home until Nicco and Levy are asleep. I'm the only one awake at 3 AM, unable to sleep before I know she's safe.

I'm a little angry at Death for giving her so much work. But I guess it's how it is once you're older. I hope she gets some rest. I think I'll talk to the Grim Reaper tomorrow. Nicco and Levy don't mind because it's the only way they've known this family. Fatherless. Almost motherless. They never asked what happened to Dad, so I never told them.

I see Nicco sleeping. He moves a lot in his sleep, kicking and punching the pillows. He probably gets an arm workout during the night. I check on Levy in the other room. Levy is still as a stone, but snores peacefully. I smile and leave, closing the door carefully, then check my watch. Midnight. I know it will be some time before Mum comes home.

I took some time on the reaping, then went over to Blake's. We talk. Well, she talks. I let her. She has to let it out somehow. Sometimes it gets to a point where she is spitting out the words because she's so angry. When she has a good day, the talks are short. But on a bad day she ends up silently crying. Blake's crying is usually silent, you couldn't tell except for the tears. She's not a screaming kind of girl but when she's really angry she does scream. But it's not often. Two siblings make me very mellow.

Nicco and Levy came suddenly, out of nowhere really. It had been five months since Dad left. Being a reaper doesn't mean we don't love. It's frowned upon, but we can. More often than not, to keep the population going, there are tablets you take, for certain pregnency. But Mum did fall in love. Well, she thought she did.

I knew Nicco and Levy were mine, were Dad's, because they look nothing like Mum. And people who are born out of the tablets are carbon copies of their mothers. Mum is tired, worn down. Yes, she has similar features. But her hair is light blonde, almost silver, like corn silk, in comparison with Nicco and Levy's dirty blonde. Her green eyes are more blueish, and Nicco and Levy's are hazel-green. She's very tidy, very careful, and noticeably crushed. Levy mirrors her in these aspects but Nicco does not.

Even so, I feel like I'm the black sheep of the family, that I look too much like Dad. I've had to take place for Mum since I turned seven because it was too much for her. She doesn't like looking at me. I'm scared that I'm like him, that I'm not a good person.

Blake tells me I'm not, and she's not the sort of person to lie to make someone else feel better. But I'm her closest friend.

Even so, she doesn't know about Dad. She just thinks I'm a malfunction in the tablets her father created.

A malfunction.

I feel I can only truly be understood, and love, people who understand what it feels like to think you're a mistake for the majority of your life.

Mum never told me about Dad, but she didn't have to.

Blake waited until Gabriel came home- at around nine- and then she and I went out to swim for a bit. I haven't even swum until we went to the Isle of Lacerta. It's nice to disengage from what's buzzing around in the depths of your brain to focus on what you're doing at the moment.

Blake showed off, of course, the flashy moves that she had learnt swimming in the river in the Garden. She told me that she didn't have much time to practice though because she didn't want to risk swallowing the water. Arielle probably would have swum as well if Blake hadn't banned her from it.

Don't drink the water, I remember.

Arielle never understood.

Mum still isn't home after an hour, and I'm getting tired. I yawn and sit at the table, and take out a book at random from a shelf near me. The Reaper's Tale. It's a history book and a deadly boring one as well, about the history of reapers and a few old tales. I've looked at it once, then tossed it to the side before even finishing the first sentence.

But it's a long book, and I need something to do. So I open it up and read.

The Grim Reaper, or La Parca, has been around since the first being died. But, since the population, and therefore the deaths, increased, how did he get the job done?

It was long and dreary, but I was too tired to go up and make the trip to get a book, even though it would take little effort. By three am, Mum isn't home. I go up to sleep, and when I wake up, at seven thirty, she's in her room.

"Mum, when did you get home?" I ask whilst tipping a handful of sugary cereal in my mouth. I don't eat often but when I do it's either to make me feel better or for energy, so it's always sugary.

"Midnight," she says.

"That's late," I say, and her face crumples. I don't say anything else.

Nicco snatches the cereal box from me and tips it into his mouth.

"Woah, go easy on that," I say.

He glares and mumbles something. I can smell the sugar on his breath. He crunches, swallows, and gives me a smile as sweet as the cereal. "Can you buy more?"

"No," I say, neglecting to mention it's because I didn't buy it, I stole it.

Nicco glares and hugs the box to his chest.

"Fine," I say.

Mum leaves for the reaping a quarter of an hour early. I sigh. "Are you okay? About Mum," I ask.

"Yeah. What about her?" says Nicco.

"Sometimes I feel a bit hurt, because she doesn't come back when she says she does," I say, though that's just an excuse. Not really the problem, just a nagging in the back of my mind.

Nicco doesn't understand. He's never had to. "You're Aster. You don't get hurt."

I smiled, knowing it was true. I was as untouchable as what I had been named after: a star in the night sky.