A Name For The Reaper

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I died in Mid-Summer, on a night when rain blanketed the village with cool mist. My hair was soaking wet, my chest hurt first from lack of breath and then from the hard metal of a knife. Three coppers were dug from my bosom by a greasy hand. I remember staring at a night sky sprinkled with stars round a sickle moon, really looking at it, for the first time in my life. Ironic, that one of my life's firsts occurred as I lay dying. Killed for 3 coppers, by a thief whose face I quickly forgot.

I forgot everything.

I knew I was buried in Westgate Cemetery. It seemed to be a very long time that I wandered there, so long that I lost my own grave. After that, I lost my name. For days into weeks I lurked amongst the aspen and the oak. I lost myself in spring's bluebells and white mushroom caps. I forgot the smells of food, or softness of silk, or the warmth of fire. I was wrapped eternally in cold. Unheard and unseen, even by the cemetery's few visitors.

I didn't understand why I alone was stuck here. Was it only I, amongst the entire village's dead, to have been forgotten by God?

He came in autumn, when the skies were grey and weeping, and I was in repose amongst the stone angels, comforted by the nearness of bones.

He appeared with the sound of thunder. He was tall, with wild dark hair. He wore a collar like a beast, and a suit like a gentleman. I peered around the mausoleum for a better view of him. His face was not quite right, with slim features and pale lips. He looked around with an undeniable look of disgust, then gave a cluster of mushrooms a furious kick and yelled an obscenity.

I crept across the damp grass, and knelt at the feet of a weeping Virgin. Closer now, I could see what struck me as odd about his face: his deep set eyes were frighteningly black, pupils swelled like an opium-addict's. His eyes came in my direction, and settled . . . on me?

He raised a clawed hand, and I saw strange black marks upon his palm. "Hello, dead girl," he said, with such nonchalance that I started. I looked back, certain that I was mistaken – "Yes, you, the shimmery white thing. You're the only dead girl here, I hope."

I stepped out from behind the statue, noticing as I did that the rain gave off a little steam as it rolled down his face.

"Are you dead too?" I said, my voice feeling insufficient.

"No," he said peevishly, with another frustrated kick at the offending soil. "Though someone wishes me to die of boredom, it would seem, throwing me out." I looked about, expecting to see a carriage or something that he could have been thrown out of.

"All this over a lost horse," he was muttering. "Damn His Infernal Majesty. Damn the Marques. Damn all of them."

I saw sharp little teeth when his lip curled with his curses. Slowly, I said, "Are you . . . an angel?"

For a moment he just stared at me wide-eyed, snapped out of his cursing. Then he laughed – he cackled. The sound made the trees around us creak and I could swear brought a fresh downpour that sizzled across his skin. "Oh," he said, holding his sides. "You're a funny one, aren't you? That's not what you wanted to ask." He grinned, lop-sided, and I caught the dart of his tongue over those sharp teeth.

"I rather hoped to be right," I said, irritated not because he had laughed at me, but because I was caught so off guard by his whole presence. My eyes narrowed. "You're a demon then."

He had neither horns nor tail like the beasts being vanquished by Gabriel in stained-glass church windows, but he bowed dramatically in acquiescence.