Grim Business

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

“This has to be a mistake,” Phoebe said, trying to hand the paper back to Hel.

The elder woman gave her a sympathetic half-smile, but her eyes were hard as stone. “I am sorry, Phoebe, but the list is irrefutable. It’s created by magic that even I don’t understand, orders directly from above. Your friend has to die tonight.”

“She’s not my friend,” Phoebe said as she stared at the name again. Despite that, it felt unfair. Alaina was just seventeen, no older than Phoebe herself. “But it’s still wrong.”

“If it were wrong, it wouldn’t be asked of you. Death is a part of the natural order of the universe. Messing with the plans of the cosmos has dire consequences, and I implore you to do exactly as ordered. This isn’t like school, where missing one assignment will result in a small hit on your grade. Missing one assignment could destroy the very fabric of our society.”

“Then your society is wrong! This is all messed up!” Phoebe said, throwing the paper on the ground, but no sooner had it touched the dirt than it vanished and reappeared in Phoebe’s pocket. She took it out and stared at it, then ripped it to pieces; once more, it returned to her pocket, whole and unblemished.

“You can’t ignore it, Phoebe.”

This was so unfair; just that afternoon, Phoebe’s life had finally started to make sense again. Field Training was meant to be difficult, but never had she imagined that it would be like this. She had no choice; complete the list, or suffer the consequences. Whatever those might be.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Phoebe said. Bitterness built up inside of her, mostly directed at Hel for giving her this list. Had she known that Alaina would be on it? Did she care? Did any of these Grims care?  They treated spirits like trophies, work to be showed off and displayed for their own glory. How had her father, and in turn, herself, become involved in this disgusting game?

The first name on the list belonged to a 74-year old man in his sleep. It had been easy, simply using her scythe to cut the thinning string of life above the man’s head. She had read in her books about the Fates and how each soul had a thread that depicted their life. But when the population grew too big for them, they started hiring others, the Main Families, to start cutting the shreds for them. Nobody had seen the Fates since then, lending credence to the theory that gods, goddesses and such did exist, at least at some point, but had basically retired.

The man’s soul departed easily, too. He even thanked her before glowing and vanishing the way her brother had. As they made their way to the next person on the list, Phoebe turned to Hel. “So, my father…did he have to reap my mom and brother?”

“He was supposed to,” Hel said, huffing. “But your brother escaped, and someone else had to do your mother.”

“Who?” Phoebe asked. She didn’t know why she wanted to know so bad, but curiosity got the better of her.

“My sister,” Hel sighed. “She died soon after, though, so you need not hunt her down and take revenge on her for doing her job.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Phoebe argued feebly, but a part of her recognized that that was exactly what she had wanted to do. She would never know if she would have gone through with it, but there had decidedly been a part of her that wanted to.

They arrived. This time, it was more difficult. It was a woman who had been in an accident and had yet to regain consciousness, having sustained severe brain trauma. Her son was next to her, holding tightly to her hand. Phoebe shot a desperate look at Hel. “Do we have to do it in front of him?”