Hereafter (A Reaper Novella) Read online

  Hereafter

  JENNIFER SNYDER

  Hereafter Copyright © 2012 Jennifer Snyder

  Published by Jennifer Snyder

  Cover Design by Once Upon a Time Covers

  Kindle Edition

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author.

  For those who believe that love can transcend anything.

  The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins? — Edgar Allen Poe

  PART ONE ~ ROWAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  I felt hollow inside. Complete emptiness swam through me as depression darkened my thoughts. How does a soul go on when they’re stuck here after death?

  I drew my legs into me, letting myself slump into a little ball while I rested my head against my knees. He couldn’t see me, he couldn’t feel me, he couldn’t even hear me, but I was there. I’d watched him for the last two months as he mourned my death. Between the suicide of my mother nearly eight months ago and my own recent tragic death, my father was barely recognizable. He was nothing but a hollowed shell of the man he used to be.

  At the moment, he sat in the center of our couch, staring down a half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels. It was only 9 a.m. He hadn’t taken his first sip yet, but I could see the battle already beginning to wage within him on whether or not he should. He was broken and I was dead, with no capabilities of fixing him.

  I glanced around the room, taking in how chaotic our living room had become. Boxes of all shapes and sizes were stacked sporadically throughout the room. All that remained of the room, which I’d never given much thought to while I had been alive, was a couch, one recliner, a coffee table, one silver-rimmed family photo, a half-drunken bottle of Jack Daniels, and a completely broken man.

  Dad’s cell phone chimed, echoing off the bare walls and making him jump. Even this loud, sudden noise didn’t frighten me like it normally would have. Maybe when you’re dead there’s nothing left to be afraid of.

  “Hey,” he answered with a sigh. His chest caved in as his body slumped forward; it was a phone call he obviously didn’t want to take.

  I could hear a female voice on the other end echo through the silent house—Aunt Karen, the motivation behind all of the packed boxes that littered the floor.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve got most of it packed,” Dad said, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “I know they’re coming tomorrow. I just haven’t been able to go into her room yet.”

  I couldn’t hear her reply, but I could hear the tension in my father’s voice when he said, “I’ll get it. Don’t worry.”

  After he hung up, Dad didn’t hesitate in swiping the bottle up off the coffee table before heading to what used to be my bedroom. I remained where I was, unsure if I wanted to follow. Witnessing him pack my things seemed like torture, but so did the thought of him doing it alone.

  My bare feet padded across the hardwood floor, and I wasn’t sure if it was my memory or if I was actually feeling its coldness against my skin. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Dad stood in the doorway to my room, his shoulders sagging with a crippling sadness etched into his features. I moved past him and into the familiar room.

  “God, I miss you, sweetheart,” Dad breathed, and for a split second I almost thought he was aware I was here with him, as if he could feel my presence as I passed the threshold.

  He raised the bottle of whiskey to his lips, and then stepped inside the room and gave it a sweeping glance as he shifted to face me. His gaze became fixated on a picture of me and Mom from three summers ago that rested at the corner of my dresser. I knew what he was thinking—how unfair life had been to him—without him having to utter a single word aloud. The unspoken words dripped through my mind like icy droplets of rain.

  “If there was anything I could do to come back to you, I would,” I whispered, even though I knew my words would be mute to his ears.

  The fact that I was here, but entirely unheard and unnoticed was something I swore I’d never grow accustomed to. It was like being invisible and mute to others in an unchanging body, or at least that was what I imagined it would be like for me until the end of my forever.

  I wasn’t just dead. I was a Reaper, but unlike others, I was a member of the Reaper Council. This was something passed on through the women in my family along my mother’s side. Something that was supposed to skip a generation, but then my mother committed suicide and I inherited her fate. Since I had been taken before my time because of her actions, I wasn’t sure what would happen to me or who would eventually take my place when it was my turn to Fade Out.

  I trailed my fingertips across the edge of my dresser and watched as the dust remained just the way it was, entirely untouched, behind my finger. My eyes shifted to the mirror. Its surface was hazy with built-up dust from the month-long period of time this room had been sealed up like a tomb. Could I leave him a message? Maybe scroll a simple I’m here with you across its pane?

  It was possible, that much I was sure of. I’d moved tiny objects with enough concentration over the last month, but it had always left me feeling drained. No, the question was not whether or not it was possible to leave a message etched in the dust of my mirror, it was, was it a smart thing to do? Dad was still grieving for me; he was still fragile. Would my message be the very thing that broke him completely? The very thing that pushed him over the edge?

  My eyes shifted toward him, and I watched as he folded cardboard into the shape of a box and carefully began to move all the books from my shelf into it. The tattered copy of Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, my all-time favorite book, rested in his hands a moment longer than all the others. And then, I heard them. His sobs filled the deafening silence of my room and trembled through my soul.

  Maybe I shouldn’t write I’m here with you, but instead, I’m okay and I love you. It was staggering how much the need to tell my father that I loved him filled me, a yearning I’d never felt when I was still alive. It was something I had taken for granted completely.

  Our relationship had never been the greatest, especially not after my mother ended her life. Part of this was because of the similarities she and I shared in our appearance, and the other was because she was his best friend, the missing piece to his soul, his better half. Losing her was like not being able to breathe. His face had been blank at her funeral, but his pain had still swirled within his eyes, as if each breath literally pained him because she was no longer here.

  Now, he looked even worse. Broken beyond repair.

  Sadness swallowed me, erasing the emptiness I’d felt earlier. I touched my fingertip to the edge of the glass and focused all of my energy into moving the dust beneath. I felt the coldness of the glass finally meet with my fingertip and glanced to my dad, taking in his sobbing frame as I concentrated harder on moving the dust partials beneath my finger. As I lifted my finger away to be sure I’d succeeded in making an imprint at all within the dust, I felt the familiar tugging of my soul and noticed the first few tendrils of blackness snake around my ankles.

  Dread filled me.

  Blackness swirled around me like a dense fog, making me lose my concentration before I could do anything more with my message. Dread turned into panic and panic turned into frustration quickly as I took one l
ast glance at my father. I watched as he tipped back the bottle he’d held in his hand and stared at the old picture of my mother and me.

  I wouldn’t get the chance to console him with my dust-written message today.

  The blackness swirled around my hips moving upward, slowly encasing my shoulders in its thick fog as it formed my cloak. The tugging grew stronger with each second that passed, until I could feel the summoning of the ruling humming through my soul. It was a sensation not to be ignored, although I had tried to before. It left me feeling as though my soul were a rubber band stretched too tight, to the point of snapping, and if I didn’t close my eyes right then and release myself from my unwillingness to go, then I surly would have ripped my soul in half.

  This tugging was nothing new. I knew exactly what was about to happen—I was being called to another Reaper Ruling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As the blackness continued to flow around me, creating my silken cloak, I dropped my hand and stared once more at the only imprint in the dust I’d been able to create—a single fingerprint. Closing my eyes, I gave into the tug and pull of the others calling to me because I knew I wouldn’t win in the fight against them. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing near a peaceful lake surrounded by a thick forest.

  It was early morning. Fog wisped around my ankles the same way the blackness had moments before, and I was sure, to the man standing in front of me, it made me appear more alluring and mysterious than I actually am. I remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of the three others who now flanked my sides when I’d first learned I was to become a Reaper, when I’d learned what happens to us after we die.

  The three of them, plus my great-grandmother, had all seemed so mystifying and intimidating draped in black-hooded cloaks just like I was now: Damaris, with his smooth, dark skin, caramel-colored eyes, and a voice like thunder; Evelyn, with her pixie-like features, sky-blue eyes, and creamy, flawless skin; William, with his chestnut-colored hair and grayish eyes that seemed to bore right into your soul; and then, of course, there had been my great-grandmother, Cassandra, with her long, wavy black hair streaked with gray, striking green eyes, and olive skin. They had all stared at me, instantly terrifying me of what was to come next in my afterlife.

  I now stood in my great-grandmother’s place, my looks matching hers exactly, all except for the streaks of gray and the waves. I stared at the man, taking in his frosted white hair, his clear blue eyes, and his skin wrinkled by age. I wondered why he was supposed to become a Reaper now, when he was so old. The man’s eyes met mine. I didn’t enjoy the unknowing fear I saw pooling in their depths directed toward me. It brought back emotions from when I’d been standing in his position. I didn’t want him to fear me. I wasn’t like the others. I didn’t take pride in my place of power or relish in the fear it brought out in others once they learned they had no control over their afterlife.

  My eyes shifted from the old man and to his Reaper, a young, dark-haired guy about my age. His eyes flicked to mine almost as though he could feel them on him, and a ghost of a smile twisted his lips. I continued to stare, my eyes locked within his dull blue ones like a prisoner, only because he reminded me of someone. Someone I yearned for as though my body were still alive. Someone I hadn’t seen in so long I wondered if the emptiness and hollowed out sensation I always seemed to feel was really because I was dead or simply from his absence.

  Jet.

  The emptiness that always seemed to consume my mind began to fester and grow in the presence of my memories and the poor excuse for a look-alike standing in front of me, which my mind seemed intent on comparing Jet to.

  Although we hadn’t had a lot of time together while I was still alive, the fact was, we hadn’t needed it for either of us to know the depth of our feelings. Some say love at first sight is a ludicrous belief. That it’s only for those who are lustful and dim-witted. I disagree strongly. With Jet, it had been love at first sight, and that had been all the proof I’d needed to believe in it.

  He’d also held my hand through all the craziness that became my life once I learned I was a Link to the Spiritual Realm after my mother’s suicide. Jet had been the one to explain things to me about Reapers and what the consequences of my mother’s actions meant for me. He’d been the one to harvest my soul as I died and he’d been the one to teach me the Reaper basics.

  I missed him.

  Jet’s coy smile from my last moment with him flashed through my mind, and I felt the corners of my lips twist into a thin smile. The dark-haired guy standing in front of me mistook my smile for one directed toward him and nodded in my direction slyly. My smile fell as I rolled my eyes before glancing out to the lake. I wished I could see Jet right now.

  Him being a Reaper had given me hope that I would be able to spend my afterlife with him. I knew now how foolish that idea had been, because the most frustrating part of being a Reaper, even a member on the Reaper Council, was that I could go to places, to people, and to objects from my life that had meant something to me, but not to other Reapers. It also seemed as though Fate still had a grip on me and refused to let go, because out of all the Reaper Rulings I’d been a part of over the last month, none of them were brought to me by him. All of this was what held me back from being with Jet whenever I yearned to.

  “Theodore Benjamin Monroe?” Damaris’s voice boomed, pulling me from my thoughts and to the present.

  “Yes,” Theodore answered. He clasped his hands together in front of him and met Damaris’s gaze dead on, his nervousness drawing his brows together.

  “You understand that it is time to take your place as a Reaper?” Evelyn asked coolly, and I wondered if she was always this cold-hearted seeming, even while she was alive.

  Theodore shifted to glance at the young Reaper standing beside him. He smiled encouragingly and nodded. I watched as all of Theodore’s fear and uncertainty evaporated from his eyes as they shifted back to the four of us standing before him. “I do,” he said in a calm and collected tone.

  Shock rippled through my mind. How could he be so okay with all of this, so at peace? I had been in an inner turmoil over it, but him, it was almost as if he’d known what waited for him after his death, as if he hadn’t been nervous about the situation as I’d thought, but only of the outcome of whether or not he was going to be granted the honor of becoming a Reaper. Did other families not keep the Reaper world a secret like mine had? Was that even allowed?

  I’d transformed a handful of souls into Reapers in the last month since I’d been on the Council, but none of them had done so as willingly and calmly as Theodore. Questions formed in my mind, and I stalled my mouth from saying the words that I knew I needed to say—the words that were forcing themselves from my mouth as though I were possessed.

  “Then you accept?” I questioned, unable to control my lips any longer.

  Theodore’s eyes grew glassy and distant as he gazed out at the foggy lake, and I wondered if he doubted his heritage. “Yes,” he replied, just as the first beams of sunlight streaked through the sky.

  “Let it be done then,” William said from beside me.

  I raised my right arm, palm facing Theodore, at the same time as the others did. Pushing with my mind, I forced the hazy whiteness from inside of me out and straight into Theodore. Crows cawed all around; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them all until now. I wondered if Theodore had been stalked by them like I had been before my death.

  The white haziness from the four of us enveloped Theodore, encasing him and seeping in through his pours. The moment I felt a swelling within him, as if he were entirely filled, I began drawing the energy back into me, which in turn brought Theodore with it. He inched closer and closer, his feet dragging behind him, until the four of us were able to touch his forehead with our fingertips. Once contact was made, the whiteness dulled until it was nothing.

  Theodore Benjamin Monroe had been transformed into a Reaper.

  I watched as he opened his eyes and glanced
around in wonder. Emotion shown clearly on his face, and I wondered what portion was real and what was remembered. As a Reaper, I knew your thoughts and emotions were there. You could feel them as though they were the only living part of you left, but they were not mirrored by your face with as much intensity as when you were living. For the older ones, like Damaris, their faces reflected almost no emotions anymore.

  “Garran, Reaper number 26 of the West Physical Realm, you will become Theodore Benjamin Monroe’s Overseer until his training period comes to an end,” Evelyn stated.

  Number 26? Was Garran one of the first Reapers? How long did you have to serve before you were able to Fade Out and become reborn? What if Garran had no children to cast a Linkage line down to like me? Would I remain a Reaper Council member for eternity?

  My eyes shifted toward Garran once more. He seemed content, but how content could one be and for how long when they were such a large part of Death?

  As Theodore and Garran disappeared to begin Theodore’s training, I wished my sudden onslaught of thoughts would do the same, but knew it was probably only the beginning. Even after an entire month of being on the Reaper Council, I still knew nothing.

  I walked to the lake’s edge, my mind growing more crowded by questions with each step that I took, and looked to the sky, watching as the sun peeked up from behind the tree line. The colors of the sunrise still held beauty no matter whether I was dead or alive. The same could be said about sunsets and nature in general. It was sad how I only now, in death, appreciated the beauty that had surrounded me while I was still living, how much I had taken for granted.

  “Carry on as you may until the next Reaper Ruling,” Damaris said before I felt his presence leave.

  William was the next to go. He departed without saying a word, and I wondered where everyone else chose to go. Did they have any loved ones that they visited? Or places that still remained their favorite even in death?