Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(89)
“I’ve met all residents of the afterlife.” There was pride in those words. “Though I admit that some stand out more than others. Your mother is one of the many reasons I don’t care to journey into that place often, you know. All she does is pester me with questions about you.”
Signa curled her fingers in the grass, a smile warming her lips. “Everyone’s been making her sound so fierce. I always imagined her a bit like Marjorie, I suppose.”
“Like a murderer?”
Signa swatted him on the chest. “Of course not! I meant someone who always seemed very proper.”
Death nodded, considering. “She has more manners than you, certainly, but that’s not saying much.” This time when Signa went to swat at him, his shadows caught her hand and tossed it back at her with a laugh. “Your father is a kind and tender man, very soft spoken. Rima is more like you, so loud with her opinions and always butting in. She knew her position in society well and abused it for her benefit. With as much money and influence as your family had, no one dared to criticize them, for fear that they might lose the possibility of an investment by the Farrows.”
Signa leaned against his shadows that stilled for her, soft as she imagined a cloud would be. “You seem to know a lot about them.”
“Of course I do,” he said with such seriousness that Signa stilled. “They’re your parents. I wanted to know everything I could about them. And you’re just as brazen as she is, you know. In all my years, no one has ever spoken to me with such hostility as you do, but she comes in a close second.”
Perhaps her mother wouldn’t be so disappointed in her after all. All the years Signa had spent obsessing over fitting into a particular mold—into what she’d believed everyone expected of her—perhaps it was all for naught.
He couldn’t know how grateful she was for him in that moment. He couldn’t know that, as glad as she was to hear him speak of her parents, she was reminded deeply of her own loneliness. But at Death’s side, slipping her hand in his, she realized she needn’t endure that alone. There was no pretending. No lying about what she wanted or molding herself into someone else. With Death, Signa could be wholly herself.
With him, she wasn’t so lonely.
She lowered her head upon her shoulder, smiling as Death tensed with surprise. “Tell me what it’s like across that bridge.”
He rested his chin upon her head. “If you really want to know, I’d be more than happy to invite you in and keep you to myself for eternity.” When she nudged him on the shoulder, Death laughed. “It’s a place that’s kinder than the living world. There are no needs, no wants, no fear.”
“So why don’t you spend more time there?”
Death brushed his thumb across the back of her hand, and her skin burned with want. “I will do whatever I must to protect that place and its people. But being there for too long is exhausting. I cannot share in their pleasures, Little Bird. There is no family waiting for me, and it’s possible some of my wants will never be settled, no matter where I am. Seeing them—being in that place—is a reminder of that. Besides, I find the living world far more entertaining.”
As someone still struggling to find her place, Signa could relate. Death was the most hated man in the world, and even here in the afterlife, he didn’t fit in. It was no wonder he came across as so prickly. She probably came across the same way.
“I chose a man in his eighties.” Signa knew at once what he was referring to, and the words were a bruise upon her mind. “He would have had another ten years, though they would’ve been ones wrought with pain in his bones. He’s there, on the bridge.” Death nodded ahead.
Signa didn’t want to look at the man she’d condemned to save Blythe, but he deserved at least that much. She hugged her arms around her stomach and forced herself to acknowledge the stout, short man whose life she’d stolen. Ten years was a long time. Even with pain, what things might that man have done with his life? What memories might he have made? What joy might he have felt?
“I don’t like doing that, Signa.” The shadows drew around them like a curtain, shielding the bridge from view. “We’re toying with Fate, who is not someone to be played with. Do not ask me again to take the life of someone who’s not ready to be claimed.”
The words sank into her and burrowed deep within her soul. She became smaller, curling in on herself.
“I’m sorry I asked that of you.” She trembled when she spoke. “But if you hated it so much, then… why did you do it? Why did you listen to me?”
When he turned to her, the moonlight shone upon him in a way that reminded Signa of a painting, wisps of shadows like brushstrokes upon a canvas. “Because I have waited an eternity to meet you, Signa Farrow.” The words were a balm she clung to, relished. “To me, you are a song to a soul that has never known music. Light to someone who has only seen the darkness. You bring out the absolute worst in me, and I become vindictive toward those who treat you in ways I don’t care for. Yet you also bring out the best in me—I want to be better because of you. Better for you.
“In all my existence, I’ve asked only for one thing—for one person who might understand me, and whom I could let myself touch. When I touch someone, I see the life they’ve lived in flashes of memories as they die. But the first time I touched you, it was your future I saw. A glimpse of you in my arms, dancing in a beautiful red dress beneath the moonlight.” He tilted her chin up and Signa shivered, savoring the touch.