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k_a_webbThere are Deaths I know a lot more about than others, as how well I know them depends entirely on how they used their journal. If they used it in the same way that I do, to write down their innermost thoughts and beliefs because they didn’t trust anyone else enough to talk with them about these things, then I know them about as well as I know anyone in the afterlife. Even Elizabeth. As they did write down what they were feeling I understand why they chose to move on rather than train their successor. My predecessor was one of those who wrote very little in his journal, sadly, so I know very little about him, and maybe that’s why I believe I’d never be able to forgive and forget. He knew that one day I would read them, even though he had no idea who I’d be, and in the same way that I have been writing for whoever follows me he could have helped me as much as he could using his journal.
Maybe, like me, he never wanted to be Death. He simply took the job because he looked into Death’s eyes and realised that his predecessor couldn’t keep going any longer. When I look through the journals it’s easy to see that taking this position became much harder when Samael walked away, because then the Deaths didn’t have anyone there to support them. Before that Samael had been a rock for all the Deaths, he’d taken on the job of training them, he’d showed them what they’d need to do and been there for them when they had a particularly bad day. Then, with him gone, everything changed.
For the Death that lost him it was especially hard. I can’t imagine what that time must have been like for him and I wish things had been different, but they weren’t. Even though I do feel sympathetic towards him I can’t help thinking he could have handled the loss of Samael much better than he did, which makes me wonder if Death had fallen in love with the angel. That theory makes the most sense, because he literally seemed to come apart at the seams when he realised Samael wasn’t returning, and if any of the Deaths could have done with a friend it was him. Elizabeth said she tried, in the same way she’s tried with all the Deaths, to become his confidant, to give him someone to talk to when things got bad, but without Samael there he shut down. He did the job as he was training and didn’t have anything else there.
I believe that’s why there have been so many Deaths since Samael moved on. They were alone from the beginning and seemed to chose not to trust anyone when they realised that their predecessor had left them to learn how to do the job alone… which got harder when they found out exactly what they were expected to do. Some days my job is easy. All I’ll be asked to do is travel to Earth to guide a spirit to where he is meant to be, then I’ll pass him on to whoever his spirit guide is, and that will be it done. Other days it’s not. Being asked to bring a poltergeist back is the hardest thing, because they don’t want to leave. Normally I won’t be able to do that unless they’ve been exorcised, as that is when they’re at their weakest, and I’ll be able to literally drag them to the afterlife, which takes a lot of doing sometimes.
Sometimes I wish that wasn’t a part of my job and yet I know there’s no one else here that could do it. I’m the one who was chosen, because of whatever it was my predecessor saw in me, so there must be something special about me, even though I have no idea what it might be. There’s a possibility it’s simply because I am the kind of person who doesn’t care about being alone that makes me the right person to be Death. When I chose my successor I’m going to be looking for something different – the strength to be able to let down his shields so he can have friends, even if those friends aren’t Samael, because he will need them. Unfortunately I know that I’ll make things difficult, as I’ll get close to him and then have to leave him behind, but hopefully it won’t affect him too badly.
Why do I keep saying he and him? Even though I don’t have any real idea what gender the my successor may be I can’t help thinking I’ve seen him before, in my dreams, and that he will be male. I’m not certain, because it’s not as though I sleep a lot, being dead and all, but I still sometimes sleep. That’s something I learnt from one of the journals. Apparently it helps spirits like Death, the guides, and the Dream Weavers (those who do important jobs that mean they’ll spend centuries in the afterlife) to rebuild their energy. Most of them didn’t write about their dreams, if they had any, so I don’t know if it was the same for them. When I sleep I dream, more than I did when I was alive it seems, and often I dream of a tall, dark, handsome man, who’s currently living what appears to be a very difficult life.
Unfortunately I can’t see him in my mirror. That only shows me the soon to be dead and he isn’t soon to be dead. He might not even be alive right now. I don’t truly know what I’m seeing, but I know he’s different, otherwise I wouldn’t be dreaming about him. Of course I might just be dreaming, although I would think that was more likely if I didn’t see him every time I slept. Like I said I don’t sleep a lot, maybe once every fortnight or more often if I’ve had a particularly difficult spirit to bring to the afterlife, so I don’t dream very often, and they do seem to be going in chronological order for me, from one day to the next, which makes me think that I’m seeing a life that will happen rather than a life that is happening. I am certain that I’ll meet him, some time in the future.
***
The Lake wasn’t exactly where I expected it to be, but that wasn’t a surprise. Every one of the Deaths has said that it moves, although not in such a way that some of the places in the afterlife do, and I wasn’t entirely certain that it would show itself to me. Fortunately I think that the mood I was in, having spent the time before going there writing in my journal, had some effect on the mood of the Lake itself, so it was calm and seemed almost pleased to see me. I don’t think it’s sentient, as such, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a sentient being within it somewhere, who is the reason for its moods and the way it reacts to certain people. When I was there I couldn’t help wondering if maybe that was where the creature from Loch Ness stayed when she didn’t feel like being in a cold loch in Scotland.
I sat by it for a while – probably for longer than I expected to, because it was so nice to be there. The waters changed while I was there, from colour to colour, as though it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, and I was wonderful to be able to see as many as I did, although I didn’t see either the purple or the gold phase. Occasionally I did see what I can only call visions within its depths, usually when it was in its white and black phases, which didn’t happen very often. They’re something I need to think more about and the best way to do that, for me, is to write them down. So, Death who follows me, you are welcome to ignore what comes next or read it, whichever you prefer. Before I started writing this for you I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of someone reading this, but I’m glad that you will.
So, the visions.
At first I wasn’t certain they were visions, because the first one showed my own life. I thought, to begin with, that they were memories that the Lake was showing me, for whatever reason, but I think now that it was just starting with something simple. Although, now that I think about it, it wasn’t simple, as it was showing me my life from the point of view of a woman I loved very much – my mother. She moved on to her next life a little while ago and I still miss her, even though I know that she is simply a spirit who chose, that time, to incarnate as my mother during that lifetime. We had a good relationship, yet she still didn’t understand the choices that I made when I was alive.
We had time to talk about it before she moved on, which was nice, and I think she actually appreciated learning more about me, about the lives we had lived together before and the lives we hope to live together in the future, when I’m done being Death. In the vision she was watching me make bread, which was something I did a lot when we lived together, because I was more skilled at it than she was. She knew how to use our skills to her advantage and her skills to our advantage, so it all worked out well. My father died when I was young and it was important that we all pulled together. Even though it was hard, sometimes, that was exactly what we did, and in the end I chose not to marry in order to stay with her, while my two younger sisters made their own families.
That time we were talking about one of my younger sisters, who was the reason we were making the bread, and the man she had chosen to be her husband. He was a good man, someone who wouldn’t take her for granted, so we’d offered to keep them stocked with bread until she had a chance to settle in to her new home, which was an offer they both appreciated. Even then I had a feeling that my sister would continue asking me to bake her bread until the day she died and that is exactly what happened, but I knew that was simply because it wasn’t one of her skills. She would continue to make me her medicinal salves, for the very same reason. It’s a conversation I remember from my point of view.
My mother spent the whole time wondering why I didn’t want a husband. Was it fear? She remembered being scared before she was married. Scared of what her husband would be like, scared of childbirth, scared of raising children, scared of letting them go when the time came, scared of losing one or more of them to an early death… the list of fears went on and on, but I didn’t share any of them. I wasn’t scared of getting married. Part of the reason I chose not to was my distrust of people, which made it hard to make any vows to them, and I wanted to stay with my mother. I never wanted her to be alone, because she has always been there for me when I needed her. If she’d have asked I would have explained that to her, but she never felt comfortable doing that.
Now that we’ve talked about it I’ve realised that she was scared of what the answer would. She was scared that I was stayed with her because I felt I had to, but that was never the reason. I never once felt like I had to do anything for my mother, even though I liked to do things for her, as she was a strong woman. Before my father did she might not have been, I didn’t know her that well then as I was six when it happened, my sisters five and four, but as she spent more time being both the man and the woman of the house she became that way. I remember one time when a man came courting her, because they viewed her as a fertile female as she already had three children, she told them that unless he was willing to see her as something more than a brood mare he could walk away. After that she got a reputation for being cold and aloof, even though that was the exact opposite of her.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.