White Orchids {BOOK 1 COMPLETED}

ACT 2: Chapter 22 - (part 1)

"Swedish... Like you, I guess?"

I close the notebook.

"How do you know I'm Swedish?" he asks.

"Your Värmland accent?"

"I speak in a Värmland accent?" He asks.

Maybe I was wrong. His accent was weaker than those I had heard in Värmland. At first, I thought he tried to hide it, but how can you hide something you're not even aware you're doing?

"I think so," I say and lay down the pen at the desk.

"Whatever," he mutters, "we need to leave so we can get this crap out of the way."

He walks back to the door that's still standing in my room. The orange crystalized veins forms what I guess is a rampion bellflower.

"What's your name?" I ask and get up from the chair.

"Rampion, you know this."

"No, I mean your name when you were alive."

He laughs bitterly. "How the hell should I know? I've been here for three years, and I don't remember shit."

Three years. It would take less than three years to forget everything. Even more likely it'll take a year – maybe just a few months – before I'll forget who I was.

Rampion steps through the darkness. After what happened with Clover the other day, I have no desire to do anything – specially not reaping. Not that I'd have much of a choice here. Unless I want to throw myself in front of another shattered soul.

I take a deep breath and follow Rampion through the door. On the other side lays a hospital corridor whose walls are clad in blinding white. Nurses, with the same blue light as Emma, wanders down the corridor. Some of them walk straight through us like we were made of air.

Rampion catches the orange stone in his large paw. He doesn't put it in any pocket, not that I think that the costume has any. Instead, the stone disappears, like he has an invisible place he can call it forth from.

As usual I cannot understand the living, I hear them talk and it sounds hollow and incomprehensible. The longer I am in the realm of the dead, the more confusing the living languages sound. I can still understand writing. While I don't understand the language on the signs, it looks like Polish.

"You'll have to get used to hospitals. Most of those we reap die here," he says with a nonchalant tone.

"Why are we so far away from the contract?" I ask.

"Because he cannot see me like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Stop with those stupid questions. If you shut up and watch you'll get it," he snaps.

I had forgotten it was Rampion I was talking to for a moment when he almost didn't seem rude.

I keep the rest of my questions to myself, I rather not annoy him more than I've already done, even though I don't think I've done anything to annoy him.

Rampion stops in front of a door. A light moves around him, it climbs the bear costume and in front of me is not the same Rampion – it's not even a man, but a beautiful woman. She's dressed in a summer dress and her white feet are barefoot. The blonde hair touches her back and her eyes reminds me of blue, cracked ice.

"Ho–How?" I stutter.

The woman rolls her eyes. This person is without a doubt Rampion, even if she doesn't look like him.

"Is this an illusion?"

"Shapeshifting, and it's a bit more complicated. I'll explain everything after I've reaped the old codger's soul. Wait with your questions until then."

Blomst had mentioned that you could take the shape of a human that had some sort of connection with the soul we'd reap. I had expected us to be ourselves and that it'd be more of an illusion.

But Rampion is this woman to each little millimeter. I doubt there's any mistakes in her appearance, she'd likely looked and sounded exactly like this before she died.

"You can follow inside but keep to the background. Don't make any eye contact, and if he looks or speaks to you, ignore him. Got it?"

After I promised to not create any concerns we step through the door. As Rampion has requested, I stay in the background, far away from the man in the bed. He's pale with sunken cheeks. There are dark circles around his eyes and the sweat is pouring down his face. There's no mistaking it, this man is very sick. He lives but can still see us, or rather Rampion. The man sits up in the bed. There's longing in his eyes and he gives the woman a painful but joyful smile.

"Ewa, you're here again," he says.

I hadn't expected to understand him. There are two voices, one is muffled and speaks in what sounds like Polish. But it's so quiet and strange sounding that I can barely hear it. The other voice is clear and speaks in Swedish.

Rampion moves towards the bed; each step looks elegant. It's hard to imagine that Rampion is inside there when she looks and holds herself so differently. Rampion sits down at the bed and holds the man's hand.

"Paweł," says Rampion with a voice as soft as silk. There's no annoyance in it, just love and care.

He plays the role as Ewa all too well. I don't even think he's playing; I think he is her. Like he left his soul and let this woman take over.

"I'm happy that I got to see you again," the man whimpers, and his eyes fills with tears. "I'm so happy."

"I know," she whispers and wipes away a tear on his cheek with her thumb. Paweł moves her hand against his dry, pale lips. He kisses it tenderly.

"Do you remember?" He asks and lets go of her hand. "When I biked all the way to Piła for you?"

"I remember that I didn't want to open the door at first," Ewa laughs.

She carefully places her hand against his chest.

He takes a deep breath. "Thank you for letting me explain."

His eyes flutters close. The blue light is so weak that I can barely see it anymore. It's not very long now.

"I thought of what you said," he whispers and slowly opens his eyes again. "I think I'm ready now."

Ewa leans forward and kisses his forehead. When he lets go of her hand she opens her palm, inside lays the shining soul stone.

Paweł takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. His mouth and body relax and the machine next to the bed beeps. The soul never comes out from the body, instead the soul-dust lays above his skin and slowly moves in the familiar poetic dance.

Nurses run into the room; the stone has already closed itself and Rampion is himself again – dressed in a bear costume and an exhausted feeling draped around him – and Ewa is nowhere to be seen. Like he never was her to begin with.

"We're done," he says and gets up from the bed.

The nurses look over Paweł as Rampion passes through them. The soul stone has been exchanged with the gate one. The brown door is created in the middle of the room.

"Let's talk then," he says.

He leaves me on the other side. I watch as the nurses surrounds the dead Paweł. There is something disturbing with what I just witnessed. I know I should have felt moved, yet all I can think of is how it's just lies and betrayal. Paweł might have died while holding his youth's love, but it was Rampion that had taken his soul – no matter how much of him had been Ewa.