Death's Temporary Home For Lost Souls

Chapter Thirteen: Visions of the Dead

    "I mean..?" I throw up my hands in an awkward shrug. Is that even possible between..? Actually, I don't want to know. And now my face is burning. Great. "I feel like there's still so much I don't know. You don't have to answer if it's too personal."

    After a cruel pause, Mem says, "No. No, we never dated." She sets a steaming mug of coffee on the counter in front of me and tilts her head. "In fact, I'm not sure how that would even work, what with him being incorporeal and unable to leave the mansion."

    It feels like my stomach tumbles from a great height, even though I'm sitting perfectly still. "So he's just been in that house, alone? Since the beginning of time?"

    "Well, I don't think he's been there that long. But certainly as long as I've been here, which is still quite a while."

    I shake my head. "I can't imagine that."

    "He's endured a lot. There are so many rules and guidelines that come with being Death, as you can imagine." Mem suddenly freezes and glances at me sidelong, as if she'd let something slip. I narrow my eyes.

    "Rules? Who sets rules for Death? He's Death."

    "I didn't mean rules in the literal sense," Mem says, chewing on her lip. "Just that his existence comes with several limitations." I can tell that she's trying to backtrack, but when she pushes the mug of coffee forward so that the fragrant steam rises towards my nostrils, I can suddenly only think of one thing.

    "Caffeine." The word tears out of my throat in a beastly growl that makes Mem laugh. I move to take a sip but pause when the coffee is mere centimeters from reaching my lips. "Wait. I never gave you my order."

    Mem winks and hefts a tray on her shoulder, carrying drinks and pastries out into the dining room so she can avoid my questioning. "You didn't have to. I made this cup special."

    "You better not be poisoning me!" I call after her, loud enough to turn the heads of a few patrons, but then the mingled scents of hazelnut and something earthy (cinnamon?) slip into my brain and shut off the part that thinks rationally.

    Awake juice, it growls. Awake, good.

    I tilt my head back and take a good long sip of Mem's concoction. I can feel the drink sliding down my throat, warming me from the inside, and for a moment I just sit there in bliss and enjoy the insane burst of flavors on my tongue. Then, I pause: all of them are oddly familiar, personal. They hit me in waves, a million different flavors that shouldn't fit in a tiny cup of coffee.

The scented air freshener in my bedroom when I was in fourth grade.

The crunchy bits atop my mother's homemade banana-nut muffins.

The heaviness of the breeze through the open window in my room when a scorching heat wave nearly shut down the city.

Suddenly, I'm falling forward, but not towards the floor or the counter of the coffee shop. When I lift my head, I'm somewhere else entirely.

The floor is covered in a fine film of grease, spat-out gum and straw wrappings littering every square foot. My knees stick to it when I shift, grabbing another fork and knife to wrap up in a cloth napkin.

I'm seven years old.

I hum along with the operatic Italian singer that belts over the speakers, nodding my head until my father bursts through the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen. His dark hair is slicked-back with a mixture of too much hair product and a little sweat, and my mother is squeal-laughing in his arms.