Miranda [Watty Awards 2013]

Chapter 2

"Grim, do you kill people?"

            I saw upon the carpet, next to the fireplace, the heat radiating off of my skin. I was huddled against the old bricks, the musty smell invading my nostrils. I was only about six at the time, and went by the name Abigail Swan, although today I don't know what I ever saw in it.

            Grim turned from the window to face me, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. He blew a smoke ring towards me. "What do you mean, Abby dearest?"

            I tugged timidly at the sleeves of my black sweater, pulling the ends over my freezing fingertips. Until age nine, where he would begin to start leaving me alone, Grim was with me constantly, always telling me right from wrong, teaching me about life, the world. Teaching me about work, and how to do it.

            He never allowed me to call him Dad, or even Father. Only Grim. Grim, the reaper.

            "Well," I said slowly, eyes stuck on the flames, "doesn't your job mean that somebody dies?"

            He took another hit off of the cigarette. The smell made me wrinkle my nose. "I suppose."

            I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. He stared outside the cabin, into the Alaskan snow, lost deep somewhere in a trail of thought. It was only Grim and me, no mother, no brother or sister. All those years of asking why never gave me an answer as to why I didn't know my mother, and I knew better than to ask anymore.

            Grim always stayed by my side, but he didn't really talk unless I asked him to, or unless it was to give a lesson. He was more like my teacher than my father. He had dark hair that he brushed out of his hazel eyes, a tall attractive man. And he would still look that way today, because he never aged. Neither of us celebrated birthdays.

            Asking him to explain his job was walking on thin ice-you never knew where it was safe or where you'd fall into the water and drown. He was a very short tempered man, Grim, and I always tried my hardest to stay on his good side. One never did himself good by angering the bringer of death. But still, it was a question I'd been asking myself for a long time, ever since I learned what he did.

            It didn't sit right with me. I didn't want a murderer for a father.

            "But what does that mean?" I asked, so quietly I doubted that he'd heard me. Minutes passed in silence, and I gave up on him answering.

            He put out his cigarette on the windowsill, leaving it stuck there while he approached me across the room. I unconsciously leaned away, scared that he would try to harm me, but he merely sat down in the worn armchair and picked up a newspaper, crinkling it open.

            "What do you know about my job, Abby?" he asked. I couldn't see his face over the top of the paper.

            "Not a lot," I mumbled, staring at my bare toes. The fire's light danced across the floor. "Just that you leave me with a few ugly men and then go out for a while, and when you come back, there's always someone dead on the news. Sometimes you come covered in blood. I don't like when that happens."

            His voice remained passive, though I could sense a hint of amusement. "One day you're going to be used to it," he said. "Someday soon, I think. One day I'll take you with me, and you can see how it goes."

            I shook my head, my dark hair falling across my cheeks. "I don't think I want to do that."

            "Oh?"