Mem has the kind of car that, by all laws of physics and common sense, should not still be running. When she first led me towards it, parked in one of the street-side spots behind the cafe, I thought she was playing a practical joke on me. The old Chevy looks like it has been perfectly preserved from the 50's; hell, it's painted a shade a baby blue so intense that I'm sure it is visible from the space station. For all intents and purposes, it could be one of those touristy photo spots for Instagram models.
But then we are climbing inside, and she is starting it up, and I feel the engine rumble the seat underneath me. While I expect Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry to start crooning over the radio, the voice that meets us instead belongs to Dua Lipa. The culture clash is jarring, and I choke out a laugh.
"This is your car?" I ask, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. She looks way too proud of herself, but even I have to admit that this is pretty cool.
"What do you think?"
"I think that I'd expect you to be wearing a poodle skirt and driving me to the nearest soda fountain."
Mem laughs and starts to back out of her spot. "I've lived through a lot of eras, but there was something about the 50's that felt so...exciting. Wholesome. That is, if you ignore the racism and misogyny."
"Yep, if you ignore that stuff," I mumble, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Mem has lived through a lot of eras and still looks young and beautiful. Suddenly, the classic car and old-fashioned establishments surrounding the town square make more sense.
"How many people in this town are like you?" I ask. "I mean, how many of them are..?"
"Immortals?" Mem finishes for me. She quirks her lips and flips on her turn signal. "Not as many as you'd think. But enough to make visitors suspicious of Neverton, to make them think that this town isn't normal."
I'm about to ask more about why the living embodiment of Memory would choose to run a cafe when she pulls into a spot in front of the corner grocery store. It's the only place open at this time of the morning, and the windows are trimmed with garlands and tiny hanging pumpkins.
"Why are we stopping?" I ask, nervous about yet another delay when everything inside of me is screaming to leave this town as soon as humanly possible.
"I'll only be a moment," Mem says, not quite answering my question. She leaves me sitting in the running car and enters the store. This is an odd time for her to stop for groceries, but who am I to tell her what to do with her car? I'm the one intruding on her life. I fiddle with my hands and try to tap my feet to the rhythm of the new pop song that comes on the radio, but I'm far too riddled with nervous energy. My mind keeps falling back to my first encounter with Death and the way he looked at me.
He was afraid of me. He was trying to help me, to be hospitable. He spoke to me gently, offered me food and drink, allowed me to stay in one of his spare rooms. A horrible new thought occurs to me.
Death thought that I was dead. He thought I was one of his lost souls, in search of a temporary home. Somehow, this thought fills me with more dread than before. I need to make him understand that this was all a misunderstanding. I do not need to be reaped, or helped. I'm not dead; I'm not lost. I know exactly who I am, thank you very much.
When Mem seems to appear from nowhere and knocks on my window, her arms overflowing with brown paper grocery bags, I jump nearly a foot out of my seat. She motions to the driver's seat and mouths, "Open the trunk."
I've never gotten my license or even held the wheel — in the city, there was no need — so it takes me a few seconds to find the little lever that releases the trunk. When Mem puts away all of the groceries, she plops down in the driver's seat again with a heavy sigh. Soon, we're back on the main road, racing beneath canopies of colored leaves.
"Needed some groceries?" I ask, not sure what kind of small talk is appropriate for the occasion.
"Not for me." Mem smiles easily, as if she has no worries in the world. "Like I said, Death and his residents are not permitted to leave the house. I bring them groceries each week, just essentials to keep the fridge stocked. I forgot to do it last week, so I bought a little extra."
I think of the barren state of Death's refrigerator the night before. Then something else occurs to me. "Can ghosts even eat?"
"No idea." Mem shrugs. "You'll have to ask Death. Whether they do or not, he still likes to keep food in the house. So, I help him where I can."
Despite everything – despite my anger and fear and confusion at the strange state of my life – my heart twinges with compassion. I can't imagine what it must be like to never leave your house, to never participate in the world. At that point, my home would start to feel more like a prison. Though she went about it in an entirely wrong way, I can suddenly understand why Mem wanted me to visit the house.
Death needed a friend.
As if reading my mind, Mem sighs and turns down the radio. "I need to apologize again for putting you in this situation. I completely understand why you're upset. It's just...I don't know. Death is always so busy helping other people, and I figured that if you renovated the mansion, brightened it up a little, it might reinvigorate him. I had no idea you would even know he was there, I promise."
I remain quiet, partly because I don't really know what to say, and also because it is almost disturbing how much I feel myself relating to Death. Before I can say as much, the entire car bounces as it crosses onto the gravel-dirt road leading to Death's mansion. Just seeing the dense forest again makes me nervous. Sure, maybe Death is a nice guy (what has my life come to that this sentence even crosses my mind?) but that ghost lady that chased me around certainly didn't have any good intentions. And, if what Mem said is to be believed, there are probably multiple lost souls holed up in that house.
What kind of spirits are so horrible that they wouldn't be let into heaven or hell or whatever else the afterlife is comprised of?
Before I can ask Mem to just abandon my personal items and drive me to the nearest Greyhound bus stop, she pulls up to the house and parks in a gravelly area overgrown with weeds. I swat at gnats and other bugs that start to swarm at me the moment I get out of the car. Mem pops the trunk, but stays in the driver's seat.
I raise an eyebrow and ask, "You coming?"
She shakes her head apologetically and rolls down the window. "Unfortunately not. I cannot enter Death's domain, the way he cannot enter mine. I can help carry everything to the threshold if you need me to, but the rest is up to you."
My hands turn ice cold and start to shake. I feel like a child facing the monster under the bed. "But you said you'd go with me."
"I'll sit out here as long as you'd like me to, I promise. Ah, here." She rips up an old receipt that was stashed in the glove box and uses a dusty pen to write something down before handing it to me. "This is my cell number. Call me or text me if you need anything, okay? Like I said, I'll wait here as long as you need me to."
Still not quite satisfied but unable to argue with her logic, I pocket her phone number and gather all of the groceries from the electric blue trunk. She gives me an eager thumbs up through the window, but all I can manage is a grimace before turning back to the mansion.
"You can do this," I whisper to myself. "Get in, get out. It's that easy. Then you can go home." Somehow, the idea of going home isn't a very comforting one either, but at least everything made sense there.
Finally I make it to the red door, my arms burning under the weight of the overstuffed paper bags. Somehow I manage to snake a hand free and rap on the wood, preparing myself to see Death's arresting green eyes again. Not even a second later the door opens, and I gasp. But it's not Death that stands before me.
It's a little girl.
"Oh. You're back," she says. Her head tilts. "Why were you sleeping in Sarah's room last night?"
The groceries make a horrible sound as they crash to the porch.