Chap 5 : The Raven Situation Is Deeply Concerning
A man in a dark shift and a piece of cloth covering his head.
He stood near the Glowing Food Cabinet, his back to me, his posture rigid and solemn. Dark clothing. Dark trousers. Black from head to toe.
Strange. Morvath Elir had always favoured ceremonial robes in the old depictions, something dramatic, all gloomy and impractical, befitting a being who escorted souls across realms. But then again, this was the human realm.
I supposed even death had to blend in.
He was the only person in the entire room wearing black, which meant…
Yes!!
That was unmistakable. The uniform of the reaper. The colour of the void. The clothing of the one who walked between worlds.
I rose from my chair.
Tangled Menace looked up from her drawing. “Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t waste time. Morvath Elir was right there.
I walked toward him with purpose, my steps steady, my chin raised.
This was it. This was my way out. I would explain my situation, appeal to his celestial sensibilities, and..
I stopped directly behind him.
He hadn’t noticed me yet. He was staring at the Glowing Food Cabinet, his shoulders slightly slumped, radiating an energy that I now recognized as profound exhaustion.
Well. Reaping souls was probably tiring work.
“Hello, Elir,” I said. Elir was the shortened formal title , the proper way our kind addressed beings such as him.
Morvath Elir back flinched.
He spun around, his eyes wide, his hand clutching his chest like I’d just stopped his heart.
“What the..” he gasped.
Strange. Elir could speak the human language.I supposed he had to, if he intended to blend in and guide souls into the afterlife.
It would be rather inconvenient if beings like him insisted on speaking only the language of our realm to dying humans.
Though, admittedly, that would be hilarious.
I smiled. A warm smile. The kind of smile one celestial being gives another when they recognize a kindred spirit.
“You are exactly who I was looking for,” I said.
He stared at me. His face became sudden pale, his hair slightly damp with sweat, his string loosened like he’d been pulling at it all day.
Up close, he didn’t look quite as imposing as I’d expected. He looked… tired. Harried. Like a mortal who had been running for a very long time and hadn’t quite caught his breath.
“I…what?” he managed.
“I need your help,” I said, lowering my voice conspiratorially. “I am not supposed to be here. I was banished by the Celestial Tribunal and cast into this mortal form, and these people.” I gestured vaguely toward Mum and Dad, who were still at the registration desk, “They are not my real family. They are trying to take me to someone they call a ‘doctor,’ and I cannot allow that. I need to return to the Tribunal to plead my case. You understand, don’t you?”
The man’s face went through several interesting transformations.
First, confusion. Then dawning horror. Then something that looked remarkably like I have made a terrible mistake coming here today.
“You’re.. who?” he started.
“I am Seraphyne,” I said proudly. “Daughter of the Empyrean Choir and the Abyssal Court. And you are Morvath Elir, The Grim Reaper which the humans address you, are you not?”
His mouth opened.
But no sound came out.
“I know this is unusual,” I continued, “but I am hoping you can use your influence to contact the Tribunal. Surely there is a protocol for this sort of thing. A celestial grievance procedure. Perhaps a messenger you could send? A raven, a butterfly, maybe? Do you use ravens? I always assumed you used ravens. Most Morvath Elir, whom I have met, always uses insects, butterflies are the most common.”
The man made a sound like a kettle that had been left on too long.
“I…I’m not” he wheezed. “I’m here for my wife who is about to give birth."
He yelped, actually yelped and stumbled backward, his hand still pressed to his chest. He collided with the Glowing Food Cabinet, which rattled ominously, and then he turned and fled, his black jacket flapping behind him as he disappeared around a corner.
I stared after him.
Well. That was rude!
“WAIT!” I called, starting after him. “I JUST NEED A MESSAGE DELIVERED! A RAVEN! DO YOU HAVE A RAVEN? IT WOULD BE FASTER THAN A BUTTERFLY”
He was already gone.
I stood there in the middle of the waiting room, my arms half-raised, my plea dying on my lips. A few people were staring at me now. An old woman clutched her bag tighter. A child pointed.
Behind me, someone was laughing really loud.
I turned.
Tangled Menace was doubled over in her chair, her pencil forgotten, her shoulders shaking. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. Tears were streaming down her face as she gasped for breath.
“You” she wheezed, “you thought, the guy in the hoodie"
“Be quiet,” I said.
“was the Grim Reaper. Or whatever that strange name you just said Mooo.. their their.. whatever…”
“I said be quiet.”
“and you asked him for a raven or a butterfly. Why don’t you ask him whether he has a pet snail?”
She dissolved into fresh peals of laughter, her legs kicking out in front of her like a dying insect. I felt heat rise to my cheeks, a sensation I was growing to despise and crossed my arms tightly over my chest.
“It was a reasonable assumption,” I said stiffly.
She only laughed harder.
At the registration desk, Mum had turned around. Her expression was the kind of weary resignation usually reserved for people who had long ago accepted that their lives would never be calm. Dad stood beside her, his hand over his mouth in a way that suggested he was trying very hard not to join Tangled Menace in her hysteria.
The woman behind the glass window was staring at me with the expression of someone who had seen many things in this job but was nonetheless adding this to her mental list.
“I’m so sorry,” Mum said to her, rubbing her temples. “She hit her head.”
“Yes,” the woman said slowly. “You mentioned.”
“Very hard.”
“You mentioned that as well.”
“Explosion,” Dad added helpfully.
The woman nodded once, her face carefully neutral. “Yes, that too. My condolences. The doctor will see you shortly.”
Mum came at me like a Dravok, an ancient war-beast that loves charging at anything, grabbed my arm, hard and steered me back toward the chairs. Her grip was iron.
I was beginning to suspect this woman had hidden reserves of strength that belied her mortal frame.
“You,” Mum hissed under her breath, “are going to sit down. And you are going to be quiet. Do you understand?”
I blinked at her. “I was only trying to”
“I do not care what you were trying to do.”
Mum then smiled at a few women dressed in matching white and blue garments with strange printed patterns as they walked by—the kind of smile humans wear when they are one minor inconvenience away from committing murder.
Then she turned back to me without moving anything except her lips.
“Sit. Quiet. Now.”
I frowned. “That male was clearly a Morvath Elir. I was being respectful.”
“You stood in the middle of a hospital waiting room and called a random man an Egg” Mum whispered furiously. “Then asked him where his raven was and whether he has insects with him.”
“He is not an Egg. His title is called Elir. And come to think of, he did not have a Raven,” I said, as though this should have been obvious. “Which was concerning.”
Mum shut her eyes briefly, like she was speaking to a higher power and losing.
“People think you are crazy.”
“Mum,” Tangled Menace said from beside us, not even pretending to be helpful, “people already thought she was koo koo before this. After that little performance? They know for sure now.”
Then she laughed.
Not a polite laugh.Not a restrained laugh.
A full-bodied, wheezing, shoulders-shaking, I-am-going-to-die-right-here-laugh.
“You should have seen her face,” she gasped, clutching her stomach. “‘Hello, do you have an insect to carry messages?’”
She pitched her voice lower in a terrible imitation of mine.
“‘Do you guide the souls personally, or do you have assistants? Do you have a caterpillar?’”
Dad made a sound.
A very small sound.
A suspiciously choked sound.
I turned.
He was covering his mouth with one hand, his shoulders trembling violently behind his sensible polo shirt.
“Are you laughing?” I demanded.
Dad immediately straightened. “No.”
Tangled Menace pointed at him. “He is. He absolutely is.”
“I am not,” Dad said, in the tone of a man very obviously lying. “I just… inhaled wrong.”
“You are red,” I said.
“It’s warm in here.”
“It is aggressively cold with metal boxes blowing cold air from the white walls above us.”
Mum slowly turned her head toward him.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I’m not encouraging,” Dad said weakly. “I’m… processing.”
“You are failing,” Mum snapped.
“In my defence,” Dad said, finally losing the battle and coughing out a laugh into his fist, “the raven question was a little unexpected.”
“THANK YOU,” I said at once. “Finally, someone with sense.”
“Do not thank him,” Mum hissed. “And do not speak.”
“You have given me contradictory instructions,” I said. “How am I meant to obey one parental figure while acknowledging the emotional collapse of the other?”
Tangled Menace made a strangled noise and nearly slid off her chair.
Dad turned away completely now, one hand over his mouth, the other pressed to his chest like he was trying to survive us.
Mum stared at all three of us with the hollow expression of a woman reconsidering every life choice that had led to this moment.
Then she pointed a finger at me.
“One more word,” she said in a voice so calm it became genuinely threatening, “and I will slap the celestial nonsense out of you with my slipper in front of every person in this hospital.”
I considered this carefully.
Then, with great dignity, I sat down.
“…This realm is hostile,” I muttered.
“I heard that,” Mum said.
“It was meant to be heard.”
Tangled Menace was still laughing, though it had subsided to a wet, breathless giggle that emerged every few seconds like the car engine that wouldn’t quite turn over.
“I can’t believe you thought the Grim Reaper was here,” she whispered.
“I am ignoring you.”
“Send ravens, Send a Chicken, they fly too or Send a snail, Oh my, Send a moth.. Wait wait wait! Better yet, send A COLONY OF ANTS! They move it groups and they form lines, means that they can pass the message down the line, shall we, she say.”
“I am ignoring you harder.”
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