❝Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.❞

-Macbeth by William Shakespeare

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Abuela dies in her sleep 3 days later.

I come home from play practice that Monday already in sour mood. At first, I think the tender awkwardness of reciting lines with Veronica and the misery of being on stage without Will is the worst thing that can happen to me that day, but then...

We get the call from Uncle Kosmo, who got the call from Uncle Camilo. Mama says the whole southern side of the family is going to the memorial service on Wednesday; however, we're not able to do the same. Kat begs my mother to let us go, but on such short notice, we're not able to scrape up the funds.

And so, my Monday goes from tolerably bad to straight-up miserable, as many Mondays do. Mama retreats to her bedroom, and Kat runs off to who knows where. I'm left alone, sitting on my bed, my hands shaking. Even though I knew it was coming, the thought that Abuela's no longer down in Havana, cooking ropa vieja and forcing people to drink her soda, makes my heart strangely sore.

I have to wonder if she's in Heaven, now, and if she's made true on her promise to finally find and meet Will. I hope they're happy up there. God knows the rest of us that are still alive aren't.

Sighing deeply, I stand and make my way across the creaking floorboards to the window. The sky is deeply overcast, the rolling hills and cornfields of the valley washed out like a sweater thrown through the laundry one too many times. In the distance, the Hundred Acre Woods have begun to lose their fiery color; though the leaves were blazing with reds and golds only a few weeks ago, the canopy now looks like a faded pile of mud.

Everything I see reminds me of something depressing. The field makes me think of Will, the treehouse makes me think of my past, and the horizon makes me think of my future - or lack thereof. Most of all, the way Ashdown just seems dead reminds me of Abuela, and the feelings I have about her passing.

Part of me feels guilty that I'm not bawling my eyes out. I'm sad, but more for the sake of the rest of my mourning family. Is it selfish of me to be lulled by the knowledge I'll see her again? I don't know. My emotions confuse me, just like my luck.

Yes, I'm sad, but I'm not devastated. It's more a subtle sense of frustration that's gnawing at me.

Everything good seems so far away. I'm stuck in Purgatory, and I can see both Heaven and Earth clearly from here, but as hard as I try, I can't escape the limbo I'm stuck in.

I wish none of this ever happened. I wish I was a kid again, when everything made sense. When so many more things were alive.

Suddenly, a paranormal chill runs through my bones, drawing me out of my mind. I turn my head and almost stumble backwards at the sudden appearance of Mor, who raises his eyebrows. "Oh, and here I thought I'd lost my touch in surprising you."

Recovering quickly, I purse my lips together. "I was... staring off into space. I didn't realize you were there. You don't scare me."

That last part sounds so juvenile, so August, that I think even Mor can tell it's false confidence. My heart is growing weaker with every passing day, and it's getting harder to banter with him like we once did so easily. Only a month and a half ago, he scared the living hell out of me, and I fought that fear with distraught sarcasm.

Now, I'm tired of wasting time. I just want all of this to be over.

"I apologize about your grandmother," Mor says, "If it'll ease your mind,  she's 'in a better place', but I'm aware that's not exactly helpful."

"Go find my mom or my sister and tell them that, not me."

"You're not sad?"

I look him straight in the eyes, only slightly unnerved by the darkness they hold. His shadows almost fuel my emotions. "Of course I'm sad," I reply, hoping that my voice doesn't betray how conflicted I feel. "I'm always sad. But it's not just that. I'm just... tired. Physically and emotionally. I'm tired of the fact that every time it seems to be getting better for me, it all falls flat. I'm tired of feeling so melancholy."

Mor gives me a pensive look, like he's considering his words before he says them. "I'm sorry. Truly, I am."

He seems genuinely apologetic, as if he's not a supernatural being who has to had to witness at least dozens of deaths. Part of me wonders if there's something bothering him, too, something beyond me and my feeble attempts at making things okay. There's a far-off emotion in his eyes, and as black as they are, I can almost see a glint of light. I wish I could reflect it back to him.

"Do something," I blurt suddenly. "Take me somewhere. Get another item crossed off. I don't care, just distract me."

Mor blinks, and slowly, he responds, "Well, all right, then." I watch as he fidgets with his lapels before standing up straight and rapidly returning to his normal devil-may-care attitude. "If I know you well enough, I'd say it's not the right time for any of your remaining travels. Chronologically, the next thing you wanted was to get a nose ring."

A nose ring? I think to myself. My god, middle school Lila, stop trying to be so edgy.

My skin blushes warmly, and I can almost feel the blood rushing through my face. I don't know quite why I'm embarrassed. It's probably because most people want to do actual, momentous things, like climbing a mountain or walking the Great Wall of China. And here I am, going to emo music festivals and dreaming of nose piercings.

I never wanted anything more than what I had. Will and Veronica and the future that awaited us was always enough for me.

"That's so..." I trail off, not knowing what to call it, before adding last minute, "Boring."

"Lila, dearest, I once had a charge who aimed to go to every Hard Rock Cafe in North America. I can't tell you how many times I heard Here I Go Again just in one month." Mor shakes his head, chuckling softly to himself. "Now that's boring."

If this were any other time, I think I might've responded with something like, Hey! Here I Go Again is a good song! But today, all I do is sigh.

Mor continues, "Besides, that's something completely cosmetic. I can give you it within a minute."

Without a single second for me to realize what he's doing, he quickly snaps his gloved fingers. A sharp pain bursts through my nose, and though it's gone within a millisecond, my hands fly up and clutch the spot where it hurt.

Quickly, I fish for my phone in my jeans pocket and pull up the camera. Sure enough, just like that, there's a smooth, silver ring on the right side of my nose. With the black t-shirt I'm wearing and my hair up in a messy bun, I look exactly like what I always wanted to be in middle school. It's a terrifying thought.

But I have to admit, the nose ring does make me look cool.

"Oh," I breathe, "Wow. My mom is seriously going to kill me." My eyes widen, and I lower the phone and gape, "Wait, wait. Is that how I die? Does my mom kill me because I got a piercing? Is this some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, or something?"

Mor laughs brusquely. "No, that's not how you're going to die."

"Then-"

"Don't you dare ask that question," the reaper interrupts, giving me a dark look. "You know I'm not allowed to tell you that."

If I'd finished my sentence, it would've gone like: Then how am I going to die? But of course he knew what I was going to say before I said it. I'm aware that any inquiry in that vein of thought won't be answered until it's all over, but I figured I'd try anyway.

Thinking of my fate, I glance out upon the backyard again. Will's treehouse is still sitting limply on his old oak tree, steady and relentless despite everything that's changed around it. I wonder if the Nyquists will ever take it down, or leave it up as a memory of what once was.

When I first got my own treehouse, I was always hesitant to go inside, because I was worried I would fall through the floorboards and break my neck. After a few weeks, I realized I had no chance of dying up there, unless a freak accident occurred.

A freak accident caused Will's death. Is that how I'm going to die, too?

For a moment, I wonder what my funeral will be like. Who could possibly mourn me, aside from Mama, Kat, Macy, and perhaps Veronica? The majority of Ashdown got over Will's death within a month or so, and he was their golden boy.

The memory of watching Will's casket be lowered into the ground flashes through my mind, dragging me away from my situation and making me forget where I am and what's ahead of me.

Every time I think about that rainy afternoon, my heart reminds me of the feelings I had, standing on crutches by the edge of the grave, disheartened by the sound of Mrs. Nyquist's muffled crying into her estranged husband's shoulder a few feet away.

I didn't have anybody to cry into. That role always belonged to Will. Without him, who could it have been? Veronica, who could barely look me in the eye? Macy or Kat, who didn't understand my love and were evidently uncomfortable with every sob I released? My widowed mother, whose own memories made her nearly as distant as I was?

After a while, my soul started to wither. I was cold and miserable despite the fact that it was early June, and with the combined pain of my broken leg and many other injuries, the funeral was as bad as it could possibly be. As we reached the reception and Will's acquaintances were comforted with maple sandwich cookies and lemonade in paper cups, I became even more empty.

My mother had to practically drag me out of my room - where I'd laid for days under 5 layers of blankets trying not to focus on the pain coursing through my body - to get me there in the first place. Although the rational side of my mind understood what had happened, some part of me was still in denial that he was gone. So many of my clearest, most heartening memories were with him.

Once, in the summer before 8th grade, the Nyquists went to Bar Harbor, Maine to look for a house there. Brooke and Frank, Will's parents, were going through a rough patch, and thought it would be best if they got some fresh air somewhere far from western Vermont. It devastated Will and our friends and I, to the point that Veronica told every person who looked to buy their old house that it was haunted.

On the night of the Perseids - the annual meteor shower Will and I had been viewing for a couple years by then - I sat alone on my roof and expected to be disenchanted with the event. My best friend was 7 hours away, and he would stay that way if his parents found coastal Maine to their liking. Numbly, I watched as the first meteor fell, and then the second. To myself, I thought, I wish Will was here again.

And just like that, he was. A red speck on the horizon that slowly turned joyfully clear, Will came running through the cornfield into my backyard, and shouted up, "I missed it! God, I missed the first two, didn't I?"

"Will!" I exclaimed, wide-eyed and gaping, "What are you doing here?"

He cocked a smile and shrugged, and I felt my pulse accelerate 10-fold.

"Somehow, I managed to convince my parents not to move. We're here to stay, I think."

By then, he was too big for the trellis he'd been scaling for years to reach me. So I clambered back into my bedroom, raced down the stairs, and met him halfway on the back porch, practically tripping over my own feet as I leaped into his arms. He embraced me tightly, and any sense of worry or sadness I had dissipated within a beautiful, comforting second.

"I can't believe you came back," I murmured into his flannel. Even after a few weeks in Maine, he still smelled like Vermont maple syrup. "I thought you were gone forever. We all did. Trevor thought you'd disappear without a trace, then turn up one day in the next few years wearing a jersey for some other school football team."

Will laughed gently. Letting go of me, almost bashfully, he said, "I thought so too. I know it wasn't my choice, but I'm really sorry. I'd never leave you guys. Especially you."

If my heart was beating fast before, it was going Autobahn-levels of speed now. These were the beginnings of my crush on him, and as I watched him with an unshakable smile, I had no idea what this friendship would ever turn into.

"I thought-" I shook my head, feeling my face go red- "I thought I'd never see you again."

"You'll always see me again, Lila," my best friend promised. "Distance is only a small obstacle."

Just like that, my trip down flashback boulevard is stopped. I'm hurtled back to the ever-dark present, past the Perseids and Bar Harbor and the funeral and Mrs. Nyquist crying for her cold, dead son.

Mor is staring at me, and I wish I could explain the look on his face, but I can't even tell what it is. His mouth is pressed together in a fine line, his eyebrows are flat, and his eyes are too shadowy to show any secrets.

"I-I'm sorry," I say, sounding too much like Will. "You know I get lost in my thoughts really easily. How... how long have I been spacing out?"

"A few minutes or so," Mor answers simply.

He sounds defensive, robotic, like he's hiding his emotions even more than usual. The twinkle in his eye has vanished. And then I realize...

For some inexplicable reason, Mor and I can communicate telepathically, right? And when Veronica revealed her secrets at the lantern festival, leading me into a flashback, he told me later that I was "thinking loud enough" for him to know what happened. Which means he also has the capacity to have listened in on that entire daydream.

"You just... saw all of that, didn't you? Somehow?"

My voice is sore and my lips are numb. Mor's expression softens. "Yes. The memories flashed through my mind just like they did yours, and I apologize. It's almost as if your thoughts are more open when your emotions are more vulnerable."

I sigh harshly, shaking my head, and then sigh again. Although I'm slightly embarrassed again, part of me is relieved that the reaper can see more of Will without me having to talk.

"Well," I surrender, "At least now you know what he was like. From something more genuine than your... file, or whatever."

Mor is silent. He's seen almost every public symptom of my grief for Will: the sadness, the irritability, the anxiety. Yet, I've only mentioned my boyfriend to him once, that second night in Finland as the Northern Lights lit up the Scandinavian sky. And even then, we hadn't really talked about him; our conversation went awry after I started pelting him with questions about the afterlife.

"Lila," he says after a moment, a solemn tenderness in his voice, "I realize that you're still grieving. I've told you, I earnestly wish I could do something to help you. Not from a job standpoint, but from a personal one. No one deserves to live their final days in misery."

But that's exactly the thing. The closer I get to my final days, the less miserable I become.

That's no way to think, Mor sends with a frown.

Well that's how I think, I reply.

His hand, formerly wrapped tight around his scythe, goes slack. Sighing just like I did, only moments ago, he sympathizes, "Look, Miss Cabrera, your time will be up soon. You're almost done with your list, and after that, you won't have to deal with any of this again. But that doesn't mean you should look forward to it."

You're a reaper!, I want to retort. Your job is made easier by my cooperation! Why are you being so... nice?

But I neither say nor think anything, for fear of him icing up on me. I once thought, only weeks ago, that Mor was like my own personal death god. I realize now that there's layers to reapers. They're not complete monsters, but they have jobs to fulfill.

So why is Mor trying to talk me down from my mental cliff?

Suddenly, he stiffens, and his eyes lose any sense of light at all, becoming endless tunnels like they were that first night I saw him. For a second he has a strange expression on his face - some combination of anger and fear - before it goes to no feeling at all.

"I have to go," he says grimly. "I'll see you again soon. Don't spend too much time in your room."

I blink. And then he's gone.

What the hell? I think to myself. Where did he go?

What could've called him away so suddenly like that? Perhaps it was his bosses, the ever mysterious Council. Or maybe he's he doing double duty - there's another charge he's helping, and they suddenly needed him. He looked frustrated, like he didn't want to leave while we still had unfinished emotional business.

I stand there, remembering what he said about people dying in misery and feeling weirdly comforted by the reaper's off-and-on empathy. I wish I knew why he's as mercurial as he as - wicked one day, funny the next, gentle after that. But every time I ask, he gets defensive.

When I met Amara in Cuba, Mor told me that she had reasons for her facade, that she was terrified of becoming vulnerable and so she acted rudely to prevent herself from getting too close. What exactly are Mor's reasons? Are grim reapers inherently kinder than you'd assume, or is it more individualized?

I think he's hiding something, but not something forbidden. Not his world or his other friends or the way his job works - all things I'm apparently not allowed to know about. Something more personal. Something he's gone through... or something relating to me.

I don't know what it is. But, based on what he said, I've only got weeks left now, and I'm going to make my own little mental bucket list to think about in the final days:

1. Do things that could possibly leave a positive impact on those around me

2. Make more memories so I have things to look back on with Will

3. Figure out what the hell my reaper is hiding.

Deciding to focus on my many, many questions at a time I have more energy, I flop back on my bed. Gently, I reach up and touch the ring now piercing my nose, thinking of how I would feel if I was 15 again compared to how I feel now. I'm still sad - Mor's not gonna change that - but part of me is also hopeful. It's a strange and tiring melancholy, which fits, because it seems like a lot of things happening lately have been tiring.

After everything, and now Abuela's death, I'm so fucking tired.

But sleep will come soon. I know it.

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A/N: Filler?? Nah fam, this is good, old-fashioned character development. More or less.

Anyway, this is like 2 or 3 weeks late. I'm sorry, but as I said in the last chapter, I've had a lot going on. My new semester started recently, which means I've had to adjust to new classes. And some of them really suck, like Driver's Ed. (we have a test every class!), so it's been hard to write lately.

Hopefully I can get back on track now. And I think I'm going to stick to updating during the time from Friday to Sunday, unless I finish a chapter during the week and really want to publish it. We're actually like 65% through the book, so it won't be long now...

If you like the story so far, please comment and vote. I try to reply to every comment (if I can come up with a reply, at least :P)! Also, feel free to message me if you're in search of a new internet friend, although I can't guarantee I won't be at least slightly awkward.

I wish all of you the best! Keep positive vibes and stay awesome.

xoxo, Athena

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