CHAPTER 10

Dependent upon the light seeping in from the hall, Marcus paced slowly into the dark room. He reached blindly to the wall beside him for a switch, but instead knocked his head upon a hanging bulb. He cursed and tugged irritably on a thin string overhead.

Soft yellow light from the dangling bulb barely chased the dark from the small room. Marcus looked around, and agreed with the Timekeeper. To the eye, it wasn’t much, but to him the practically bare room was Eden.

In the corner of the small apartment was a narrow bed, a slight distance from a red curtained window. A dresser on the opposite wall, and a table with four metal chairs by the kitchenette, were the extent of the furnishings. Marcus hauled in a slow breath. The air, too, seemed void, closed, and stuffy, singing of long loneliness and closed doors.

He turned to see if Abigail had followed. She remained by the door, her head hung low. But she was there, and she was tired. Her slumped shoulders spoke of this fatigue, and how lightly she hugged herself told of her mental exhaustion.

It was only then, in the dark silence stretching between them, that Marcus heard it: a shuddering breath. Her shoulders didn’t tremble, but her breathing did.

He held himself very still as he watched her, and the enormity of the situation squeezed the air from his lungs. “Abigail?”

She didn’t say anything, but her arms tightened around her body a little more. He swallowed. He had to say something with which to ease her. She had to feel comfortable, unafraid, and safe.

He moistened his lips. “There’s a bed.”

As soon as he spoke the words, Marcus closed his eyes, wishing he could have bit his tongue to keep from speaking. Truly, of all the things to say? His conscience chastised him, bringing with its scorn another dispiriting thought. He tilted his head and looked beneath her veil of hair, dissecting her closed stance and unsteady breathing. His heart pounded. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

After an infinite minute, Abigail had yet to answer. Marcus lowered his eyes, feeling like a monster. It had to be true. He’d nearly killed her foster father, however repulsive the man happened to be. Furthermore, he’d demanded she go with him, never once asking her if she truly wished to go. Guilt lashed him. How could she not feel alone, uprooted, uncertain, and scared?

“Abigail—”

“No,” she said. Her voice was lower than a whisper. It should have made Marcus feel better. But, in hardly hearing her words, another sound was unmistakable. Abigail lifted her head and breathed life into his suspicions. Her reddened cheeks glistened under a coat of fresh tears and dull light. Seeing her tears hurt him, and not knowing how long she had wept in silence, scarred. While it was not the first time he’d been alone with a woman, a crying woman at that, it was the first time he had ever wanted to simply hold a woman with no promise of anything further. He stepped closer and then forced himself not to take another step. It was much too dangerous because before when he’d neared her, the noises of the outside world had kept his mind on alert, not allowing him to succumb to emotion. But what about there, in the privacy of the room? What was there to keep him from her? The low humming of the small refrigerator?

Uttering a silent prayer, and pushing a chill into his heart, he took a step back. Wanting to step near her, to comfort her, he took another.

“You’re crying,” he said, feigning disinterest.

She nodded, pushed her hair away from her face, and shrugged. “It’s been a really, really long day, and it’s all so much. I can’t seem to make sense of anything right now. Of what happened with Randy, of Mr. Owens, of you—especially you.”

She dropped her eyes, admitting, “For two unbearable years I thought I was being punished, that my life, the waiting, and the suffering were all part of my penance. I embraced the mess that my life was and rejected any dreams of the future, thinking them wrong and selfish. I suffered the hell that was Randy and Nancy because I thought that to be right, a part of my atonement. But now you’ve come along, and I…I simply don’t know anymore. Everything has changed. You’ve changed everything.” She looked at Marcus. “You’ve misted into my life and flipped it on its axis. Single handedly, you’ve made all the rights wrong and wrongs right. Because of you, nothing makes sense anymore. I don’t know if this is all real or just a sad mockery of everything I’ve ever wanted.” She shrugged. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find that I’d fallen asleep watching some strange independent film about Death—or rather a soul collector. He refuses to take a girl’s life though he’s supposed to, but won’t tell her why not. But I’m not going to wake up, am I?”

The break in her voice pierced Marcus’s heart. He shook his head.

Abigail’s brows furrowed deeply as if trying to find the meaning of it all, but with a resigned shake of her head, she closed her eyes and let out a long, defeated sigh. “You said we would talk.”

He had. At her words, his eyes traveled the room, fixing on the small dresser tucked between the kitchenette and the sleeping area. He walked to it and opened it. The shirts the Timekeeper spoke of were folded neatly inside. There were a number of plaid shirts that were atrocious to his eyes, but seemed well enough to wear. He shook one out and hooked it on the back of the thin metal chair.

“I gave you my word that we would talk once you were warm, yet you’re standing there, shivering. Why don’t you change?”

“Then we’ll talk,” she said.

“Then we’ll talk.”

She closed the door behind her and walked across the room hesitantly, her eyes focused solely on Marcus. Gathering the shirt from the chair, she located the bathroom behind a door beside the kitchenette.

When she closed the bathroom door, Marcus fell down onto the nearest chair. Head in his hands, he weaved his fingers into his damp hair and shut his eyes. He strained through every ounce of memory of the past days, trying to locate when and how Abigail had managed to integrate herself so effortlessly into his life. He opened his eyes and paused. There before him covered by a white sheet was a piano. Hidden by the wall, he hadn’t seen it when he walked in. He walked to it and uncovered it slowly, careful not to scatter any dust. He slid his hand along the dull black wood of the standing piano and trailed it down to the ivory keys. A small smile curled his lip as he pressed on the black key, tickled by the twinkling sound. He shook his head. Even when she wasn’t around, traces of her lingered everywhere, staining his world.

The slow creaking of the bathroom door washed through the room, through his thoughts. Abigail didn’t appear, not immediately. When she did, Marcus focused instantly on her hands. In one, she held the sheet music, and in the other, his list of souls.

“I hung your coat to dry behind the bathroom door and these fell out.” She paced to the table, slowly sitting across from Marcus as he resumed his seat. She slid the sheet music to the middle of the flat surface and placed the list neatly beside it. Her quizzing eyes, however, never left him.

“Why do you have it? I told you I couldn’t afford it and I can’t pay you back,” she said. “I don’t want it.”

Marcus reached out and slid the sheet music before him. He ran a finger lightly along the clefs as if hoping to illicit their sound with a simple touch. He turned over the pages, until the song in his mind came to an end. It was more beautiful than he remembered.

“You made it passionately clear that you didn’t want the book,” he said, stacking the sheets into a neat pile. He slid them back beside his list. “I’m fairly certain I bear the bruises to your claim, but Mr. Owens said this specific song was very dear to you, and he wanted you to keep it. It was one of his last requests before…” Marcus trailed off.

Releasing an unsteady breath, Abigail sank back into the chair and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She looked away, speaking to the openness beside her. “Did it hurt Mr. Owens when you took him, like it hurt Randy?”

“Randy was a foolishness on my part. You weren’t meant to see that. For that, I am sorry.” Marcus regarded her with more than a passing gaze. He met her eyes so she could gauge his sincerity, then shamefully he lowered his head. “It isn’t ever like that, the way it was with Randy, Mr. Owens included. Unlike Randy, his soul was on the list. It was already breaking free from his body long before I arrived. I simply came along and did away with the last of the bonds. He felt no pain, of that I can assure you. None of them ever feel any discomfort when I break the ties.”

Abigail opened her mouth to ask another question, but hesitated.

“We said we would talk. Whatever it is you wish to ask me, I will answer. What is it that you want to know?” He almost wished he hadn’t asked the question. He could hear the questions in his mind, the same questions Margaret had asked many times before. She had always wanted to know if they suffered, if they had any questions, if they were happy of going, or if they were scared. If they, if they, if they—

“Does it hurt you?” Abigail asked.

Marcus started answering the questions he expected, but stumbled on the question that came. He closed his mouth and sat forward, rubbing a thumb along his open palm, the very hands that shaped his life. A sharp pain tore through his chest, something within him uncoiling. The simplicity of a conversation, the lure of unguarded exchanged words stood at the doorstep to a house long tumbled to ruins, and Marcus shivered. The promise of the act was more tempting than anything had ever been for him in this life, and past. It had been so, so long.

He had difficulty thinking of how to avoid it. Not because he didn’t want to talk to her, but because he did. He wanted to sit with Abigail then and there, and share things with her about his life, about himself, about mistakes and successes alike, however little, however many there were.

And then there were the fears. There were the secret things that kept him awake while the sun shone bright. There were the dark things that tied his living to the endless night. The shameful details that could in no way be avoided. Above all was the singular most painful thing that bound him to a girl he didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, love. Suddenly, the air in the room seemed too thin, and Marcus found it hard to draw a proper breath.

Suspended in indecision, he lowered his gaze and flexed his hand. “The first one of the night is always the worst, the most painful. It takes a measure longer to break the bond, just a slight, but enough to remind me of what’s to come for the rest of the night.”

“What does it feel like?”

He shrugged. “A lot of the souls don’t even realize when their spirits are separated from the body, so I don’t think it’s unpleasant for them.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I mean, what does it feel like for you?”

He cleared his throat to stifle the warmth gathering in his chest. “It’s more of a burn than pain,” he said. “It’s a pulse of fire that trickles through my fingers and gathers at the center of my palm, branding me. I don’t see it, but when the burn roils into a steady, even blistering that numbs my hand, that’s when I know it’s enough to break the bond. That’s when I touch them. It lasts less than a second and then it’s over.”

“That sounds painful,” she said, almost in a whisper. Her eyes were now very green, and just as intense. “Does it ever go away?”

“It simmers, but never burns out. I guess I’ve learned to deal with it over the years. What else can I do?”

She reached across the table to his hands. “Can I see?”

Marcus flinched back and hastily lowered his hands to his lap.

“Right, sorry,” she rasped. Withdrawing her hand, she caressed the edges of the folded list beside the book. “You said over the years…” she echoed, inquiringly. “You say things like ‘sincerest apologies’ and always call me Miss Archer. It’s like I plucked you out from one of my Victorian romance novels.”

Marcus smiled, shifting back in his chair. “One hundred and two, well, one hundred and three next month, but what’s another year, right?”

Abigail was quiet. And she stared. Yet Marcus saw no anger, no shock, just immense pity and countless other questions all at once.

“And those men, downstairs in the store, are they like you?”

“They work during the day and were collecting their list of charges for their upcoming shift.”

“Like this one?” she said.

She sat forward and snatched the list away before Marcus thought to stop her. The paper crackled open as she unfolded it. Marcus lowered his head, unable to look as her eyes drifted down the list of names. Watching her clean hands holding his curse was more than he could stand.

“I can’t believe this,” she whispered under her breath. The quiet anger in her voice called him back. “All of the names here, you have to kill all of these people?”

“I don’t kill these people,” he said tartly, wishing he could rip the list from her hands.

“How can you say that? You take their lives. Before you, they’re alive. After you, they’re dead. And had they not met you—”

“Had they not met me, they would have met another collector and lost their lives all the same. We don’t take these lives out of pleasure, for a rouse, or a thrill. When a name appears on that list, then their time has come, and I take their soul. I don’t randomly draft up a list and choose who to collect. I am instructed. A greater being decides who goes, and regardless of whether someone else kills them, or they pass naturally, I take them. How they pass is of little concern to me. I simply collect, not kill. There’s a vast difference.”

This gave her pause. She set the list down on the table and slid her hands into her lap. “So you don’t know how they die, then?” She looked down to the list again, examining it. “Number thirty seven for instance, Sally Kipper. You have no clue?”

Marcus shook his head. “At times, I arrive just as whatever accident or crime takes their life. Other times, illness has kept them in wait, and I help them make the transition. There are others who I just don’t know. They go to their beds at night, I come and take them. So no, unless it is obvious, then I don’t know the reasons for their passing.”

She grew pink as a flush overtook her face. “And you don’t care to ask? Do you bother asking them anything at all?”

Marcus arched a brow. “Why?”

“Well, what if they feel alone, repentant? What if they’re scared? They’re leaving everything they’ve ever known, the people they love for God only knows what, and you don’t even care to ask them if they’re frightened. If you talk to them, it might make it a bit easier, less terrifying.”

She paused and her eyes bore into him. Her mouth too grew to a disapproving line. “You told me yourself that you were human. Don’t you think just a bit of that humanity at the end seems fitting?”

He remained silent.

Sitting back, she shook her head judgmentally. “Do you even remember them, the souls you’ve taken? Or are they just numbers, meaningless names on a sheet of grid paper that you’re too proud to think of again a day in your life?”

“Proud?” Marcus said instantly, carefully, sharply. “You think I’m proud of what I do?” He didn’t know whether to laugh, or walk out. “I remember them all. Not their names, no, as there have been far too many to recall. But their eyes. I can remember every single stare, every single silent plea since the very first. Can you imagine what it is like to close your eyes and have the countless stares of every single soul—mothers and fathers, sons and daughters—all branded onto the back of your eyelids, haunting each moment of peace, if it can even be called that?” he added as a bitter afterthought.

“I may not remember their names, but in that small instant—in that fraction of a millisecond when I touch them—I see everything. I see the many faces that impacted their lives. I hear their brief and desperate prayers asking God for forgiveness and mercy. I am cursed to see the abominations some have done. I’m blessed to see the triumphs of others. When their stares gloss over with their lives flashing before their eyes, they flash before mine too, searing into my memory. I see it all, their dreams, and their failures. Why ask them anything when I can feel their fear, their uncertainty, and their regrets as if they were my own?

“These souls I take, it was for them to live their lives, and many did while others didn’t. But when their name appears on my list, I take them and that is all. What difference does it make whether I speak to them or not? It will change nothing. Some will find their peace in the light, others won’t. But they all get their end, except for me.

“So do I remember them, Miss Archer? I do. Every last unfulfilled dream, I remember. And how does it feel? Like a never-ending punishment you could never imagine. I would never wish it upon my vilest of enemies since doing so would be unforgivable before the eyes of God. To wish upon someone the curse that is living with the haunting of countless regrets while not being able to do anything about it? That is perhaps as cruel and as close to hell as anyone could ever get.”

Long years of missed confessions poured from his soul as Marcus took a breath. “Although I’ve learned to live with it, there are still the endless memories. While they, these souls you claim I am too proud toremember have gone on and found their rest, I am left here with their recollections and their regrets, so many regrets mounted onto my own regrets. So judge me if you wish, but that is what I remember. Pardon me for not recalling mere formations of letters for the purpose of recognition, but I see memories as far more important than recalling something as interchangeable and fleeting as a name. I remember a life.”

There was a pause where Abigail looked at Marcus with an arrested expression on her face. He, too, was shocked at his violent admission. In the back of his mind came a whisper telling him he had been too hard on her, too harsh with his feelings.

“And that’s why you didn’t take me?” Abigail asked carefully, her tone apologetic.

He took a deep breath. “I didn’t take you because I didn’t understand you, and the devil take it, I still don’t. You live in this never ending gray, a bottomless, self-inflicted cold, beneath all of this—” He motioned to the wet clothing draped on the back of the empty chair. “Never did anyone wait for me before, yet you did. Why? Even those who called on me by their own doing, whether by a jar full of pills or whatever other means they employed, they never knew whether I was to come or not. But you did, how? And I get the memories and wanting to stay near them. But what of everything else in your life? What of your dreams? I didn’t take you because I want to know…” He trailed off and sat back, not sure what he wanted to know first. The request was easy enough. He could ask her why she was the way she was. He could simply tell her to go out and live. Do something out of the ordinary. But that was the problem, he wanted more. “I want to know you.”

Unearthing a slender hand, Abigail pressed it to her lips and studied him for long seconds. Her jaw was set hard, until a cold, emotionless smile broke though, one bleeding of savage pain and of secrets long withheld.

“You chose not to take me because you want to know me,” she echoed. “You thought that if you took me, in my flashes of life, you’d be swamped with my regrets at not having lived?” She chuckled bitterly. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my regrets follow me through each day. For two long years they’re all I see, my only company. You having come for me would not have sprouted them out as if they’d never existed because they do and nothing will make them go away. Well, perhaps one thing and it’s the one thing you refuse to give me.”

Two years? Marcus wondered and then he remembered Mr. Owens’ words, ‘The car flipped over an embankment two winters ago.’

Abigail’s eyes glossed over with tears, her gaze worlds away in memory. “My mother died instantly. I thought that if she had died being innocent, then there was no doubt I was next to die after what I’d done. So I waited. I lay there looking up at the stars, cold and alone, waiting for death. It was the most beautiful sky I’d ever seen.”

She shook her head. “The hours passed, and I was still alive. I thought that Death had forgotten me or, I don’t know, that maybe he could only take one soul at a time. Bruised and broken, I waited some more.”

Eerily, she reached out as if back at the scene. “I could see my phone just there. If I tried hard enough, I knew I could make it and call for help, but I didn’t, thinking Death needed more time. We all get held up once in a while, right? And if indeed he had forgotten me, then the cold and snow that night would have forced him to remember me.” She paused, closing her eyes for a minute. Her hand dropped to her lap with a quiet pat, and the world outside grew quiet. “Ambulances came and took me away. I begged them not to. They all tried to comfort me, saying she went to a better place. I knew that already. It wasn’t the reason I fought to stay behind. I was scared, terrified that if I moved, it would take Death longer to find me. I thought he would go looking for me there, in the middle of that road.

“The first day passed, and then another, until they kept passing me by, and Death never came. When I could no longer convince Nancy or Mr. Owens to drive me back to the road so I could sit and wait, I stayed in all the places where I was most likely to be found in case he was looking for me. And after two long years, you finally found me. But now you won’t take me…” Her voice fell into a whisper. She looked away and stood up.

Marcus watched her pace away to the small window by the bed. She leaned her head against the cold glass the same way he’d done so many times when remembering his own regrets.

“There is no telling whose name will appear on the list,” he said. “I can assure you, if you were not taken that day, then your name was not on the list.”

“But it should have been! You were supposed to have come for me then because there was no way you could have taken her when it should have been me. When it was all my fault!” Abigail blinked back what Marcus knew to be tears, but she turned away from him and he never got to see to them fall. She gripped her shirtsleeves tightly and confessed onto the fogged windows, “It was all my fault.”

Marcus stood up, wanting to go to her, but she held up a staying hand and uttered a familiar phrase. It was one that pained him to hear it from her mouth much more than when it came from Margaret’s.

“I’m tired,” she whispered. “I just want to go to sleep.” She wiped her face roughly with trembling hands. Walking to the bed, she sat down and shook her head slowly with quiet sobs, as if to shake away the memories that haunted her.

The room closed in around Marcus. Feeling utterly helpless, he walked to the door. He had to. It was either that or hold her and the latter was not an option at all.

“Maybe it’s best I go,” he murmured, not wanting to disturb her mourning. Although he would wait outside the door, she would have her privacy.

Abigail’s eyes flicked to him and grounded him where he stood. She considered him for a moment and in her stare he saw words on the verge of being said. She said nothing, but somewhere, somehow he still heard them. Then and there, she told him she didn’t want to be alone. That in spite of it all, she didn’t want him to leave. Resignedly, she lowered her eyes.

He stopped. “Or perhaps I’ll stay and…” He trailed off, his gaze falling on the sheet music. “Would you like me to play it for you? I might not be very good as it has been ages since I last played, but if you’d like me to, I can.”

She didn’t reply, and in her void, Marcus felt his stomach tighten. He shouldn’t have asked. Something as sacred as the song she shared with her mother—

“Yes,” she said, just barely, and pushed back on the bed, settling in the middle. She lay back and rolled away from him. “Thank you,” she added, just enough to be heard.

Marcus rubbed his cheeks, fighting the warmth that crept onto them. With the sheet music in hand, he sat at the small bench before the piano. He set the pages before him and called to mind every distant memory of lessons forced upon him at an early age. He smoothed his hand over the ivories as if introducing himself to the neglected keys. They were cool beneath his fingers, a balm to the memory of the previous night.

Abigail had rolled over and now faced the blank ceiling. “This is the first song my mother taught me, the first song I learned to play. I used to practice it every day, but I haven’t heard it in a long time. I can’t bring myself to play it.”

Marcus recalled Mr. Owens saying they always ended their visit to the record store listening to that song. Honor gathered in his chest and stole his breath.

Silently, she whispered the title into the open air. Tears streamed down her temple, trickling into her ear, as she lost herself to the plastered heaven in the same manner she had on mornings prior.

Marcus turned back to the piano. He stared at the notes unseeingly and set off on Chopin’s Nocturne driven not by the clefs. His soul heaved with the desire to soothe her, to bring a taste of relief to her life, just as she’d done for him. He glanced at her over his shoulder while playing the song from memory. Fear of ruining the sacred tune rusted his fingers, and the tension hurt. Yet, looking at Abigail, ease washed over him. She stared at the ceiling in a dreamlike daze, her brows gathered together with a longing melancholy. She exhaled and closed her eyes as if surrendering to his sound.

Her vulnerability in that instant clenched the deepest parts inside Marcus. He curled into the piano as his fingers glided over the keys. He imagined her face beneath his fingers, envisioned her green eyes filled with tears as she leaned into his touch, seeking and wanting the comfort he wished to give her through his song. Closing his eyes, he sought out more of this freedom, this secret place between the white and charcoal keys where duty and guilt did not exist. Where blood and death did not stain his hands, where tears and sadness did not claim her face and heart. In between the high notes and the lows, they would find their medium and simply exist, her and him and their touch. He could have played forever.

Upon the last note, Marcus extended his touch on the cool key, not ready to let the vision go. He couldn’t let her go. But time waited for no one, and after pressing the last note, seconds passed and dragged the echoes of his song into silence. His fingers slipped away and he opened his eyes. Staring down at his hands, reality clipped his wings and desire morphed into an aching loneliness that sank into the pits of his stomach. He gathered the sheet music and rose. Running his fingers the length of the page like a lover’s secret caress, he drew in a long breath and walked them back to the table, unable to look at Abigail. She would see it all in his eyes, every furtive touch he dreamt of, longed for. The comfort he wished to give her, but couldn’t.

“I hope it was to your liking,” he murmured, needing to add sound to the terrible void left by the lack of music. The silence was painful. When Abigail did not answer, he turned to her. Her eyes were now closed, and the rhythm of her breath sang of sleep. He exhaled as the sight wound itself around his chest. Could it be he’d given her some peace in the midst of her pain? A broken smile twisted his lips and he lowered into the chair, winded. He gazed down at his hands, hands that had brought someone comfort, and not death.

Entwining his fingers loosely, he sat back and watched her sleep. He had to leave. Once her sleep was deeper, he would. No doubt she was hungry or thirsty. Yes, he would gather her a few simple things and come back before she woke. But for the moment, he would watch her, guard her, and remember the sight of her as he touched her with his song, pleasing her. Yes, he would do all of those things, and once her sleep was deeper, he would leave.

Three hours later, Marcus paced the room in silence. The intention to leave had been there, but after walking to the door various times, he only found himself staring at the doorknob. Now he trailed his hands along the walls, the chairs, and the fixtures for no particular reason other than to just feel.

“You’re still here.”

He spun to the groggy voice that addressed him. Sleep-reddened eyes greeted him, as did Abigail’s flushed face. “Did I wake you? Forgive me. I tried to be quiet—”

“No, I woke up for a minute and when I didn’t see you sitting there—” She paused, swallowing as if the next words threatened to strip her throat raw. “I thought you’d left.”

He shook his head, understanding. He had left her once before. Stroking the warped wood of the bathroom door, he continued his trek around the room.

She gathered her knees to her chest, looking very much like a child, and watched him intently. “You touch everything. Every wall, every chair, every fixture…I thought you were a germaphobe?”

Marcus chuckled. “Selective germaphobia—just humans.”

At this, Abigail’s eyes narrowed and continued to follow him inquisitively as he stroked the wall.

“Besides, what was I to do while you were snoring?”

A shocked, sputtering sound exploded from her. “I do not snore!” she replied archly, her eyes clouded with offense.

Unable to maintain a straight face, Marcus laughed. Recognizing his jest, a smile of disbelief and oddity spread of her lips.

The laughter lasted but a minute and quickly abandoned them in the bare plains of the other’s stare. For a long moment, the connection remained.

She sat forward and rested her head on her knees. The smile faded from her mouth, but not from her eyes. “So there is a smile,” she affirmed quietly as if having unearthed a lost secret.

Marcus rubbed his mouth with his fingertips, almost wishing to wipe it away. The attention was a bit unnerving. “I guess there is.”

She gave him a weak grin, a faint blush staining her pale cheeks. Marcus tried to extricate his stare from her face, as the longer he looked at her, the harder it became to draw the next breath. He had to look away. Nothing good lay that way, not safe anyway.

It was impossible. Abigail looked so solemn and vulnerable in the middle of the bed that his throat burned. He cursed inwardly and cleared his throat, shattering the inviting quiet.

“You should get some rest. We have a long night ahead. I promise I’ll be quiet,” he said, his voice raspy under the strain of emotion.

“You’re taking me with you tonight to collect souls?”

“I can’t very well leave you here alone all night now can I?” he replied. He could, he just didn’t want to.

Thankfully, she didn’t question it. She lay back slowly, clearly trying to digest the revelation while Marcus made his way to the textured feel of the crackled wallpaper.

“What about you? Don’t you sleep?” she asked.

“Sometimes, rarely, but not so much lately. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

Abigail thought over his words and suddenly rose. She walked around the bed and stopped in front of the window. “It’s much better really late at night, but this will do,” she announced, opening the curtains. She peered through the parted drapes, surveying the approaching darkness.

With a satisfied sigh, she climbed back into bed and looked to Marcus. “Turn off the light and come.”

“Pardon me?”

Abigail scooted over and patted the space beside hers. “Turn off the light and come here.”

Marcus stepped back, stiff. “I hardly think that’s appropriate. There is no way—”

“What? Are you afraid I’ll kill you?”

Marcus didn’t laugh.

Abigail’s mouth curved to a smile. “It was a joke, come on. I won’t touch you, I promise.” She smoothed the bed beside her again.

Not trusting himself to be near her, Marcus didn’t move. “I shouldn’t.”

“But you trust me,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Frozen at her declaration, he could only stare. She met his gaze evenly with no offense in her eyes. After a minute, she repeated, “You trust me.”

He shouldn’t have done it but, rapt by her words, he moved to the hanging string and pulled. A soft click welcomed a dangerous darkness. Entranced by the black, cut only by the light coming in from the window, he moved the rest of the way and stopped beside the bed. He shouldn’t have been there. His thundering heart testified to that, but he couldn’t have refused her, not when she called on something as delicate and new as their trust.

He stood motionless beside the bed and gazed down at a waiting Abigail. The hue from the streetlights crackled under the raindrops at the window. The light fell on her in uneven patches of orange and red. Her hair was now dry and fanned out on the pillow in smooth waves, calling him to sea. Marcus surrendered and sat down on the edge of the bed. Feeling the mattress give beneath him, he tensed.

“Lie back,” she whispered.

Marcus shut his eyes, unable to will his body to move.

“Hurry, we’re losing the lights. Rush hour is almost over. This part of the city always shuts down and we’re on a side street. If we miss this wave of cars, we’ll have to wait forever for the next one.”

Abigail threw herself back and clasped her hands behind her head. Tightly crossing his arms and firmly tucking each hand under the other forearm, Marcus lay back beside her. He could feel her eyes on him and the gentle smile on her face as she stared, but he kept his eyes focused on the bare ceiling.

“Now we wait.”

The warmth of her breath caressed his ear and a cool shiver curled down his spine. Wanting to turn his face to her, he shifted aside, but the bed was small. “Wait for what?”

Abigail looked back to the ceiling. She lifted a hand and trickled her fingers as a passing car’s light reflected up into the shadows above. It stretched across the ceiling and by and by, faded into darkness.

“Whenever I couldn’t sleep, my mother would lie beside me and we would watch the lights. We would pretend they were dancers on stage and would make up scenes for their performances. We would then count until the next car passed, offering its routine. Often in the spaces between their performances, I would fall back asleep. Sure beats counting sheep—look, there.” She pointed in awe as a passing car brought another performer to the stage.

Confused as he was, Marcus understood with utmost certainty that, “You loved her.”

Abigail chewed the inside of her lip and nodded.

“Will you ever tell me what happened?”

She shook her head, her eyes fixed on their secret dancers.

The rejection birthed a knot in Marcus’s throat. Embarrassed, he looked back to the ceiling. “Forgive me for asking. It was none of my business.”

“I want to tell you,” she said softly into his ear. “But I can’t. If I tell you now, what will be left for you to see when you take me?”

‘When you take me…’

The simple phrase echoed inhis thoughts and brought him back to present. He lay beside a girl whose life he would ultimately have to take, and soon. He swallowed and turned his head to her. A smile trembled on her lips, and he knew she thought the same.

“Well if not that, will you tell me something else? I know I said I never ask, but I’m curious,” he said. “The night that I came for you, when you were waiting for me, you weren’t injured in any way. I know that sorrow can sometimes drive anyone to do things, especially to themselves.”

Abigail frowned. “You mean did I take my own life?”

He let his uneasy silence answer. Abigail turned over and focused back on the dark overhead, making his breaths much tighter.

“I could never bring myself to do it,” she said finally. “I did think of it sometimes...often. I always thought that if you experience anything for long enough, it somehow becomes easier, almost as if it sprouts roots and becomes a part of you. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to get used to the pain and to missing her. But just as it’s been an insult to her memory for me to go on living, it would have been worse to end my own life. How could I be selfish enough to swallow a bottle of pills just because I couldn’t deal with the pain anymore? No. I deserve to live. I deserve to wake up each day and remember.”

Marcus nodded and waited until her last words settled between them before asking, “Then are you ill somehow?”

Abigail smiled into the open air. “Does heartbreak count?”

Marcus regarded her for a moment, staring at the deep sadness in her eyes. “Yes, it counts.”

“Then yes, I am ill. And when I die, it will have been of a broken heart.”

Night was fully settled now, and rain grated against the window in constant patters. Abigail had yet to move, as had Marcus. They lay in silence, watching the performers above fall into wider intervals.

“You were wrong about one thing.” she said suddenly. “You said before that I was waiting for you when you came that night. I wasn’t.”

The words hurt more than he’d thought they would. All along he thought she had been waiting for him, that there was some connection between them. His cynical half snickered from the dark place it was banished to, mocking him. Marcus tightened his arms about him further.

“It’s understandable,” he said. “You were waiting for Death in his black robe and scythe, but got me instead. No one really knows about us collectors, so I don’t blame you for expecting someone else.”

“I wasn’t expecting some dark creature in a black robe and staff. I was waiting for someone like you.”

Marcus grew cold, stiff. “Someone like me?”

“Yes, like you—a collector, only I didn’t know what it was called at the time. I always thought the man that came for my mother was Death, and so I expected it to be him that came for me. But you came instead.”

Marcus’s pulse quickened, but he forced his breaths to steady. “And this collector, what was he like?” he asked carefully. In asking, a secret part within him knew the answer. Still, he prayed she wouldn’t say—

“He was taller than you, with striking blue eyes and blond hair. He didn’t say much. He just appeared out of thin air right after the car turned over and we stopped flipping. He looked right at me and smiled, and then he looked at my mother.”

Abigail let out a deep breath. “He did say that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t help us. He stood just outside of the car, waiting. Next thing I knew he was gone, and my mother’s eyes were closed.”

She continued on, but her words got lost as Marcus’s heart pounded the truth in his ears. The man from the deliwas a collector, too, and he had come for Abigail. Surely his message was directed toward her.

But if he was a collector, Marcus wondered, why did he not just take her? And why was Abigail on two lists? He squeezed his eyes. He had to tell the Timekeeper.

Abigail broke through, her breath a sweet caress fogging Marcus’s ear. “But although you’re not him, the collector from that day, I am glad it’s you that came instead.”

Through all the panic and worry brewing within him, Marcus was able to hear her words. And while temporary, they appeased the barrage of questions robbing him of air. There was so much he wanted to say, and to ask, but all that he could manage was,

“Thank you.”

She smiled, and turning over again, remained silent until minutes later, she fell asleep. Marcus stayed beside her, enveloped in the dawning darkness, in her nearness, and in her trust.

Casting aside worry, even if only for a few minutes, he relished knowing that, in her own way, Abigail had welcomed him into her world. And in her world, with the memory of his name on her lips, he trailed one last shadow and drifted into sleep.

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