Page 11 of Death and Divination
Chapter 5
Ophelia
Iheaded home, taking the twisty country lanes that ran through the valley meadows and farms. Cassie and three of my other sisters lived inside the actual town of Accident. West of town lay forests and streams, and a break in the mountain range that led past the town wards to the outside world. The mountains loomed large, curling around the town on three sides like a “C.” The rest of the area was rolling countryside, spacious and far larger than it seemed when up high and looking down into the valley below. Originally the founder of the town, my ancestor Temperance Perkins, had only included the town proper within the magical wards that protected the supernatural residents from discovery, but over the centuries the wards had been expanded to encompass fields and streams, farms and forests, mountain and valley.
I lived out to the east where the opening in the “C” of mountains lay. Something eased in my soul to be out from under the shadow of the rocky crags, in the place where minotaur and unicorns grazed. So many of our citizens liked the wide open fields, and I loved living among the centaurs, the Pegasus, and the manticores. At the far eastern edge of what we claimed to be part of Accident was Pottsmore Bay, a small inlet whose water was just brackish enough that the merfolk and selkies called it home. Let others live among the trolls and the shifters and the fae. These open fields and watery marshes were what I liked to called home.
My house was just west of where the merfolk lived, in a cluster of houses we’d taken to calling Pottsmore after the bay. Creative, I know. About forty of us lived here, each in wood-sided homes built on stilts to guard against the occasional flood. I loved it here. The only time I regretted not being closer to town was when I had to work.
Which was tonight. I glanced at my watch, realizing that I’d only have about four hours to grab a quick nap, shower, eat, then head back to town for my shift at the fire department. Hopefully it would be a slow night and I could grab a few more hours of sleep, but the Accident Fire Department had the dubious honor of responding to calls outside of our wards and into the human world. There was a good chance I’d be swamped, especially since it was Saturday night and weekends didn’t mix well with twisty mountain roads.
Turning onto the one-lane bridge that crossed the estuary and led to Pottsmore, I happened to glance over the railing to see something floating in the water. At first, I thought it was a buoy for a crab pot, but then I realized it wasn’t.
I slammed on the brakes, leaving my door open as I jumped out of the car and scrambled over the low railing, dropping myself down into the water. It was cold and murky, full of marsh grass and floating plant life. I surfaced with tendrils of yellowish green clinging to my hair, the smell of salt and fish and silt filling my nose. Grabbing the small form, I turned him over and swam for the shore, praying the whole way.
Hauling him up onto the soft muddy ground, I checked for vitals. With a sinking heart, I cleared his airway and began CPR.
My phone. Damn it, I’d left my phone in the passenger seat of my car in my haste to get to this guy. Which was probably just as well since having a non-functioning water-laden cell phone would do me just as much good right now as a phone all the way up on the bridge. As I shifted to begin chest compressions, I hoped that someone would be driving in or out of Pottsmore, would see my car sitting in the middle of the bridge with the driver’s door open, and come to see what was going on.
I’d just started round two when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Tilting my head a bit, I saw someone—just legs from my angle, but still someone.
“Call 911,” I told him or her as I moved back to chest compressions. “Tell them I’ve got a goblin drowning on the east side of the bridge into Pottsmore.”
Goblins. Incredibly hearty creatures, but they really were idiots when it came to water. All efforts to teach them to swim failed. If they’d just remember to roll over and float on their backs, they’d be fine, but no. Every time they fell into the water or just wandered in over their heads, they panicked and flailed around, sinking like a stone and only bobbing to the surface after they’d gotten their lungs full of water. If this had been a human, I wouldn’t have held out much hope, but we’d managed to pull six goblins back from the edge of a drowning death this year. I was determined to make this one number seven.
“You’re too late.”
The voice sent a chill through me and I looked up to see the same man from the accident scenes. My heart thudded with a combination of attraction and unease.
“I’m never too late,” I lied. Or maybe it wasn’t really a lie, but some attempt at confidence in god-like abilities I didn’t possess. “Fake it until you make it” didn’t ever work for me, but I was willing to give it a try.
“His soul is separating. He will soon move on.”
One. Two. Three. Four. I continued my chest compressions, then checked vitals again. Nothing. Even if my buddies teleported here with the ambulance, they wouldn’t be in time. This could be our first goblin fatality this year. I smoothed a hand over his warty, green head and started to cry as I continued to work on the goblin.
Why had I not had a vision aboutthisinstead of stupid golf balls and blood on oleander leaves? If I’d left Marcus’ just a few minutes earlier, if I’d not stopped to get gas, if I’d just driven faster, this little guy would be alive and ready to terrorize town residents for another few years. What use was it being an oracle if I couldn’tsaveanyone?
“Don’t cry, darling. Don’t cry.”
I felt the man’s hand on my shoulders and looked over. At first glance, the hand seemed bony, almost skeletal. Then suddenly it was firm with long slender fingers, muscled, and covered with tanned flesh.
The goblin coughed, vomiting up water and lunch all over himself. His eyelids opened, and the viscous cloudiness of death cleared from his bulbous eyes like the mists on a sunny day, revealing brown irises.
“A life for a life,” the man whispered, and I shivered as I remembered the vision in Marcus’ office. “Soon you must make a choice.”
He turned to walk away, and I stood, leaving the goblin spitting and babbling something about tasty fishies as he lay in the mud.
“Who are you?” I asked, rushing up to the man. “I mean, you said you were Death, but I can’t exactly call you that so I was hoping you’d have an actual name. And that maybe you’d like to go get coffee sometime? Or dinner?”
Had I just asked Death out on a date? No, he wasn’t Death; he was a ghost. Although I wasn’t sure it was any better that I’d just asked a ghost out on a date.
Could ghosts have sex? Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about that. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d said yes to my coffee invite or done anything except turn and stare at me with those dark, expressionless eyes.
“I am Nirnasha.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving me staring out into the marshes, a coughing goblin behind me.
