Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I dock the boat and give the woman a sheepish look. “Here we are. I don’t normally escort people to the City, but I think I will today.”
Ethel shrugs, which then turns into a shiver. “Suit yourself. As long as we don’t have to walk far.”
The two of us disembark, with her following me as we walk carefully down the slippery dock. I pause once we step on the shore. The snow has covered up any sign of a trail, and darkness has fallen, making it even harder to see. I know the way instinctively, and I believe the dead know the way too. In fact, I am sure their legs are compelled to walk, no matter how they feel about marching to their final resting place, but I don’t feel like taking any chances.
We walk on, trudging through the snow, hoping we’re on the iron path as we climb up the hills away from the river.
Eventually, the land levels out, and I know we’re close, close enough that I should be looking at the expanse of the City by now. I squint through the dark snowstorm.
The City of Death is barely visible from here. Even though the tower reaches up into the clouds and sprawls wide for miles, the falling snow obscures it, making it look like a giant, shadowy beast hiding in the distance.
“Just a little further,” I tell Ethel. She holds her fur close around her neck, and I feel terrible that she’s in this situation. Out of the countless people I have ushered to the afterlife, I fear her experience has been by far the worst. “Once you get inside the walls, this will all be but a dream.”
“More like a nightmare,” she says through chattering teeth.
I nod at that, unsure of what else I can say, and we continue our walk along the snowy path. Usually, the land here is just a dry, dusty wasteland, but in this weather, it’s a different kind of bleak and foreboding. Prettier, perhaps, like the snow is wiping some sort of slate clean with its purity, but I don’t trust it.
Eventually, we get up close enough that I can see the robed Magician standing outside the front gates.
“Who is that?” Ethel whispers to me. “He doesn’t seem to have a face.”
“He’s the all-seeing Magician,” I tell her. “It’s he who knows what level of the afterlife you end up in.”
“Ah,” she says. “No wonder he gives me the creeps.”
I suppose she’s not wrong. I’m so used to the Magician, I don’t really see him for what he is: a robed being holding a deck of cards, with no face at all but a look into the vast, dark void of the universe, complete with whirling galaxies, shooting stars, moons, and the occasional black hole.
“Do we need to bribe him?” she asks me as we approach.
I can’t help but laugh at that. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t help. He has his own set of morals I don’t know much about.”
“Ethel Rose Bagley,” the Magician says in his strange voice, both empty and flat and yet deep and echoing. “Here, the cards of your life are drawn. Are you ready to accept whatever is dealt?”
Ethel shakes her head, stubborn to the end.
“I’d rather have a choice, if that’s alright with you,” she says.
Despite not having a face, I swear, I feel the Magician smile. A shooting star curves up across the lower half of his void face.
He shuffles the deck, as is customary, the cards flying through the air as if moved by invisible hands, until he selects one with black, velvet gloved fingers.
He looks at it and then turns it around.
A picture of a skeleton burning in fire.
“Inmost,” the Magician booms.
“Is that good or bad?” Ethel asks.
I barely have time to voice my shock and displeasure before the gates of the City swing open, and black smoke, curled into the shape of claws, comes shooting out. They grab Ethel by her shoulders and snatch her back through the air in an instant. All that’s left behind is the reindeer pelt I lent her, and it falls to the snowy ground as the gates slam shut.
“Inmost!” I exclaim to the Magician. “There must be some sort of mistake! She was a sweet old lady. Well, maybe not sweet, but old anyway, and—”
“She murdered her husband and his lover,” the Magician interrupts me.
I swallow hard, my eyes still wide. All that talk about her ex, and it turns out, she’s the one who killed him. No wonder she’s been so worried about running into him in the afterlife.
“Surely if you repent for your crimes and sins, you’ll at least go to the Golden Mean,” I say to the Magician, feeling the need to barter for Ethel’s doom.
“She hasn’t felt remorse a single day in her life,” the Magician says plainly. “She has gone where she belongs. As the ferrywoman, you should know better than to get involved with the lives of the dead. I’m surprised you felt the need to accompany her here to begin with.”