Chapter 2(Revised)
Miguel wrapped Rio up in his very obviously oversized cloak,which dragged on the floor behind her. A few moments ago,the man had explained how picking up souls worked and described it as,"gathering their last breath with a staff and herding it into the afterlife". At first,it made Rio turn her head in confusion,but as the wheels in her head started to turn,she understood more.
"Will you help me with it?"
Miguel adjusted her cloak more,as if avoiding the question with silence. After a few moments,he cleared his throat,"I'm afraid my presence will affect how much you want to do this." Rio pouted at the thought of going somewhere unfamiliar without her dad to guide her,after all,this place was the only place she had ever known. Sure,she wanted to explore the world,but not in solitude. Miguel's expression softened,"I guess a little bit of bias wouldn't hurt."
Miguel took his cloak off of Rio and threw it back over his own shoulders. He rushed into his room for a moment,the sound of cluttering coming from it,and when he came out,a smaller black cloak lay in his hands. He handed it off to Rio with a small smile,"Here,just for the test run. You can have your own once you decide whether you want to help me or not."
From his cloak,Miguel drew out a wooden staff,long and crooked like a tree in a barren forrest. He tapped the full end of his staff to the ground,summoning a thick blue fog around him and Rio. She scrunched her nose at the uncomfortable feel of the fog in her nose. Once it had cleared,she let out a breath of relief,but the lack of fog allowed her to see clearer, it allowed her to see the unnatural shirt of fog surrounding what appeared to be an illusion of a town. Rio's lips curled into a fascinated smile as she breathed out,"Woah."
The two went through the portal,after Rio stopped sticking her foot in and out of it when Miguel told her to stop. Her foot hit cool tiles that were slightly moist,leaving a bit of dew on her foot. She poked her head out of the portal and looked around at the place. Large beige tiles sat underneath her feet,docks connected to the land and reflected across the clear blue water that rippled beneath those very docks.
Structures were scattered across the land,tiles formed the roofs and a smooth substance formed the walls of these structures,which could vary from having doors as entrances to having beautiful arches that led inside of the houses. She felt a small tap on her shoulder and looked over her shoulder to see Miguel pointing at a giant house in the distance,well,it seemed more like some mansion than just a large house. "That's our place. We should go,now,before the souls start to wander."
As they walked, Rio could see along the streets that at this time,people still lie awake. From the corners of her eyes,she could see men in their oversized,puffy red and yellow garments and fancy hats. They narrowed their eyes at the unfamiliar presences before turning back to each other and walking deeper into the darkness of the alley with a quickness to their steps.
"How do you know where to go?" Rio looked up at Miguel expectantly,his green eyes flickered over to look down at her. "I can sense the dead souls,their bodies are usually covered in the stench of it. It's like the smell of mold and sickeningly sweet like rotting fruit."
"Blech! That sounds gross," Rio gagged at the sound of the bodies smelling so bad that Death could smell it from worlds away. It reminded her of one thing,her dad's horrible cooking that usually caused her to pretend to go to sleep so she could avoid eating it. Literally,it was so bad that as soon as she touched the food,it melted.
There it was,right in front of Rio's eyes,a giant house made out of tiles and some sort of concrete looking material that she could only describe as a mansion. The roof curved into a point at the top,well,one of the four roofs that she could see. The house was literally a mansion,no,scratch that,a castle that was more modest but still looked like it came straight out of a fantasy book.
Sure,it wasn't as large as those castles that housed the richest of royalty,but it was similar in structure. At the very front and center of the house was a door,it was carved straight out of wood and painted with a nice reddish brown color that matched the tiles that made up the foundation of the house and inside of the door was a carved out circle that held painted glass that formed the silhouette of a pale lady with long,flowing jett black hair. Rio looked at the door in awe of it and practically rushed to grab the door handle,excited to see the inside of the house.
"Alright,alright,calm yourself. We need to be respectful of the dead's property."
"I'll be repec-tul later,I want to see something other than our home!" Rio swung the door open and rushed inside,the sound of her feet tapping against the tiles echoing throughout the silent house. Miguel let out a sigh,yelling out to the young girl,"Wait up!"
Rio skipped down the dark halls,she felt a rush of wonder at the sight of the beautiful architecture of the house. She enjoyed it until a horrible stench hit her nose,it was the smell of rot,sweat,and a sweetness that overwhelmed her with a sickness in her stomach. She remembered vaguely that sometimes,her dad would bring home the stench when he came back from his jobs,but it never smelled so bad that it made Rio want to throw up.
"From the look on your face I can tell you just found them."
Rio held an end of her cloak to her nose and looked through squinted eyes at the scene. Scratch marks on the floor,from what seemed to be a bed or multiple of them. The room in front of her was dimly lit,but she could still see the silhouette of a few beds in the room,all occupied.
Miguel stepped in first,stopping in his tracks to let out a gag that he had disguised(not so well) as a cough. Shuffle. Shuffle. Crash! "That doesn't sound good,"he murmured as he dashed into the room. He flicked his black hood over his head and stalked his way through the dark room. Rio obviously followed him blindly,what would she do in the dark hallway of some Sicilian mansion at the edge of town?
Suddenly,Rio was surrounded by the ghastly looking bodies of coven members,bodies covered in sweat and the stench of their sickness. She had never seen something so horrible. But she no longer had time to focus on the bodies,as she was now on the ground,knocked over by a force strong enough to knock her over,but not strong enough to knock too much wind out of her. She could hear the attacker's heavy breaths of exhaustion at the small action. Next to Rio was a teenage girl,her nose and mouth was covered by a makeshift mask from bedsheets (hopefully from the sheets that weren't occupied by dead people). Her deep brown,sunken eyes were full of desperation and fear,her mask moved as her mouth did underneath,"Nun avissi a veniri ccà..."
The girl paused,and for a moment,it seemed as if she went to another place. And just as quick as if happened,it went away,leaving her to grumble something to Rio, "Don't think I forgot what you said back there." She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at the girl. The younger of the two opened her mouth to ask," Are you one of those crazy people?"
The masked girl looked a bit shocked,at herself,maybe. Rio couldn't tell when that mask covered the girl's face so effectively. Rio felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see her dad looking at her through his hood," I think you'd learn a bit better if you actually looked at how I handled souls."
Rio heard a gasp come from the other side of her,of course it was the masked girl. This time,she didn't have to go into a trance to start sounding crazy,"Ti l'aghju già canusciutu,"- she broke out of Sicilian and switched to speaking in English,as if she had been possessed by the soil of an English woman-", You,Death,have a scar."
Miguel spoke up," What do you know about m-"
"Nun tu," She directed her sight to Rio and gestured at her with a head nod. Miguel's green eyes widened just a bit,his hand reaching to rub his unkept beard. His plan would work? He wouldn't be Death for all of time? The thought filled him with so much joy,but also dread. This revelation brought the possibility of the prophecy coming true.
"You need to leave,young girl. Sickness spreads quick and soon, you'll be one of the souls that I deliver,Calderu. Your coven wouldn't want the last survivor dying a day after all of them,right?"
The divination witch's eyebrows furrowed at the words that escaped the teeth of Death. The words felt insensitive, something that would drive the girl away,which it did. She got up from the floor with a sigh and murmured,"Picchì lu divinu morher mi lassò campari?"
Miguel could see the pain in the girl's eyes as she left,and although it was dejecting to see,he knew that any further contact with the young witch would set up the prophecy. He knew it would mess with his chances of getting rid of that god awful curse of reaping souls. Through paranoid eyes,he looked over at Rio and helped her up from the tile floor.
Miguel made his way over to one of the beds,it didn't matter which one,after all,every single one of them was filled with a dead body. He reached into the darkness of the back of his cloak and out came his long,wooden staff that curled at the end as if it were supposed to hold something. He held up the tip of it to the chest of a dead woman,her skin was sweaty and covered in red rashes that were awfully painful to look at.
When the staff touched her skin, it's as if her chest heaved to let out one last breath,but all that came out of her mouth was the blue fog that followed Death wherever he went. The woman's soul was now with him,carried in his staff like a little lantern. Before Rio knew it,Death held out his staff in front of her,almost as if asking silently,Do you take this responsibility? She looked on with wonder that made her eyes glisten just a bit,all she had to do was take it and her journey would start. So she did.
Rio grabbed the staff gently,only this once in her lifetime thinking about how fragile something could be. Her hands shook ever so slightly with excitement and anxiety,but somehow she still managed to tap another woman's chest with the tip of the staff. She saw her chest heaved ever so slightly,and then her mouth opened over so slightly. Rio waited and waited,her leg bouncing up and down as she watched,but the woman stayed still for a moment and no soul came from her mouth. But then Rio heard it,a bloodcurdling scream coming from the woman's mouth.
What followed was the most painful thing to hear, something ripping,the noise wasn't painful,but what was ripping was the painful part. Rio looked down at the woman's body,covered in a thin white blanket that had started to move as if something was writhing underneath. Miguel lifted the blanket cautiously,slowly building up confidence to rip it off. And when he finally did,the sight he was met with was the most horrible thing Rio had seen in her life.
The ripping that Rio heard wasn't the woman's clothing,but her skin. Vines burst through the woman's wrinkled skin,leaving the tiny,pin needle spikes covered in thick blood. Rio froze,she had no idea how to stop this because she had no idea what had gone wrong. Her little breaths quickened as she watched for longer until her attention was caught by the staff that was snatched from her hands. She looked up at Miguel who had a horrified look in his eyes,his mouth slightly parted in shock at the slight of the woman's body.
Once the shock started to disappear,wheels started to turn in Miguel's head. He thought of Rio's room and how vines and flowers seemed to randomly grow in the cracks of walls,the now vibrant vegetation around their house that Miguel hadn't seen before her arrival. And now this. The cursed man had already known of the existence of witches,but he had never seen them create life with only the tips of their fingers. The thought of Rio being a witch amazed him,but also terrified him. Ideas started to run through his head. Power. The Darkhold. The prophecy.
"That was...the last body. We can go home now,Rio."
Rio was fast asleep,but Miguel was laying on the couch,awake,awaiting another predecessor of him to knock on his door. Knock.Knock. Finally. He jumped up from the couch and walked a few steps to reach the door. He turned the door knob and swung the door open. He let out a sight of relief. The cloaked man hadn't met the terrifyingly angry green eyes of an ancient Greek woman,but the friendly,round dark brown eyes of a young dark skinned African woman. She flashed a small smile and Miguel took note of the unique gap in her two front teeth. "Could you tell me what I was called here for?"
"Yes. I'm relieved I didn't meet a pair of green eyes burning holes into my soul."
The woman let out a laugh,"Alkmini tends to do that. But only to idiotic swines like you." Her little smile dropped and turned into a glare. Miguel's eyes widened,but then his eyes narrowed back to their normal size,"I should've expected this."
"That is right,Miguel. I would be surprised if she had not also reminded you actions have very real consequences. Is that why I'm here?"
Miguel pressed his lip into a line and nodded. The woman smirked,"Well deserved. I will thank the gods for punishing you." Miguel crossed his arms,"Can I just say what happened?"
"Go on."
"I was showing Rio how my job works,I-I even let her take the staff and do it herself,but something went wrong."
"She ran back to her mother and decided to live the rest of her life in peace?"
"No- Just listen,when she grabbed the staff and tried to take the woman's soul,her skin was ripped open by vines. It's like...Rio used magic,on accident I hope,to rip through the woman's dead body. The vines only stopped growing when I took the staff."
"Wait, you're suggesting that she can use plant magic? That would only be possible if..." The woman paused,her eyes slightly narrowed as she looked down at the floor in thought. "Oh,I know, you've cursed yourself by taking the living soul of host of a powerful goddess."
Miguel's head perked up,"A goddess?" The woman nodded her head slowly,"That is what I just said. Do I need to explain every word I just said to you?" Miguel kept his jaw right. "I take that as a yes."
"My mother used to tell me of a goddess,less a goddess and more just a soul in the earth. This thing is Mãe Natureza,a beautiful thing that is in everything,the reason why there is something beautiful in everything. She is the reason for life and since the earth was made,her true soul has been dormant under the ground,every so often creating land and more plants. Mãe Natureza has lended some of her power to people,but only in small amounts and temporarily. I am being led to believe that this is the case with Rio,but a little different. Mãe Natureza has a way of getting what she wants and putting some of her soul into Rio's body to give her the magic of life. What this thing wants,I may not know,but I will not mess with whatever she has planned."
" But- you have to do something about it! I have to do something about it because this prophecy it..."- Miguel tried to think of anything else to say other than what he really thought,this prophecy will only make me look worse- "I just don't want it to come true."
"Right. Miguel,I should give you a bit of advice,let it be. I know you have a problem leaving things alone,but this is one thing you can't change,no matter how you look at it or rearrange your life,Mãe Natureza will always find a way. Just let that girl live her life, can't you just do that?" She got up with an annoyed huff and walked to the door. Miguel stood up from the couch just as quick,"Where are you going?"
"Back to my piece of land, I'm tired of you arguing with me about this. Just make sure you will not forget what I said when I walk out this door. Leave. It."
She slammed the door behind her,leaving Miguel standing in the middle of the living room. He considered that there would be a world where he would think of the younger girl's words,but this wasn't that world. He was far to desperate to listen to her words,far to desperate to let his reputation slip and be ostracized when he passed on his curse to someone else because of a prophecy he caused. He wouldn't let himself be alone again.
The next morning,Miguel waited at the kitchen table with a big pot of oats and plated bacon in the middle of it. He had been laying awake all night,thinking of what choices he could make. Could he just let things go back to normal? Would he let Rio live normally? No,that wasn't a choice. That only left him with one other option.
Once Miguel heard the creak of a door and small footsteps hitting the ground,he looked over his shoulder to see Rio rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. He called out the green witch,"I made food!" As soon as the words came out of Miguel's mouth,Rio's eyes widened in panic and she took a step back. The man added,"I promise it's good."
Rio nodded carefully and walked towards the table,scooping up a few spoons of oats and taking a piece of bacon. Miguel took a bite of the bacon first,it was familiar to his family back when he was alive. Bacon was one of the only good things that they could buy when they first traveled deep into Great Britain. He expected to taste the comfort of home,but he only tasted burnt plastic and somehow the feel of rubber,even though it looked overcooked. He winced at the horrible taste and slowly out the bacon down.
Naive to the bad taste of the bacon,Rio took a giant bite out of the piece and spat it out just moments later,"Blech! Dad you lied! I thought you said it was good." Miguel stammered,"Well, I'm sure the oats will be good." Rio shook her head slowly,emphasizing that she would not be trying the oats to find out.
"Well,then I guess that means you'll focus more on the thing I'm telling you." Rio's head perked up immediately. "You remember that apprentice job I offered you? I'm going to need an answer on that."
Rio really didn't need to think about the question. Were there setbacks yesterday?Sure. But that wouldn't stop her from doing something that had fascinated her from the moment she heard about it. With an excited little glint in her eyes,she answered,"I'll do it!"
Miguel's face lit up,"Wait,really? I mean,I wasn't too excited to do it when I was selected." Rio put up her shoulders in a shrug. Miguel then realized that her excitement stemed from the fact that she hadn't been able to do anything but sit and wait for him to finish his job for 400 years.
"I need to set some ground rules for this first. 1. You must not speak to the living or interact with them in any way unless it is necessary. 2. For the first year in our world,you will not reap any souls unless I am by your side. Also,you see this staff? You won't be getting an object like that until I stop doing trips with you. 3. Don't stick around in one spot in the world of the living for too long,I expect you to be doing more. Well,when you leave my side I guess you can do whatever you want- just manage your time. And 4.The most important rule of all,if you interact with any living thing,make sure it isn't a witch"
"What's a witch?"
"They are humans who can do magic. You remember that living girl in the Calderu Coven? She was a witch,along with the rest of her Coven. They are horrible people and cannot be trusted. Their magic contradicts what is supposed to be the natural order. So if you plan on breaking any of my rules,make sure it isn't this one."
Rio could hear anger and resentment in his tone that was so intense that she could imagine steam coming out of his mouth and nose. "Why don't you like witches?" Miguel looked back over at Rio,his anger fading,"They're not normal,Rio. Just...keep away from them." The powerful being knew this hatred came from a specific part of his heart and was somewhat unjustified(especially when his daughter was one),but how else would he protect her? He couldn't just let her discover her power and go on a quest to learn more about witches. So he would just keep her clueless. It was better this way,he knew.