Belladonna

PERCY WAS STANDING NEAR THE WINDOW WHEN SIGNA STORMED in, his eyes bloodshot as he clutched the ledge. It was a miracle he had the strength to stand, though Signa got the impression it was not will but adrenaline fueling him.

She wrapped her arms around herself as howling wind billowed into the room from the open window. Death loomed behind him, observing the scene in silent curiosity.

“Percy?” Byron called, huffing from the hurried climb up the stairs. He leaned his weight upon his walking stick, cursing his arthritic knee.

Percy’s hollowed eyes passed over each of them as though they were ghosts. His face shone with perspiration, skin sallow and gaunt.

“Son, what is it?” Elijah asked. “What’s happened?”

“What in the heavens is he looking at?” Byron asked.

Signa looked not at Percy for an answer but to Death. I didn’t see what happened, he told her. I felt a spirit here and saw him opening the window when I came to check on him. He’s been staring out it ever since.

Signa crossed to her cousin and took him by the shoulders, easing him away from the window and into his bed.

“We should call a doctor at once,” Byron began, already starting out the door when Elijah reeled him back.

“No doctor can fix this. He’s having hallucinations. Warwick!” he called out to the butler, who had hurried after them, though Signa hadn’t realized it. “Bring him some tea and something to eat—”

“No tea!” Percy’s body buckled with a violent shudder. He fell back into the bed, lips chapped and shivering.

Signa pulled up the linen sheets for him, trying to draw his attention away from the window. “Whatever you saw, it should be gone by the morning. Would it help if I stayed with you for a while?”

Percy’s haunted eyes flitted around the room, unable to rest anywhere for long. “I saw her.” He didn’t stammer, and though he still shook, there was a clarity about those words that struck Signa. “Mother. She was here.”

Percy’s eyes fluttered shut, and she knew he was experiencing the same exhaustion that settled into Signa’s bones whenever she had a run-in with a spirit. It was enough to confirm her suspicions, which Elijah echoed in a wondrous whisper.

“It was Lillian. It’s as I’ve thought all along—she’s here, watching over the children.” He trembled like a reed in the wind.

“Lillian is dead, Elijah.” A vein in Byron’s neck pulsed. “This is nonsense. Nothing more than a bout of delirium.”

“That was no delirium.” There was no severity in Elijah’s voice. He believed Lillian was there, and that was all that mattered. “My wife is still upon this earth.”

It would have relieved Signa to share just how right he was. But there was a veil between the worlds of the living and the dead that was better left uncrossed. So she said, “Perhaps,” though Elijah was too lost in the valley of his own thoughts to pay her any mind. He took a fleeting glance at his son to ensure that Percy was still breathing before he hurried out of the room, muttering about his wife.

Perhaps he intended to search for her. Or perhaps he intended to return to his drinking, in the hope that he’d find solace at the bottom of a glass.

She was glad when Byron, after one more hard look at Percy, chose to follow his brother, perhaps to stop him from doing anything reckless.

Signa settled into the chill of her skin as Death came closer. “It may have been Lillian you took, but the one who truly died has been left here upon the earth.” She pitied Elijah. Pitied him so deeply that it felt as though a hole were burning through her heart.

“Signa.” Death spoke the way one might when they were trying not to spook a wild animal. “All who live must die. That is the way of the world.”

But oh, how she wished it wasn’t. How fragile a life seemed when she watched one after another shatter before her eyes. “I cannot bear watching him.” The hole in her heart had grown too large, gnawed away with each passing second. “All of these people… How do you do it? How do you live, leaving broken people in your wake?”

Signa covered her mouth at once, hating that she’d voiced the question out loud, but Death merely sank into Signa, resting his chin upon her head.

“A human life is a beautiful thing,” he said. “You humans… you feel. You feel so deeply that it consumes you. There were humans I kept a watch over, though I would blink and they’d be fifty, sixty years older—and the time would come for me to meet them. For the longest time, I pitied them for their short lives. And I admit, Signa, that I have grown more callous with my age. But I have also grown to admire humans. They’ve such a short time to experience their lives, and so they must feel deeply. They must experience in one lifetime things it’s taken me an eternity to experience. When I see men like Elijah, rather than feel guilt for what I’ve done, I remember that he feels sorrow because he loved so deeply. And were I not real, Little Bird, were I not Death, he would never have experienced that love. So which is better? To live forever, or to live and love?”

Death’s hands slid down her arms, and he took hold of her hands. “Don’t fear me.” His tender voice brushed against her ears. “Don’t resent me when I’ve only just gotten you, please, for I am what makes this world beautiful.”

Try as she might, she did not—could not—hate Death. She supposed he was right in a way, but that didn’t change that she was still but a human. If it was as he said—if humans felt so deeply and loved so greatly—was that why her heart ached for this family and all it had become to her? Was it because she loved them?

Hand in hand with Death, she let the thought consume her. Let it lighten her heart and harden her resolve.

Yes, she loved them. And because of that love, she would do anything to save them and make this family whole once more.