Belladonna

THE BLADE SLIPPED THROUGH THE SHADOWS, AND SIGNA CURSED.

Death peered down at his chest, and the shadows tilted as though he was cocking his head. “Now, now, aren’t you a curious thing. Surely, you didn’t believe something so trivial would work on me?”

Her lips soured at his amusement, and she withdrew the knife. She’d hoped the blade would do something. That it would deter him or let him know that she was serious about him staying away from her. She wanted Death to see her as dangerous. As someone not to be toyed with. Instead, he was laughing.

And because of that laughter, Signa barely registered the persistent banging at her bedroom door. She stilled only at the screeching of her trunk sliding against the wooden floor and Aunt Magda’s yelling as she stormed into the room, sheet white and with the fear of the devil in her eyes. The woman wasted no time, trembling as she grabbed a fistful of Signa’s hair and hoisted her from the floor. Her eyes darted toward the window, as though she intended to throw Signa out.

Beside Aunt Magda, Death bristled, choking the air from the room. Ice bit into Signa’s skin as she tried to pry herself away from her aunt’s grasp. And though Signa knew she should tell him to stop, she didn’t. Her aunt’s eyes burned with hatred, and as the woman lunged for her neck, Signa gritted her teeth, took her aunt by the shoulders, and threw her off-balance.

The moment Signa’s skin touched Aunt Magda’s, it was as though a fire burned through her veins. Her aunt fell back as if stunned, breaths thin and reedy. The color drained from her skin, as though Signa’s touch had leeched it all away. Aunt Magda tripped over a corner of the trunk, tumbling backward with a silent scream, lungs emptying themselves.

She fell upon the floor with a smack, silent for perhaps the first time in her life.

By the time Signa understood what had happened, it was too late to help Aunt Magda, whose glossy eyes stared hollowly at the ceiling. Death hovered above her, bent to inspect the body.

“Well, that’s one way to shut her up.” His tone was light with mirth, as though this were all a joke.

Signa’s breaths then came not in sips but in panicked gasps. “What have you done?”

Only then did Death straighten, recognizing her panic. “What have I done? I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Little Bird.” He spoke with the same slow inflection one might use when instructing a child. “Take a breath and listen to me. We haven’t much time—”

Signa heard none of it. When she looked at her hands, they were the palest blue, as translucent as a spirit’s. She tucked them behind her with a low moan. “Stay away from me!” she pleaded. “Please, just stay away!”

There was an edge in Death’s voice when he replied. A hint of darkness looming in the meadow. “As if I don’t already try.” He turned from her, and Signa could only watch as Death reached through her aunt’s corpse and tore the spirit from her body.

That spirit took one look at Signa, then at Death, and her eyes widened with understanding. “You rotten witch.”

It felt as though the ground were falling out from beneath Signa’s feet. Already her mind was crawling in on itself, her vision tunneling as she stared down at her trembling hands. Hands that had betrayed her. Hands that had stolen a life.

“What have I done?” she whispered, her body curling into itself. What have I done, what have I done, what have I done? And then, with dawning horror, “What do I do?”

“First, you take that breath.” For some reason it eased her nerves to hear Death speaking and not Magda, who sat staring at her translucent body in shock. “I assure you, I did not expect this—”

“What do I care for your assurances? You’re the reason this happened!” Signa didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so the sound that escaped her was a mix of both.

Death’s shadows tripled in size as darkness enveloped the room. “You summoned me. I’ve done nothing but come where I was called. I’m not your enemy—”

At least at this, she knew to laugh. “Not my enemy? You are a perpetual cloud upon my existence. You’re the reason I’ve spent my life in places like this, with people like her, surrounded by spirits! You’re the reason I’m miserable. And look at what you’ve done now.” Her eyes fell to the corpse in front of her, and Signa buried her face in her translucent hands as tears burned hot. “You’ve damned me. Now no one will ever want to marry me!”

“Marrying?” Death stared at her incredulously. “That’s what you’re crying about?”

She sobbed harder, the words doing nothing to ease her spiraling mind.

Had Signa been looking, she would have seen that Death’s shadows wilted. She would have seen that he reached out for her, only to draw back before she could reject him. She would have seen his shadows wrap themselves around Magda’s mouth, silencing the woman before she could say another cruel word.

“I never meant for this to happen.” His voice rang genuine. “Our time is limited, and I know that whatever I say right now, you won’t hear it. But I’m not your enemy. In two days’ time, I’ll prove it to you. Promise me you’ll wait here until then.”

Signa made no such promise, though it wasn’t as if she had anywhere else to go. Still, she didn’t look up until Death was gone and warmth crept back into the room, bringing feeling back into her fingers and toes as life once again colored her skin. The effects of the belladonna had worn away, leaving a pulsing headache and the seething spirit of her aunt as the only reminders that Death had visited.

Signa took one look at her through watery eyes, and Aunt Magda scowled. “I always knew you had the devil inside of you.”

Without argument, Signa fell back upon the floor to stew in her misery.

Signa stood before the crooked door of her dead aunt Magda’s house later that evening, hugging herself as she waited for the coroner to finish his work.

He made haste—not because he was unnerved by the body but because he was fearful of Signa with her raven hair and oddly colored eyes, and of the crowd of neighbors who watched from a distance with knowing looks.

“You never asked for this to happen,” Signa whispered to herself as she braced against anxious onlookers. “You may have thought it, but thinking is not the same as doing. You are good. People could learn to like you. This is his fault.”

His fault, his fault, his fault. It was her new mantra.

Signa hated Death even more now than she did before. Hated what he’d somehow caused her to become. Though… she couldn’t say she was sad that Aunt Magda was gone.

Or at least mostly gone.

“Are you going to let them take me?” Aunt Magda’s spirit croaked, angry even in death. “You owe me, girl! Are you going to let them stuff me into a bag like that? Do something, you little witch, I know you can see me!”

“Unfortunately, I can hear you, too,” Signa grumbled, realizing she’d spoken aloud when she earned a surprised blink from the man lifting her aunt’s bagged body into the back of a black carriage. Unsure what to do, Signa stared between him and her aunt’s floating spirit until the man grew uncomfortable and excused himself, sputtering on about how sorry he was for her loss and how he’d be in touch.

All the while, neighbors held their crosses tight around their necks, whispering that they always knew there was something off about the girl. Telling anyone who would listen that Signa was a bad seed, and that Magda should have known better than to invite the devil into her home. There was even a spirit among them in a loose white tunic, who crossed themselves over and over again as they stared at Signa with empty, hollow eyes.

She tried not to scowl. It didn’t matter that their gossip bothered her. It didn’t matter that she would have given anything to have just one person to confide in—because they weren’t wrong to fear her. Signa had used the powers of the reaper.

She just needed to figure out how it had happened.

Signa’s skin prickled as she backed away toward Magda’s house, hoping neither the neighbors nor her distracted aunt—who was busy making a fuss about her body as the coroner’s carriage disappeared down the street—would follow as she sneaked away and into the garden.

The term garden, in this case, was used loosely. Over the years the land had decorated itself with weeds and wildflowers Magda had often complained about, and that Signa spent hours tending to as well as she could without so much as a shovel or shears. If there was anything she’d miss about Magda’s home, it was the garden.

She made her way beneath a willow, knocking the overgrown foliage to one side so she could lean against the tree’s trunk. But she wasn’t alone.

Beneath the leaves, covered with dirt and clover, was a hatchling. It was so new to the world that its eyes were shut tight, its skin pink and fleshy, without a single feather.

Signa stooped to inspect the poor creature, which was covered in soil and hungry ants that had every intention of devouring it alive. The insects overtook it, ruthless in their pursuit. Signa couldn’t help but sympathize with the creature; it was like her—cast out of its nest and expected to fend for itself. Only it was not as capable as Signa; for it could not cheat death. It would be a mercy for the creature to die swiftly and be put out of its misery.

But Magda’s death had been an accident. If Signa took another life, on purpose this time, what did that make her?

She didn’t want to give any consideration to the thought, yet she knew that she needed an answer before she was face-to-face with anyone else she risked hurting.

Tentatively, she peeled her gloves off and brushed the tip of one finger along the hatchling’s spine, sweeping away some of the ants and debris that had collected. She held her breath, waiting to see if its death would come. Curiously, the hatchling continued to writhe on the ground, its heart pulsing.

Again she pressed a bare finger upon the bird, longer this time. When she pulled her hand away, the creature was still breathing.

She leaned back against the trunk of the willow with tears of relief prickling her eyes. Her touch hadn’t killed the poor bird. Her touch wasn’t lethal. Unless… unless there was more to it.

She remembered the belladonna in her pocket, and with a shaking hand Signa drew five berries from it. Ensuring that the foliage would conceal her from anyone who might wander by, she popped the berries into her mouth and let them burst upon her tongue. The symptoms came fast—the nausea, the swimming vision, and there across from her, Death himself stood once more. Though she knew he’d come, she refused to acknowledge him, glad that he waited at a distance. She reached out once more to stroke her finger along the bird’s spine, and this time its heartbeat ceased and it stilled with a final relieved breath.

Signa drew her hand back and clutched it to her chest. There was no denying it—with just a touch, she could bring death. But that death would come, it seemed, only when the reaper was in her presence. Only when Signa was in this strange space, teetering between life and death.

She had so many questions, yet not once did Signa spare Death a glance as she forced herself from the ground, leaving the dead hatchling upon the soil for the ants to claim as she stumbled toward the house.

She was glad, at least, that the hatchling would no longer feel pain. Glad that if she was to be a monster, at least she could deliver mercy.