Chapter 2: A Date with Death

"Some Lady of Invermoore I am..." I hiccupped, the smells of potent barley and jam tarts, alongside Guinness stew slopping in the Frogtongue Tavern bowls, awakening a hunger in me. "Rosy, another Lagavulin, my dearest darling innkeeper! And a glass of sherry, my love," I said, casting my gaze, full-drunk, across the tavern. Wherever I looked, Sedgewoodfolk raised their glasses and poured out a draught of ale onto the peanut shell ground for me. I smiled at Brannath the Blacksmith, tipped my riding cap to Ken the Cobbler. Even Violet the Seamstress offered me a portion of wine.

Peter, Annis' one true love, was in a corner, playing poker. He had not caught hide nor hair of his Lady of Invermoore drinking herself into stupor yet again at the thought of meeting the Witchfather that walked Sedgewood with my ghost, as if the Grim Reaper longed for companionship.

For Samael had my soul:

"I am lonely – could I but borrow your spirit, fair Abigail MacKay, to accompany me on the weary moors as I walk the ley lines, day and night, reaping souls? In return, I shall grant you immortality – unless something truly grievous befalls you. No stakes, garlic, or silver will affect you," Samael had asked with a voice like bones rolling in a grave, the collier coals in his eye sockets alight like hellfire.

"I suppose it can be arranged," I, seventeen, back from the dead for but an instance, and thankful to him for raising me from Purgatory, had been eager to oblige. Samael had held me for an many lifetimes and soothed me – as time moved like unspooling threads there, as I was wracked with sobs and spilled my guts to him. A better listener was not to be had than Death. He was of noble comportment and mien.

I had no inkling of what the consequences of loaning one's soul to the Reaper would be. That there was an expiration date on our deal.

That I would not age a day since then...

Rosy the Innkeeper and Alewife, her nut-brown hair like John Barleycorn, smiled a toothless grin: "Oh fair Abby, Lady of Invermoore, you are as eager and cunning as you were as a wee lass. I'm afraid you've had one too many drinks. Let me set you up with some hearty Guinness stew and a bit 'o rye bread. The carrots are from my own garden, fresh and blessed by Jack in the Green. We'll get that stupor right off you my mistress, aye?" Rosy's blue eyes shone like starlight. She brought me the soup and water. The bread was crusty against my fangs – just how I liked it.

"Rosy, do you think ill of me? The rumors are damning, to say the least." I nursed the cup of water, brooding, and tucked a lank white strand of hair behind my ear. "Humans typically fear vampires, even if our family has always been kind lairds and ladies, Puther and Redelia aside. I often fear my race's reputation precedes any good deeds I have done, or the stains of blood upon the MacKay name."

The Innkeeper could see her reflection in my black eyes: they gazed back at her against her horn-rimmed glasses. The paunch of Rosy's belly from five healthy pregnancies – many of the boys now employed as groundskeepers and gardeners at Invermoore – rippled like a wave in laughter. Rosy crossed herself with a tan finger, then smiled bright as the sun – three teeth remaining, all gold fills. Still, it was a beautiful grin.

"Why, my Lady Abigail, you saved Sedgewood from the MacKays. Burned down their whole summer house by Glasgow, after Lady Leticia and Laird Justin, your parents, were unrighteously murdered in their sleep, in cold blood. We never knew what happened to you, but I think it best not to ask, where you went those eight long years. To say... to say the reign of Puther and Redelia was horrid, is an understatement." Rosy steeled her gaze. "My neighbor Tom lost his daughter to one of their boys. All that remained were... teeth with which to bury the lass. To think, beasts of the night so hungry, they ate even the marrow. Not even bones left behind."

Tears gathered in both our eyes. I squeezed Rosy's hand. "I am so sorry I did not get stronger fast enough, and come into my powers soon enough, to condemn their ghosts to the moors. Wicked Puther and heinous Redelia. And all my evil cousins."

Rosy smiled, dotting tears with her handkerchief. "We do not know why the Witchfather walks the moors with the spitting, translucent image of you at seventeen. It is a question I will never ask, Lady Abigail. But sometimes, late at night, there is a visitor to this very tavern, with rags on his face, gloves, and a black shroud – into his gullet goes a barrel of wine, and he does nothing but knit death shrouds. We – we know it is him. But he is kind, and tips enough for a month's wages."

I froze. "You have seen Samael?"

Rosy bit her lip, her amber hair warm in the hearth-light. "The dark visitor says he is rather lonely when I ask him if he has any company. Says there is a girl at Invermoore his heart belongs to."

My lungs palpitated as I struggled to breathe. "Rosy, I have to go – my apologies," I said, guzzling the soup, storing the bread in my pocket, and pacing out to my gelding Marino. I saddled the palomino, tipped the stable girl, and rode off to Invermoore in a daze.

A heart for the Reaper, eh? That was a foreboding sign indeed.

For what need would a man of bone have for a heart?

I crashed into bed, the sound of bullfrogs in the fen and creek sending me off to sleep. I dreamed I was in Purgatory again – grassy green fields, sleeping souls in caterpillar cocoons, a forest of emerald leaves and jade vines. Samael, cutting the fabric of reality with his scythe as my soul cried, rocking me on his knee, and laying my spirit like a death shroud over my wrecked, bloody body. His teeth – no lip there was – cold on my cheek. Life seeping back into me. His bone hands tying a bandage over where my heart had been pierced with a silver stake by a lowlife paid off by Puther and Redelia.

Death's smile. (Can a skull smile?)

His face had seemed to know beneficent wonders, horrible secrets, and all the elegies of humankind. He had held me in rapture as I stared into the black sockets where eye jelly should have been.

The weight of the rocks of Sheol turned gold coin burned in my sweaty palms. The Reaper's robe off his back for me, to bind the wound and cover my bloody blue dress. Now, the strange black cloak lived at the back of my closet and granted the wearer strength.

I used it when hunting lost souls, guarding Invermoore from monsters.

And then, wind. I awoke in a sweat. Death's voice rang, like a grandmother's shaky psalm – in my ear.

"It is time, my old friend. You are far past time to pay your dues. My hourglass is running out of sand, and I have grown quite lonely."

Samael's voice was quiet, dark, and I shivered until I fell asleep - dreaming I fell into his gaping white arms.