6: The Reaper’s Field Guide

Mag­gie was al­ready asleep when Brig­it re­turned to their apart­ment. Though it was no longer nec­es­sary, Brig­it was qui­et as she moved through the liv­ing room to the bed­room.

Mag­gie had fi­nal­ly forced her­self to re­turn to sleep­ing there the night of the fu­ner­al. She had lain on the so­fa for on­ly a few hours be­fore get­ting up and walk­ing slow­ly to the bed­room. Brig­it had im­me­di­ate­ly jumped to her feet and fol­lowed. As Brig­it had thought they might, the mem­ories of their pri­vate times to­geth­er there flood­ed them as soon as they passed through the door. She knew, though, that Mag­gie had gone there to be en­veloped in those mem­ories and to find some com­fort in them. Brig­it had fol­lowed her so that she too could be en­veloped in them and hope­ful­ly com­fort her part­ner as she cried the fi­nal tears over her loss.

As she stood be­side their bed, watch­ing Mag­gie sleep peace­ful­ly, Brig­it won­dered if Mag­gie might be dream­ing of her. The serene look on her face gave no in­di­ca­tion one way or the oth­er. Brig­it sighed heav­ily and reached out her hand to ca­ress Mag­gie’s cheek. A slight shiv­er fol­lowed the path of her fin­ger­tips on Mag­gie’s face and Brig­it frowned. Mag­gie’s warmth un­der her touch was a re­minder that she was no longer warm her­self.

She had thought about ev­ery­thing John Black­wick had said dur­ing her walk home. She knew he was right. The po­si­tion he had of­fered her would pro­vide her the chance to keep her promise to Mag­gie. She would be able to watch over her dur­ing the night, to be by her side un­til that last breath fi­nal­ly came. The on­ly prob­lem was that Mag­gie would nev­er know Brig­it had kept her promise un­til that day came and on­ly God knew when that would hap­pen.

Silent­ly, Brig­it turned and left the bed­room. She had home­work to get to if she was to start her new job with some sense of pre­pared­ness. Mag­gie had left the lamp next to her read­ing chair on. Brig­it had not­ed that Mag­gie had left it burn­ing ev­ery night since the ac­ci­dent. She won­dered if it was Mag­gie’s sub­con­scious ef­fort to keep a light on for the lover that was nev­er com­ing home, or if it was a re­ac­tion to the fear of be­ing alone in the dark af­ter so many years of hav­ing some­one by her side.

Brig­it set the book John had giv­en her on the small ta­ble by the chair and slow­ly pulled off her coat. The book wasn’t very thick. It wouldn’t take her long to get through it, she was sure. When she was fi­nal­ly com­fort­able in Mag­gie’s read­ing chair, she picked up the book and opened the cov­er. En­er­gy em­anat­ed from the pages with­in and Brig­it closed her eyes. She had nev­er been one to re­al­ly be­lieve in mag­ic, but she had the in­stinct that this book – de­spite its pur­pose – was in­deed filled with a mag­ic she would nev­er be able to de­fine. Fi­nal­ly, she opened her eyes again and steeled her­self against the silli­ness her imag­ina­tion was threat­en­ing to be­gin with the thought of mag­ic be­ing re­al. It was best to get this over with so she could re­turn to Mag­gie’s side. Her eyes skimmed the hand­writ­ten ti­tle: The Rules to Reap­ing Souls, by: Arax­ius Herodotus, Reaper.

Slow­ly, Brig­it turned to the first page.

Rule #1: The Pur­pose of a Reaper:

The pur­pose of a Reaper is to col­lect the souls of the de­ceased. Such souls are to be es­cort­ed to their judg­ments with­out de­lay. We are not the judge, mere­ly the mes­sen­ger and/or es­cort. A Reaper is firm and col­lect­ed and can not be swayed from the as­signed task of as­sist­ing the soul to the door to their fate. A soul’s fate is de­ter­mined by the events of their lives from the first mo­ment breath was drawn on the mor­tal plane. A good life will be re­ward­ed with the ap­pear­ance of a door to the Reaper’s left side. Evil shall be re­ward­ed with the ap­pear­ance of the door to the right. On­ly the Reaper as­signed to the task can open these doors. In the event that the soul re­fus­es to en­ter and face their fate, it is the Reaper’s du­ty to com­plete their jour­ney by any and all nec­es­sary means. It is re­quired that all Reapers wish the soul ‘eter­nal peace’ be­fore pass­ing them through the door.

Brig­it read the words care­ful­ly, let­ting them sink in as she turned to the sec­ond page.

Rule #2: A Reaper Shall Not Sub­scribe to Any Ide­ol­ogy

As a Reaper, any ide­ol­ogy sub­scribed to will not be tol­er­at­ed. We are mes­sen­gers for a pow­er greater than our­selves and we can not al­low any one name or tenet to be placed on that which is be­yond our true un­der­stand­ing. All be­lief sys­tems must be shed and an open mind must be kept in car­ry­ing out the task as­signed to you. In the ef­fort to re­duce of­fence to those souls still main­tain­ing the be­lief they had dur­ing their mor­tal days, it is in the best in­ter­est of the firm to not have any be­lief at all. No mat­ter the faith the as­signed soul claimed to dur­ing their mor­tal ex­is­tence, the re­quire­ment to wish them ‘eter­nal peace’ must be car­ried out be­fore pass­ing the soul through the door that is their re­ward.

Brig­it could see the sense in that rule. It would be an easy one to fol­low as she had nev­er re­al­ly sub­scribed to any faith to be­gin with. She had al­ways agreed that there was a pow­er out there greater than her self. It was just eas­ier to ac­cept that no­tion than all the rules and reg­ula­tions that no one, in her opin­ion, seemed to fol­low any­way. Fi­nal­ly, she turned to the third page.

Rule#3: A Reaper Shall Not Pass Their Own

It is in strict ac­cor­dance to this rule that a Reaper must abide. Un­der no cir­cum­stances may a Reaper open the door for one of their own blood or en­dear­ment. This in­cludes: wives, hus­bands, lovers, chil­dren, grand­chil­dren, great-​grand­chil­dren, nieces, nephews, aunts, un­cles, grand­par­ents, par­ents or any rel­ative that can be list­ed on a fam­ily tree. A Reaper un­re­lat­ed must be as­signed the task of pass­ing any rel­atives to their re­ward. In the event that an un­re­lat­ed Reaper is un­avail­able, the task must be put on hold un­til such a time that it can be com­plet­ed by said un­re­lat­ed Reaper. There will be no ex­cep­tions to this rule – ev­er.

Brig­it reread the rule again as she felt a spasm of fear be­gin to roil in her gut. She couldn’t fath­om not be­ing present when Mag­gie’s time came. Sure­ly there had to be an ex­cep­tion – a loop­hole—some­where. She looked up from the book in her hands down the hall to the dark­ness where Mag­gie was sleep­ing. If this par­tic­ular rule was set in stone, Mag­gie would def­inite­ly nev­er know that Brig­it had kept her promise. A pan­ic be­gan to rise in Brig­it’s gut. She had to find the loop­hole, no mat­ter what the con­se­quences of it might be.

Push­ing her pan­ic aside, Brig­it turned the page and con­tin­ued read­ing.

Trav­el­ing to the Reapee

Once you have ful­ly un­der­stood your role as a Reaper, you will be al­lowed to be­gin com­plet­ing your as­sign­ments as they are as­signed. Port­fo­lios will be hand­ed out at the be­gin­ning of each work week. Un­der ide­al con­di­tions, the work load will be even­ly dis­persed amongst all field agents for com­ple­tion. Since Death is a con­stant force in the mor­tal plane, there will al­ways be an as­sign­ment to be com­plet­ed.

The port­fo­lio is the his­to­ry of the soul that is to be passed. In it, ev­ery sec­ond of their mor­tal ex­is­tence will be record­ed. Read the port­fo­lio care­ful­ly be­fore trav­el­ing to the Reapee. This will ex­pe­dite the pro­cess of pas­sage once you have ar­rived at their lo­cale.

To trav­el to the Reapee, look to see where they drew last breath. There, you will find them wait­ing their fate. From the main of­fice, sim­ply state the lo­ca­tion be­fore step­ping out­side. On the oth­er side of the door will be the place you have been as­signed to com­plete your task. Main door­ways maybe used as por­tals to the next as­sign­ment to be com­plet­ed or to re­turn to the main of­fice at any giv­en time. Any and all ques­tions re­gard­ing this top­ic should be di­rect­ed to your men­tor im­me­di­ate­ly.

Slow­ly, she closed the book and re­turned it to the ta­ble be­side the chair. The rules were sim­ple, if not agree­able. Trav­el to as­sign­ments seemed easy to un­der­stand. There were three more pages to read, but Brig­it was done for now. John would show her the rest of what she need­ed to know. The third rule was still echo­ing in her mind in a voice that she didn’t like.

Silent­ly, she stood and slow­ly re­turned to the bed­room. Mag­gie was still sleep­ing peace­ful­ly. Care­ful­ly, Brig­it lay on the bed and curled her­self around Mag­gie. She could feel Mag­gie’s warmth against her body and she fo­cused on it to qui­et the voice that was re­peat­ing rule num­ber three over and over in her mind. Though she was sure it was more out of habit than ac­tu­al­ly feel­ing Brig­it’s pres­ence be­hind her, Mag­gie sighed deeply and pushed her­self in clos­er to Brig­it. There was no sign of a shiv­er that so of­ten ran through Mag­gie when Brig­it touched her. In fact, the warmth be­tween them seemed to in­ten­si­fy as Brig­it care­ful­ly wrapped an arm around Mag­gie’s waist and held her tight. Ev­ery rea­son to find the loop­hole to rule num­ber three was curled against her and Brig­it be­came de­ter­mined to find it – no mat­ter what the cost.