The Death Catchers (6 page)

Mom plastered a wide smile on her face. I could tell she was faking it. “Bizzy's had a run of bad luck in terms of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said, grabbing Dad's shoulder and pulling him away from the sheriff.

“This time, her being in the wrong place saved Jodi from serious harm!” Miss Mora added supportively. The sheriff ignored them both and turned to me.

“Elizabeth, can you tell me anything else about the make or model of the car? Did you get a good look at it?”

“Uh, no,” I said. I wasn't going to tell this man, who seemed to have some sort of grudge against Bizzy, a darn thing.

“There was a large amount of sand at the accident scene. Any idea how it got there?”

“It's from Dix … out of Bizzy's walker,” I said. “Bizzy weighs it down with sand and when she crashed it spilled all over the place.”

“All right, then. Thanks for your time, folks. When Beatrice is feeling better, if you could have her give me a call, I have a few follow-up questions.” Sheriff Schmidt pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to Dad. The sheriff walked away, his leather boots squeaking with every step he took on the white linoleum.

Mom turned to Dad. “Phil, it's probably not a good idea to provoke the sheriff.”

“I didn't like the way he was asking his questions,” Dad answered gruffly.

We all took seats next to one another. Mom lifted her huge purse from the floor and set it on her lap. She grabbed the reading glasses that always hung around her neck and placed them on the end of her nose. She pulled out a stack of books from her bag, announcing to nobody in particular that “the solution to every one of life's problems can be found within the pages of a good book.”

It was something she said at least once a week.

Officially, Mom is the librarian for the middle schoolers at Crabapple Intermediate. Unofficially, she is the librarian for anyone who will listen. Mom figures that if you don't like to read, you simply haven't been directed to the Right Book—the one that makes you realize you love to read just as much as she does. That's why she always carries a dozen books with her, in case she runs into someone in need. There's no doubt about it, she has a knack for finding people's Right Book. Of course, I am her most frustrating case. She has suggested dozens of books. None of them has been my Right Book.

She placed
David Copperfield
on my lap. “People say it's Charles Dickens's most autobiographical work … and it's impossible not to adore the hopeful buoyancy of Mr. Micawber, Lizzy,” Mom said, with a hopeful uptick of her eyebrows. “Something will turn up!” she added in a bad British accent.

Into my father's lap, she put one of those Master and Commander books by Patrick O'Brian. My father loved adventure stories set on the high seas and had read almost the entire series.

“Miss Mora, would you like something to read?” Mom asked.

“Sure,” Miss Mora said. Mom put a slim volume on Miss Mora's lap,
The 13 Clocks
by James Thurber.

“Underrated, whimsical, touching, and you can finish it in one sitting,” Mom said, smiling. “I think you'll simply fall in love with it.”

“Now, what are you in the mood for, Jodi dear?” Mom questioned, with one eye scanning the books she had left in her large bag.

“Got anything scary?” Jodi asked.

Mom grew excited. She plucked a purple paperback from her bag. In a very deep and dramatic voice she said, “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” I assumed it was a line from the novel she held out. “
Rebecca
, by Daphne du Maurier. If Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, doesn't scare the living daylights out of you, Jodi, nothing will.”

“Thanks, Mrs. M.,” Jodi said, thumbing through
Rebecca
.

I looked down at
David Copperfield
. The cover didn't even have a picture on it. I didn't have the heart to tell Mom I'd already dismissed Charles Dickens after reading
A Tale of Two Cities
in school this year. No offense, Mrs. Tweedy, but after the first dozen pages, it wasn't hard to tell that the guy was being paid by the word. I wondered how demoralized Mom would be when I didn't make it past the second chapter.

We sat in the waiting room for an hour, without saying much of anything. Mom, Dad, Jodi, and Miss Mora all read their books. I mostly stared off into space.

A tall, gangly woman with long hair pulled up into a ponytail, wearing green medical scrubs, stood in front of us. She held a clipboard.

“Are you the family of Mrs. Mortimer?”

“Yes,” Dad said, getting up. “I'm her son, Phillip,” he said, holding out his hand.

“I'm the emergency room surgeon on call, Dr. Stuhl,” the woman said, without bothering to shake Dad's hand. “Your mother has come out of surgery. We repaired her spleen and kidney. She also broke her tibia in two places.”

“But she'll be okay?”

Dr. Stuhl frowned. “It won't be an easy recovery, considering her age. But, yes, I believe she will be fine in time.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Dad said, and I could see the worry drain from his face.

“What can you tell me about your mother's history of reckless behavior?”

“Excuse me?” Dad said.

“Mrs. Mortimer's records indicate that this is her third visit here this year. Broken collarbone, sprained wrist, lacerations on her legs.”

“Her
third
?” Dad said again.

“There must be some mistake,” Mom said, standing next to my father and putting her book on the waiting room chair.

“I only mention it because wandering off in harm's way can be an early sign of dementia.”

“Dementia?” Mom asked, with no attempt to hide her distress. Her mouth dropped open and she snatched her glasses off her neck. “Bizzy may be suffering from many things, but I assure you, dementia is not one of them.”

Dr. Stuhl hardened her look. “Well, I recommend you keep an eye on her, regardless. It's a wonder she wasn't more seriously injured.” Dr. Stuhl began to walk away. She turned back toward us. She looked at me, tapping her pen on her clipboard.

“Oh, and she has asked repeatedly to see someone named Sweet Pea,” Dr. Stuhl said. “Any idea who
that
might be?”

“Lizzy,” Mom said, pointing to me.

Dr. Stuhl waved me toward her. Dad began to walk to Dr. Stuhl with me. “Only the girl,” she snapped. “It was a specific request. So if you'll follow me, Lizzy Sweet Pea, I'll take you to her.”

I popped up from my seat, hopeful both answers and a Bizzy-on-the-mend were waiting for me down the long white hallway.

 

The Making of an Epiphany

Has something ever happened that made you think about everything else in a new light, Mrs. Tweedy? I know in literature it's called an epiphany—usually this aha moment near the end of a story when the character learns something. It's kind of like the character puts on colored glasses that make everything look completely altered. In books it usually happens all at once.

After I heard Vivienne talk about the Last Descendant in the cemetery and then saw my first death-specter, there's no doubt that I had the different-colored-glasses feeling. But things changed gradually. It was more like a leaky faucet filling up a salad bowl one drip at a time.

The first shift was my perspective on my grandma Bizzy.

When I saw her after her surgery, she looked older. Frail, even. Her arms seemed skinnier and there were tubes coming out of them. One of her legs was in a cast and the other was wrapped in a thin hospital blanket. Her hands were splotchy, black and blue. The worst thing was how pale she was.

But there was this other part of her, something in her face that was transformed. It was like the Emily Dickinson poem Bizzy had quoted. Underneath the wrinkles and bandages, there stirred something else entirely. Maybe it was the defiance that comes with keeping a big secret. Perhaps it was a time-tested toughness shining through. Or it could have been subtle resilience that I'd never noticed before.

She heard me come in. Her eyes snapped open.

“Sweet Pea!” Bizzy exclaimed, sucking in air. “If you aren't a sight for sore eyes!” Her raspy voice sounded as if she'd been yelling all morning.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, venturing gingerly into the room.

“Don't be a dang fool! Come on over here and give your grandmamma a Yankee dime.” That was Bizzy's way of asking for a kiss. As she raised her arm to beckon me to her, she winced in pain. She tried to cover it up by smiling widely at me.

“How are they treating you?”

“Here's a pearl a' wisdom for ya: only thing that's a bigger threat to life than death is a hospital.”

I grimaced.

“I don't wanna see that forlorn look, Lizzy. 'Fraid my ol' body won't heal up as quick as it used to, but I'll be fine. Ya hear me?”

Bizzy patted the side of the bed, signaling me to climb on the bed with her. I sat down gently.

She put her cold hand over mine and tried to raise herself up.

“We're gonna hafta be quick, Sweet Pea,” Bizzy said, breathing more heavily. She looked around the room nervously. “Close the door.”

I followed her command and then returned to my place beside her on the bed. Bizzy grabbed the sippy cup from the tray across her bed, took a swallow from its fluorescent plastic straw, then cleared her throat.

“Seen any more death-specters?”

“No,” I said, shuddering at the thought of another one. Bizzy studied me. I could hear the clock on the wall ticking the seconds away.

“Was it because of me that Jodi almost got hit by the car?” I asked finally. “She wouldn't have been in the street if I hadn't called out her name.”

“You were goin' to warn her about your specter, weren't ya?” Bizzy asked sympathetically.

“I wanted to watch her and make sure she didn't cross the street without looking,” I explained. “I wasn't going to tell her anything specific.”

“I shudda explained it better. The thing with a specter …,” Bizzy said, struggling to find the right words. “The thing with a death-specter is that tellin' the subject of the specter about what'll happen or tryin' to hint they should change somethin' that might kill 'em has the opposite effect you want it to. Try an' tell a person to avoid a place she's s'posed to meet her death and that's exactly where she'll end up.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Fate,” Bizzy said, “adjusts quicker 'n a hungry dog can lick a dish.”

“So why do we see death-specters if we can't do anything about them?”

“There's always somethin' to be done! Think of a death-specter like it's a garden weed. You cut what's above the surface, and it'll grow back in no time, bigger 'n ever. So you gotta get at the root to make sure it's gone for good. When we've got time on our side, the best we can do is figure out the root of why the person ends up in harm's way and fix that.” Bizzy took a breath and continued. “I certainly don't have all the answers, Lizzy-Loo. But as far as I can tell, we only see unjust deaths. Deaths that are unnatural. If we figure out the
why
, we can do something about 'em.”

It sort of made sense, but the heavy responsibility of it all was overwhelming.

“When will it happen again?” I asked.

“Depends on the person,” Bizzy said, shrugging her shoulders.

“How often do you see them?”

“When you get to a certain age, you stop havin' 'em as frequently.”

“How did you know that it was going to be my first today?”

“The first is always on a girl's fourteenth Halloween—the day the world of spirits connects with the world of mortals,” Bizzy said matter-of-factly.

“So, I'll definitely see more?” I asked, my anxiety growing. “There will be more names on my hand?” Bizzy looked at me and her eyes shifted back and forth in their sockets. I had never seen her so uncertain.

“There will be more, yes,” she said with her head down.

“It can be anyone?”

“I only see the names of those I care about,” Bizzy said.

“That little girl from the accident … in the black dress. Who was she?” I thought of the tiny girl with the white hair. Her unearthly scream had given me chills down my spine.

“That weren't no girl at all. That was a screamin' banshee.”

“A screaming
what
?” I couldn't stomach the thought that there was more to this new life I had to try to understand. It was too much.

“Banshees … are creatures from beyond sent to usher souls from this world to the next,” Bizzy said.

“So the girl was a spirit? Like the grim reaper or something? Because she sure didn't look like a grim reaper.”

Bizzy closed her eyes, sighing. “The thing about banshees is,” she began, “they're escorts who come to usher a newly dead soul from this world. Whenever we save someone who was previously scheduled to pass on, a banshee arrives, like usual. Only, because we've saved the life, there is no soul to collect. A banshee is like a petulant child in that way. If it don't get what it was sent after—the soul of the recently departed person—it throws a tantrum. Turns into a fiend. When this happens, banshees let off that piercing scream. But it's not just painful for us, Sweet Pea, it's more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“For Hands a' Fate like you and me, a banshee's scream is deadly,” Bizzy said quietly. I let Bizzy's sentence sink in for a few seconds.

“Deadly?” I questioned, shocked by the realization I had another thing to be afraid of. “But it's a small child … how is that even possible?”

“Banshees may look like small children to you or me, Lizzy, but I assure you, they ain't of this world and they are very dangerous.”

“How do you
know
that the scream is deadly?”

Bizzy looked down for a moment. “Your great-grandmamma, my mama … she … well, she was killed by the howl of a banshee.”

“
What
?” I said, baffled. Life as a Hand of Fate was sounding even more dismaying.

“Saw it with my own two eyes when I was a little older than you. Your father will tell you his grandmamma died of a heart attack. That's what the doctors said. But that weren't it.”

“Why didn't you and I die when the banshee started screaming?”

“Takes 'bout a minute. You destroyed it before then,” Bizzy said matter-of-factly.

“I did?”

“With the mirra. See, banshees are like ghosts and have no soul themselves, and a mirra reflects a person's soul. If you force a banshee to look at itself in one, it'll be reduced to nothin' more than its most basic element—for the banshees, that's the sands a' time.” Bizzy looked at me with concern. “I'm not tellin' you this to scare you, Sweet Pea, but so you'll know to be on the lookout if a situation like that ever arises again. Do ya understand?”

I understood all right: Avoid Banshees at all costs. Still, it seemed like all this was more than a “situation.” It was my life from now on. I thought about which question to ask next.

“Bizzy, what does it mean when you cut a person's thread of life?”

All at once, Bizzy's face changed. Her eyes narrowed. “Where did you hear 'bout that?” she asked, her voice cold.

I sensed I had hit on something. I pressed on. “Is Agatha a Hand of Fate, too? Is she the sorceress that gave us this power? Is that why you visit her?”

“Not exactly,” Bizzy said. I waited for her to go on, but she didn't.

“There has to be more to all of this than we just have this gift and that's that, right? Do you know her sister, Vivienne? Is she who we got this from?”

Bizzy gasped. She gripped the side rails of her hospital bed. “How did you come by that name, Sweet Pea?”

“Two days ago a woman named Vivienne was visiting Agatha at the cemetery,” I said, alarmed at Bizzy's reaction. “Jodi and I overheard them talking about the Last Descendant and Doomsday and then Vivienne came outside and touched our heads. Jodi didn't remember any of it. But I did.”

“Though she may be able to control your body, because you are a Hand a' Fate, Vivienne le Mort's powers will never work on your mind.” There was something in Bizzy's voice I'd never heard before. It was dread.

“So you know who Vivienne is? You lied to me about why you've been visiting Agatha, didn't you?”

Bizzy deliberated for a few moments. She looked down at her hospital gown.

“Yes, I lied, Sweet Pea,” Bizzy said, her voice spiced with regret. The machines behind her continued beeping monotonously. “And I swear I won't ever lie again. I'll tell you everythin' I know.” She looked at me with her brimming, moss-colored eyes. “But if you did see Vivienne le Mort here in Crabapple, then we're all in mortal danger. So I need you to think real hard on it and tell me precisely what happened that day in the cemetery.”