37 Reggie's New Approach

Joy had gotten the treat candy for Halloween ready. She planned to stay in. She didn't expect much in the way of kids, the numbers coming to the door seemed fewer every year. Maybe she would give in and just put a basket outside. She and Reggie cleared the dishes from supper and after cleaning up, she noticed Reggie going through a storage closet.

She liked that Reggie had settled down. She studied and had no wild boy friends. She hadn't mentioned her sister or her death in several years. There had been no more talk of visits to her gravesite. No more dogs, or frogs, and thankfully she had never mentioned any more about her sister still being around. No, Reggie was to graduate at the end of this year and attend the police academy. She would have preferred something safer, but with things the way they were Joy was OK with her pursuing a career with law enforcement. Although she would prefer she and her friend Grace not play with handcuffs all the time.

Joy could see Reggie getting ready for something. She pulled an old sleeping bag from the closet, a legacy from her brief relationship with that outdoorsy boy a few years back. And she pulled out what looked like a flashlight.

"Reggie?"

"What?"

"Going somewhere?"

"Later tonight Grace and I will be going out. Nothing illegal, no drugs involved, so you don't have to worry."

But why a sleeping bag? Where could they be going? "So. Where're you going?"

Reggie had finished pushing the huge puffy sleeping bag into its tiny little pouch. She still needed to find the ground pad and would need some water. She would probably need something extra, something dark to give herself a little camouflage in the graveyard and stay warm. A dark sweater would work. She could feel her Mother closing in with these questions. And with the last one she stopped and reached a decision. She turned and tried to look as nonchalant as she could manage. She could tell her Mom was trying real hard to keep herself outwardly calm, but Reggie could also see the signs that agitation was raging just below the surface. "I'm going to visit her grave. That's all."

"OK. Shall we call your Father? We could have a nice morning…"

Here we go. Micromanaging and wanting to get into the middle of what she had nothing to do with. "Mom. No." Jesus. Her face looked like she just hit her with a bat. "It's just something I would rather do by myself. OK? If you and Dad want to go later that's fine. How about that?" That wasn't good enough. Her face took on that hurt puppy look that made Reggie feel guilty of parent abuse. That was probably by design. "OK. You can call Dad and we can all get together at the grave say at 10:00 AM. Deal?"

Reggie could tell from the fake smile that struggled to surface on Joy's face that she wasn't at all happy with that, but didn't know what to say. She nodded and left. Her Mother likely was upset that she was thinking about her sister again. Just as well she never found out about what Sheila had told them. God knows what she would do with that.

Reggie pulled the gym bag closer and opened it. First in was the sleeping bag. She needed the picture. That would be the bait. She pulled the one she had framed and put it inside. She knew from her survey of George's room that she liked those old pictures of them together. Years ago she had put all of those away right after George died, which is why George probably didn't steal them all back then. She couldn't find them. She did it to protect them from her Mother, who would go from one extreme to the other. One weekend it was a garage sale, another she impulsively threw stuff out, and then she wanted to pack everything in boxes sealed and out of sight. Reggie took the pictures and hid them from her, and it turned out, from the depredations of her dead sister. But, that damn TV. She wanted to point out to George that their Mother had blamed Reggie for it being missing. It never occurred to either of them that George might have taken it. Her Mother had brought that damn thing up in front of more than one therapist as proof of her mental problems and no matter how she denied it her denial was just taken as more proof that she had a problem that needed fixing. After all who else could have taken it? Maybe she could get it back and put it on her Mother's nightstand – just so she wouldn't miss it – but no, her Mother would take that as final proof that Reggie had stolen it and was only now finally trying to make amends by returning it.

That Waffle Haus incursion was a bit over the top, maybe. From what Sheila and Charlotte had told them and what odd bits they already had come across on their own, they now had a rough outline of what was going on. There were people who died and were kept back to become these grim reapers as they called themselves, and they collected the souls of the dead. They looked differently from when they were alive, at least based on what George looks like now, but then there was that odd incident at her grave 10 years ago. Grace had her own odd facts she was trying to piece together this morning over at another cemetery. Could this Rube Sofer be the same Rube Sofer that her slightly addled great grandmother talked to her about? If it was then they didn't age because he would be well over 100 years old. And for that matter, this version of George she got a good look at in the Waffle Haus could pass for a high school girl. That's odd, but hell no odder than dead ghosts eating waffles at the Waffle Haus and then going out to collect souls. She had the nagging feeling as did Grace that with that Goth club visit life as they knew it had changed and would never be the same. It was like going down into the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole. But then, really, maybe she went down that hole when she first started to realize her dead sister was still hanging around.

And there was the fact they while her sister had done a lot to make her presence known indirectly, she hadn't really directly contacted Reggie. And when she and Grace had gone to the Waffle Haus, George was clearly trying to escape her notice. Reggie knew from the reaction on George's face when she put the candy in her hand, that she knew exactly what it was and why she did it, but it was also clear she wanted to keep that fact hidden. Probably everything she had done was a secret. She slid those candies into her pocket and walked out without acknowledging their connection. So George broke some rules. That would be like the old George she knew. She was never one for following the grooves laid out for her.

No one knew about grim reapers, or soul collectors so it seemed likely they were meant to be secret. Death or whatever controlled them did not want their presence known. And since no one did, there must be some means to keep it that way. Mason was drunk according to Sheila. He must have slipped up badly. Sheila was scared to talk about it. In fact but for that Fred coming over to their booth that night, and the fact Sheila herself was drinking heavily, Reggie doubted she would have mentioned it to them.

Sheila was unnerved by Mason showing up with that Daisy woman, and then Fred coming over, followed by Daisy. Reggie felt then that Daisy wanted to stop Fred. It would make sense. If she knew Fred was going to die so soon. Sheila said they knew the exact time someone was to die. If that was why they had come, then maybe she knew all she had to do was stop him from talking for a few minutes more. It almost worked. The clincher was when Mason and Daisy walked out before the guy's knife slipped cutting an artery leaving Fred to bleed out.

So these reapers existed among them going about their business and keeping it a secret. If George was made one of them right after she died she might have broken rules coming home and making phone calls, and certainly actually talking to them would have been forbidden. But that would make sense.

So Reggie and Grace had thought that perhaps they should leave well enough alone. There was a hidden balance here and knowledge of reapers and what they're doing was not meant, not allowed to be known. Then they should walk away.

But there were loopholes. Her visit to that reaper house convinced her of that. George had collected a lot of keepsakes from her prior life. Somehow George had been watching over her when she went through that rough time after her death. The box of magazine pictures at the tree, the box marked with 'George's box' was not too subtle, the phone calls, but more importantly she knew for sure now that JD was a gift from her. And the Frakenfruity was a message telling her you're not alone. I'm still around. Those little signs – as much as they had driven her Mother crazy – had helped Reggie a lot.

And she had learned one more important fact. After that astounding meeting in the graveyard some 10 years before Reggie had returned to George's grave for a few years on that day at that time, but George never showed up again. She would leave more pictures. Even that one of her and JD and they would be gone when she went back to check, but no sister. It should have occurred to Reggie that George couldn't directly walk up to her and say hi. Now she had some detail, and now it was obvious that she couldn't do that. But maybe Reggie could initiate contact. She would tell her…what? Thank you maybe. I love you. Maybe that would be enough. Probably that was the most that could happen.

So this time she would go early, well before dawn, and she would hide herself and wait. Always before she had stood in plain sight. It hadn't occurred to her that George would completely avoid her. She hadn't that time 10 years ago, but then George could see that both of them were asleep so she dared to come close. It wasn't supposed to happen that she woke up like that. She should have guessed though because George walked away without saying anything.

Why did her sister feel so drawn to her own grave? Reggie couldn't imagine that far. If she had died, and her body were buried nearby, would she want to visit it? Maybe like she and her Mom and Dad on some days of the year they felt the need to come together over George's grave. It didn't happen very often anymore, but then if it were her own grave, maybe the pull would be much stronger. Anyway.

Grace would be by to pick her up in a few hours. She needed to sleep a few hours before then.

The bait would be another picture on top of her stone. And when George showed herself, then…well then we'll see.