Chapter Two: Lavender and Red

Grell Sutcliffe had forgotten about the little girl she had called Elsie two years earlier, having moved on with other assignments. She was being chided for something as she received an assignment and she grinned before heading out to collect the souls she had been assigned. The file said there was a building collapse and several people would be trapped, so this was not a single soul collection. She looked over the list of names and stopped when she saw one that felt familiar, yet off.

The file read "Lavender Piper Manning" and she got a vague sense that she knew that name but also did not. She looked at the rest of the file and the name stuck to her as she departed, feeling as if the name was wrong. She waited for the time to collect sitting on a balcony to the right of the building that would collapse. The balcony had a good view of the building and was also just far enough to avoid any debris hitting her. She thought she could simply stay on the balcony and file her nails in wait but the name Lavender kept nagging at her. She tried to recall if it had any significance, thinking about souls she had collected that might have been given more time to live or perhaps a demon that had taken a soul she was meant to collect. Neither seemed to be the case and she became a bit irritated that the name prickled at her without a good reason. She spent several minutes thinking it over when she remembered a little girl calling her "Auntie". The girl was named Lavender. Grell did not remember how long ago it had been since this child had seen her, and wondered if the Lavender she was to collect was the same who had seen her before. She looked at the file and noticed this Lavender was thirty-two, and her image seemed to elicit no response from Grell. She let it go.

The building collapsed and the sounds of crunching brick and screams ended Grell's thinking time. She headed into the chaos and began to collect records. A fire had broken out on the wall closest to Grell's entry and was rapidly advancing. Grell huffed and worked more quickly, dodging broken slabs of the building as well as avoiding the fire while she did. She did get incredibly dirty and was dusting herself off on the sidewalk of the building, checking over her file to ensure she had not missed anyone. She counted the number of people in her file and made a rough count of the number she had collected, saw that they matched, and departed.

She grabbed a new file and dodged one of her superiors as she left to collect the record of a sixty something man and his wife, who would die an hour and a half apart. She sat on a swing they had in front of their small home, these people not far from poor. She was absently dusting herself off and looking for any bits of broken brick that might have blended in with her hair when she heard a voice.

"Auntie Grell?" It was a girl, eight or nine years old, dressed in servant's clothing. She was looking right at the reaper, and looked healthy. Grell could not understand why this child could see her, recognizing her as the same child that had pointed out a maid and her own father as she was to collect their records. This was the same girl, now two years older. She looked healthy and lively, and Grell wondered if she could possibly have a Faustian. It made no sense, this child could see her and had seen her more than once, but was not on the edge of death. She also did not appear to have any contract seals on her, so why could she see a reaper?

"Auntie Grell."

"Listen, kid-"

"It's Lavender. You called me Elsie, remember?"

Elsie. Yes, she remembered now. The girl had a name that had made her laugh. She had seen her and had not told her they were not related. At the time Grell had assumed the girl would contract the same illness as her father and the maid and was dying at the moment the two met. She was wrong, here was the girl two years later, looking rosy and full of life. Except, she could see death and that was abnormal. She had not felt the need to correct a child that would soon die, so she had not. Something told her that meeting had not been their first, she tried to think of why she felt that way because it was so unusual that she should have noticed before.

"Yes. Elsie. For your initials." Grell answered, still trying to figure out why this child could see her. Before she could speak more, she noticed the man she had been watching roll backwards on his couch. He was dying. "I have to go."

"Auntie! Will I see you soon? I think you went to Papa's funeral but you didn't say goodbye!"

"Elsie I..." Grell did not finish, disappearing into the house when someone called the girl's name. She watched the girl leave from the window, completing her statement only for her own sake. "I am not your aunt."

When Grell went into the library, she looked up the file of her collections from several years ago. She tried to find any she might have collected that had died in childbirth. Maybe that was Elsie's mother, it made sense to her. A life beginning as the life of their mother ended, the two still connected, might give a person a connection to death. A connection that would last their whole life. She saw none that might be Elsie, but saw four files that were of people from Baron Kingsley's household. Seven years ago Grell had collected the cinematic record of Lady Kingsley. She recalled that it had been night, and a servant had been at the doorway when she was making her way back out. She had stopped because a small voice had clearly asked who she was, she had been seen by an infant. She then recalled the second collection, the stable boy, there had been a girl tapping at the window. It was Elsie, Elsie had seen her three times already. She could somehow see a reaper, and was certainly too innocent to have a Faustian pact with a demon. The brief possibility of her being half human had crossed Grell's mind, but the child had no aura that gave her away as anything other than human. She could not fathom how this girl could see death. She put the files away and moved on to a new collection, trying not to dwell on the idea.

Lavender followed Ferdinand as he went out, meant to carry his purchases and help him into the new shoes and button his clothes that the tailor made. She was used to taking care of him, making sure he did his work as the tutor assigned, as he was prone to being distracted. She was busy being somewhat of his nanny, though only he called her that. She carried his bags and went along with him as he shopped excessively, giving himself things he would inevitably tell her she could keep as he had no need for them. The room she shared with her mother was proof of this, there was an entire trunk and a half filled with things the heir had purchased, grown tired of while still in fantastic condition, then shoved onto her. She did not complain, and the Baron found it amusing so she did not get in trouble. If the Baron had no opposition then it was going to continue and she may as well enjoy it. She wondered if Auntie Grell might like some things from the trunks, as her mother and she could not really find much to do with the excessive amount of things the heir thrust upon the entire staff. He really was excessive and bordering on wasteful. Lavender could not help but think she might die crushed in a wave of his discarded things someday, but hoped it would never happen. She hoped she could tell Aunt Grell about the matter and see if she could take anything.

It took six months for Lavender to see Grell again, but because she was carrying bags and boxes in a stack so high she could barely see, all she could do was yell out "Auntie Grell, I would like to speak!" She had to walk in the opposite direction Grell was headed, and Grell was in a hurry.

There was a report of a demon stealing the souls just as they were about to be collected so she had been told to hurry to the people before their time of death and fight off a demon if necessary. Grell had heard the girl but had not stopped, she did not even consider going later to the mansion where she knew the girl worked. She simply went to do her job and forgot all about the girl's words. She would have also liked to set the girl straight in regards to their relationship, there was no family tie. It was a missed opportunity.

Lavender had waited for a week before she gave up on the idea of Auntie Grell showing up. She seemed like a busy woman, though what she did was beyond the girl's imagination. She was not a doctor, the girl recalled that much. She was very busy if she needed to run in the middle of a relatively empty street. She was also very neatly dressed and was always with a file of some sort. Lavender found herself falling asleep several nights in a row after trying to make out what her pretty redhead auntie might be. She had asked her mother but her mother had told her that she actually did not know all of Lavender's aunts and uncles from her father's side. Any guess was as good as Lavender's, so they both wondered what Grell might be.

Lavender pulled out some watercolors, unable to sleep, and painted Grell. She also painted her mother and herself before she grew tired. She even sketched a draft of Grell and herself in a field of flowers. She closed her eyes and dreamt of being allowed to braid Grell's long hair, it was longer than her own. She imagined her little brown fingers working the red hair into a neat plait, as she was very good at braiding her own hair. She pictured Grell smiling, allowing a daisy crown on her head. It would look very nice on her. Lavender dreamt of her mother and Auntie Grell chatting and laughing while she ran picking flowers. It was a very pleasant dream and she slept with a smile on her face because of it.

In truth, she knew Aunt Grell seemed a little out of place. Grell's skin was pale, while her family was brown, but Lavender figured maybe she was adopted. It did not make her less of an aunt. Her mother was beautiful, with brown curls that fell down to her shoulder blades when not pinned up. Her mother had brown skin, and eyes so dark they were nearly black. Auntie Grell was beautiful in her own right, peach skin and vivid green eyes. She had the longest hair Lavender had ever seen and it was a red so bright it could outshine the sun. She hoped Auntie Grell and her mother could meet and talk soon, unaware of Grell's true nature.