Chapter Eight:

Kore ha hana ni shindeimasu.

anata no hana ha dore desu ka

uchi ni kaete o kudasai

Japanese

The flowers are dead.

Which flower is yours?

Please return home.

Englsh. Written and translated by me.

Bill Door sat in the kitchen, staring out the back door at his Dark Country. It felt so foreign now, but why?

Albert patted him on the back. "Master, I know your condition, but you 'ave to go out an' do the Duty tonight." Bill Door stared up at him with eyes like supernovas trapped inside sapphires. "I do not know if I can, Albert," he said at last.

Albert tried to feel sympathy, then failed miserably at it. "Oh, so you could let young Mort go and do the Duty! Is that it, Master? And your granddaughter, who, I might add, suffers from a normalcy complex I don't even want to think about! They weren't ready, and didn't know a thing! But you, you really are the Grim Reaper, even if you aren't just a skeleton no more, don't have it in you to do the job you was created for?"

Bill Door stood up. His eyes gleamed, on fire with new motivation. ()

" I will go," he said, taking the scythe from Susan, and almost cutting off her hair.

"Fry me an egg, by the way, Albert," he added, as he stalked out the door.

Grace was more than a little hurt. He has rejected her; that was obvious. Part of her wanted to hit him, and the other part whispered vicous little reasons why it was obvious he had acted thusly.

And somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, a voice that was not a voice whispered things to her that were not commands or suggestions, but somewhere in between. It was something a living person would not conceive.

But Grace only seemed alive because no one had had told her she wasn't, not really.

Bill Door was finding difficulty in the Duty. The hourglass said Alayne Berribo on it, and he could just barely discern that Alayne Berribo was a witch. A witch who did not want to die.

Normally, as Death, he had a sense to find any living creature. For some reason, he couldn't sense Mistress Berribo. This was going to be a tough night.

He found her in her cottage, which was magicked to look like a cheap pawn shop. He went inside, and then a strange sensation swept over him. It took him a moment to realize he had just used a doorknob.

She was hiding behind a billowing curtain. He could even see her feet. (())

"Damn," she said, as he pulled the curtain back curiously, wondering if she had been suffocated by the curtain. "Guess I'm too scatterbrained to avoid you this ti--wait, who the hell are you? I'm a witch, I am, and I am entitled to the attention of Dea--"

"Wait," he said desperately, "I can explain!"

"You bloody well better!"

He told her. She sat down on her bed, amazed and laughing.

"And then Grace goes and kisses me, and what do I do? I'm Death, I cna't go around having affairs--"

"But Bill Door can," said the witch.

"What?" he said, surprised.

"You heard me, laddybuck. Death can't go around poking young ladies, but Bill Door just might have a little bit of stud in him." Something was happening to Bill's face. A lot of red was taking it over all at once.

Alayne Berribo cackled in glee. "Oh-ho! You didn't think of that, now did you?"

"Can I ask something--" I MEAN, he said, realizing things were becoming too friendly. He reminded himself he had to kill this woman--no, not kill, collect. He had to remember that. I MEAN, he repeatedly awkwardly, I WISH TO ASK SOMETHING.

"Oh, talk like a man. You ARE a man right now. Say, Yes, Mistress Berribo."

Something in him couldn't say no to the matronly witch.

He mumbled, "Yes, Misstress Berribo."

"Now ask me whatever it is thats more important than my death," she said crossly.

"How do you humans do it? Live, I mean. How can you stand it?"

The wrinkled, ancient face smiled. "Oh, my laddybuck, we people never said we could stand it. There's a lot we don't accept. Like death, for example. Or love. Or the passin' of time. But there's a trick to it." Suddenly, she wheezed, and fell backwards onto her bed, knocking her oil lamp onto the ground. It shattered, and began setting the cottage systematically ablaze.

Bill Door immediately leaped up, swooped up the crone in his arms, and ran outside. He set hee down a good ways away from the smoke. She was wheezing and shuddering. He turned back to the house. It was burning cheerfully, with no intentions of stopping anytime soon.

"Trick is, Mr. Door, to take it...one day at...a time..." She rasped now. "Til the day we die, it's what all humans do. And...we don't...have to stand everything. Maybe you...don't like a certain...person. Or...some foods. It's all in...doing it...gradually. Now how about you swing that scythe for me, Bill?"

He said, "I don't want to kill you."

"You ain't." she said flatly. "Sweet Time took her toll on me. The waking up and...rattling my old bones until the pain gets to where I can get out of bed...the times I don't feel nothing...them are killing me."

"But you don't want to die," he said desperately. YOU EVEN HID YOUR SHOP FROM ME.

"But that don't change that I'm dying right now...you swing that scythe, and...I'll take it from there."

He swung the scythe.

"Oh, very nice," she said, examining her body. "Word of advice, you take that girl of your out to dinner or to the opera. You warm up to her gradually, and maybe when you two kiss next time it won't be so bad."

"But there won't BE a next time," he wailed.

The witch laughed. Her skin became smoother, her hair like gold, and her eyes a narrow brown. "Oh, Bill Door, I'm glad you showed up. Definitely better like this than as a skeleton. Angsty, too. I'm going to go on now, and you go home."

Bill Door sat there watching the house burn. And then went where home should have been, but no longer felt like.

THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS, HOPE THIS CHAPTER IS WELL-RECEIVED!

() Not literally on fire. Just the inspirational kind of fire, which is harmless to everyone except Ephebian inventors, who often go running around naked in towels after having inspiration in that bath. Apparently bathwater doesn't put that kind of fire out.

(()) It is a known fact hiding behind curtains is ridiculous. However, hiding inside a bear or tiger rug is perfectly acceptable, and there is no chance of being discovered. However, the chances for being trod on in a humorous manner are high. Mistress Berribo, being an ancient old woman, had decided not to risk it.