We sat in a comfortable silence as Aggie made us tea, and coffee for Thomas. The silence was getting longer, and more awkward, but the tea kettle whistled and Aggie hurriedly got up to get it. Her house looked either bigger, or smaller on the inside than on the outside. I was guessing bigger. Besides the mismatched furniture, it looked like an average Earth house, but then again, some houses have much more mismatched interior. Aggie came back a few minutes later with a tray of teacups, a tea kettle (which was supposedly full), a coffee mug, a milk jug, and a few of those tiny dishes with various sweeteners in them. She prepared everything and we started drinking, but immediately stopped.
“To hot!” Mary, Thomas and I shouted at the same time, while Aggie just sipped her tea casually.
“Really?” she asked, taking the cup away from her lips and examining it. “It seems perfectly normal to me. But I suppose it’s because I have death himself as my father, and Hell is considered a place with a lot of flames, right? Maybe I had an immunity when I was born.”
This got me curious. “Death himself?”
Aggie laughed. “Well, not exactly. I have the closest you can have without it actually being Death. My dad is the Grim Reaper. Would you like the rest of the story?”
I nodded quickly, and Aggie went through her story. Judging on the way she told it, I think she was bursting at the seams wanting to tell it.
“You see,” she started. “My dad never stayed with anyone for too long, he was either considered a ‘playboy’ or whoever he was married to died. It broke his heart having to tell them they had to die. But his heart had been broken long before that, perhaps centuries, and a few decades thrown in there. His first love was a mortal woman, she had long black hair, and was particularly slender. He was told the people he had to see that day and she was on the list. He came into her home, and was getting ready to show himself when he saw her. It was love at first sight,” she sighed dreamily. “So he added more sand to her hourglass-incase you didn’t know, that’s what measures your lifespan-and moved on to the next person. He kept doing this for a few more years, but he knew he could only do it for so long until he got caught. So, one day, he decided that he would meet her formally. She was surprised at first, but then she slowly got used to death courting her. She soon fell in love with him too. When he explained that she had to be killed in a-”
“Killed?!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, killed,” nodded Aggie. “Now as I was saying, when he explained she had to be killed in a certain way, she immediately agreed out of love for him. He told her a bit more about it but she still agreed. Unfortunately, the procedure failed. He ended up heart-broken and never the same again...” she trailed off with a sad look on her face, but then smiled brightly. “Until he met my mom!”
“Huh?”
“Well, let me explain, here,” she persisted. “Their relationship wasn’t all happiness, love, rainbows and unicorns. They met at, well, a meeting! There are kind of these annual meetings that take place so everyone can catch up with each others business. Usually, my dad wouldn’t go, but since he had nothing better to do he went. And as soon as he laid eyes on her, he remembered. My mom was his childhood enemy. Now, my mom felt the rage heat behind her and turned around. ‘You!’ they both screamed at each other. All-in-all, they ruined the meeting entirely. They should have known not to sit next to the other person, but they did. And that was just the start of it, they ran into each other all the time! Like out shopping, at social gatherings, and my dad even came to meetings more often. I was their first child, or second, depending on how you look at it...” She trailed off and the story ended.
This, of course, led me to want to ask even more questions. I settled with one. “First child? Don’t you have older siblings? I mean, I thought I saw them outside.”
“Oh...” she said. “Oh, oh, oh! They’re only my half-brothers and sisters. Don’t you go around thinking my mom only had one husband.”
I laughed, then turned to see Mary and Thomas whom I had almost forgotten were there. Thomas blushed (don’t ask me how ghosts can blush, it’s rather hard to explain) when I saw that he had been looking at me, and Mary looked at him and laughed.
Aggie gave us some tea packets, and we left shortly after. The walk home was unusually quiet, and for a reason I can’t comprehend in the least, I burst out laughing. After a few seconds, Mary joined in my laughing, and Thomas was running around wondering what was wrong with us, which made us laugh even more.
I took a deep breath and tried to regain my balance, and Mary’s laughter slowly faded out too. “Wow,” I said. “Just wow.”
“What’s wow?”
“I don’t know. Just ‘it,’ y’know?”
“If you mean ‘it’ is wow, so therefore, wow is wow, then yes. I do know.”
Thomas just looked at us with a confused expression on his face, too stunned for words. “Uh, what? Are you guys alright?” he asked, when he finally got his voice back.
Mary and I exchanged a glance then linked arms like a superhero duo in some cheap anime. “Yes! Yes we are!” we said triumphantly.
“Alright,” Thomas said, nodding. “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”
We all laughed for a bit, then started on our way. There was something different about the way we took this time, but I didn’t know what it was. Everything looked the same, but something about it felt different. Sometimes I wish I could read minds. It would have made figuring this out a lot easier.
When we reached the building with all the mirrors, I looked up at it in surprise. It was a whole lot different on the outside than the inside. It was a big, shiny, black cube. With the exception of the large wooden door leading inside. Mary opened the door and ushered me in, but Thomas stopped and leaned against the door frame.
“What? Why aren’t you coming in?” I asked, maybe this was that strange feeling I was... feeling earlier?
“Ah...” he ruffled his hair, and sounded tired. It might have been on purpose. “Only people who can go in there are Mary, her dad, and whoever she brings out of there. Animals are the exception, they can go in and out as the please.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. “Bye then,” I waved goodbye to Thomas and stepped inside. It was surprising that my mirror was so close to the door, though. Just right there. Maybe Mary had moved them? I didn’t ask, because I felt I had asked to many questions for one day anyway.
“Alright,” Mary instructed. “For this, you’ll have to jump in the mirror to get back home. That wind trick only works one way. So are you ready?”
I nodded, but then looked at Mary’s bruise. Based on the... creatures (?) I met today, that had to’ve been from her dad. I just knew it. So instead of jumping through the mirror, I leapt onto Mary and gave her the biggest hug I think I’ve ever given anybody. Ever.
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