Soul Screamers, Volume 1

My father nodded again, and when his eyes squeezed shut, two silent tears trailed down his stubbly cheeks. “I had to go in through the driver’s side and pull the whole car seat out. When I picked you up, you didn’t make a sound, even though your right arm and leg were bent all out of shape.” His eyes opened, and the pain swirling there held me captive. “I held you like a baby, and you just looked at me. Then your mom crawled out of the car and took your good hand. She was crying, and she couldn’t talk, and I could see the truth on her face. I knew we were going to lose you.”


He sniffled and I stood still, afraid that if I moved, he’d stop talking. And even more frightened because part of me really wanted him to stop. “You died, right there on the side of the road, with snow melting in your hair.”

“Then why am I still here?” I whispered, but I already knew the answer. “It was my time, wasn’t it?” I flicked on the faucet and held my hands under the warm water, scrubbing cheese from between my fingers as I eyed my father. “I was supposed to die, and you brought me back.”

“Yes.” His voice cracked on that one syllable, and his face was starting to flush with the effort to hold back more tears. “We couldn’t stand it. She sang for you, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I could barely see, I was crying so hard. But then I saw you. Your soul. So small and white in the dark. It was too soon. I couldn’t let you go.”

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel from a drawer near my hip, dripping on the floor as I dried my hands, then leaned over the bar and stared at him. “Tell me how it happened.”

He didn’t hesitate this time. “I made your mother look at me, to make sure she understood. I told her to take care of you. That I was going to bring you back. She was crying, but she nodded, still singing. So I guided your soul back into your tiny little body. You blinked at me. Then, with your first breath, you sang.”

“I…sang?” The towel slipped from my fingers and landed silently on the tiles, but I barely noticed.

“The soul song.” My father pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, as if to physically hold back tears, but his face was still wet when he looked at me again. “I thought it was for me. You needed your mother more than you needed me, and I was ready to go. But as I stood there holding you, the reaper showed himself.”

“He let you see him?” Nash interrupted from my side. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

My father nodded. “He stood in the grass, on the shoulder of the road. He smiled at me, with this creepy little grin, like he knew what I was thinking. I told him I was ready to go. I gave you to your mother, and you were still singing this beautiful, high-pitched song, like a bird. I felt so peaceful, thinking that the last thing I would hear was you singing my soul song.” He paused, and this time the tears actually fell. “But I should have known better, because your mother wasn’t singing with you.”

I stared across the countertop at my dad, mesmerized, my supper forgotten.

“The bastard took her instead.” My father’s fist hit the tile hard enough to shake the whole bar, and his jaw bulged with fresh fury. “He just looked at Darby, and she collapsed. I had to lunge for you, to keep you from hitting the ground when she fell.”

“Kaylee, breathe,” Nash said, rubbing my back. At some point during the story, I’d stopped inhaling, and didn’t even realize it until Nash spoke.

“She died because of me?” My hands fisted, and my fingernails bit into my palms.

“No. Baby, no.” My dad leaned forward then, to look directly into my eyes. “She died because of me.” He took my hands and wouldn’t let them go, even when I tugged halfheartedly. “Because I insisted on going out. Because I swerved to avoid the deer. Because I wasn’t strong enough to make him take me instead. None of it was your fault.”

But nothing he said could make me feel better. I was supposed to die, and because I hadn’t, my mother had. And even if she hadn’t, my father would have. Or maybe one of the people in the other car. The bottom line was that I was alive when I should have been dead, and my mother had paid the price.

“So…borrowed time?” I twisted the knob on the stove to turn it off, and moved the pot onto a cold burner, acting out of habit, because I was numb with shock. “I’m living my mother’s life now? Is that what Aunt Val meant?”

“Yes.” My father sat back on his stool, giving me plenty of space. “You’ll live until she was supposed to die. But don’t worry about that. I’m sure she would have had a very long life.”

And that’s when I burst into tears.

I’d held back until then, my sorrow eclipsed by overwhelming guilt over being the cause of my mother’s death. But thinking about how long her life should have been… That I couldn’t handle.

Nash cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “She knew the risk, right, Mr. Cavanaugh?” He stared at my father with a blatantly expectant look on his face. “Kaylee’s mom knew what she was doing, right?”