Ember X (Death Collectors)

chapter 1

Thirteen years later…..

I love the cemetery. It’s quiet and peaceful—it’s the only place where I get a break from death. I loathe crowded places, crammed with voices and life. It hurts to be around life. People don’t understand how close death is, right over their shoulders, around the block, at the end of a street. It’s everywhere and I’m the only one who knows where it’s hiding. I see death every day, but a cemetery is already dead.

The moon is vibrant tonight, only a sliver away from being full. Dry leaves fall from the oak tree and the air smells crisp with autumn. Headstones entomb the ground and a light mist dews the crisp blades of grass. I lean against a tree trunk with my notebook propped open on my knee, a pen in my hand, as I scribble words that are important to me.

The cemetery is my sense of comfort, my sanctuary in a world of darkness, the one piece of light I have in my life.

I remove the tip of the pen from the page and read over my words. I sound obsessed with death, like Edgar Allan Poe or Emily Dickinson, but death is a huge part of who I am. With a simple touch I know when someone will die. Whether they’ll go painfully. If their life will end up stolen.

I set the notebook on the grass and tuck the pen inside the spine. I pull my hood over my head, cross my arms, and stare out at the desolate street. One of the streetlights flickers and a dog barks from behind the front gate of a redbrick home. I glance at my watch. It’s really late. I grab my notebook and start across the cemetery. The ground is damp and clunky, and my black boots sink into the moist dirt. I eye the headstones; big, small, intricate, plain. I wonder if the details of a headstone define the life of the person resting beneath it. If it’s big and fancy, does it mean they were loved by many? Or were they lonely, but had money? Do small and plain ones declare that they lived a lonely life? Or were they just not materialistic?

I’m probably the only one crazy enough to be walking around thinking these thoughts.

The wind howls like a dust storm and leaves whirlwind around my head. I tuck my chin down, fighting through the dust toward the front gate as pieces of my black hair curtain my pale face and grey eyes and stick against my plump lips. My boot catches on the corner of a grave and I face-plant onto the grass. My notebook flies from my hand and my head smacks the corner of a headstone.

“Ow,” I mumble, clutching my head as I smear dirt off my cheek. My gaze travels upward to a statuesque carving of a hooded figure with the head tucked down and in the hand is a scythe.

“The Grim Reaper, huh?” I rise to my feet, stretching out my long legs, and tilt my head up. “I bet you know what it’s like, don’t you? To be surrounded by death all the time? I bet you understand me.”

The wind violently picks up and carries my notebook away. Shielding my eyes from the dust, I chase after it. It dances through the leaves and glides across the grass, finally resting against a soaring angelic statue in the crook of the cemetery. I hurry after it. A black raven swoops down from one of the trees and circles in front of me.

“Why are you always following me?” I whisper to the raven. “Is it because you know what I am—a symbol of death like you?”

“Dammit, I am so sick and tired of doing all your dirty work. It’s such crap,” a voice cuts through the cemetery.

I hastily take cover behind the Angel statue and the raven perches on the head, ruffling its wings. No one hangs out in cemeteries late at night, except for weirdos and people like me. (And as far as I know, I’m the only girl of my kind.)

A shovel cuts into the dirt. “I’m always the one who’s gotta dig these things up.”

I peek through the cracks between the Angel’s wings. A thin guy, with frail arms and a pointy nose, stands in a hole, shoveling dirt. My journal is inches from the discarded dirt pile. One more scoop and my life thoughts will be buried.

“If I were you, Gregory, I’d watch my tone.” A tall figure hops from the roof of a small marble mausoleum and his long legs stretch as he strides toward the hole. His hair is as pale as the moon and his eyes are like ash. “I can easily find someone else to dig up the grave.”

Gregory mutters under his breath and scoops up a shovel full of dirt.

The taller one cups his ear. “What’s that? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“Nothing,” Gregory mumbles and continues digging.

The other guy’s smile catches in the moonlight and my breath catches in my throat. His face is beautiful, but burdened with sadness and pain, as if he carries the world’s sorrows on his shoulders. I long to reach out and trace my fingers along his full lips, his firm jawline, and erase his pain.

The pages of my journal flutter in the breeze and he bends over and picks it up. I cringe with embarrassment, but then realize that he’s a guy who hangs out in a cemetery, digging up graves, so my penned words of death shouldn’t bother him. He flips through the pages and then pauses on one, studying it, then his eyes skim the cemetery. I crouch down and hold my breath as silence blankets the night, except for the shovel scratching the dirt.

“Where’d this come from?” he asks Gregory.

I peek through the feet of the Angel statue.

Gregory takes the notebook and turns it over. “I’m not sure…” He hands it back. “It says Ember Rose Edwards on the back.”

The tall figure runs his long fingers along my name. “Ember…” His hauntingly melodious voice envelops me and beckons me to move out from behind the statue. I start to step out.

“Hold it right there.” A pale orb of light beams over my shoulders and hits the grass in front of my feet.

I tense as the shovel stops cutting into the dirt and the night grows quiet, except for the hooting of an owl.

“Now slowly turn around,” a deep voice instructs and static cuts through a stereo. “I’m with the suspect now.”

Damn it. They’re going to think I was digging up the grave. This is not my first time getting into trouble, so they won’t go easy on me.

“I said, slowly turn around and keep your hands where I can see them,” the cop orders.

I shut my eyes and slowly elevate my hands to my sides.

“Good, now turn around slowly,” he says.

Yeah right. I sprint off across the graveyard, my legs moving as fast as they will go.

“She’s on the move,” he yells and the speaker statics.

My clunky boots rip against the grass as I hop and maneuver around the gravestones. The cop pursues me, his footsteps deafening, and the keys on his belt jingle. I speed up as the brick fence pierces my view and springing onto my toes, I leap for the top. My stomach slams against the edge and I quickly pull my legs up, but the cop grabs my boot and yanks on my leg.

“Don’t even think about it, you little punk.” He starts to haul me back to the ground by the leg. Images of his death course through me, thick and heavy. A sharp knife. Blood. His body falling to the ground.

I wiggle my foot, trying to slip it out of my boot, but his hands move higher up my leg, just below my knee. My fingertips scrape the brick as they dig down to hold onto the edge.

The cop’s fingers wrap around my other leg. “Just let—”

The cop abruptly releases my legs. My knee crashes into the fence. I scramble to the top and glance behind me. The cop lies unconscious on the grass. The tall, dark stranger stands over him, watching me. The dusky shadows of the trees dance across his face and his untamed eyes smolder like cinders.

“Ember.” His ghostly voice encircles around me like smoke.

I inch forward until the tips of my boots align with the ledge of the fence and my hand powerlessly reaches for him. I’m hypnotized by his beauty, the haunting sound of his voice, and I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself. I want to run them all over his body, feel his skin, touch him, kiss him, press my body against his.

“Come here,” he coaxes, extending his long arms toward me, offering me his hand.

My other hand elevates to my side and I bend my knees to jump off the ledge, trusting him, and desperate to touch him.

“Don’t move.” Sirens screech from the gate and red and blue lights flash across the cemetery, bringing me back to reality. I flinch and quickly crouch down as a police car slams to a dirt-grinding stop on the other side of the cemetery. Two cops barrel out of it and dash through the gate, hollering over their radios. I glance down, where the tall stranger used to be, but all there is is a single raven feather floating across the grass. It floats up to me in the wind and I catch it, my gaze sweeps the cemetery covered with shadows. Where did he go?

The cop on the ground stirs and begins to wake up. Spinning around, I leap onto the sidewalk, and sprint down the street toward my home, never looking back.