Page 61 of Grim

WelcometotheLostSoulsDivision

I stare down at the device in my hand. Kane stands beside me, angled slightly to read over my shoulder. His chin just grazes my temple as he tilts to get a better view of the back of my Tombstone Phone.

“ Rue Chamberlain. Loving daughter. Cat mom. Writer. Always Home .”

He looks at me, brows slightly drawn together as he repeats in question, “ Always Home ?”

I nod. “It’s from a sonnet I wrote to my dad. My mom must have found my notebooks and actually read them.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Wonders never cease,” Kane mutters dryly.

I nudge his elbow. “Sometimes, people can surprise us.”

The soul outlives the body, and stories outlast our days on Earth. If even for a short time, that’s not nothing. I don’t say it aloud, but a silent thank-you floats somewhere out there in the direction of my mom.

“Hey,” I say, remembering something I asked Kane ages ago that he never answered. “Your Tombstone Phone. You never told me what it says.”

He pulls his device from his breast pocket and hands it to me to see.

“The real version is in a small cemetery in the ninth arrondissement. It says l’amour guérit. ”

When I give him a blank stare, he translates, “Love heals.”

I think about Kane’s story, the parts he has shared and those he has been more reluctant to reveal. I bring my hand to his neck and gently touch the raised flesh above his vein.

He rests his hand outside mine as I ask him, “Does it?”

“When administered in the proper dosage, yes. Yes, it does.”

He guides our hands to his cheek and pulls us together for a kiss, which is cut annoyingly short by the repeated notification from my Tombstone Phone. The same gong from my old family clock chimes on the device.

Looking at the screen, I scan over the alert. My face lights up when I read the message.

“Here it is,” I say, failing to contain the excitement in my voice. “Our first case!”

I click the button and read the details aloud to Kane. “‘Katherine Sinclair. Initial Crossover: Failed. Current Status: Tied to Titan Media building.’”

The words hang for a moment. I look up and see a stricken expression on Kane’s face.

My smile slips.

“Nothing,” he says in response to the unvoiced question in my glare.

“Kane.”

“Rue—”

I step in front of him and narrow my eyes. “Your beautiful mouth says, ‘Nothing,’ but those eyes are screaming a story, Grim.”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if I’m giving him a migraine. “She was my final reap. Before you. She insisted that the business could not survive without her. Tied to her career. Could not let go.”

“Until now,” I say with a smile in my voice. “Nothing like our first shot at a second chance. I’m not naive enough to think this will be easy, but let’s try to set things to rights, yeah?”

“Your enthusiasm is infectious,” Kane says flatly.

I beam. “Yeah? You’re feeling the energy?”

“No, it’s making me sick. ”

“Awww.” I place a hand dramatically over my chest. “Are we entering our grumpy-sunshine era?”

He exhales slowly. “I imagine it’s more like an eon, but, yes, I suppose we are.”

“Well, come on, Grim. Let’s go ‘lead with love.’”

I ignore Kane’s broody grimace and press the Transport button at the bottom of the case report on my Tombstone Phone. In the literal blink of an eye, we are in a busy conference room. Executives sit around a long oval table, droning on about strategy and budgeting.

I look around, surprised at how quick and painless our transition went. One second, we were standing in the ALP Hub, and the next, we’re planted on the sixteenth floor of Titan Media.

I blink. “Well, that hurt a lot more when I was living.”

Kane stands beside me, hands in his coat pockets, looking supremely unimpressed.

My attention turns to the soul we must be here for.

Katherine Sinclair flits about the conference room, flailing her arms and shouting insults at the staff, all of which fall on deaf ears.

No one can see or hear her; they make no reaction to her rantings whatsoever, but it doesn’t seem to deter her meddling one bit.

“This is pointless,” Kane begins.

“No, it’s not.” I sigh, sensing he might make this way harder than Katherine will. “I taught you the system. You know the mnemonic. You can do this.”

Kane grunts, the sound somewhere between annoyance and dread.

I press on gently, “Repeat after me.”

“No.”

“ Distract the subject. Ingest her story. Ease her to the OtherWorld.”

He scowls. “Look at her. She’s even more invested in this business than when I last saw her. She’s not ready.”

“Help her die, Grim. D.I.E. Die.”

“I wish I could die,” he grumbles, which I choose to ignore.

I clear my throat and speak, which, of course, only Katherine and Kane can hear, “Ms. Sinclair, you’re needed immediately in your office. There’s a critical update on the merger, and we need your input now. ”

“Merger?” Kane whispers from behind me.

“There’s always a merger,” I whisper back. “Corporate America runs on the fantasy of reinvention. Everyone wants to be somebody else, especially when they’ve already sold who they were.”

Katherine stops berating one of the seated suits and turns her attention to me. “The merger?” she exclaims.

“See?” I side-eye Kane.

“Beginner’s luck,” he returns.

We follow swiftly after Katherine, who is beelining for the corner office. The name Frank Davenport—CEO is etched into the frosted glass, but that does not deter our lost soul, who turns to us immediately after entering the room.

“Talk to me. Get me up to speed. What’s the latest?”

I look over to Kane, silently telling him to take the lead.

His expression says, Absolutely not . The cant in his hips screams, I’d rather be reaped myself.

Still, he knows this is supposed to be his moment.

“Ingest,” I coax.

He sighs exaggeratedly and then explains, “There’s no merger, Ms. Sinclair.” He says bluntly, “You’re still just dead.”

I close my eyes and count to three. “Soft landing, Kane. Real soft.”

“They’ve taken my blade, Rue. Now all I have left is my cutting frankness.”

Before I have a chance to respond, Katherine’s voice pitches up, and she moves closer to Kane. “Wait. Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“We met a while ago, Ms. Sinclair. I was tasked with helping you cross over to the OtherWorld, but you were reluctant.”

“Yes. I remember. It’s fuzzy, but yes.”

“Did you ever finish that turkey sandwich?” Kane asks more smugly than I might have liked.

The stricken expression that paints itself across the media mogul’s face lets me know that awareness has sunk in.

“Your time to affect change in this plane has come to an end. I’m very sorry,” I tell her gently .

She turns to me. “I built this company from the ground up. Over two decades of my life was devoted to this enterprise. My first love, my longest love. My desire to become a mother didn’t happen until I was almost thirty years old, but I’ve wanted to tell stories since I was a little girl.”

Kane looks on, attentive and somber. I lock eyes with him, silently willing him to give Katherine the permission she needs.

His mouth softens at the edges and he turns to her. “It’s time to tell your story, Ms. Sinclair. We are listening.”

She sighs, her spectral form coming to stillness for the first time since we arrived.

“My ambition was always my largest appetite. No matter how much I fed it, it never seemed sated. When I was a girl, I wanted to sing. I wanted to act. I wanted to perform. By the time I reached my twenties, the writing was on the wall. I was not good enough. Simple as that. It wasn’t the thing I was put on this planet to do. It wasn’t my why . You know?”

“But you found your why , didn’t you?”

Her face lights up. “I did. I had a friend who was so talented. She had everything. The looks, the drive, that intangible it factor. We would audition opposite each other constantly. She would hit on occasion. I never would. I was frustrated that my own career wasn’t taking off, but I simply didn’t have the talent.

She deserved to make it, and it just wasn’t happening.

Finally , I said to myself, the world can ignore her gift, but I won’t .

I spent the next six months working with her on a one-woman show.

I produced it, directed it, and promoted it for her.

She performed, and I made sure the world watched.

“We became so close. Friends. Business and creative partners. We were unstoppable. Then I got an offer to show run a new series with this hot young writer. I made my deal contingent on the team casting Lizzy in the pilot. But when they balked, I turned my back on her and went on without her. She never spoke to me again. Twenty-two years.”

A silence falls over the room that feels as long as the one that descended on her friendship.

“So, it’s not the business.” It’s a statement, not a question. Kane puts the pieces together out loud. “It’s regret. You miss your friend. You never got reconciliation for that perceived betrayal.”

“I built my own media network. Twenty-four hours of programming a day for two decades. I sent so many straight offers to her agent. She rejected every single one.” Katherine huffs out a beleaguered sigh. “She would never let me forget.”

There’s a pause that neither of us fills because it feels like Katherine has more to share. She does.

“And now I’m the one who will be forgotten. If I leave this place, no one will remember me.”

“That’s not true. Diane in Accounting made a down payment on her first home from the money she makes working for your company. Jack Pendleton—”

“I don’t know who that is,” Katherine cuts me off.

“But he knows you. He’s a new hire, and when he told his parents that he was working for your company, his parents beamed with pride and said how happy they were to see their child pursuing his passion and building a name for himself.”

Katherine’s expression still holds a defensive edge to it. “And what happens when I leave? What if it all crumbles? What if it all ends?”

“It will. Eventually,” Kane answers darkly. “Everything ends, Katherine, and we are all forgotten. All of us.”

“Is that helping?” I ask quietly.

“And that’s okay,” he continues without acknowledging me. “It is inevitable. We can fight an unwinnable battle against our own impermanence, or we can face our own minuscule place against the backdrop of time and celebrate the moments that matter for as long as they matter.”

“But was it worth it? To lose one of the best friends I ever had?”

“You’ll have plenty of time to wrestle with that question, I promise. Whether it’s right or it’s wrong isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it is. Accept it and move on.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Might be easier than all this energy you’re putting into hanging on,” I put in, floored by the power of Kane’s words. “Release yourself from what you cannot control. Give yourself the grace to be imperfect and to be comfortable with your flaws.”

“They are as much a part of you as your victories,” Kane finishes.

Katherine releases a sigh that ends with a soft whimper. “I tried,” she cries softly.

“And that is enough,” I encourage. “You are enough.”

Katherine’s wispy form begins to lighten. The smoky edges of her grey form stretch and thin and dissipate.

Kane asks her, “Are you ready now, Ms. Sinclair? Let go of what’s tying you here and move on to the next part of your story. Wherever that may lead.”

“But last time,” Katherine begins meekly, “you told me that was my only chance.”

Kane looks to me, a flash of warmth behind his penetrating gaze. “Turns out, I was wrong. No mistake should cost a soul forever. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

She looks between the both of us, then turns to Kane and says with conviction, “Then, yes, I am ready.”

“Then you shall,” I assert.

On her next soft sigh, Katherine’s ghostly form pinches into its center and then winks out. Poof.

Kane pierces the silence that follows with a question. “Is that it? Has she crossed?”

Four measures of Philip Glass’s String Quartet Number Three chime from my Tombstone Phone, and I glance at the screen.

“‘Lost Soul Found,’” I read out loud.

A profound sense of satisfaction washes over me. I feel the tear wet my cheek before I’m aware I’ve even started crying. I do not wipe it away. I am not ashamed of this response. I think about the freedom Katherine now has. I wonder at all the lost souls we have yet to meet.

Then I look up and gaze on that beautiful, broken soul by my side. I celebrate that sublime, overwhelming feeling of connection to others, that transcendent stillness that accompanies the power of purpose, and the euphoric weightlessness of being in love.

“Are you okay?” Kane asks softly, perhaps misunderstanding the source of my tears .

“Never better.” The smile that spreads softly across my face speaks louder than words. “Grim?”

“Yes, Mayday?”

I turn to him fully, taking in the man who fought Death for me, the man who fought himself for us, and I smile softly. “You ready to go home?”

“ Avec toi ? With you? Always.”

The End