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twenty-eight

Astoria

R outines were something I was not accustomed to.

At least, not since the early nineteen hundreds.

We’d had a fairly simple routine as a family, back when it was just James, the kids, and me.

More and more, I found myself yearning for those moments, wishing I had basked in the mundane a little longer.

Family life was something I had most certainly taken for granted.

My current routine was mundane too, but in a new way.

Each morning, I woke to a handwritten note from Grim, usually propped crookedly against the sugar bowl—a thought for the day signed with a promise he'd be home later.

I’d eat breakfast, and then spend the next few hours bundled in every layer of clothing Grim owned, sitting cross-legged in the grass, desperately trying to weave something, anything, that resembled a basket. At this point, I'd settle for a shallow bowl shape.

After weaving all morning (or mangling whatever poor reeds Grim had found for me), I’d eat lunch and dance in the kitchen to whatever random song Grim prompted the House to play.

Sometimes it was blues, sometimes jazz—once, memorably, it was polka, a choice I was certain the House had made out of pure spite.

On warmer afternoons, I'd walk down the grassy hill and sit on the black sand, watching the waves kiss the shore. But it was winter now, and the weather had been mostly brutal, sharp winds and biting cold, the kind that made the sea look wild and endless.

Other days, I'd stay tucked inside, writing, filling notebook after notebook with small memories of my life. Eccentric thoughts. Hopeless dreams. Stupid jokes I’d overheard in cities long since fallen.

I was turning one hundred and forty-seven in a few days. There was a strange kind of peace in reading through my own thoughts, seeing my life laid out in messy ink and crumpled margins.

Dinner would arrive, and with it Grim. He always returned just as the sky turned velvet dark, after spending the day... doing whatever it was Death did.

We’d talk for hours, about anything and everything.

I learned he hated sunsets but instead loved the sunrise.

That yes, Death could rest, but he didn’t need trivial things like food or water.

Still, he had grown to love his corporeal form and found a strange pride in living as humanly as possible.

He believed it only fair, he said, to subject himself to the human experience if he was meant to be the executioner.

Grim wasn’t humorous. Not by nature. But sometimes, if you looked closely, there was a spark of amusement in his dark eyes—a ghost of a smile.

I found myself digging for that smile more often.

I also learned that the books littering his living room hadn’t been collected all at once.

They were curated slowly, over centuries, as he discovered a love for storytelling.

Artifacts lined the walls in the same delicate, careful, and intentional way.

Not trophies, but memories. Little pieces of humanity he couldn’t bring himself to let go of.

But tonight was different.

Because Death did not return home.

Nor the next night.

The notes he left were short—almost clipped—with no explanation for his disappearance. Just his looping, careful handwriting scrawled across the page.

I’ll return soon. Be safe.

Cut off from the rest of the world, I contemplated turning on the burner phone Nemo had left me—tucked away in the manila folder of personal effects prepared for my next life.

Every time I brought it out, I'd end up shoving it back into my bag.

Who would I call? Who would I text? The one person I was most worried about couldn't exactly be reached by phone.

It was a few hours past lunch when my stomach began to sour and took up pacing the kitchen barefoot, calling out for him once more as if he’d appear from thin air.

No reply.

I stood in the middle of the empty kitchen, heart hammering in the hollow of my throat, seriously debating calling for Day—or, hell, maybe even throwing a book into the ocean to make a point—when something flickered at the edge of my vision.

Movement, out past the glass.

I pressed my face against the cold windowpane, squinting into the winter light. A gray, shaggy shape moved lazily through the grass; something solid and alive. Curiosity and a fair bit of desperation made me grab Grim’s chore coat from the rack by the back door.

It smelled of him, and I pulled it on without thinking, stepping out onto the patio. There, across the field of pale grass, a dog stood. He stared back at me, tongue lolling out, long tail wagging so hard it disturbed the stillness around him.

A laugh, thin and surprised, caught in my chest. Before I could move closer, the dog barked once, then took off.

A silver streak racing toward the distant shoreline.

Chasing after it, I vaguely remembered what Grim had said about the fence and the creatures he worried lingered beyond.

But the fence was on the other side of the property, and I couldn’t just leave a random dog out here.

What if its owner was somewhere nearby looking for it?

My heels dug into the soft sand as I climbed down the hillside, scanning for any sign of the animal. There, just off to the side, half-shielded by the wild grass, the dog watched me. Warily. Patiently.

"Hi, puppy..." The words slipped out in a ridiculous baby voice before I could stop myself. I cleared my throat, heat prickling my cheeks. "Sorry. I mean—hi there. Are you lost?"

The dog cocked his head at me, the movement almost human.

Up close, he was a beautiful thing. Tall and lean, his back met the top of my thigh, and his coat was an unruly mess of grays and browns, shaggy and wild.

The fur around his mouth fell in soft, bearded tufts, giving him the dignified, disheveled look of an old fisherman who'd seen too many storms. No collar. No signs of grooming. He wasn’t a pet, at least not recently.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, holding my hand out to the curious creature.

I paused, not daring to move any closer.

The last thing I wanted was to scare him off.

So I waited, wrangling my heavy breathing from the climb down the sand as I slowly sat.

For a moment, he just stood there, his coat stirring in the winter wind.

Then, cautiously, he came forward, his wet nose bumping against my fingers.

A slow sniff, a tentative decision, and then he leaned into my touch.

His fur was coarse in some places, soft in others.

Beneath it, his ribs pressed sharply against my hand, a silent confession of how long it had been since he'd eaten properly. I wasn’t sure how Grim felt about animals.

But he wasn’t here to protest. And quite frankly, after leaving me stranded in a strange place, I didn’t care.

Kneeling in the sand, I stroked the dog’s side, feeling the tremor of his breath against my palm. He shifted his weight suddenly, nearly collapsing into my lap as he tucked his face below my chin. "Do you want to come home with me?" I purred, burying my face in his thick fur.

He lifted his head, and for the first time I caught a clear look at his eyes.

Bright green.

Startling and familiar, the exact shade of my own.

"Yeah," I breathed, a small, cracked laugh escaping me. "I think you want to come home with me."

Reaper, as I had lovingly named the dog to match Grim, was the gentlest creature I’d ever met. Already house-trained, he took to the House quickly. And the House, it seemed, took to him.

It was day four without contact from Grim, and the panic was beginning to set in. My birthday was tomorrow, and before Grim left, we’d made plans to try and get back to Gentry before then.

Reaper was asleep beside me, his breath rising and falling against my thigh as I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, the base of my basket spread between my legs.Finally— finally —I’d crafted a halfway-decent base.A few spots were wonky, but it was nearly a circle, and it would certainly hold, as long as I didn’t mess up the sides.

On a roll, I kept going, my hands moving automatically, trying to push Grim, and the rising thrum of panic, out of my mind.

Maybe this was why Nemo had left me an entire Icelandic identity, because somehow, that slippery creature knew Death would deposit me in the middle of nowhere and then disappear without a trace.

I supposed disappearing was better than dying. But it didn’t stop the anger from burning my cheeks or quickening my pulse until my hands shook against the weaving reeds.

When he came back, my fury would know no bounds. Of that, I was certain.

"Knock knock, Storybook, you here?" Day’s voice rang through the front room, the sound of the door creaking open then slamming shut against the winter wind. Beside me, Reaper growled low in his throat, rising to his feet and planting himself between me and the entryway.

A flash of blond hair and a too-bright smile appeared in the doorway. Day’s eyes widened as he took in the dog, who bristled protectively in front of me.

"Whoa," Day laughed, lifting his hands palms-up. "Whose dog?"

"Grim’s," I said without looking up, carefully threading another branch through the weave.

Day chuckled, setting a few canvas bags down on the counter and extending his hand toward Reaper, letting him sniff. “Does he know that?”

I shrugged.

What Grim didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. And besides, if he'd cared about what was happening around here, he’d be here.

"Alrighty, well, I come bearing gifts!" Day said, plopping down cross-legged beside me and pulling my guidebook into his lap. "Put the camp crafts away, Astoria. It’s time to party."

"Can’t,” I said without sparing a glance. "I need to finish this before Grim gets home."

Day held a branch between his fingers, his pinched gaze stuck on the basket tucked between my legs. “And why is that, princess?”

Gritting my teeth, I finished the line.