The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 9 River of Colors

The next morning Clarice struggles to get up out of bed, the events of the previous night still haunt her and she feels bad for herself for not being able to help the woman.  At the breakfast table aunt, Belle tries to make conversation with her but she can see that Clarice is not really listening, “Say do you want to go to the mall after school?  Maybe we can get a new outfit or two, what do you say?” Aunt Belle asks her hoping that it will lift her mood. 

“Sure…” Clarice replies with a sigh, not really in the mood, but decides it might do her some good to get out.

On her way to school Clarice decides to take the route she took the other day; she feels ashamed for what happened and decided that today was not the day to face the place where she lost her first chance to help a lost soul.  A couple of blocks on she comes to a halt, she sees a ghostly figure of a man sitting at a bus stop, she tries to ignore him by looking the other way while she quickly walks past him.  Is this now going to be my life, seeing ghosts every day, everywhere? She thought to herself.  

Walking into the main gate of the school she is greeted by Tyler patiently wafting with his back leaning up against the wall and his one leg bend in underneath him.  “Morning, beautiful!” he greets her, his blue eyes glittering.  “Morning” she tries to put a smile on her face.  “What’s wrong?” he asks her taking her hand in is.  “Well, well and what is this” comes Willow’s voice, only her head peeking out from around the corner.  Tyler drops her hand “no nothing” he replies turning a reddish-pink in his face.  Clarise looks up in Tyler’s eyes, she wants to say she feel broken but it's only going to cause more questions she realizes.  I just need to put on a smile on and make if everything is okay, she decides.  “Well, you two look very cozy” Willow says teasing them.  “We are just chatting” Clarise says as she starts walking over to Willow, “Are we going to go to homeroom?” she asks.

The three of them starts to walk over to room 302, at the stairs, Tyler turns away, “I will see you later” he winks at Clarise.

In homeroom she goes and takes her seat, a shadow falls over her when she looks up, she sees James looking at her curiously, his one eye squinting while the eyebrow of his other eye is raised, “And where were you this morning?” he asked her with a gentle smile on his face.

“Oh, sorry, I decided to take another route this morning, you know trying to see more of the city” she replies.

“So, I guess you haven’t you seen what happened at the place where the accident took place?” he asks her with a squeaky curios voice.

With a frown on her face, Clarice tilts her head towards him, asking “what are you talking about, what happened?”

“That whole part of the street was completely overgrown by flowers, they sprouted up during the night and grew right through the tar on the street” James replied while taking out his phone “I took a photo, here look” he hands her his phone.

On the photo she can sees all shades of orange and yellow flowers all of the same type.

“Wait what, what kind of flowers is this?” she asks now very much intrigued.

“Well, I’m not sure but, I stood next to a lady and I heard her say to another lady it’s Marigold” he replies “do you want to go and have a look after school, if they are still there?” he asks her.

“Yes of course!” replies Clarise with an excited voice.

“Okay wait for me at the main gate after school and then we can walk together”.

During lunch time Clarise tells Tyler all about the flowers and asks if he wants to tag along with them?  “Yea, sure why not?” he replies.  Clarise don’t want to say anything but she likes it when he is near for some reason, he makes her feel save.  She catches herself a lot of time staring into his eyes, it's like they are drawing her in.  When the bell rings, indicating that recess is over he grabs her hand as she gets, she looks at him curiously.  He shows with his other hand that she should sit. 

After everyone left, he leans forward closing his eyes his lips touching her soft lips, they melt into each other.  He slowly penetrates her mouth with his tongue, filing her mouth with the taste of mint, she presses her tongue up against his, and then pressing her tongue into his mouth.  Her heart beating so hard so fast, she feels excited and scared at the same time.  She slowly closes her mouth trapping his tongue between her lips, as their faces parted from each other “I have been waiting to do that, the whole day” he confesses looking into her now stary bright green eyes.  “I have been wishing for it from yesterday” she blushes.  “Ahem, why are you not in your classes?” comes an angry voice from the cafeteria side, it’s the principal Mrs. Hill, a tall, slender, middle-aged woman with rusty red hair that is pinned up on top of her head.  “Get to your classes or face detention” she orders them.  The two of them jumps up and sprints of to their classes.

After the announcements and the last bell, Clarise and Willow walks over to the place where Tyler waited for her that morning.  Her whole face lights up when she sees Tyler coming around the corner, and he’s also having a big smile on his face. 

With him around, the whole world just melts away, she knows she doesn’t really know him that well but there is something about, something that makes her feel comfortable and safe, is it his eyes is it his smile?

The two stands and look deep into each other’s eyes, smiling about what happened after recess.

“Sorry I’m late!” James says coming strolling down another path, “I had to go get something” he takes a book out and hands it over to Clarise.  The cover of the book is filled with all kinds of plants, there is a blue page marker sticking out at the top of the book.

When she opens the book at the page marker, it opens at a page Marigolds, while they slowly walk over to the place, she reads parts on the pages.  She becomes pale some people call it Flor de muerto which roughly translates to Flower of the Dead.

As the students start to get close to the overhead rail tracks, they can see groups of people on the sidewalk taking pictures.  The black tar road turns into a river of bright warm colors, with pedals dancing and swirling through the cold city air.  There is especially a lot of flowers around the steel pillar where Clarise last saw the ghost lady.

With wonder in her voice, Willow says “Wow, look at all these orange-collared flowers, I have never seen anything like this before!”

Clarise stands there in astonishment, she looks at the place where the ghost lady was absorbed a heap of flowers ranging from red to orange to yellow sprouted right through the road and formed a heap of flowers.  Can this be because of the fight with the Vanus last night Clarise wonders?

The students walk closer to the scene, it looks like something out of a movie as the pedals twist and turns around them.

Without noticing she takes hold of the pendant in her hand and as she looks to her side she can see Ignus appearing alongside her, he looks at the flowers and then turns to her slowly, he speaks in a soft voice to her “don’t worry they can’t see or hear me, you see these flowers” Ignus stretches out his arm and points at the flowers “ they are here because of you, because of the purity of your heart, the tear you shed last night was infused with a high concentrate of your essence, and it brought life back to this dead barren piece of earth beneath the road.  Where there is warmth, love and hope there will always be life.  You should not see yourself as a failure but rather as a shield for those in need.

A long time ago just before people died, they sometimes saw reapers appear and people came to believe that reapers are the callers of death, this is not true reapers are there to guide and protect a soul, so no other soul can absorb its essence so that the life that they have lived and lost is not in vain.”

He pauses for a moment, while slowly looking back at the flowers “Within you there lays great power, power to protect, these flowers symbolize that.  Marigold flowers or like some people call them ‘flor de muerto’ flower of the dead is not a symbol of death but a symbol of the path home for a soul after it leaves its vessel”

For Clarise it feels like some sort of calm, falls over her, to hear Ignus speak those words, she picks up one of the flowers on the side of the street.  James says he goodbyes and leaves for his dad’s offices and shortly afterwards Willow also says goodbye, leaving Clarise and Tyler standing there.

Tyler turns to her, and sees she is fascinated by the flowers, to him she looks like an angel glowing with the backdrop of the flowers.  He reaches down his arm going to the inside of her arm and their fingertips touch, he suddenly feels a calm coming over him, he feels a warm glow coming over him.

She turns to him, “sorry this must be boring to you” she smiles.  “With you nothing is boring” he says picking up her hand and kissing it on her knuckle.  The two of them walk off hand in hand till they reach the bakery that is overflowing with customers.  “Well, I guess you need to go help your aunt” he says looking at the people brushing his fingers through his hair.  She leans in and kisses him softly on his lips, she feels the rush going through her whole body, she pulls away slowly saying “I think you better go before…” he leans in and steals another kiss from her before she can finish.

“I’ll think about you!” he says kissing her on her hand again. 

She watches him disappear around a corner again.

Most of the customers came to have a look at the spectacle of the flowers and found the bakery’s aroma so irresistible, that some of them walked over to try some of Aunt Bell’s pastries, puddings and bread rolls.  As Clarise walks into the bakery her aunt immediately puts her to work “please go to the back and help out in the kitchen” Aunt Belle asks Clarise.  As she drops her backpack behind the counter, she hands the flower she picked up to her aunt with a smile on her face, it’s the first-time aunt Belle has seen her eyes smile since the funeral.  Aunt Belle looks down at the flower and says to Clarise “Thank you!  For this!” with a soft inviting voice.

While working in the kitchen she feels calm, it like a veil of despair have been lifted from her and she doesn’t feel ashamed anymore about what happened.  She stands a moment ant think about the ghostly man she saw at the bus stop.  She cleans her hand from flour and walks over to her aunt “Will aunt please excuse me for a couple of minutes there is something that I need to do” Her aunt nods her head yes.  She collects removes her apron dust off her flower dusted clothes and leaves the bakery.  

Arriving at the bus stop everything is quiet there is only a couple of people on the street most of them so entwined in their own thoughts or with the people that they are with that they don’t even notice her standing in front of the empty bus stop.  She takes a seat on the sun scorched seat, the red and white paint that once covered the seat only shows here and there.  On the seat she can make out initials and some other symbols that people have carved into the seat over time.  While she sits there, she can feel a vibration in the air and when she looks up and can see the ghostly legs of an elderly man passing her.  She keeps drops her head staring at the rough concrete in front of her feat.

Without looking she says softly “have you been waiting long?”  The soul of an elderly man replies “I thought you would never talk to me, I have seen you before noticing me but, I thought the sight of me must have scared you off” he replies with relief in his voice. 

“May I ask who you are waiting for?” she asks him.

“My wife, my wife Catherine Summers, she is already gone, she told me in my face Adam, I will never leave you, but she did! ” He replies after sitting there quiet for about a minute looking up into the sky.

“Do you want to go to her?”

 “I don’t know where or how?”

“Will you allow me to help you?” she asks while slowly turning to him.

“Y-yes”

She takes her jacket and throws it over her right arm as she moves facing him, she, she takes hold of her pendant and Ignus appears beside her.  He sees the calmness in her, he is in disbelief it’s the same girl that was so shook up the first time she saw a soul.  She looks around, no one is noticing her.  She stretches her right arm out, feeling her essence encapsulating her arm right down to her palm.  She puts her hand into his chest, she can feel his energy resonating against her.  With her palm against his core, she feels how her energy shoots the core forward into a rift that just appeared in front of her in flash of light the core disappeared.

She goes and sit in the spot where the man was sitting, looking up into the sky.  She notices something, inside the roof of the bus stop there is something written with dark permanent marker, CS loves AS was that maybe what he was looking at she wonders.  Can love really be everlasting till after death.  After sitting for another couple of minutes viewing how the sun paints the afternoon sky with orange and purples, she stands up and goes to her aunt's bakery to go finish helping.