The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 10 Paul Part 1

Later that night after dinner Clarise and aunt Belle sits in the living room and relax, “it’s been a rough day with all of the customers today!” says Aunt Belle with a sigh “I’m truly thankful for the business but I surely hope that tomorrow will be a quiet day, my feet are killing me!” she kicks of her shoes, and through her one foot over the armrest of the couch chair.   Aunt Belle looks over to Clarise as she sits on the couch looking at some pictures in a magazine, her eyes grow wide open “oh no,” she says with a shock “I forgot about our appointment to go to the mall, I’m so sorry with all of the clients…” before aunt Belle can finish Clarise looks up with a smile and say “no don’t worry about it, it is fine and to be honest I wasn’t really in the mood for it”. 

“Are you sure?  we can go tomorrow if it’s quiet?” Aunt Belle asks.

“No, really it’s not a problem,” Clarise says, now staring in front of her in deep thought.

Aunt Bell looks at her very worried “Are you sure you are fine, child?” she asks.

“Yes, I’m just thinking about my life here in the city, how everything changed” she replies with longing in her voice.

“Oh yea, I think it’s going to take some time to get used to the buzzing of the city,” while looking at her, Aunt Belle asks “How is things at school?” in a soft voice.

“Things are fine at school” she replies while she puts down the magazine on the seat next to her.

  “So, what about that handsome guy with the denim jacket?” asks Aunt Belle with a taunting smile on her face “, Clarisse face turns red her eyes as big as saucers “hum, I sort of like him, and I think he likes me too” she replies not really knowing how to talk about boys, she never had a boyfriend before, and now that she is thinking about it, is he her boyfriend she wonders.

Aunt Bell starts to laugh “Yea I noticed that there were some sparks between you, we Carter women like strong and handsome guys, with meat on their bones”.

Clarise looks at Aunt Bell hesitating to ask “Aunt Belle, what do you know about my dad?”

Aunt Belle shocked not expecting this, sits up straight, “Well…” looking over to her, she is sitting and staring at her for an answer, she knows she is not looking for the answer that everyone keeps on giving her from when she was still little.

“Mom died before she could tell me the truth, I know there is more to it than he was a soldier that died defending his country in a meaningless war, so please tell me the truth!” she begs her aunt.

“Your dad was a soldier that went off to fight in a war that is the truth but,” she looks over to her “your dad didn’t die, or rather we don’t know if he died in the war,” Aunt Belle said while she drops her head.

“Aunt, what do you mean you don’t know if he died?” she stares with piercing eyes at her aunt.

You see this is where it gets strange “Your dad received a letter from the military to go and enlist and, we all saw the letter, but after he left, and your mom didn’t hear anything from him, she went to enquire at the military offices.

They told her he never enlisted into the forces there was no record of him” Aunt Belle explains, now looking over at her and with sadness in her voice she says “we all thought after that, that he deserted you and your mom and that is why we never talked about him”.    

She jumps up in shock and stands in front of her aunt “I had the right to know!  I don’t even know what he looks like!” she exclaims.

Aunt Belle stands up and takes her into her arms “There now, calm down” she takes her by her shoulders and asks her to sit on the couch “sit here I want to show you something” Aunt Belle says with n crackling sad voice.  She leaves the room and a couple of minutes later returns with an old brown withered and torn shoebox, she goes and sits next to her on the couch with the box on her lap.

“I told your mom I have destroyed these but I somehow knew I will need it one day,” Aunt Belle says while she opens the lid of the shoe box.  Inside the shoebox, there is a lot of papers, envelopes, and pictures, she digs through everything in the box and picks up a photo of three people in it, and hands it over to her with a tremble in her hands.

Clarisse’s eyes squint as tears start to run from them, she immediately recognizes her mom’s long curly brown hair, with ember green eyes and a smile that goes from cheek to cheek even though she was still very young in the picture maybe 19 or 20, she also recognizes her Aunt Belle in the picture she looks very similar to her mom the only differences were she has a fuller face and her hair color everyone always thought they were twins but they differ in age with about three years, then standing between them there is a man, with a short military cut, dark hair almost black, with walnut brown eyes that seem to stare right at her, from what she can tell he was a well-built man, maybe in his early twenties.

While she stares at the man she feels a familiarity about him, but she can’t put her finger on it.  “That’s your father, Paul” Aunt Bell said to Clarise while stroking her back.

Later that night Clarise sticks the photo to the mirror in her room, after looking at it one last time she notices something, something strange.  She plucks the photo from the mirror and holds it close to her eyes, she dashes over to her bedside lamp, holding the photo underneath the light.  Her eyes grew big, she becomes as white as snow, she feels a shockwave going through her body, there around his neck, there’s something, she rips out her pendant and holds it next to the photo, there is no question her dad wore the same pendant that she is wearing.

“What does this mean?” she asks softly, still trying to recover from shock she goes and sits on the side of her bed.

She takes the pendant in her hand while she looks up, she wills Ignus to come forth, he appears in front of her floating in the air looking down at her, he can immediately see she is distraught.

He looks further down at her hands and sees the photo in her hand, he immediately recognizes the man in the picture, “so this is why the pendant chose you!” he says with a shocked expression on his face.  “You want me to believe, that you didn’t know?” she asks him with an angry voice.

“I truly had no idea you knew my previous master!  What was he to you?” he asks.

She looks at him with disbelief in her eyes “h-h-he was my father!” she says sobbing, knowing that the only way for him to remove the pendant was to die.  She has so many questions now, more than ever before.  “Do you know how he died?” she asks while she tries to wipe the tears from her eyes with her fingers.

He turns away his face from her, he goes into deep thought, “Paul, ah…, your father was on his way to go and say goodbye to someone in the city, before going to the military offices to enlist, he thought he would be able to help many souls find their way on the battlegrounds, but he was overwhelmed in a fight against a Vanus, what, what I don’t understand is the way everything happened, if they were waiting, that is why when you conjured me I thought that you were also involved in his demise…” he looks back at her.

She looks at him and frowns “how can you possibly think that it happened more than 17 years ago?” she said in a curt manner.

“His eyes open wide, has it already been so long?” he asks in disbelief.

“Didn’t you notice?” she asks

“When I’m inside the pendant I’m almost frozen in time, in place between the living and the dead a type of purgatory if you would, there is little recollection of date and time, a day feels like seconds, a year feels like minutes” he replies, suddenly he looks back at her “the pendant, the pendant, it waited for you! This means …” his words go silent.  He looks over to her, “no wonder, you so easily brought me forth, and above all else forced me into submission, being a reaper is in your blood, your destiny is far greater and important than we could have ever thought!”

“But why? 

And how did it know? 

And what did you mean with the events of that night?” she asks while standing up and walking over to him.

“That night, we fought with that Vanus,” he thinks back, he can hear Paul’s voice saying “Ignus where de hell did all of them come from? I have never seen them behave like this, Noooooo...!” he bows his head and looks at Clarise, “They lured us into a trap, I'm sure of it!  Vanus don’t do that, they don’t come up with clever tricks they go in and they destroy and demolish not caring about who gets hurt.  

For why and how the pendant knew to wait for you, all I can say is, magic can sometimes work in mysterious ways.”

She walks over to the window where the rays of the moon are piercing through the night sky and throwing a light on her bedroom floor, she looks up into the night sky" so my dad never abandoned us!" she stated softly., she stands for a minute there saying nothing just staring with a blank expression on her face.

She still has so many questions to ask him but she starts to feel drained after the day she had, she turns around and she can see how Ignus starts to fade into darkness, she walks over to her bed and goes and lie on top of her covers, she looked up as she tries to imagine how it would have been if her dad wasn't murdered by Vanus, how a family photo of her mom, dad and herself would have looked like, with those thoughts she smiles and closes her eyes as she fell into a deep sleep.