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Death is a boy with green eyes.
A boy with bare feet and worn knees and a shirt missing a button.
A boy with dark hair and lashes that part like clouds.
It is raining when he wakes at the bottom of the well.
He is curled on his side, tucked in like a withered rose, and his body rustle in a paper way as he unfolds, back coming to rest against the mossy stone side of the well. He inhales, the air stale in his waking lunges, his pulse in a low tap-tap beneath the storm as he holds out his hands to catch the drops of rain. Death has lovely hands – one smooth, the other skeletal – and water beads against his fingers; it drips between his bones.
He looks up with eyes the colour of rain heavy tree crowns.
He has seen them reflected – not in the well, for the well is empty – but in places where water gathers after the rain. They do not seem to belong to him, those eyes, though of course they do, set into his face like knots in an old tree.
Young face. Old eyes.
Overhead, the rain slows, stops, turns to mist as he gets to his feet. He does not know how long he’s been asleep – Hours? Days? Weeks? – but now he is awake, and he is cold, and he is hungry.
Not a stew-and-potato kind of hunger, but it’s a powerful hunger, a missing-from-your-bones, heart-dragging kind of need.
Death is awake and he is hungry.
He is hungry and so he is awake.
He climbs slowly, steadily, out of the deep hole, fingers finding the holds. He swings a leg over the side of the well, sitting for a while.
It is nice to be awake.
Beyond the well, the world has changed again. It is always changing. One day he climbs out of the well to find the leaves green, the next day they are beginning to turn. He wakes more often in winter, sees bare trees for ends. The summers are long and sleepy.
Today the air is cool and damp, with the fair palette peculiar to spring.
He swings his heels absently, knocking bare heels against the mossy rocks. He knows he cannot be the only Death, but he is the Death of this place, with its rolling hills and its green forests and the wind like music and its old stone well.
Something clenches in his chest. A hungry heart.
His feet hit the grass and it begins to wither. The ground has gone to green again, the bare places where he had stepped before now filled. Weeks, then. Maybe months.
He tries to step on stones as he begins to walk.
His strides are long, his steps are slow, but the distance falls away beneath him. He steps one foot down the hill and the next in the field, one foot in the field, the next in the forest, one foot in the forest, and the next at the edge of town.
He knows he is close now.
The town, Beacon Hills is the name on the wooden sign, is waking around him, men and women spilling from their homes, moving in a stream of bodies towards the church.
He stops in the middle of the square and looks around, humming softly, the tune familiar, though he doesn’t remember how, the words, if he had ever known them, now lost.
He is a stone in the river. It courses around him.
Death slips into the crowd, tucking his hands, one flesh, one bone, into the pockets of his worn trousers. As he strolls down the lane, he plays a game with himself, trying to guess who it will be.
The old man with the basket in his hands?
The young mother clutching her little boy’s hand?
The girl bobbing on her father’s shoulders?
Last time, it was winter and the life belonged to a man sound asleep.
Before that, a pair of children too close to the cliffs.
Before that he cannot remember. He has lost track of the order, the faces, the names. They are spots of light in his mind, flashes of warmth.
Up ahead, the church bells begin to ring.
The girl squeals as her father tosses her.
The boy begins to cry.
The old man coughs.
Death follows them all.
His bone hand aches.
The blonde boy is sitting on a flat grave stone.
The whole world is still wet from the storm, and the damp leaches into his shirt and chills his legs, but he’s never known a person to melt from rain. Catch a chill maybe, but his blood’s always been hot as the rocks in the summer.
“Isn’t that right?” He asks, tracing his fingers over the grave. He does that more often than not, carrying on half in his head and half out loud, dancing between them the way one does from stone to stone in the low tide, and it drives his mother mad, but the way he sees it, the dead don’t know the difference. They hear it all the same, whether it’s on his tongue or in his head.
The boy has got his hands busy, braiding a crown out of weedy flowers – It’s the day of the spring festival and summer is waiting at the edge of the woods, peering through the trees.
“Liam!” his mother calls from the house, and he can picture her standing there, scanning the garden, squinting into the field, casting a look off the cliffs, as if he is fool enough to go near them when the rocks are wet.
And for a breath he thinks of ducking lower. Of pressing himself to his father's grave, and letting her look until she gives up and goes to the church without him. He thinks of it, but doesn’t do it, because Liam is a good son.
Instead he rises as the church bells start ringing in the distance. Up close, they clatter and clang, but from this far out, the song is sweet and even.
“We are going to be late!” his mother calls and Liam runs, over the green grass, towards the house.
His name is Liam and he is on fire.
His life licks the air around his skin and sends up waves of heat, and his cold bone hand curls in his worn pocket, aching for the warmth.
Beneath the flames, he is a boy in a white shirt, speckled with mud, a sun kissed face, blond hair, blue eyes so bright they burn.
He cannot shake the feeling he’s seen him before, or, at least, seen pieces of him – those eyes, that hair – but he cannot remember where.
When he takes a step towards him, the golden boy takes a step back, glancing down at his bare feet, at the place where his toes dig into the ground, where the tiny red flowers wither and curl beneath his heels.
His blue eyes narrow, knowing.
He thinks they always know, the way a body knows the sun is up, the way the heart knows it’s in love, the way he knows to find the light, to take it in his hand, to extinguish the light.
He wonders if the boy will run.
They try sometimes, the younger ones, and every now and then the old, but Death has a slow step and that long stride, and he can always catch them.
You can’t outrun your fate.
Only the boy doesn't run. He holds his ground and the fire in his eyes is stronger than a dying life.
“Go away”, he says, voice steady, the words rich with command.
“No”, he answers, his throat brittle from disuse.
Young mouth, old voice.
The boy bends down, picks up a flower crown.
“For the festival”, he says, holding it out to him.
“I am not here for the festival.”
The boy's full lips curl slightly, “I know.”
Liam knows who the boy is. Of course.
Knows even before he sees the dead flowers to his feet, before he catches a glimpse of those bone fingers, even before he says his name.
Liam is scared. Naturally. But he won’t give up so easily.
“I am not ready!” he says hastily.
“Doesn’t matter”, answers the boy, who is Death, “I do not choose.“
“I want to see the sun rise. I want to say goodbye. “
“You are stalling”, Death whispers.
“Wouldn’t you?”, Liam snaps back.
The wind picks up, and overhead an old branch creaks, weakened by so many seasons and storms. He can hear the cracks spreading through the wood.
“Liam”, says Death, holding out his hand, and its nothing but bare bone, and the sight of it should give him shivers, but he can only stare with fascination, as for him this hand is just as handsome as the rest of the boy who is Death.
“Please”, he whispers, “this isn’t my time.”
Death stares at the stubborn boy in front of him. Not that begging is a new thing, but somewhere deep inside his body this last plea sounds familiar. This isn’t my time...
He looks up into Liam’s sky blue eyes and basks in the warmth of his fire. Hesitating.
Then he holds out his hand again. “Liam.”
The smile on Liam’s face falters, but he nods, tears in his eyes.
“It's okay. It’s not your fault”, and then he holds out his own, warm and fleshy hand.
And Death takes it.
Dying is weird, Liam thinks. He can feel his warmth leaving, his body that felt too hot his whole life stops burning and he starts to shiver in the cold night's air.
Then the sensation is gone and when Liam opens his eyes, he still stands at the same place, still holding Death's hand.
“Theo...” He breathes, suddenly remembering.
And Theo smiles, his green eyes alive like the grass under his feet.
Death knew something is different. He doesn’t feel the fire burning out and he doesn’t feel Liam’s body growing cold and lifeless.
And when he opens his eyes, he feels warm for the first time he remembers. Not the hungry cold he wakes up with, not the burning hot feeling after he took a life, but real warmth.
“Liam”, he whispers, his eyes not leaving the boy in front of him for a second. He remembers now - how they met for the first time, how they lived a whole life together, not leaving each others side. And he remembers the curse, a punishment for his cruelty, damning him to take other lives until he found his warmth again.
Theo turns his head to look at Liam, the boy is smiling at him, squeezing his now human hand. The hunger is gone.
And when his bare feet hit the grass now, it stays green and vibrant. Alive, just like him.