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Thunder echoed outside the cave. Rain poured against the ground. Agatha’s clothes were wet. She flicked her hand towards the ground, willing a fire with all her might, but only a spark of purple came out. She tried again, and again. Not even another spark came out. She could feel the lack of magic in her veins, as if she’d been completely hollowed out. She stamped her foot on the ground in frustration.
It had been a while since Agatha had been able to recharge. She’d had a good thing going in the last village she was in. Every time someone turned up dead, she was able to avoid suspicion. Until the last time. She’d been caught red-handed in the middle of the town square, standing over a body in broad daylight. In her defense, she hadn’t expected the witch to attack her, hadn’t realized she’d figured out Agatha was the one luring her friends to their deaths. And what was she supposed to do, stop the power burning through her veins?
Dozens of spectators watched in fear as Agatha drained the other witch dry. She stood there, crackling with purple, daring the villagers to come for her. She’d thought they’d be too afraid. But this village was accustomed to dealing with witches. After all, they’d burned dozens of innocent women at the stake. They were sure Agatha would be no different.
She thought about the warmth of the fire as she stood tied to the stake. The way it burned around her but never touched her skin. She remembered the laughing faces of the villagers as the fire began to rage. The confusion as she began to laugh herself as the fire burned hotter and hotter. The screams as she erupted from the fire like a volcano, unscathed. The joy she felt chasing them down, one by one. She left the village burning.
Practically speaking, it hadn’t been the best use of her magic. But she couldn’t find it within herself to regret a single thing. Even as her clothes dripped water onto the ground and she shivered, unable to so much as summon a spark of flame. The cave was colder than the forest, but at least she had a roof over her head here. Agatha pressed her hands together sharply, willing the magic to flow with all her strength. But nothing came.
She’d assumed she would be able to make it to another village. They weren’t so far apart. What she hadn’t expected was the days of storms, the days forced to take shelter because even magic couldn’t help her move through the sheets of rain pouring through the forest.
Agatha’s body sagged against the stone wall of the cave. She felt her eyes beginning to close against her will. She had never been so tired. But she knew if she let her eyes close now, they’d never again open. With effort, she forced her eyes wide, and her surroundings blurred into focus.
She was no longer alone. The cave was dark, but Agatha could clearly see a woman here. She stood out against the blackness like she was light itself. This was a shallow cave. Agatha was sure no one else had been here. And yet here was this strange woman, whose clothes weren’t even damp. She had a strange aura about her, as though nothing Agatha said could ever hurt her.
“I’m concerned about you,” the woman said. “You look close to Death.”
“Where did you come from?” Agatha asked. She was wary. Her magic was drained in a way it hadn’t been in a very long time. If this woman had nefarious intentions, there was very little Agatha could do to defend herself. Of course, there were always fisticuffs, but she’d never been one for hand-to-hand combat. Besides, she was exhausted. Her soaked clothes were weighing her down, and she shivered involuntarily. The woman’s eyes flicked down. She’d noticed.
“You should get out of those clothes,” the woman said.
“You should get out of my cave,” Agatha snapped. She did want to get out of these clothes, but the question was what she could change into. If she had the magic for it, she would have dried herself instantly – or better yet, she would have stayed dry no matter how the storm raged around her. And besides being wet, it was cold, and only getting colder as the night lengthened. She had no intention of freezing to death here.
“I was here first,” the woman said. Agatha knew that couldn’t possibly be true, but the woman’s dry clothes said otherwise. Maybe it was true. Maybe she was losing her senses along with her magic. What was she going to do anyway? She couldn’t go back out into the storm. Not when she was so depleted.
“Fine,” Agatha said. “Fine. But I’m hardly going to change out of these clothes in front of you.”
“I can turn around,” the woman said. Agatha scoffed.
“I have nothing to change into,” Agatha said pointedly. She was tired of arguing with this stranger who seemed to have no concept of basic survival. “We have no fire and no provisions. We’ll be lucky to get through the night regardless.”
“We have a fire,” the woman said. And Agatha realized that the glow the woman was bathed in was flickering. There was a fire in this dark cave, and the cave wasn’t a dark cave. Agatha blinked and rubbed her eyes with both hands. There hadn’t been a fire here. She was sure of it. It had appeared almost as if by…magic.
This woman wasn’t a witch. Agatha could always sense another witch. Could her magic really be so spent that she couldn’t even recognize one? The idea filled her with bitterness. That she’d really let herself become so weak. Failed in every possible way. And yet, if this woman was a witch, there was hope. Agatha might be able to recharge her magic and get out of this cave alive. She’d be able to travel through the storm until she found a new village.
So Agatha smiled at the woman. Anybody could tell it was insincere, but nobody ever did. “Thank you. I didn’t realize you’d built a fire. Perhaps the cold is affecting my senses.”
“Perhaps,” the woman said.
Agatha shifted closer to the warmth of the flames, feeling her bones begin to warm. Perhaps Death was not quite as close as she’d feared. But this woman’s origin and intentions remained a mystery, and she had to learn more. “What’s your name?”
The woman was silent for a moment. “Nobody has ever asked me that before.”
“I doubt that,” Agatha scoffed. Yet the other woman stood still, seemingly unsure of her own name. Her face remained impassive. Under different circumstances, Agatha would have pressed further, would have already had an idea of what sort of game this woman was playing. But she was too exhausted for games and already bored of feigning interest in a witch whose power she needed to make it through the night.
“Rio,” the woman said finally. “Rio, as the river. Winding eternally, starting and ending but never ceasing.”
“Okay…” Agatha said. She had no interest in unpacking all that or in playing along with whatever this woman — this Rio — wanted from her. “I’m Agatha.”
“I know,” Rio said.
“How could you possibly know?” Agatha scoffed.
“I see you often,” Rio said. Agatha waited for her to expound on that, but Rio just stood there. She looked at Agatha, and Agatha looked back.
“Well, I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Agatha said.
“You never look,” Rio replied.
Agatha scrutinized this woman, standing next to the fire, wearing a warm green hood over her dark hair. There was a tool of some sort strapped to her back; perhaps she was a farmer. Agatha was sure they’d never met before. She never stayed in one place long enough to make friends.
“Refresh my memory then,” Agatha said. Rio smiled.
And suddenly, Agatha saw the village, smoldering as she left it in the dust. She saw Rio there, scythe in her hand. She saw the line of souls behind her. And she realized she’d seen Rio before, standing over every body, every time. And though Rio was there for the souls, her eyes were always locked on Agatha.
Agatha stumbled backwards, shaking her head to clear the visions. Rio’s memories and her own, combined together. Things she never saw but now could never unsee. Rio stayed still, eyes locked on Agatha just as they had been so many times before.
“You said you’ve never seen me before,” Rio said. “But we’ve been together hundreds of times.”
“You’re Death,” Agatha said, backing away as though it could do her any good, as though she could run back into the woods and escape her fate.
Rio smiled. “Now you recognize me.”
“So – so what, you’re here to kill me?” Agatha asked, back pressed to the wall of the cave. She thought this might be the most vulnerable she’d ever felt. Her mind raced, trying to find some way, any way, out of this.
“I don’t kill,” Rio said. The scythe on her back glinted in the firelight. The blade was permanently tinted red.
“Oh, you don’t kill,” Agatha scoffed. “You just reap, right? You choose to take souls. People who could be left alone to live perfectly happy lives if not for you.”
“Lives come to an end,” Rio said. “You should know that better than any.”
“Oh,” Agatha said. “So what is this? A punishment? I’ve killed too many people and now it’s my turn?”
“This is not a punishment,” Rio said. The fire flickered behind her, casting shadows through the cave. The shadow of the scythe seemed to dance on the wall. Hungry for blood. Ready for it. Expecting it. “This is never a punishment.”
“I don’t see what else death could possibly be,” Agatha said. “I’m not ready for it.”
“You can be as stubborn as you like,” Rio said. “The outcome doesn’t change. Whether it’s tonight or a century from now. There is only one ending.”
“A century from now,” Agatha repeated. “You’re saying you might let me leave alive?”
“No,” Rio said. As Agatha opened her mouth to protest, Rio lifted her hand, and spoke again. “It’s not up to me. It’s up to you.”
Agatha stared hard at Rio. “It’s up to me?”
“I have no control over when your death takes place,” Rio said.
“But you came here with a fire,” Agatha said, trying to make sense of it all through the chills and the hunger and the empty feeling in her veins. “I could have frozen to death by now. Why are you here?”
“Not every death has a deadline,” Rio said. “There is an ending. It may be tonight, tomorrow, two hundred years. But it will come.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Agatha said. “Do – have you done this for others? Come to them with a fire when they’re close to Death – close to you?”
Agatha watched Rio’s face closely. For the first time, a flicker of emotion spread across it. Something almost like…embarrassment.
Agatha laughed in disbelief. Maybe she was hallucinating this entire thing. Death being here to save her from herself. “So you don’t. You’ve never done this before. What is this?”
“I am doing nothing that another could not do,” Rio said, quickly and defensively. “Someone could have been in this cave when you entered. They could have built a fire. Cooked you a meal to share together.”
And Agatha smelled, suddenly, the familiar and delicious scent of meat roasting. She looked to the fire to see that it was real. Meat roasting on a spit. A veritable feast in the cooking pot above the fire.
“But nobody was here,” Agatha said. “So I should have died tonight. I should be dead right now.”
“I was here,” Rio said. Her gaze never wavered from Agatha’s own. Something about looking Death in the eye made Agatha uncomfortable, but she refused to be the first to break. Rio’s eyes were human, and yet there was something strange there. Something ancient.
“I don’t want this special treatment,” Agatha said, though it wasn’t true. She had no intention of letting her body rot in this cave. “Why are you doing this?”
Rio was the first to look away. “It’s not special treatment.”
“You said yourself that you’ve never done this for anyone else,” Agatha pressed.
“No one else has ever brought me so many souls,” Rio said quickly, and her statement hung between them in the air. She looked back at Agatha, and her face was almost anxious. As if she knew her reason weren’t a good one. And Agatha suspected there was something else. She thought back to the memory Rio had shared, the one where her otherworldly eyes had never left Agatha even as she reaped and reaped.
Agatha shivered involuntarily. Somehow, without knowing it, she had become…special…to Death. An object of fascination. Rio seemed to know that Agatha understood, because her face settled once again into its impassive mask.
“Please eat,” Rio said. “Rest. The storm will pass by morning.” Her tone left no room for further questioning, and Agatha knew Death was on her way out.
“I hope I never see you again,” Agatha said.
Rio smiled. “You will.”
And Agatha knew it was true. What had been seen could not be unseen. She would see Rio at every body, every recharge, every massacre, the red blade of her scythe shimmering as she took the souls Agatha brought her.
Wherever Agatha went, Death would follow.