We’ve all heard the “little old lady mistakes Evil Demon for her grandson” story. But what we don’t know is that the little old lady is doing this on purpose. Tricking the demons that arrive into caring for her so as to extend her own lifespan. It’s been going on for centuries, until one day, the Lord of Death himself has to step in and put an end to this lady’s games.
Anette is always cold now, bundled up beneath a giant quilt, and she’s said if the doctors can’t do anything to help her then she’d rather be back home. She’s so weak now, so frail. Todd hunches over her, not daring to leave her bedside, nothing in this world or the next that he can do. Her withered hand slips out from beneath the covers and touches his knee, and he closes his hands over it.
“Toddy,” she whispers. “I have something I need to tell you. It’s been very naughty of me, lying to you like this, but you haven’t been completely honest with me either, so I don’t think you have much room to complain.”
Her toothless lips turn up in a rueful grin. “I didn’t summon you here by accident.”
There is something heavy shifting in his chest: a sudden weight, a sudden absence. He doesn’t know why, it’s not as if he hasn’t seen the clues. The fact that they never returned the occult book to the library, and it’s sat on her bookshelf all these years. The fact that she’d had to speak the incantation in order to completely the ritual. The plastic shaker in her spice rack filled with dried goat’s blood. The fact that she’s never once been anything but kind to him.
“I know,” he says, his voice grating in his throat.
“I hope you can forgive me,” says Anette. “That wasn’t the first time I’ve done it. I’ve had a long, long life before you, you know, Todd?” Her foggy eyes turn up to the ceiling as she smiles in sightless reminiscence. “Oh! I’ve meant to ask you – you don’t want I should still be calling you Todd, do you? Because that isn’t your real name …”
“Of course it is,” he says, and the words come out in a sob, in a sudden jolt of panic, because he cannot lose this, not along with all the delusions he’s let himself believe would endure, not along with everything else. “I’m Todd, I’m your -” His voice catches. “Your-”
“Of course, of course, of course you are,” she says quickly, patting the back of his hand. “I just wanted to know what you preferred, that’s all. I was just worried that … that this might get a little bit confusing later, but never you mind, just as long as you’re happy.”
Her hair is loose, spread across her pillow to frame her face like a bloodless halo. The porcelain angels on her bedside are watching them. “It’s a strange old doctrine,” she says, “where you can be as wicked as you want all your life, and then at the end you repent and are redeemed. Because He so loved the world, isn’t it? And love, love, oh, that redeems everything.
“The cruelest people in the world,” she sighs, “I bet you anything their grandmothers loved them. Or their mothers or their fathers or their lovers or their children or anyone, anyone at all.” Her gnarled fingers close over Todd’s massive claw. “Is there anyone so terrible that they could not be loved?”
And then, almost in the same rattling breath: “And in the end, why should that save them?”
Anette gathers up all the strength left in her body and shifts a few vital inches to the side, breathing through her nose with the effort, and as Todd watches her intently she pats an empty spot on her mattress. “There can be no repentance without acknowledgement,” she says. “There can be no love without being fully known. Come, confess to me your sins.”
It takes a long time. The gas lamps flicker and die out. He tells her about the souls he’s swindled from people and damned for eternity, the firstborns that he’s torn from their mothers’ arms, all the little tasks he once thought tedious and mundane that are now magnified and horrific with recollection, and Anette shudders and sighs and sometimes laughs wistfully along with him.
And dawn comes, and there is a knock on the door.
Todd shudders into wakefulness, a spot on her pillow sodden with his tears and drool. He glances at Anette and she is awake, her breathing unchanging.
“It’s time,” she says, and then: “Oh dearie me, this might get a bit confusing.”
The door swings open and the Lord of Death enters, all clad in black.
“Oh, Todd,” Anette says, propped up on her pillow to greet him. “Finally, you visit.”
Todd the demon startles out of his protective stance, staring in bewilderment. “You? You’re – You’re Todd? The Todd?”
“I’m Tod,” the Lord of Death corrects, and then seeing nothing but confusion, clarifies: “You know, Tod, as in, Im Tod wie im Leben?” Still nothing. “Well, never mind. I’d prefer to be called by my professional title while I’m working, anyway.”
The Lord of Death flows silently across the floor to loom over Anette and clears his throat, reciting: “You have cavorted with the forces of darkness for centuries, summoned demons from Hell, committed countless cruelties just to stave off your death. And now there is only one fate left for you.”
Anette lies back, eyes closed, at peace, and that’s when Todd lunges forward and growls, “Don’t you touch her!”
The walls shake, the porcelain dolls shatter against the floor, and Honey comes running in, flecking sulfur, barking madly. “Don’t do this!” Anette screams. “Todd! Todd, it’s okay! I’m ready! I wanted -“ There is a shriek, the sound of cloth tearing, the shattering of bone. “I wanted you to have a chance.” Her voice breaks. “I wanted – to think – that I could save you.”
The Lord of Death is gone, a long strip of black fabric dangling from Honey’s jaws, and Todd comes stumbling over to her. Anette’s face is gray, her breathing shallow. “Todd,” she says. Her words come in gasps. “You – you silly boy. You could’ve -” Her hand comes up to stroke his face. “It’s too late for me. Far, far too late. You couldn’t -”
“Shh,” he whispers, and bends over her. “It’s going to be okay.” She is so frail, her skin translucent, and he gently lifts her soul from the ravaged flesh, as he has so many times before, and cradles her to his chest.
“There’s only -” he says. “There’s only one place left. One place we can go.”
“Of course,” Anette whispers, and she is brilliant now, despite everything, as is every human soul he’s ever handled, the core of them shining through despite their stain. She reaches up to touch him on the cheek. “You’re such a good boy. No, wait, that’s a lie, isn’t it?” She shakes her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Whether we’re good or not. Just as long as we had each other.”
They are between realms now, the warmth of her home gone, and the bleak and desolate landscape materializes around them, and he clutches her to his chest and walks, through the shrieking winds that slice through bone, the wailing of the damned, one foot after another, off into the cold and eternal dark.
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