The Reaper in the Night

I wrote this story for a scary story contest, enjoy. The current version is draft 2.

The icy rain sliced through the dark air like whetted knives until they clashed upon the glass panes of the windows whose iron bars grew like deadly nightshade and cast ghastly shadows onto the rugged floor. I read in my study to distract myself from such a hostile night, but this particular occasion to distract myself from an acute melancholy that twisted itself through my body in the same manner a hook twists through a fish. The melancholy came through me each winter solstice since my dear beloved died. I was engaged to marry her by the summer solstice, but an urgent matter of my arduous occupation called me across the sea to London. During my stay in London she caught tuberculosis. I was so worried and took a carriage to the port and boarded the next ship chartered for the harbor of Boston. However, when I got to Boston my fears were confirmed, she had passed a day before my ship had landed. I buried her on the winter solstice, so separate by the grand chasm of death. I guess it is appropriate that such a radiant maiden she died on longest of nights and shortest of days, and that such weather should accompany my mental distress. It was so long ago that I barely remembered her face, which vanished into the musty catacombs of my mind, but I do remember that she had eyes that burned with a blue-grey light of a shimmering star on a summer’s evening.

This night was a particularly dreaded anniversary because I lost the last drawing I had of her, and the last letter she wrote was accidentally burnt by one of my maids. I desired solitude, so I sent away the many attendants for two nights such that I could be left alone in my odd mourning. During the many lonesome, pensive hours I took to reading old ghost stories about a region whose terrors were a potent diversion; second only to opiates. One story,  called “The Wandering Woman”, particularly fascinated me. The tale begins with a woman being forced out of her village because she was accused of adultery. The rumors were untrue of course, but her husband, children and village rejected her. Her home was stolen away from her by licentious rumors and lies, so she had no choice but to wander the vast and tangled wood. A snowstorm blew in from the north, and she became lost because of the snow became so thick it blocked out the trees. She was so cold that she crawled into the hollow of some dead tree she stumbled upon, and was buried by the snow. Her body might have died in the cold, but her spirit so wronged that it continued to wander the lonely woods, searching for any warmth of hearth or kindness. Once she found a home in the woods with a stove full of glowing embers. The housekeeper, a humble man accepted her in, and she was so moved by his generosity that when the sun set she killed the man by smothering him with a pillow while he slept. She then grabbed his soul as it left his body and stuffed it into a pouch she found in the house, and she left the house carrying the pouch so that the kind soul she found in the cold wood would never abandon her. She then decided to find other houses and other souls to steal, so that in her patch she could have more kind and generous souls that would never abandon her. Thus, the wandering woman traverses the lonely woods, collecting kind souls.

I was reading over the point of the tale where the woman was approaching a home in the woods, when three knocks echoed through my study. First, I thought it was thunder, but upon hearing the knocks again, I decided that they were too ordered to be the work of the storm. The coincidence between the story and the knocks frightened me, but I didn’t think much of it, for I am not one to believe in ghosts. I walked to the door and saw a thin, sallow woman was dressed in sable black curled upon the stone steps. She looked at me with beautiful, livid eyes that were dull from weariness. She asked me for pity with a desperate energy. As she spoke I saw that her lips were a dark red or mauve as if they were coated in dried blood. The current coincidence between the woman at the door and the woman in the book in addition to the more macabre features of her face increased my fear, but I was too overcome by pity to leave her to the violent whims of the stormy, winter night. I did not forget my suspicions around the strange occurrences, and my mind could not help but be ever fearful of what it might mean.

Her eyes bore such an uncanny resemblance to my beloved that I thought if this spirit is the wandering woman, then she planned to torture my soul two-fold by condemning me to death while torturing my mourning soul with the guise of my beloved. But then again, my mind is not predisposed to wonderings about the supernatural. I asked her where she was from, how she became lost, and whether she had a home I could help her find. She looked put-off by this line of inquiry. I first thought that my querying was too personal or roused harmful memories, but she held her chin briefly as if she was trying to remember before answering. She was out for a walk when she fell into a river and hit her head on a rock, leaving her unconscious; when she woke up she did not know where she was  or how much time had passed, and the storm was brewing on the horizon. My home was the first she had come across. I nodded my head, but I did not fully trust her tale; it seemed quite implausible that she did not drown after being knocked unconscious in a river, but because she appeared uncomfortable discussing the events that lead her to me, I did not press. Instead, I attempted to change topics: I asked her where her family or home was, but she told me her head ached and that she could not fully remember many things. I led her to a guest room, prepared a bed so she could rest, and bid her good night.

The rain no longer tried to slice its way through the window and the thundering clouds marched toward new woods, making way for the crescent moon to cast its iridescent light into my chamber. I slept, but it was not long until nightmares burrowed their way into my mind. I dreamed that I was alone in a wide plain covered by a thick mist that rose from the damp, muddy ground. In the distance, I beheld a hooded figure illuminated by a pale blue light. The being strode toward me, and I noticed that its movements appeared unnatural; the figure appeared to be levitating rather than walking. The light emanated from a scythe whose edge was so keen that it burned like a white-hot flame, cutting into the flesh of my neck. The figure sped toward me faster and faster as it came closer and closer. I backed away in fear, but some unseen vine tangled its thorny way across my foot causing me to trip and fall to the ground. I tried to crawl away but more thorny vines bound me to the ground. The terrible robed figure lifted its keen scythe into the dark sky, and at the moment it began to swing at my throat I woke up.

I saw a darkly cloaked figure at the foot of my bed, and I swung my fist at it, thinking it was the ghastly reaper from my dream. However, my arm passed right through its form; hitting no flesh or bone. All the meanwhile, the hooded figure was pleading for me to calm myself, and though I was far from unafraid, I managed to regain composure. Upon taking her in, I realized that the woman I let into my home was sitting at my bed, and that she had no tangible anatomy like some hellish ghost.

“Fiend from Hell!” I shrieked, still terrified, “What is your name, and have you come to take me down to the flaming lake bellow? Tell me!”

“Why do you call me fiend? Do you not recognize me, Beloved?” I looked into her eyes, which were lackluster no longer. I saw those eyes gleaming with the same beauty of my passed beloved; I would never mistake those eyes for any other. I knew that somehow it was she.

“How is this possible? You are dead! You should not be here?” I said, dumbfounded by being confronted by an impossible truth.

“Calm yourself my love, I’ll tell you. When I died, the angel of death told me I was picked to be one of his many grim reapers. The human population grew and spread past the point where a single angel could no longer harvest all of the passing souls. Thus, the angel started recruiting legions of reapers to wander throughout the world to gather souls. I had no choice, so I took up the scythe and became a reaper. I served death dutifully for ten years, and when your name appeared on his list I volunteered to harvest your soul. I wanted to meet you one last time before death separated us forever again.”

“Wait” I interrupted, “when I die won’t we be reunited in the afterlife?”

“No,” she said, her eyes welling with tears, “death cannot visit the dead. Death only wanders amongst those whose souls it can reap. Once a soul is harvested, a reaper cannot ever see it again.”

        “Is there not a chance I will become a reaper?” I asked.

        “Only the Angel of Death can recruit from the dead, for all others he sends only a single reaper.” she said, and shed a tear.

        “Curse death! He took you from me for ten years, and now he will tear us apart again forever!” I began to weep.

        “Be still, don’t let us part like this! Look at me,” she tried to embrace me, but her arms passed through me. I calmed down and listened to her. “Your time draws near, and soon I must wander the earth alone without you until the end of time. I love you, but I could not come sooner as the life of a reaper is constant harvesting. I was able to make enough time to visit you this evening, and I was so pleased that you were still so kind after all of these years. I know that if there is a heaven, then a soul as kind as you will certainly be allowed into paradise. I want to give you one last kiss before I must harvest your soul. Thank you for your kindness, I love you.” She leaned toward me and kissed me, but because she was a specter with no flesh I did not feel her kiss, but I was so moved that I smiled with bittersweet joy.

        She then backed off, and revealed a scythe hidden in her sable cloak. The ghostly weapon grew in her hand until it became a long staff with a silver blade that hooked through the air like the talon of a great eagle or the fang of a serpent.

“The time has come. I love you,” she said, and pearlescent tears slipped from her burning, blue eyes.

“Goodbye, I love you, beloved,” I said, and before that dreaded instrument was swung to strike my throat I gazed up at the blue, sliver moon through my window. Its crescent shape was perched in the starless night like the ghastly implement of the reaper from my dream, and the reaper whose scythe was now ready to take my soul. Throughout life, Death’s fathomless, vantablack chasm separated me from the woman I loved, and will continue to do so in its eternity.Now my love will wander alone forever as a reaper. The scythe rang through the air as it was swung, and I was finally thrust into that lonely chasm.

Author's Note

I need a better title suggestion and any criticism will be appreciated.