It has been said that making a deal with the devil is the worst thing one can ultimately do with one’s life; there is one who would argue that sentiment, saying perhaps a deal made with the devil didn’t even compare in terms of evil or ruination or the condemnation of one’s soul that could pay forfeit in this life. This is the story of a child who dared to ask why. Of a child who dared to challenge Judgment...

Her name is Kendrah.

She barely remembers her family name, though it was once of some importance; the name as it stood in society, not that the name mattered to her. After all, a name was just a name, and it was so very long ago. When had the decades of torment become centuries?

Knowing now what she knows, would she still barter with her soul to reverse time, allowing her family, nay, her entire village to be spared from the horrors of the Death Plague?

The horror of so many bodies fallen replays in her mind as if it were yesterday. Her dreams are still haunted by the screams of the healthy ones as their loved ones died.

She remembers the winter as if it were yesterday. The whiteness of it. A blanket of sparkling snow covered the landscape, and where land met sky, a thick band of clouds hid the blue, making it all the same, white upon layers of white. It was only days before those remaining healthy turned ill, until after awhile everyone was so sick none were left to remove the fallen. The day came when in order to cross the Great Room of her parents’ keep she had been forced to step on the dead bodies instead of the stone floor, so tightly packed together they’d lain.

Once it had started snowing, it hadn’t stopped for a very long time.

Tracks no longer led into or out of the walled village, and for the first time in her life, Kendrah had listened to the older women’s mutterings around the fire, tales of starvation and death, fear. She had been eight years old. Fear can be a very big idea for one so young, but before the time would come for the snow to begin melting and receding from the landscape, she would know terror intimately.

The stone walls and floor had grown so desperately cold, tracks of ice followed the seams surrounding the block, and a frost layer covered the floor, making escape from the chill impossible after most of the grown-ups had perished. Those who survived had been too weak to bother with the needs of children, especially ill children.

She’d kept the fire in the large stone central fireplace going as long as there’d been chopped wood, and helped the surviving small ones find warmth as close to its small blaze as was safe. She’d hoped that by the time the kindling was completely gone, she’d have an answer to her prayers for help to arrive, but the day came when there was no more, not even a stick. The snow had grown so deep beyond the stone walls, trying to make it to the forest for more firewood seemed foolhardy, but what else could she have done? She had been the oldest survivor and the responsibility fell on her shoulders. But she had been too fearful to go to the forest and she chose to keep her younger siblings as dry and as warm as their blankets near the cooling hearth would allow as they all stayed snuggled tight.

She’d told them stories, played with them, and promised help would come soon. She’d known that she was lying to them; even her young mind acknowledged she was, but what else could she have said or done when she feared the truth too much to admit it?

When their cries of hunger had become so desperate she couldn’t stand the sound of it, she’d left them to try to gather more food from the villager’s deserted houses. It hadn’t taken long, an hour, maybe two, as she’d pushed through the snow, her own body growing numb with cold, to gather a few pieces of stale bread and moldy cheese. She’d returned to find that her small brothers and sisters were dead in their beds, although at first she’d believed that they were only sleeping. The truth had been her undoing.

Holding the smallest baby, a girl they’d called Moruurei, who looked like a perfect little doll, she had screamed and cried ... she had begged and pleaded ... and had promised ... anything.

Anything? Had been her answer. At first she had thought it was merely the wind whistling around the eaves, but then the whisper grew stronger. Anything? Anything? Anything? She’d thought she was losing her mind ... she’d thought it was the effects of the illness ... but soon the whisper was no longer a voice but a scream echoing off the stone walls. “Anything?”

She had dropped to her knees, sobbing and covering her ears. “Yes! Anything for the life and returned health of my family.”

It was that moment ... that exact moment ... she was cloaked in the raiment of the Reaper.

It wasn’t a cloak a mere mortal could see, but it was with her, covering her, hiding her in shadow. No one else knew it was there, but she knew, and there was no way to remove it. No way to cover it up or even hide it from herself; although she had tried. Each morning her mother would help her dress in a fresh, clean chemise and gown, and she would feel so lovely, but then she would chance upon her reflection or shadow and the ugly black folds of the hooded cloak would mock her attempts to lie to herself, to forget.

But she had her mother back from the grip of death, could she not be happy with that?

She’d tried to stay grateful of heart...

In the dark days that followed, during days of destruction and death, she would earn her title as a Reaper.

Older and wiser, in possession of the knowledge that they would live and she would live, only for her to watch them each die again ... and they would die, one at a time, some old, some young, leaving her the task to send each to the other side ... would she have made the same deal?

She doesn’t think so...