The first time Darien Grey had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Death, he was ten years old. He would struggle with phantom memories of the meeting for many years after but he was never able to quite remember that original meeting. It was something that would plaque him and eventually the elusive knowledge would consume his nights, always teasing him with bits and pieces but never allowing certainties of the occasion to arise.
It happened in the winter while he was consumed with a childhood fever that caused him to writhe on his sheets like a thing possessed. He tossed and moaned, burning with a fever that raged under his skin but drew no sweat from his body. His mother sat, exhausted, by his bedside slumped in a battered chair. She gazed dully at the boy who was her only child, watching him struggle in the bed and again she wondered if it would be more merciful to smother him rather than allow him to twist and moan the rest of his young life away. He was dying. She had realized the fact several days ago as she watched the flesh seep away from his already sparse form. When the fever got worse, but didn’t break, she knew her son was lost to her.
Darien was a quick child, handsome and lean with hair as dark as night and eyes that were blue as the sky before twilight. His laughter was a cascade of silver bells and his grin was mischievous and kind, depending upon his intent. He was a beautiful child, and a wonder and joy to all he met. A passing peddler woman had once said that the boy was fey marked, and his mother supposed this could be true. He was certainly wild enough, but it didn’t matter. He was hers, fey marked or not, and his light filled her days with a joy she had never known before his birth. To see that joy broken before her caused her more grief than she could bear, and she supposed she wouldn’t live long after his death anyway.
It was as she contemplated placing the soft feather pillow over that agonized face that she felt an unexpected chill enter the room and felt an unreasonable urge to find another blanket for the boy, so that he wouldn’t taken further chill and have no chance of recovery at all. Later, she would think that it must have been this chill and what occurred in the room while she was gone that must have saved her son’s life, but she shied away from the implications of a miracle. Darien and his mother had known few miracles in their life, and as a rule neither of them put faith in what they couldn’t hold in their hands.
As she left, she did not see the tall young man who entered her son’s sick room, a young man with hair pale as milk and eyes that were bright and hard, like falling stars. She passed by him unawares, and brushed shoulders with Death and moved almost dreamily into the hall of her small three-room cottage, in search of a blanket. The chance encounter would leave a mark on her shoulder that ached dully during the bitterest cold.
Death moved past Darien’s mother, smiling slightly and went to occupy the chair she had recently sat in. He gazed on Darien for long, quiet moments in which he sifted through Darien’s memories while he waited for the boy to come back to himself. It took several minutes for the boy to surface, fighting through the fever that suppressed him into the deepest part of his unconsciousness. As the fever lifted and receded, Darien came closer and closer to alertness and slowly the horrible dreams of the fever lost their grip on him, and he knew light and wakefulness once more.
When Darien opened his eyes, he squinted against the light of the room and would have flung his arm over his eyes if he ‘d had the energy to do so. As it was, he squinted at the thin shape next to him that appeared to be no more than a vague shadow and he wondered if this was his mother or if it was a stranger. As his eyes adjusted and the last remnant of the fever was placed at bay in his body the person in front of him came into full view, he saw that although the person was not his mother, it was not a stranger either.
“Hello, Death.” said Darien Grey without a trace of surprise in his voice.
To Be Continued.
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