Sam Cartwright had been my closest friend since childhood. The kind you could always count on. We had gone to the same University and even been housemates until the day I moved out to live with my fiancé. Perhaps I should call him my ex-fiancé, now? I died before we officially broke up, but I was pretty well done with him by then, so I think it counts. Either way, that night, when I had run out of our shared apartment, Sam was the one I had turned to. He’d picked me up and taken me back to his home, a duplex that had once also been mine, but that he now shared with his younger brother, Kaiden. Thinking about it now, the pleasant neighborhood, where Mrs. Pritchard next door brought us apples from her trees every fall and Tom Dutton on the corner shoveled everyone’s walkways in the winter, I regretted ever leaving. As if responding to my wishes, the fog parted, and I found that I was back, walking those streets. Finn was right, it was easy.

  I approached the little duplex, remembering driving up with Sam that night, sobbing in his passenger seat. I could remember the sadness, but I couldn’t really feel it now. It was strange, to know that there was a part of me that was simply gone, probably more than one part. Was I even really the same person as I had been when I was alive? I pushed the thought out of my head, it wasn’t worth dwelling on. Instead, I walked up to the door and passed into the building. I heard voices, so I drifted through the house, seeking them out. As I passed from the hallway into the kitchen, I saw them.

  “I know he did something to her,” Sam growled. “She wouldn’t have just left. Cameron must have found her here, while I was at work. I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  The two men were sitting at the kitchen table. Sam looked like he hadn’t slept in some time, he had a few days growth of beard and dark circles under his eyes. I felt a little stab of guilt. It was likely that I was responsible for that. It seemed I could still feel something.

  “You are being ridiculous,” Kaiden rolled his eyes dismissively. “I mean, why would the fiancé bother to chase after her? He can clearly pull another woman anytime.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Sam snapped.

  “Relax, will you?” Kaiden replied. “I just mean I don’t think he had any reason to come after her. Look, she was pretty upset. I bet she just needed to get away for a while.”

  Kaiden took a swig from his beer, kicking his feet up on the empty kitchen chair next to him. He did not appear at all concerned with my absence. But that wasn’t really surprising, after all, I didn’t know Kaiden well. He was almost 7 years younger than Sam, so when we were in high school, he had been a young child. He and Sam hadn’t been that close, but when I moved out Kaiden was just starting university himself, so he had taken my empty room. Sam had been hopeful that it would bring them closer.

  “She would have told me,” Sam insisted. “Mara wouldn’t have just disappeared.”

  He was right. I never would have left without telling him. At least, not willingly. I wouldn’t have wanted to worry him like this. I still didn’t.

  “You don’t think that maybe she was a bit embarrassed?” Kaiden offered.

  “About what? She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Well, she did choose the loser,” Kaiden observed.

  “What is the matter with you, K?” Sam asked. “Mara is missing, and you are talking shit about her?”

  “Relax, bro,” Kaiden raised his hand, placatingly. “I’m just saying, she probably needs some time alone. I’m sure she’ll be back once she’s caught her breath. Just have a drink, chill out, give her some space.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes, then stood.

  “I am going back out to keep searching.”

  “Whatever,” Kaiden turned his attention back to his beer.

  Sam rose and stormed out. It didn’t look like their bonding was going especially well.

  I hesitated, trying to decide if I should follow Sam, but eventually I decided that that could wait. I was pretty sure I could find him again with no real trouble. I was still hoping that this place would jog my memory of that last night. So, instead of following, I trailed through the kitchen and into the hallway, taking the stairs up to the second floor. My old bedroom now belonged to Kaiden, so that night Sam had set me up in the ‘guest room’, which was really barely more than a closet with a fold out couch stuffed into it. We had used it as a game room when I lived here, but that hadn’t bothered me, I had just needed a place to sleep that wasn’t with Cameron or on the street.

  Arriving in the room, I looked over the pull-out couch. It had been neatly made but not folded back in. That night, I had sat right here, crying into Sam’s shoulder for hours, until, exhausted, I had finally fallen asleep. It was strange to remember my tears from that evening. When I was alive, I had actually been a fairly emotional, sensitive person. That didn’t seem to be true anymore. Beyond just the numbness that seemed to be a result of my death, there was also a sliver of ice in the center of my being now that I couldn’t quite figure out the origin of. I felt… hardened, somehow. Maybe that was normal. Either way, it was an improvement, honestly. I imagine all of this would have been somewhat unbearable, otherwise. A little bit of indifference was quite nice, all things considered.

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  I looked around the tiny room that was the last place I could remember being, searching for anything out of the ordinary that might indicate what had happened to me next. I couldn’t touch or move any individual objects, though, so that just left me to try peering under things and around corners. Nothing jumped out at me, but what had I been expecting? My own corpse under the bed? If that had been my theory, I was wrong. I sighed, and perched on the edge of the couch, noticing with bemusement that the mattress didn’t compress with my weight. I supposed I didn’t really weigh anything now. I rested my head in my hands and closed my eyes, trying to remember what I had done after I had fallen asleep that night.

  “You shouldn’t do that. You’ll only be disappointed.”

  I jumped in surprise at the sound of a woman’s voice. Turning, I saw someone sitting next to me. They had made no sound when they approached or sat down. She also had no smell, I couldn’t help but notice.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Dwell too much on your death. It’s a waste of time. You can’t change anything. You can’t undo it. You can’t communicate what happened to any of your old friends. It is better to let it go,” she spread her hands wide, as if to demonstrate.

  “I wasn’t aware that we had any pressing demands on our time,” I noted.

  “We?” she raised a bemused eyebrow.

  “Sure. You are another psychopomp, aren’t you?”

  The woman smiled,

  “Ah, I take it you’ve already met Finn, then?” she smirked.

  “How did you know?”

  “He likes all those fancy words. Psychopomp,” she rolled her eyes. “We are just reapers. We harvest the grain once it has reached maturity.”

  “That sounds awfully metaphorical, for someone who criticizes Finn’s ‘fancy words’,” I noted.

  She laughed,

  “Fair enough. Alright, maybe I just think ‘reaper’ sounds cooler. We’ve had plenty of debates over it, but Finn is stubborn. He’d have to be, to stick around so long. Most psychopomps that have been around as long as he has have already turned demon. But he says that hanging around with the new kids keeps him young. Maybe he is on to something,” the woman extended a hand. “I’m Grace, by the way, nice to meet you.”

  “Mara,” I shook her outstretched hand, a strange feeling that I was going to need some time to get used to. “So, is there some reason you are trying to stop me from looking into how I died?”

  “You certainly know how to get right to the point. Look, I am sure Finn has already told you that there aren’t any real rules here, so I have no way to stop you from doing whatever you want. I only warn people because they can get a bit… weird about not being able to resolve things, you know? They always want to give their families closure or get revenge or something. It isn’t possible. We are dead, we cannot influence the living. Better to save yourself the frustration.”

  “I appreciate your advice, but even if I can’t change anything, I think I still need to know what happened to me.”

  “Yeah, no one else ever heeds my warning either. Alright, you might as well stick with me then, and we’ll begin our investigation. At least this will make things a bit easier for me.”

  “Make what easier?”

  “Well, everyone needs a hobby, right?”

  I nodded slowly, not sure where she was going with this.

  “Me, I always loved a good murder mystery. Fortunately, my present state is extremely conducive to solving murders. I can’t do anything about it once I do, but it is still fun to put all the pieces together. Like a jigsaw puzzle made of the shattered remnants of a person’s life,” she laughed.

  “That’s a bit dark, isn’t it?”

  The fact that she was talking about my life at the moment only made it worse.

  “Perhaps, but I think you will quickly learn that no subject is too dark for the dead to joke about. Now, do you want to join me? The investigation will go better with you participating.”

  “Alright, I won’t say no to the help. But wait, why do you think I was murdered?” I asked.

  “Well, I can’t be 100% sure, I suppose,” Grace admitted. “But there are some signs. For example, if you had been ill or otherwise expecting your death, you would already know what happened. If it had been a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage or something, you probably would have been found by family or friends by now. No, since you are missing, that means something unusual happened to you. Either it was murder, or you accidentally drove your car into a river or something and they just haven’t located you, yet. Either way, a mystery worth solving.”

  “How do you know I am missing? How long have you been watching me?” I asked.

  “Oh, I wasn’t. I was watching the brothers.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw them at the police station. I hang around there a lot, looking for new ‘cases’ to solve. I heard them talking about a missing person and thought I would come and check it out. I didn’t know that the missing person was dead, or that they were a psychopomp, until I saw you. My lucky day. Most of my cases, the dead have already moved on and I never get the whole story. With you here, we should be able to get the complete picture, which is always very satisfying.”

  “Then why did you warn me away, initially?”

  “It still seems only fair to try to warn people, even if they rarely listen. I don’t want anyone getting false hopes. There will be no closure here, no tangible benefit. But, if you still want to satisfy your curiosity, I am glad to have you along. Just… set your expectations at the correct level.”

  I paused thoughtfully, then nodded,

  “I understand. So, where do we start?”