Death Comes for All in the End

How was I supposed to know that the apple was poisoned?

How was I supposed to know everything would end up like this?

How was I supposed to know my own death was right around the corner?

Let me start from the beginning.

I lived in one of those ideal quaint cottage homes you hear about in fairytales. I lived there with my mother and younger sister, Mary. My father had gone off on a hunting trip and never returned but that was ages ago, when Mary was still an infant. I barely remembered him– I only knew life in that cottage, where our biggest concerns were finances and making sure all three mouths got fed. It was a humble life at the edge of the forest. It was good and it was simple. We asked for no trouble and no trouble came to us.

Everything was fine and simple until Mary came down with a cough one day. It started as a slight growl in her voice but it blossomed over the next few weeks. She strained to breathe before long, trapped under a few blankets we had wrapped her in to keep her chill at bay. We studied her for a fair bit from afar, trying to determine a course of action and quickly.

Mother sent me into the woods to fetch some herbs– yellow flowers with leaves that were rough to the touch. I collected which ones I could find along the outskirts of the forest but it was not enough. My mother warned me to not stray too far into the dark heart of the forest but I was sixteen years old and felt like I knew everything.

I could not have been so wrong.

The old lady came up behind me while I was on my hunt. She wanted coin. I told her I could not spare any, not without endangering my family’s well-being. She asked me for a trade– an apple for three coins. It was not a fair trade, not in the slightest. But where I come from, it is bad luck and bad manners to not assist the elderly. She was a frail and gnarled thing, with deep scars that looked like trenches upon her face. I would have felt too guilty to turn her away and so I gave her the coin. She gave me the apple.

I did not think to eat the apple until the return trip. The basket brimmed with my haul and I was hopeful Mary would be better by morning. My stomach gave a grumpy growl and I pulled the apple from my pocket. It was still not worth the three coins but a snack for the road sounded delightful. I bit into it, not knowing anything was wrong. I ate until the fruit’s core was exposed and that was when I felt the first sign of dizziness.

It blossomed in my chest like wildfire next. I did not feel myself fall. Yet suddenly, I was staring at the tree tops far away, marveling at how they seemed to merge with the gray of the overcast autumn sky. The cold wind blew and storms gathered at the horizon– a late ill omen as that sensation of fire in my body spread. It tore at my insides, igniting every inch of flesh. I gasped but no matter how hard my lungs struggled, it felt like they could never get enough air.

The next thing I knew, I was adrift. Death did not feel like much– just a long sleep with the faintest chill, as though the window had been left open during autumn. It was dark as night and not terribly comforting. For an eternity, it felt like I was stuck in that slumber. I was starting to wonder if this is all existence was– floating in the dark, taunted by the faint memory of light and life. I started to think none of it had been real– Mother, Mary, our cottage, the woods… it was all a dream, perhaps, and this void was all that was.

But such grim thoughts passed with a dreary song, an eerie chant. I felt the abyss start to give way, folding like a house of cards. And then there was light again. Then there was life again. I went to breathe it in and felt…

Nothing.

I felt nothing.

My eyes opened and there she was again– that thin old lady. But this time, she looked less sad, less feeble. Her eyes held a cold glint about them, her coat replaced by a rugged black robe. Her spindly forefinger pointed to me and words came out that I could not understand. But their meaning soon became clear. I felt an unseen force grip my senses and mind. To resist it was futile.

It had never been about the coin, I suppose. It had only been about me. It had only been about finding someone to kill and to claim.

That was the day my spirit was bound to service by Edna Crookenbough– a murderer, a witch, and, most importantly, a necromancer.

—

Working for Edna was, of course, not ideal as a lifestyle or as an “afterlife-style”. She was a wicked sort of witch– incredibly stereotypical. She had jars of eyeballs that needed cleaning, hoards of spiders that needed feeding, and cauldrons that needed scrubbing. Though I had my own mind, my willpower was eclipsed by her own sinister ambitions. There was nothing I could do to fight her orders– all I could do was work, despite being incorporeal and naught more than a phantom of someone who had once been.

As my ghostly hands dangled morsels over a spider’s cage, I listened to her as she worked. Edna was the sort of person to live without much in terms of goals. She wanted to live forever so she murdered who she could, taking their life force and using their remains to do her bidding. I discovered early on that I was not her first nor only servant. There had been others before me– Todd, Winston, Laila, Suzanne, Kevin. The list went on and on. They had all been fired in some way, I learned. Edna did not suffer rebellion and her leash upon my neck was tight. I did not dare to ask what she did to those she discarded. Even in death, I was certain that things could always be worse.

“Need a younger one,” Edna said with the click of her tongue.

She had killed another that day but the person had been middle aged. He had been a burly man looking for lumber. She had poisoned him like all the others– an apple to weaken him and put him into a slumber. Then she had supped upon his remaining years, defying the very concept of fate. And then, she had killed him– a slit across the throat with her crooked and evil blade.

But it had not been enough. It was never enough for her.

“A pity that all the youth in the world cannot make your soul a pinch less ugly,” I commented as I dropped the still-living roach into the spider’s den. It reared and pounced upon its prey. I did not need to watch to know what would ensue.

“Ha! Dead and yet you still have such a sharp tongue! Maybe I ought to kill you twice to temper that wit of yours…” Edna said, looking back at me. Her rejuvenation ritual had given more life to her body. Her bushy gray hair was sleek and midnight black now. The freckles of her hands and face had faded but I could still see her laugh lines.

“Who would feed your damn spiders then?” I asked.

“This man could, with a bit of magic,” Edna gestured at her recent-most kill.

“Ha! You’ve already cut his hands off. I saw you throw them into that pot over there,” I said, gesturing with another roach I had plucked from the jar of spiderfeed. “Besides, you didn’t do the reanimation spell in time. His spirit’s likely long gone from here. How sad for you.”

She pointed at me with one long, pale finger. “Silence, you. Lest I rattle your chains a bit and see if that spirit of yours can still feel pain without a body.”

Edna was mad because I was right. I did not dare bother her further but I continued my macabre work with an air of smugness about me. It faded when I heard her bring out the cleaver, the sound of her sharpening it almost as bone-chilling as the hacking and squelches that soon followed.

—

When you’re dead, it’s hard to tell how much time has passed. I did not want to think about what was happening in the world as I remained trapped in Edna’s awful lair. I did not want to think of Mother or what had become of Mary. Had Mother gotten herbs for her in my stead? Was Mary still alive? I fretted but also knew that there was nothing I could do. Edna was hellbent on making my afterlife annoying, even going so far as to taunt me with the coins I had given her.

“Your entire life for three coins,” she remarked to me one day. “It’s about what you’re worth, given how shittily you’ve scrubbed my cauldron. Did you even bother to get the bloodstains out?”

She was mad because the last rejuvenation ritual had not worked. Edna looked old, just about as old as she had the day I had first met her. I had no idea what had happened to cause her spell to fail but it had and the little girl she had killed in the woods sat lifelessly.

“Are you going to reanimate her?” I asked.

“No,” Edna spat. “I wanted her youth. I don’t want a shrieking child in my home, even a ghostly one. Her bones are too weak to provide for much anyways.”

Inwardly, I was relieved. Although company sounded comforting, I did not want another to suffer this fate– especially not a child. Silently, I wished her spirit well. Wherever it had gone, it had to be better than here.

The same could not have been said for some of the others Edna had butchered lately. She had not kept their spirits but their bodies had been used to build an ever-growing guard patrol around her lair. It was not exactly inconspicuous to have a bunch of skeletons and zombies on guard but Edna was paranoid that the nearby townsfolk would discover her. The undead were to kill any living who drew near unless they were our beloved mistress.

“Did you want a friend, little ghost?” Edna taunted. “Did you want someone to commiserate with? Do you think I was so cruel to kill this young girl? Mourn not. Death comes for all in the end, little ghost.”

“You’d do well to remember that,” I replied coldly. “I never told you my name or who I was before you killed me. Don’t call me a ghost.”

“Names are for the living and you are surely not.”

I felt the tug of her will against my soul, compelling me to stay quiet. Lowering my head, I obeyed and continued about my menial tasks.

—

Like death, reckonings come for all. Edna found hers one day in a blaze of fire. The little girl she had killed had been the mayor’s daughter and there was not a chance he would have given up finding out what had happened to his child. Edna’s undead guards met the town mob in battle but shambling limbs and old rusty bones could not stand up to fire and steel.

They took her and burned her at the stake. Shrilly, she screamed for mercy– an irony, considering she had never given any of that to anyone around her. I waited for the curse upon my spirit to lift so I could fly free to the next life. But even when cruel old Edna was ash and dust, I remained. Drifting above the rubble, I watched the townsfolk depart with their torches a

glow in the dead of night. Edna was no more– death had come for her. But I was still there.

Distraught, I did not know what to do. Would this be my forever? Was I doomed to wander so aimlessly?

The shifting in the dirt caught my attention as I lamented my plight. I saw a single zombie rise from the burnt and disturbed ground. A townsperson’s pitchfork was still stuck in its face, marring most of its decayed features. I could not tell much about who they had been but their throat was darkened, as though they had been burned. That they still moved and walked despite being halfway decapitated impressed me. I suppose some willpower existed, even beyond the veil of death. Even in soulless, dead bodies such as this, there was still a drive to keep going.

It made me smile.

“Well. I suppose it’s only us left,” I said to the zombie as I drifted towards it.

It grunted, vocal cords mangled beyond repair.

“My name’s Robin,” I said, as if the creature could reply.

Another grunt and moan for a response. I had little hopes for meaningful conversation but I still enjoyed the idea of company. I did not want to be alone anymore, not like this. The undead cannot cry but I felt like doing so at that moment. The rush of freedom hit me with a wave of emotion. It was done. It was over. Edna was gone.

“She killed me… a long time ago. I was in the woods, looking for some herbs for my sister. She’s sick…” I said to the zombie, feeling my voice quiver. “I don’t know… I don’t know how long it’s been…”

I looked up at the zombie and noticed something peculiar in its coat pocket. It was a wilted flower, its body half-preserved. The leaves were strange, prickly and rough. Yet it was the petals that caught my attention– gold and soft, like a memory of a better time. A memory from a life long ago.

“I think we’re…” I began, words trailing. The zombie pawed at the lodged pitchfork but something about its movements made me think it could still hear me. I smiled again. “I think we’re going to get along great.”