[crow]

She didn't sound frightened at all. He had expected his mother to be brave, but this hadn't been what he expected. She went silent for a moment, and Reaper had the misfortune of looking up just as the corpse twitched, lurching toward the glass. He squeaked in terror and hid his face again, but still, his mother was impassive--- or maybe distracted.

""It's been a while, hasn't it?" she said, but she wasn't talking to him. Was she talking to the body? "What? No, I didn't--- Oh, I guess Reaper must have. No, he just started. I don't think he can control it very well yet."

[crow]

Control...? Oh.

Oh, no.

'Manifested', she had said. Manifest, as in his power. He knew the word all too well from his conversations with Heat. He had wondered, from time to time, just what his mother's power was. 'Angel', his mother's name, didn't give him many clues. he had thought, wistfully, that maybe she flew. It didn't seem very useful against criminals, but it was the kind of thing he would have liked, being able to rise above the noise of life and drift in the empty sky a while.

He would never have guessed in a million years that what she did was raise the dead. That what he could do was... He shuddered.

[crow]

His movement must have reminded his mother that he was there, and she broke off from her conversation to say, "Reaper, meet Julian." She gestured to the body. "I know you're scared, but he isn't going to hurt you, I promise. Look, he isn't even hurt that bad. He almost looks fine, doesn't he?" When Reaper made no move to budge, she sighed. "I get that you don't like this. I wish you hadn't come into it so early, but there's nothing we can do about that. The fastest way for you to get better is to learn how to control it, right? Aunt Trace and Cain were very nice and shut it away for a while, but they can't keep doing that forever. Now come on." While she was talking, she must have moved the corpse herself, for it was now kneeling on the ground in front of him, offering a sympathetic expression.

[crow]

He was still scared, but... she wasn't wrong; this body didn't look as scary as most of the others he had seen, and his mother was here with him. He wasn't alone anymore, and she would protect him if something tried to hurt him, wouldn't she? His mother was a hero. That was her job. She could protect him from something like this.

He let go of her leg, slowly, reluctantly. She smiled at him. "Good. Now, I think I have to let go of him for you to take over. Don't be surprised," she warned. Abruptly the body went limp, and she motioned to it. "Do you think you can make him move like I did?"

[crow]

He couldn't, at least not at first. Maybe he was too shaken-up, or maybe whatever part of him was in charge of making his powers work was still painfully aware that he didn't want to do this. He had apparently done it involuntarily often enough, but he still couldn't make it work on a whim.

"Mmm," his mother said, tapping her chin. "Oh, I know. Here." She took out her car keys and laid them on the ground a few meters away from him, inside the corridor of the cold room. "Try and grab these without moving from where you are."

"I can't," he said. If he couldn't move, how was he supposed to do it?

[crow]

"Do you remember when we watched that show with the alien who could move things just by thinking about it? Pretend you're him, and try to make the keys come to you," she said. "I know you can't, but just pretend. It's just like a game."

He was still dubious about the whole thing, but he did as she asked, reaching out a hand and concentrating hard. He wanted the keys. He wanted the keys to come to him. He wouldn't go to them, and they had to come to him.

The corpse began to move again, rising to a stand. Reaper gasped as soon as he noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye. His concentration broke, and the body slumped back onto the ground.

[crow]

"Good! See, you got it. Try again and get him to bring you the keys this time," his mother said. Reaper stared at the corpse for one long moment, half expecting it to stand of its own accord, but it stayed still. Only when he was sure that it wasn't going to do anything did he take his eyes off it and try for the keys again. This time, he didn't let the movement of the body distract him, and he watched as it walked over to where his mother was standing to pick up the keys at her feet. Then, with shuffling steps, it brought them over to him.

"That's it," his mother said. Reaper smiled in relief; the corpse was already sagging again. "Wait! Keep him up, keep him up," she said, sending him scrambling to prop up the body with his hands.

[crow]

Except he didn't need to; as soon as he tried to do so, the corpse straightened of its own accord. "You didn't notice anything else, right? But look behind you; there should be someone else there," she said.

There was. Reaper thought for a moment that it was another corpse, and then he thought that perhaps the body had moved--- the man who stood there looked exactly the same. Or... almost exactly the same. The hole in his head was gone, and the more Reaper looked at him, the more he seemed to be a little washed out, a little faded at the edges. Then the man smiled and waved at him, and Reaper jumped back.

[crow]

Julian was a rotund middle-aged man with a friendly face. He laughed at Reaper's reaction. "My, you're a twitchy little guy, aren't you? Don't worry, you've got nothing to fear from me," he said. "Your mother's told me about you, you know. I saw you myself when you were just this big!" He measured out a length with his hands and laughed again. "You must've woken me up a dozen times already, and you didn't even know it, did you?"

Reaper shook his head, partly because he had no idea what the man was talking about. Reaper had never seen him before.

His mother said, "It must have been lucky for him when he did wake you. Apparently he's been waking other things by accident, and some of them have been coming after him."

[crow]

“Is...” They both looked at him as he spoke, and it made him want to sink down through the floor, but the question pressed against his teeth, impatient to be asked. “Is that... what the nightmares were?” he said. His voice was small, just barely audible. His mother studied him for a moment before kneeling down and gathering him into her arms.

“Oh, Reaper. Oh, Junie,” she said. It had been a long time since Reaper had heard that name. When he was very small, she used to call him that all the time. 'Reaper' had been the name she chose, but it had been too big for him, she said. She had nothing cute to call him by. Now that he was growing up, he was mostly Reaper, not Junie. She wanted him to be Reaper, a big independent boy, grown.

[crow]

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked. “I didn't mean to have the nightmares, I promise.” She only hugged him tighter, so he wrapped his arms around her neck. “I'm sorry, mom. Don't be mad.”

“I'm not mad,” she said. Her voice shook. No, that wasn't right; his mother was strong, and she never stuttered or cried or got scared. “I'm the one who's sorry, Junie. I should've realized it sooner. You must have been so scared...” She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned back to look at him. There were no tears on her face, but her eyes were a little bit red. No, he must have imagined it. “I was ten when I manifested,” she explained. Reaper tried to imagine his mother at ten, young, older than him but younger, too young to be a mom. He couldn't. “It was scary, but I could figure out what was happening, and I had friends and grown-ups to help me figure it out. I thought you'd be late too, like me. Oh, Reaper, I'm sorry.”

[crow]

“It's okay,” he said, because he didn't know what else to do. “Will... Will they go away? The...” Not nightmares, something else. Something to do with his powers and the dead. Speaking of which, he glanced again at the corpse, and then at the slightly faded-looking man who had been speaking to him. “Why are there two?” he asked.

His mother followed his gaze and said, “Oh, right, right. I was going to explain. See, every time you make something move like this,” she indicated the corpse, “you call up their ghost too. You can make the body do what you want, like you were doing before, but the ghost acts just like a regular person.” The ghost Julian gave a jaunty little wave as his mother mentioned ghosts, and Reaper waved hesitantly back. “Where is he? I can't see him.” Reaper pointed him out for her, and she got up and walked to where the ghost was standing and... phased right through him. Reaper gasped in shock as he watched her go through.

[crow]

Running up to her, he asked, “Mom, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. You try this time,” she said, and obediently he tried walking through only to bump his head on Julian's belly. He fell back, stumbling slightly before his mother caught him.

Julian gave a startled laugh. “Hoho! Careful there, buddy. You can't do that, you summoned me.” He leaned down to pat Reaper on the head, and this time Reaper let him, looking up wonderingly at the ghost.

“You couldn't do it, could you? That's right. You can hear him and see him and touch him.” She looked into the space where Julian had been before. “The ghosts are real, but only for you. I see them too, when I use my power.”

[crow]

She knelt down again so she could look him in the eye, and this time her expression was serious. “I'm going to teach you how to control it, so you can use it when you want and stop it when you don't. But don't go around waking things up recklessly. As you learn, you'll learn how to find the bodies too, but remember the ghosts. If you don't know what you're waking up, don't do it, alright? Promise me,” she said. Reaper was frightened by the intensity in her voice. Just a moment ago it hadn't been so bad; the ghost was friendly and he was learning. But now the full implications of his ability started to loom over him again, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

“Do I have to?” he said in a small, small voice. “Can't I give this to someone else? Why do I have to have it?”

She sighed, smoothing his hair with one hand. “Because you're my son, Reaper. And someday, knowing how to do this might help you, or someone else important to you. I know it sounds bad right now, but it can be useful, I promise. Alright?”

[crow]

He didn't believe her. He looked into her eyes, and he could see that she meant it, but she looked... tired. He was six, and thirty-something seemed eons away, but his mother wasn't old. When he looked at the weariness in her face, however, he was reminded of someone much older. She had carried her corpses and her ghosts for twenty years, and this was what they had left her. Reaper didn't think it was worth the price.

But he was six, and she wanted him to nod and say okay, so that was what he did. They said goodbye to Julian--- both of him--- and walked back upstairs again to where his house was just a house. They ate dinner, he had a bath, and she read him a bedtime story as he fell asleep. It was as if the room in the closet had never happened, but Reaper knew that it had. Some things were too strange to be a dream.