Fire Burn And Cauldron Bubble, A Paranormal Romance (Jolie Wilkins)

  “Ms. Harper,” he started and I raised my head. “Will you please come with me?”

  I stood up and the chair underneath me sighed with relief. I ignored it and followed the man through the maze of cubicles into his office.

  “Please have a seat,” he said, peering down his long nose at me. He closed the door behind us, and in two brief strides, reached his desk and took a seat.

  I didn’t say anything, but sat across from him. He reached a long, spindly finger toward his business card holder and produced a white, nondescript card. It read:

  Jason Streethorn

  Manager

  Afterlife Enterprises

  “We need to make this quick,” I started. “I’m late to work and I have to give a presentation. Can we discuss whatever damages you want to collect from the insurance companies of the other vehicles involved in the accidents over the phone?” I paused for a second as I recalled the accident. “I think I was at fault.”

  “I see,” he said and then sighed.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just looked at him dumbly, ramming the sharp corners of the business card into the fleshy part of my index finger until it left a purple indentation in my skin.

  The man cleared his throat. He looked like a skeleton.

  “Ms. Harper, it seems we’re in a bit of a pickle.”

  “A pickle?”

  Jason nodded and diverted his eyes. That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came out of his mouth next. It’s never good when people refuse to make eye contact with you.

  “Yes, as I learned from my secretary, Hilda, you don’t know why you’re here.”

  “Right. And just so you know, Hilda wasn’t very helpful,” I said purposefully.

  “Yes, she preferred I handle this.”

  “Handle this?” I repeated, my voice cracking. “What’s going on?”

  He nodded again and then took a deep breath. “Well, you see, Ms. Harper, you died in a car accident this afternoon. But the problem is: you weren’t supposed to.”

  I was quiet for exactly four seconds. “Is this some sort of joke?” I sputtered finally while still trying to regain my composure.

  Jason shook his head and glanced at me. “I’m afraid not.”

  His shoulders slumped as another deep sigh escaped his lips. He seemed defeated, more exhausted than sad. Even though my inner soul was starting to believe him—that didn’t mean my intellect was prepared to accept it. Then something occurred to me and I glanced up at him, irritated.

  “If I’m going to be on some stupid reality show, and this whole thing is a set-up, you better tell me now because I’ve had enough,” I said, scouring the small office for some telltale sign of A/V equipment. Or failing that, Ashton Kutcher. “And, furthermore, my boss and the board of directors aren’t going to react well at all.” I took a deep breath.

  “Ms. Harper, I know you’re confused, but I assure you, this isn’t a joke.” He paused and inhaled just as deeply as I just had. “I’m sure this is hard for you to conceptualize. Usually, when it’s a person’s time to go, their guardian angel walks them through the process and accompanies them toward the light. Sometimes a relative or two might even attend.” His voice trailed until the air swallowed it entirely.

  Somehow, the last hour of my life, which made no sense, was now making sense. I guess dying was a confusing experience.

  He jumped up, as if the proverbial light bulb had gone off over his head. Then, throwing himself back into his chair, he spun around, faced his computer and began to type. Sighing, I glanced around, taking in his office for the first time.

  Like the waiting room, there weren’t any windows, just white walls without a mark on them. The air was still and although there wasn’t anything offensive about the odor, it was stagnant, like it wouldn’t know what to do if it met fresh air. The furniture consisted of Jason’s desk, his chair and the two chairs across from him, one of which I occupied. All the furniture appeared to be made of cheap pine, like what you’d find at IKEA. Other than the nondescript furniture, there was a computer and beside that, a long, plastic tube about nine inches in diameter, that disappeared into the ceiling. It looked like some sort of suction device.

  With a self-satisfied smile, he faced me again. “We have your whole life in our database.”

  He pointed toward the computer screen. “My whole life in his database” amounted to a word document with a humble blue border and my name scrawled across the top in Monotype Corsiva. It looked like a fifth grader’s book report.

  He eyed the document and moved his head from right to left with such vigor, he reminded me of a cartoon character eating corn. Then I realized he was scanning through the Lily Harper book report. With an enthusiastic nod, he turned toward me.

  “Looks like you lost your first tooth at age six. Um… In school, you were a year younger than everyone else, but smarter than the majority of your class. You double majored in English and Political Science. You were a Director of Marketing for a prestigious bank.”

  “‘Were’ is a fitting word because after this, I’m sure I’ll be fired,” I grumbled.

  The man paused, his eyes still on his computer. “When you were eighteen, you had a crush on your best friend and when you tried to kiss him, he pushed you away and told you he was gay.”

  I stood up so fast, my chair bucked. “Okay, I’ve heard enough.”

  The part about Matt rebuffing my kiss was something I’d never told anyone. I’d been too mortified. Guess the Word document was better than I thought.

  “It’s all there,” Jason said as he turned to regard me with something that resembled sympathy.

  “I don’t understand…” I started.

  He nodded, as though satisfied we’d moved beyond the “you’re dead” conversation and into the “why you’re dead” conversation. He pulled open his top desk drawer and produced a spongy stress ball—the kind you work in your palm. The ball flattened and popped back into shape under the tensile strength of his skeletal fingers.

  “I’m afraid your guardian angel wasn’t doing his job. This was supposed to be a minor accident—just to teach you not to text and drive, especially in the rain.”

  “I wasn’t texting,” I ground out.

  Jason shrugged as if whatever I was doing was trivial. “Unfortunately, your angel was MIA and now here you are.”

  I leaned forward, not quite believing my ears. “I have an angel?”

  Jason nodded. “Everyone does. Some are just a little better than others.”

  I shook my head, wondering if there was a limit to how much information my small brain could process before it went on overload. “So, let me understand this, not only do I have a guardian angel, but mine isn’t a very good one?”

  “That about sums it up. Your angel…” He paused. “His name is Bill, by the way.”

  “Bill?”

  “He’s been on probation for… failing to do his duties for you and a few others.”

  My hands tightened on the arms of my chair as I wondered at what point my non-comprehending brain would simply implode with all this ridiculousness. “Probation?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it seems he’s had a bit of trouble with alcohol recently.”

  “My angel is an alcoholic?” I slouched into my chair, the words “angel” and “alcoholic” swimming through the air as I began to doubt my sanity.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Jason parted his thin lips, but that exhausted look resurrected itself on his face. I was quick to interrupt, shock and anger suddenly warring within me until I couldn’t contain them any longer. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Alcoholic angels? I didn’t even know they could drink!”

  “They can do everything humans can,” he said in an affronted tone, like he was annoyed with my outburst.

  I sat back into my chair, not feeling any better with the situation, but also figuring my outbursts were finished for the immediate future. Well, until I could com
e to terms with what was really going on. But flipping out wasn’t going to do me any good. I needed to stay in control of myself and in control of my emotions. Wayne Dyer’s words, “it makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them,” floated through my head as I tried to prepare myself for whatever I had coming.

  Jason Streethorn, the office manager of death, folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward. “Since your angel, our employee, failed you, we do have an offer of restitution.”

  Apparently, this was where the business side of our conversation began. “Restitution?”

  “Yes, because this oversight is our fault, I’d like to offer you the chance to live again.”

  I had to suspend my disbelief of being dead in the first place and just play along with him, figuring at some point I’d wake up and Jason Streethorn, the orange-haired woman and this DMV-like place would be nothing more than the aftermath of a cheese pizza and Coke eaten too close to bedtime. “Okay, that sounds good. What do I…”

  He rebuffed me with his raised hand. “However, if you accept this offer, you’ll have to be employed by Afterlife Enterprises.”

  I sank back into my chair, suddenly wanting nothing more than to pull my hair out. I had a sinking feeling I probably wouldn’t be able to resume my title of Director. “What does that mean?”

  He sighed, as though the explanation would take a while. “Unfortunately, Afterlife Enterprises is a bit on the unorganized side of late. When the computer system switched from 1999 to 2000, we weren’t prepared, and a computer glitch resulted in thousands of souls getting misplaced.”

  The fact that death relied on a computer system which wasn’t even as good as Windows XP was too much. “The Y2K bug didn’t affect anyone.”

  Jason worked the stress ball between his emaciated fingers, making multiple knuckles crack, the sound imbedding itself in my psyche. “On Earth, it didn’t affect anything, but such was not the case with the Afterlife.” He exhaled like he was trying to expel all the air from his lungs. “Unfortunately, we were affected and it’s a problem we’ve been trying to sort out ever since.” He paused and shook his head like it was a great, big shame. Then he apparently remembered he had the recently dead to contend with and faced me again. “As I said before, due to this glitch, we’ve had souls sent to the Kingdom who should’ve gone to the Underground City. And vice versa.” He paused. “And some souls are locked on the earthly plane as well. It’s been a big nightmare, to say the least.”

  My mouth was still hanging open. “The Kingdom and the Underground City? Is that like Heaven and Hell?” Why did I have the sudden feeling he was going to start the Dungeons and Dragons lingo?

  “Similar.”

  I rubbed my tired eyes and let it all sink in. So, not only were there bad dead people in Heaven, aka the Kingdom, but there were good dead people in Hell, aka the Underground City? And to make things even more complicated, there were bad and good dead people stuck on Earth? “Is that still happening now? Or did you fix the computer glitch?” I asked, wondering if maybe I’d been sent to the wrong place. I thought this place seemed like Hell from the get-go. And though I was never a church-goer, I definitely wasn’t destined for the South Pole.

  “We fixed the glitch, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still thousands of misplaced souls. And the longer those souls who should be in the Kingdom are left in the Underground City, or on the earthly plain, the bigger the chances of lawsuits against Afterlife Enterprises. We’ve already had a host of them and we can’t afford anymore.”

  I didn’t have the wherewithal to contemplate afterlife lawsuits, so I focused on the other details. “So how are you going to get all those people, er souls, back where they belong?”

  “That’s where you would come in, should you accept this job offer.”

  “I would bring the spirits back?” I asked, aghast. “I’d be a ghost hunter or something?”

  He laughed; it was the first time he seemed warm and, well, alive. Funny what a laugh will do for you.

  “Yes, your title would be “Retriever” and we have thousands who, like you, are currently retrieving souls.”

  An image of the Ghostbusters jumped into my mind and I had to shake it free. Whatever this job entailed, I doubted it included slaying Slimer. “And if I don’t agree?”

  Jason shrugged and turned to the computer again. After a few clicks, he faced me with a frown. “Looks like you’ll be on the waiting list for the Kingdom.”

  “The waiting list?” I said, shocked. “I think I’ve led a pretty decent life!”

  He shook his head and faced the computer again. “I show three accounts of thievery—when you were six, nine and eleven.”

  “I was just a kid!”

  He cleared his throat and returned his attention to the Word doc. “I also show multiple accounts of cheating when you were in university.”

  Affronted, I launched myself from the chair. “I’ve never cheated in my life!”

  He frowned, looking anything but amused. “No, but you aided a certain Jordan Summers by giving him the answers in your Biology class and I show that happened over the course of the semester.”

  I sat back down and folded my arms against my chest. “I would think helping someone wouldn’t slate me for a waiting list!”

  “Cheating takes more than one form.” He glanced at the screen again. “Shall I go on?”

  “No.” I frowned. “So how long will I be on the waiting list?”

  He leaned back in his chair and resumed working the stress ball. “You’re fairly close to the top of the list since your offenses are only minor. I’d say about one hundred years.”

  “One hundred years!” I bit my lip to keep it from quivering. When I felt I could rationally conduct myself again, I faced Jason. “So where would I be for the next one hundred years?”

  “In Shade.”

  I frowned. “And what is that? Like Limbo?”

  “Yes, close to it.”

  “What would I do there?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing, really. Shade exists merely as a loading dock for those who are awaiting the Kingdom… or the Underground City.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s it like?”

  “There is neither light nor dark, everything exists in gray. There’s nothing good to look forward to, nor anything bad. You just exist.”

  “But if those people who are going to Hell,” I started.

  “The Underground City,” he corrected me. “Those destined for the Underground are kept separate from those destined for the Kingdom,” he finished, answering my question before I even asked it.

  I felt tears stinging my eyes. “Shade sounds like my idea of hell.”

  Jason shook his head while a wry chuckle escaped him. “Oh, no. The Underground City is much worse.” He paused. “The good news is that if you do become a Retriever and you relocate ten souls, you can then go directly to the Kingdom and bypass Shade altogether.”

  “So I wouldn’t have to go to Shade at all?”

  “As long as you relocate ten souls, you bypass Shade,” he repeated, nodding as if to make it obvious that this was the choice I should make.

  “What does retrieving these people mean?”

  He started rolling the stress ball against his desk. “We’d start you with one assignment, or one soul. With the help of a guide, you’d go after that soul and retrieve it.” He paused. “Are you interested?”

  I exhaled. Did I want to die and live the next century in Shade? The short answer was no. Did I want to be a soul retriever? Not really, but I guessed it was better than dying.

  “Okay, I guess so.”

  “We could start you out and see how you do. You can always decide not to do it.”

  “But then I’d die?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the alternative.”

  “Why can’t you let me go back to my old life?”

  He shook his head. “It’s
not possible. Your soul has already left your body. Once the soul departs, the body goes bad within three seconds. Unfortunately, you are way past your three seconds. That and the coroners have already pronounced you dead and the newspapers are preparing your obituary. Your mother was notified, as well.”

  Mom has been notified… Something hollow and dreadful stirred in my gut and started climbing up my throat. I gulped it down, hell-bent on not getting hysterical. Tears welled up in my eyes and I furiously batted them away.

  “I never got to say goodbye,” I managed as I tried to wrack my brain to remember the last conversation I’d had with my mother, the only person (besides Miranda) with whom I was close. Truly, my mother and Miranda were my best friends. And right about now, both of them had to be traumatized.

  Jason nodded, but it wasn’t a nod that said he was sympathizing. It was a hurried nod. “I’m sorry; but you need to make a decision soon. Time is of the essence and Shade will be calling soon to find out if you’re joining them.”

  I forced my tears aside and focused on his angular face, trying to ignore my grief so I could come to a decision which would completely change the course of my life… or afterlife. “So, if I take this job and choose to live, I can’t do so in my own body?”

  It wasn’t like I was thrilled with my appearance: I was short, overweight and plain. I was the woman who no one ever noticed—the one always behind the scenes. I’d had one major boyfriend in my life and that had lasted all of two months. Yep, anyway I looked at it, I was basically hopeless—a twenty-two year old workaholic virgin with nothing but the redundancy of a stress-inducing job to force me to wake up each morning. But, I was me, and the idea of coming back in another body left me cold. No pun intended.

  “You would not be able to come back as yourself,” Jason said. “You’d have to come back in another body.”

  I glanced down at myself. As far as I could tell, I still looked the same. “But, I’m in my body now.”

  “You’re here in spirit only.”

  The phone on his desk rang and he faced me with impatience etched in his eyes and mouth. “That’s probably Shade calling.”