What landscapes emerge when the spirit goes
for a walk? I ask because I do not know
what fragment of you was anchored here.
To be happy, I should say you were happy,
but I keep standing by a window
overlooking the world, holding back
the birds in your eyes so the silence won’t
claim you. This time, your lover’s voice,
always reaching like a hand, finds and pulls you
from anywhere. And beyond the threshold,
everything waits to be named.

Samuel A. Betiku is a Nigerian writer from the city of Ondo, South West Nigeria. His works have appeared in journals and anthologies, including  Rattle, The Offing, The Temz Review, Trampset, The Christian Century, Strange Horizons, Agbowó, Libretto, Lunaris Review, Shallow Tales Review and elsewhere. 

Return to Issue 22 | Support The Deadlands

The best thing about being dead is no longer needing to breathe. The worst thing about being dead is, well, being dead.

The gondola—the one you dove from before you knew, really knew that you’d died—passes overhead, and you are not drowning. Staying down on the seabed is as easy as existing. At first. In the Ocean Between, the weeds stretch up like the fingers of the dead and pick at your clothes. They tug and pull and scrape at your skin. Every moment you linger, your limbs grow heavier. You have to move.

The Ferrymen are hunting you now. You have broken the rules.

Rule one: Everything dies, no exceptions.

Rule two: Pay the Ferryman.

Rule three: When you cross the Ocean Between, keep your extremities in the boat at all times. Do not—repeat, do not—leave the gondola.

Rule four: No one goes back.

A searchlight arcs overhead, and you sink lower, shift beneath the gondola’s hull so the light doesn’t catch you. You’ve seen what happens when a runaway steps into that light. Only when darkness inks back across the water do you rise, ripping the weeds up from the seabed.

The Ocean Between is near-endless by design. You will have time, they said, to consider your life. How you lived and how you died, how you will be received when you reach the port, and how you will pass through the Last Lock beyond—what’ll happen after. And you did consider it.

Then, you considered that you might not want to be dead.

Now, you’re scanning the water for a boat-stop. As you sailed with the Ferryman, you saw them dotted hither and thither, little platforms with gondolas tethered to them—not as sleek and black as the one you leapt from but serviceable enough, despite the peeling paint.

Ah, there. Closer than you thought. The searchlight swings across it—five gondolas bob in the waves. You swim for it, heavy limbs thrashing against the current. Loud, too loud. Something grazes your foot, and you try not to look down. Whatever’s beneath you now is just as dead as you are, you tell yourself. Besides, surely, you can’t die twice.

The searchlight jerks again, and you shudder. Its beam illuminates a cavalcade of Ferrymen, their long oars moving with regimental precision.

“Shit,” you hiss, pounding your arms and legs through the salt. Your limbs are so heavy now, like you are wading through thick clay. The Ocean Between wants to keep you, or at least cage you until the Ferrymen come. By the time you reach the boat-stop, the Ferrymen have fanned out, cast themselves wide like a net and when they catch you… No, they’re not going to catch you. You’re going to go home. You’re going to live again.

There’s no time to pick and choose, the first gondola you touch is the one you flop into. You cannot rest, either. They are coming. But when you stand, when you take up the giant oar, you will be exposed. They will see you and when they see you, if they are not close enough to catch you, the searchlight will shine and then—

You stretch your lightening limbs, and your sea-wrinkled hand finds something soft.

A cloak. A Ferryman’s cloak.

The searchlight roars over the gondola, and you flinch. Lying in the bottom of the boat, you are safe here, but only just. If you lift your head, it’s over. The beam hovers—could they have spotted you already? No, no.

“Breathe,” you whisper, and your gaze lands on the cloak again. “I wonder.”

You wrap the thick, black material around your hand. Breathe in—one, two—and out. Without allowing yourself too much time to think, to chicken out, you shove your hand up into the beam.

It is hot, as if you’ve stuck your hand in an oven, but when you lower your arm, and tentatively pull the material away, you find your skin unharmed, your hand still whole.

Flinging the cloak across your shoulders, you pull the hood down so you can barely see above the horizon. The chain securing the gondola to the boat-stop is old and breaks easily—loudly. A shout comes from somewhere behind you.

“Wait,” you whisper as the gondola begins to drift. “The oar. Where’s the oar?”

The brackets it should sit in lie empty.

“Shit.”

You crane over your shoulder—the net is closing in.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

But there—two gondolas over. You don’t think, you just jump.

And miss.

Your chin smashes against the middle-most gondola, and your teeth sink into your tongue. The sound that comes out of you then is a howl. You might be dead but you can still hurt—bad.

It’s the pain that gets you across, gets you breaking another rusty chain, gets you pushing the gondola from the boat-stop, wielding the oar with a heavy hand—shoving it so hard down toward the seabed you worry it might break.

You can see the shore you came from; it wasn’t long before you ran, a league or two at most. You can do this.

The searchlight hits your back and it burns. You cry out, and your ruined tongue lolls between your lips. You row and you pray the cloak holds. You row and you sob. You row and you hear the Ferrymen snarl closer.

You row and you scream.

Up ahead, the great bright door to the Before rises up from the beach, cool light shafting between door and frame—so close you can almost touch it.

As the door rises, so too does the scent of smoke. The cloak can only do so much.

The searchlight knows you are a liar.

A Ferryman grabs your oar and you pitch forward, tumbling over the front of the gondola and into the surf. The beach.

A laugh bubbles in your throat, and you run.

You run, feet sinking into the sand.

You run and you burn.

And at last, the light.

Elou Carroll is a graphic designer and freelance photographer who writes. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Hexagon SF Magazine, Haven Speculative Fiction, Luna Station Quarterly, Kaleidotrope, In Somnio: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror (Tenebrous Press), Spirit Machine (Air and Nothingness Press), Ghostlore (Alternative Stories Podcast) and others. When she’s not whispering with ghosts, she can be found editing Crow & Cross Keys, publishing all things dark and lovely, and spending far too much time on Twitter (@keychild). She keeps a catalogue of her weird little wordcreatures on www.eloucarroll.com.

Return to Issue 22 | Support The Deadlands

It’s difficult to say when I realized I was no longer afraid of dying—when that looming specter that haunted the recesses of my mind seemed to have retreated back into the stygian abyss from whence it came. As if I were charmed by an ethereal force, I came to accept the transient nature of our time on Earth, and the prospect of it coming to an end seems no more or less concerning to me—as life carries on for as long as it is meant to.

Not that this transformation happened so naturally, or even painlessly, but the unyielding grip that had suffocated me ever since I became aware of my own mortality was unclenched, and I was finally relieved—liberated even—for the first time in years.

That’s because as far back as I can remember, I feared death. The mere thought of it could induce a panic, and I would waste hours of my life in its cold clutches, shaken enough that something had to happen to snatch me out of its hold. 

I remember one time as a child in Amman, I realized, after I had finally decided on being writer, that I only had a few years left before I would be the same age as the authors I idolized were when they had tragically passed away. The prospect of meeting an end at so young an age was no doubt daunting, but it was the imminence of it that stifled me, so much so that, caught in a strange stranglehold, I couldn’t leave my bed for days, until I was finally forced out of the house by my parents, who worried I wouldn’t have ever left otherwise. And this was no isolated incident, with this occurring often enough that I withdrew from social life for much of my adolescence and my parents felt the need to consult mental health professionals about it.

However, even though this fear dominated my early life, what I remember the most is that moment when it dawned on me that my parents would die one day, and there was nothing I, or anyone else, could do about it. I was sitting in my maid’s bedroom and, being close, I would ask her the questions I was too embarrassed or afraid to ask other adults. Someone I had never met had died, and my parents were attending their funeral, so I asked what that was and why it would be held, being so young that the concept felt distant, unreal almost, as if it wasn’t a reality of the life I lived. Without thinking, she mentioned that everyone dies eventually, and, in a moment of panic, I asked if that included my parents, to which she responded with honesty, even going so far to tell me that this included me, which had not—and I’m certain, would not—have dawned on me otherwise.

As I sat there, shaking and fumbling with my silly, little words, I broke down sobbing, crying out for comfort. Though in hindsight, it should have been, life would never be the same after that, and I’ve come to regret it.

But what I always found interesting was that I don’t remember much else after I was told the truth other than that strange stranglehold that suffocated the life out of what I was told was an immortal soul. Even trying to tell me later on that Heaven and Hell existed couldn’t console me. I had refused to fall prey to any of the religions around me as soon as I was informed of them and couldn’t force myself to believe in something so fantastical in the face of the crushing reality that is our mortality. For years afterward, I would fixate on the notion that one day I would die and had to find a way to stop it—any way I could….

Of course, there wasn’t much a child could do, but there never seemed to be anyone around who I was able to share these feelings with.

And there never would be.

What I experienced was nothing unusual. Humankind has feared dying for as long as humans have been around, so it should come as no surprise then that, when personifying it, the result was often horrifying. To this day, I’m still haunted by the indecipherable stare of the shinigami (a Japanese word meaning “death god”) Ryuk from Death Note, which gave no indication of what inhuman machinations were being concocted within its cold, calculating mind that set people at each other’s throats for no reason other than boredom. Nor will I ever forget the quiet woman in an old blue dress from One Hundred Years of Solitude, who, as an act of mercy, instructs the aged spinster Amaranta Buendía to sew her own death shroud with the promise that once it’s been completed, she will finally die in peace at the end of that day.

However, over time, writers and artists have personified Death in a way that makes these characters come off not as cold and commanding, but as friendly and compassionate, exemplifying the kind of person you’d want to have by your side in that predicament.

Even though these reapers are no less powerful or scary than prior incarnations, these nuanced portrayals allowed me to confront the prospect of dying in a way that no one around me could compel me to. No take on this trend has resonated with me more than Neil Gaiman’s Death in his comic book series The Sandman.

From its January 1989 cover date to March 1996, Gaiman’s seventy-five issues of this comic series (with a one-shot special in November 1991) followed the last days of the Morpheus, also known as Dream of the Endless, as he came to terms with his past and his place in the universe after a prolonged imprisonment. Since the comic chronicled the dealings of gods, monsters, myths, and cosmic powers, The Sandman was capable of telling stories in any style or setting throughout time and space, and Gaiman—with a number of artists and letterer Todd Klein—more than utilized this to full effect. However, what seemed to preoccupy Morpheus most was his siblings, the other six anthropomorphic personifications of cosmic powers, all with grudges and demands. In the course of the comic, he is forced to reconcile his duties as the Lord of Dreams with his past mishandling of his family affairs. Nowhere is this made more painfully clear than with Dream’s relationship with Death, which is first introduced by Gaiman and artist Mike Dringenberg in The Sandman no. 8 and forms the core relationship that anchors the series as it weaves in and out of worlds and ages.

When Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, has finally escaped decades of imprisonment and regained his artifacts of power, becoming more powerful than he’s been in eons, he finds himself at a loss. Forever changed by his experience but unsure of how to proceed, The Sandman no. 8, “The Sound of Her Wings,” opens on him at a park feeding the pigeons, despondent. A soccer ball comes flying at him, and he catches it without so much as a blink. Naturally, one of the players is impressed with his superhuman reflexes. Eventually, a cheery goth in a black top and jeans approaches Morpheus and asks him what he’s doing. When he informs her that he’s feeding the pigeons, she quotes Mary Poppins, gushing over the film—only for her to inquire about what’s wrong. Morpheus confesses to her that after taking his revenge, he no longer has anything to motivate him as he returns to his duties.

Throughout the entire sequence, the perky goth walks off, picking and admiring some of the nearby flowers before returning and snapping back at the Lord of Dreams. She chastises him for being so infantile as he sits there wallowing in self-pity instead of doing what he should have done and called her for help, revealing she has been worried about him for some time. Right at that moment, the same soccer ball almost hits her, too, but she also manages to catch it in the nick of time and hand it back to the player. When he comments on how she’s as good as her friend, she tells him that Morpheus is not her friend, but her brother….

What’s captivating about Death in The Sandman is that the only unusual thing about her appearance is the silver ankh on a chain around her neck and a marking akin to the Eye of Ra that surrounds her right eye. Pleasant, down-to-earth, and perky, you wouldn’t think of her as anything more than a young woman having the time of her life, lifting the spirits of all those she comes into contact with.

And that’s more or less true.

That’s why it comes as such a surprise that not only is she Death, but that she’s one of the most powerful beings in The Sandman universe, able to stare down her younger brother’s opponents and jolt them into slobbering stutters with nothing but a glare. Though out-of-character moments are often utilized in fiction to portray vulnerability, these moments are there to remind us instead of her absolute authority over all of us, being powerful in and of themselves, not because they demonstrate the fear and reverence that Death imbues in The Sandman’s most powerful characters, but because the contrast between the way Death usually looks and acts and her stature in this universe is on full display. Even when those dealing with her are fully aware that this cheery young woman is the personification of Death itself, her manner is genuine enough that it seems that even they forget who she is and what she’s capable of.

Wishing to stay but not wanting to keep anyone waiting, the perky goth informs Morpheus that he has to tag along with her as she is performing her job so as not to keep others waiting. The kicker asks if he and the goth could meet up again for a soda, and she innocuously tells him that she’ll be meeting him again soon before teleporting away with her brother. Their first stop is Harry, an old violinist, who initially doesn’t seem particularly perturbed to see them in his home. The old man explains who he is, but the goth says she already knows and, in turn, asks him if he knows her. No sooner is he asked than panic flashes across the man’s face before he calmly resigns himself to the inevitable. Excusing himself, the violinist is allowed to perform one last prayer before his spirit exits his body and sees his corpse on the couch. After letting him say his piece, Death draws him close, and all the lord of dreams can hear is the sound of her wings as the old man is taken to the “Sunless Lands.”

Had her portrayal relied only on the novel contrast created by her appearance versus her identity, this would’ve been as shallow a portrayal as the ones we typically saw for centuries, regardless of the novelty. But one of Gaiman’s strengths has always been his ability to humanize gods and monsters, gifting them with conflicts and arcs befitting their otherworldly nature yet somehow making them understandable enough to allow us lowly mortals to empathize with them. These beings far surpass us, transcend us even, viewing the world through a lens that is indecipherable to the human eye, yet, like us, are capable of changing, learning, and growing.

And so was the case with Death, because, you see, she wasn’t always this way.

By her own admission, Death was not always the kindly figure we are introduced to in the comic. When it all began, she was convinced that she had the most difficult job of the Endless, and that made it unbearable—so excruciating that she abandoned her duties, only for the universe to spiral out of control, and the others had to beg her to return to her realm. However, when she did, she became “hard and cold and brittle inside.” It was not until one of the souls she collected asked her how she would like it if they were in her position that she tried to see things from their perspective. That led her to spend one day a century as a mortal to try to understand what it was like for us and what she could learn from it, forever changing her approach to the job. After concluding that what most of us wish for in this situation is the company of a friend, her approach to her encounters with the souls she reaped reflected that from then on.

Death politely comments that the old man was sweet, but there’s something else on her brother’s mind. He informs her that his captors were actually after her the entire time, and he had languished in captivity for decades in her place. Both Morpheus’s and Death’s faces are visible in this panel, but Death chooses not to reply at that moment—the expression on her face is indecipherable. When she finally does respond in the next panel, she says she’s known all along, adding that they should hurry along so as not to miss the “next one.” Her back is to us when she says this, and there’s no way to tell how that was meant to come across—the first time in the comic we’re confronted by the impenetrable complexity of this personification of death.

As we follow Death on her next reapings, we witness the empathy with which she treats each of those souls—her spirit, even in the face of the cruelty and grisliness of the matter of death, comforts the souls as they pass on to the next life. The issue ends with her younger brother’s interest in the world around him renewed, having learned to appreciate the lives whose dreams he governs for the first time in his endless existence.

Probably what I find most riveting about Death is that in addition to being a friend to all and the most feared entity in existence, she is also a big sister—the kind everyone wished they had. Among the oldest and most powerful of her siblings, collectively known as the Endless, she acts as a caretaker of sorts, making sure everyone is doing all right and being there for them when they’re not. It is in these moments that The Sandman is elevated from the trappings of mythology and becomes something more—a family tragedy with Death herself as the chorus.

Yet, even though she is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating figures in the entire series, Gaiman wisely uses her sparingly, appearing when she needs to and leaving an impression each time. When she is the last person with whom the original Morpheus converses in the story, echoing that first meeting in the park, it feels right even though he’s spent far more time with other characters throughout the comic’s run, doing far more for them—and, in turn, them for him—than Death ever had.

Maybe it works because of how close they are, or maybe just because Death is there for everyone at the end.

It is even said that everyone meets her twice. During birth, she is the one to inject the breath of life, and all, whether mortal or god, will see her once more when it is time. Finally, when the universe dies at the end of time, she’ll “put up the chairs, turn off the lights, and lock the doors behind her when she leaves.”

Interestingly enough, in The Sandman’s conception of the grim reaper, Death is not the guide but the gateway into what lies beyond, and throughout the entirety of The Sandman’s run, we never learn what this beyond is like, and we never need to. Death, being by your side at that moment, is more than enough.

And, in a way, that was what it was like reading The Sandman. As Death guided the departed in the story to a quiet acceptance of their death, without knowing it, she slowly guided me to an acceptance of my own. Having this incomprehensible phenomenon personified—and in a sense, humanized—allowed me to confront what I couldn’t on my own with the thoughtfulness and care that I was unable to find in those who were meant to instruct me on such matters. This was the first time I had been presented with Death in such a manner, and though with time, other artists have been inspired by The Sandman to taken a similar approach to the way Death is depicted here, there is a distinct grace in the way Gaiman and collaborators tackled it, that after all these years, has me return to the tragedy of Morpheus, the King of Dreams, and find hope in his ultimate fate. For death is no longer the end, but a gateway into what lies beyond.

J.D. Harlock is a Syrian Lebanese Palestinian writer and editor based in Beirut. In addition to his posts at Wasafiri, as an editor-at-large, and at Solarpunk Magazine, as a poetry editor, his writing has been featured in New Lines Magazine, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Nightmare Magazine, and the SFWA blog. You can always find him on Twitter and Instagram posting updates on his latest projects.

Return to Issue 22 | Support The Deadlands

I do not assure you the ligament protruding from your rib cage
is an act of kindness. say, you were born a leakage of skin &
rotten suspense,
with no ache to salve the blood. a sacrilege of meat—fiddling
your bone marrow. growing up, I fed slowly on damnation,
& amazing grace
was my most small sin. I think of you blooding the
candlestand,

                                                                                   derobing

the stubborn white—each by its flamy bright head.
I kneel into the chaos. we’re capable of burning in all the wrong
ways. I attempt
to put out the light birthing half-light in your loin, gaslight Pa into
branding me:
a boy obsessed with self-destruct.
I’m nameless as the inferno, haunting this house of a body down.
my memory

                                       outlived the slaughter, till age leaks finely
into the wound. you: a rough breed, begrudging the land that
                                                                                        once loved

you to sprouting. your pain is a dead language.
whatever word fashioned against you has ceased
to be in vogue. I starch the archaism to my throat, & ache over the
havoc.

                                          weren’t you joyous, the night I blotted your loin
with vinegar? weren’t we wasteful—spilling everywhere a brightness torch,
like flame is wired for our transgression. cupping your palm:
                                            a wealth of sobbing gold pouring into shape:

the currency of many deaths. your lips grating mine is a more dangerous
blend of rhythm. when I’m questioned on what dirties my instinct,
what leaves me in still-life filth.

                                                Is mud fashioned to market soft hand-towels?
yes! I tell them. I am your culebra. I am in the dirt for you.

With an ending line from “Post Colonial Love Poem” by Natalie Diaz

Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. Author of Nature knows a little about Slave Trade selected by Tate.N.Oquendo (Sundress Publication, 2023). His works have been previously published or are forthcoming in FIYAH, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Timber Ghost Press, Haven Spec Magazine, Utopian Science Fiction, Penumbric Speculative Poetry & Fiction Magazine, Star*Line Fiction & Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. A 3x Best of the Net, and 7x Pushcart Nominee. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.

Return to Issue 22 | Support The Deadlands

State of the Necromancer Address

The year 2023 has wrought big changes for your necromancer, dear readers.

When I started mortuary school, one of the first things I learned is that—at least in Texas—a mortician can expect to make as much as a teacher. I laughed, I cried, I resigned myself to ongoing penury. At least it’s better than retail.

The penury, unfortunately, was not very hyperbolic. Rent in Austin has soared steadily for years, and although I was making more than the (frankly insulting) $13.50 an hour at which I started as a removal driver in 2020, by the end of 2022, I had been priced out of one apartment and fled another because of shady management. I moved in with a friend, but even then I was barely treading water, financially. At one point last year, three coworkers and I were selling plasma for rent and groceries. 

That was when I began job hunting. When I first moved to Texas as a child, I never imagined I would spend the next three decades there. After college, I became resigned to needing a partner’s financial support if I ever wanted to achieve escape velocity, and that never panned out. Would it be different now that I had a professional license?

I started sending out applications in September, to an echoing, sepulchral silence. By Halloween, despair was sinking its teeth in. I felt trapped in the way I hadn’t since I first enrolled in mortuary school. 

Then came a phone call. Could I fly out to Northern Virginia for an interview? I certainly could. A week later, I had an offer, and an ominously looming start date. Two months later, I packed one friend, two unhappy cats, and as much stuff as I could cram in the trunk of my car, and drove twenty-four hours across the country to the Northern Virginia/DC metro area.

Now I’m temporarily ensconced in an apartment above a funeral home* until I find my own place, and studying for the Virginia board exam. New laws! New corpses! After three years on the night shift, I’ve become a daywalker again. It’s a brave new world. With a lot of traffic. 

So send me more questions, The Deadlands readers! Soon I’ll be licensed in a whole new state, and have more entertaining trivia to share.

* Many older funeral homes have apartments, holdovers from family-owned businesses or an on-call night shift before centralized care centers. We had one in Austin, which was full of filing cabinets and ’90s furniture. This one has the same furniture, without forty years of financial records.

Amanda Downum is the author of The Necromancer Chronicles, Dreams of Shreds & Tatters, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated collection Still So Strange. Not content with armchair necromancy, she is also a licensed mortician. She lives in Austin, TX with an invisible cat. You can summon her at a crossroads at midnight on the night of a new moon, or find her on Twitter as @stillsostrange.

Return to Issue 22 | Support The Deadlands

I can always tell what dish my customers will order. Knowing what the dead crave is my gift. Or my curse. It’s hard to know which.

This girl, for instance. Brown, like me, but pale, as if the color’s been leeched out of her skin. Dark, staring eyes, weeds tangled in her drowned hair, and an ugly purple frog squatting on her shoulder. She doesn’t remember her name or the man who killed her, but she remembers the taste of her mother’s fish pakoras.

She drifts in, dripping water over my nice linoleum floor. I suppress a sigh. Cleaning’s the worst part of my job. At least it’s not blood and guts today.

“Sorry,” she says, glancing down.

“Don’t worry about it.” I wave her to a barstool. I have tables and chairs for groups, even a couple of red vinyl booths, but my customers are usually a solitary lot. Sometimes a family will come in, all four or five of whom have died in the same accident. I’ll usher them to a booth, doing my best to ignore their ghastly wounds, and give them what they need.

In a manner of speaking. What they need is for whatever tragedy struck to not have happened at all, but that’s not in my hands. All that’s in my hands is my frying pan, my pressure cooker, my stockpot, and my notebook. I do what I can with these implements. I like to think I fulfill a useful role in people’s afterlives, helping them move along.

A few become regulars, refusing to move along. This is not my fault. I can’t help it if I’m such a good cook.

The drowned girl perches on my stool and regards my diner with tepid interest.

“What’ll it be?” I ask, even though I know. This is a ritual; every step is important.

She points to the menu I’ve stuck to the wall. Anything you want, it says. Within reason, it adds. “Can you really make anything?”

“If you truly want it, I can make it,” I answer.

She sighs, spreading her hands on the counter as if to anchor herself. Her nails are bitten-down white, her fingers wrinkled prunes. “I want fish pakoras, the way my mother used to make them.”

“Be right with you,” I say, turning around.

What about me, croaks the frog on her shoulder.

I throw it a dirty look. Pets sometimes sneak in with their owners, but I’ve never had a frog before. You don’t belong here.

She needs me. Its voice drips with fake sincerity. I’m her emotional support whatchamacallit. Amphibian.

I roll my eyes. Fine. What do you want?

Caviar, it says smugly.

I retreat to the kitchen. Rule number one, said the Shadow Man. You must serve whoever enters the diner. He didn’t say anything about species, but honestly, when I accepted this job, I assumed I would be dealing only with humans.

Don’t get me wrong. I welcome the occasional dog, cat, parrot, or budgie. I have even served decommissioned robots without batting an eye. Robots are persons too, after all—metal persons who like to knock back a tankard of oil while reminiscing about the good old factory days.

But I draw the line at frogs.

I wish I could draw the line at frogs. I open the fridge and glare at the jar of expensive caviar that has just appeared on one of the shelves. If the kitchen approves, I have no choice. I must serve the frog.

I make the girl’s fish pakoras first. I flip open the notebook to a random page, and her mother’s recipe materializes in small, neat script. Chop tilapia filets into two-inch squares and set aside. Make a paste of chickpea flour, water, crushed garlic, ajwain, salt, turmeric, and red chili powder. Coat the pieces of fish in the paste and deep-fry in hot canola oil until golden brown.

The aroma of fried fish fills the kitchen, making my mouth water.

But the food is not for me. It’s never for me. Rule number two, said the Shadow Man. You cannot eat what you cook. Why would I agree to something so cruel? Why would I be willing to stay hungry? There must have been a reason, but I cannot remember it. Cannot remember what hold he has on me. Perhaps I committed a terrible sin, and this is my penance.

I serve the pakoras in a glass dish with a side of coriander chutney. My customer inhales deeply, tears gathering in her eyes. “It smells like home,” she whispers.

Where’s my caviar, croaks the frog.

Patience, or I’ll make caviar out of you, I snap.

The drowned girl takes her first bite, sniffling all the while. I return to the kitchen, both to get the damn frog’s caviar and to give the girl some privacy.

But she seems to want to talk. As I plop a bowl of caviar on the counter, she says, “Do you get many customers?”

I shrug. “It depends. Sometimes, this place is full. Sometimes, it’s empty. You’re my first guest tonight, but you won’t be the last.”

Not bad, says the frog from the depths of the caviar bowl. I could get used to this.

The girl pops a pakora into her mouth. “This is perfect. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.” I watch as a bit of color steals into her face. It won’t last, but while she’s here, eating my food, she can remember what it was like to be alive.

She stops suddenly, looking dismayed. “How do I pay you?”

“You don’t have to pay me.” I grab a mop and head over to swab the floor. She’s dripping all around the barstool.

“I’d like to give you something,” she says. “I don’t want to take anything for free.”

I can see it worries her, so I say, “Give me your name, if you wish.”

She frowns and bites her lip, obviously struggling.

“Eat the pakoras,” I advise. “You may recall by the time you’ve finished.”

Obediently, she recommences eating. It gladdens my heart. I cannot stand to see food wasted, even here. Especially here.

My name’s Mandy, says the frog, burping. Mandy, short for Manduka, get it?

I swab the floor, trying not to wince as my back twinges. Did I ask you for your name?

No, but I gave it anyway. I’m generous like that.

You’re a generous asshole.

Actually, my asshole’s quite tiny, heehee.

I purse my lips, trying to suppress my annoyance. Any response will simply embolden him further. Besides, frogs are a symbol of transformation. Perhaps there’s a reason he’s here. Perhaps he really will help the drowned girl move on.

The bell tinkles, and Nadeem enters. I smile and wave, setting down my mop. He’s one of my regulars. I shouldn’t encourage the dead to stay, but a few of them become friends after a while. They make the darker parts of my job more bearable.

The fact that I can’t step out of the diner, for instance. Rule number three, said the Shadow Man. You cannot leave. What’s out there? All I see from the windows is twilit fog.

One day, the fog will clear, and I will see the stars. I will remember who I was. Remember how I died. That was his promise to me.

How much time has yet to pass before that day arrives? Or has it already come and gone, leaving me in an endless loop of remembering and forgetting?

But this is a dark thought, and I push it aside.

Nadeem is dressed in his usual neat blue suit and black leather shoes, striped tie, and the white bone knife sticking out of his chest. Happily, he doesn’t bleed much, unlike some of my other customers. He saunters in and perches on one of the barstools, nodding politely to the drowned girl.

“What’ll it be?” I ask, moving behind the bar.

“The usual, please.”

The usual, for Nadeem, is the rogan josh that was served at his wedding—the last thing he ate before he was stabbed by his bride’s ex-boyfriend.

I cook the rich, spicy goat curry while Nadeem hums an old Bollywood song and the frog passes lewd comments, which mercifully neither of my customers can hear. The aroma of cinnamon, black cardamom, peppercorn, bay leaves, and cloves permeates my kitchen. In another pot, I cook long grain basmati rice. Rogan josh takes at least three hours of slow cooking, but time moves differently here. The food is ready in what feels like minutes. It still tires me just as much as if I’d been working three hours, though.

Nadeem inhales deeply in appreciation when I serve him. “Amma, what would I do without you?”

Move on, perhaps, I manage not to say. Dead people prefer the warmth of my diner to the coldness of the unknown. What’s surprising about that?

The door pushes open, and two of my favorite people enter: Twinkle and Dimple, ten-year-old twins, accompanied by their little black cat, Legolas. Legolas takes one look at the frog and leaps onto the bar, claws clattering as he skids across the counter, nearly upsetting Nadeem’s rogan josh.

Mandy gives a throaty scream and jumps onto my shoulder. Save me, my good woman, save me!

If you call me your good woman again, I’ll throw you into the stockpot.

I shake my finger at Legolas. Darling, you know the rules.

Disbelief emanates from the cat’s sapphire eyes. But my lady, he is food! Enemy! Prey!

Actually, he’s some sort of pet, so please don’t eat him. I’ll get you your favorite chicken and tuna stew in a minute. Off you go.

Legolas retreats reluctantly from the counter to a stool, his tail swishing, his fierce gaze fixed on the trembling frog. Twinkle strokes the cat’s back, smoothing down his fur. “Legolas, don’t be naughty, or Amma won’t give us our treat.”

“I will always give you your treat, no matter how badly your cat behaves,” I tell the twins.

Legolas bristles. Me, behave badly? Me?

“You are a most excellent cat,” I assure him. “The frog is out of bounds, though.” I pluck Mandy from my shoulder and hold him out to the drowned girl.

She cups him in her palms. “Thank you. I don’t know why he followed me here, but I feel responsible for him now.”

I glare at the frog. Emotional support amphibian, are you?

Dimple jumps up and down, unable to contain herself. “May we have our treat now?”

“Suppose it’s finished?” says Nadeem in a doom-laden voice. “Suppose you have eaten Amma’s whole entire stock of candyfloss?”

“It’s not that difficult to make,” I say hastily, before the twins can protest. “I just need sugar, corn syrup, raspberry extract, and a decapitated whisk.”

But two enormous clouds of pink candyfloss are already sitting on my kitchen counter, waiting to be delivered. The twins fall on them with squeals of joy. In moments, their faces and hands are pink and sticky.

How many times have they done this before? A hundred? Two hundred?

It doesn’t matter. The candyfloss will always be special to them, taking them back to the best day of their lives before it was cruelly cut short. They will remember the carnival, the rides, the magicians, the games. They will remember the smell of trampled grass, burnt sugar, and the summer heat rising up from the ground and pressing down from the sky. They will remember clowns, acrobats, jugglers, and how the tents lit up with fairy lights when dusk stole across the fairground.

They will not remember the candyfloss man. That’s my burden, not theirs. And if it weighs me down sometimes—well, I knew when I took this job that it wouldn’t be easy.

I give Legolas his stew and retreat to the kitchen for my own treat: a cocktail glass of spring water. I make it festive, garnishing the glass with a lime peel twist, and sit down to savor it, groaning as I lower myself on the chair.

So that’s your poison, eh?

I nearly spill my drink. Mandy squats on the floor, regarding me with his deceptively sleepy eyes.

“Out,” I order. “The kitchen is sacrosanct. No customers here. Only cook and ingredients, understand?”

He stretches his stubby legs. My skin is a bit dry. Can I have a bowl of water?

“Amma?” a voice calls from the bar. I sigh, set down my glass, and step over the frog.

The drowned girl has finished her pakoras. She is leaning on the bar, crackling with excitement. Her face is flushed, as if blood still flows beneath her skin. “I remember my name!” she cries. “It’s Akanksha.”

“Well done.” I smile. Akanksha means aspiration. I hope she became what she aspired to be before she died.

Another customer enters, and I take their order, my lips shaping the expected words. From the corner of my eye, I see a bulky figure in a black raincoat settle on a chair by the fog-blind window. My heart jumps. The Shadow Man. His visits are rare, and I’ve learned to ignore him. Rule number four, said the Shadow Man. Ask no questions. I cut my eyes away from him, trying to slow my pulse.

What would happen if I broke the rules? If I ran out the door, if I ate the food, if I asked him the questions that burn in my heart?

I do not know. All I know is that I made a bargain with him I shouldn’t have.

But there are compensations. I would be lying if I said there weren’t. This is my home, and these are my people. I take care of them.

When I return to the kitchen, Mandy is lounging inside my cocktail glass, an expression of bliss on his froggy face.

I invert the glass, tipping him out. Of all the mean things to do, he splutters indignantly.

“Where did you meet the girl?” I demand. “Where are you from?”

You want info? He throws me a sly look. What’s in it for me?

“I won’t cook you.”

My good woman! The frog sounds affronted. Have you considered that I could be a prince? You ought to kiss me.

I grind my teeth. “I don’t believe in fairy tales. I believe in food. Have you heard of cuisses de grenouille? Served with baguette. Very tasty, I’ve heard. Or I could just go with a simple congee.”

Say no more! Mandy strikes a dramatic pose. I will tell you all. I come from a beauteous land of open skies and azure seas. In the magical boundary between land and water, in a glorious paradise of insects, shrimps, worms—

“The name, Frog,” I snap.

Gulf of Mannar, he says sulkily.

Memory rises like a hungry fish from the depths of the past. Glass-bottomed boats, hot sun, pink coral, pearl oysters, sea turtles, dugongs. A woman with a camera, peering into the dazzling water, taking furious notes.

Someone else’s memory, not yours.

But I can’t be sure. I just can’t.

I return to the bar and welcome new customers. The twins have occupied a booth with Nadeem and Akanksha. They are playing Monopoly. Legolas strolls across the board, scattering the pieces, but no one scolds him. The random scattering appears to be part of the game. I feel a pang as I watch them. I belong on this side of the counter, and most of the time, that’s okay.

But lately, I tire more easily. I wish I were on the other side, being fed and comforted, rather than being the one doling it out.

I drag a chair up to the counter and sit down. I’ve served over a dozen people. Everyone is busy eating, talking, or playing games. I can take a break, rest my eyes for a bit before the next lot comes in.

Where do they go when they’re not here? I’ve never asked, and they’ve never told.

The bulky figure in the raincoat stirs, swirling the shadows above his head. I shudder and turn aside. I’ve never seen his face. Never wanted to see his face.

A morsel of caviar for your thoughts, comes Mandy’s croaky voice.

I’m too tired, too tense, to reply. From the booth comes a peal of laughter and a shriek of admonishment as Legolas upsets the game board. I feel both intimately connected and painfully removed from it all.

The frog hops closer to me. You look like you need a change.

Don’t we all, I say in my driest tone. I hesitate, then jerk my chin at the dark window. Surely the frog does not count as a person to whom I cannot ask questions. What’s out there?

Mandy winks. Roads of all kinds. Rivers with creaky old boats. Mountain passes. Haunted inns. Rubbish heaps. Teahouses. Ruins. Abandoned libraries. Signposts filled with gibberish.

A current of longing runs through me. But the frog could be lying. I narrow my eyes at him. You claim you can read?

I make no such claim, says Mandy with dignity. But the girl didn’t understand them.

Akanksha, I say. That’s her name.

He peers at me. What’s yours?

A guest walks in, saving me from having to answer, from having to admit that I don’t know. Time wears on, and so do I. I make food, smile, serve the dead. Such a familiar rhythm. Who is to say there is anything more, anything better? They call me Amma. I may not be anyone’s real mother, but it still sounds sweet to my ears, even after all this time.

The twins fall asleep in the booth, their arms wrapped around each other, Legolas standing watchful guard. Perhaps there are monsters in the afterlife too. The cat seems to think so. Nadeem leaves after giving me a courtly bow. One by one, the other customers leave too. At last, only Akanksha is left, playing with Mandy at my counter. The Shadow Man hunches like a dark cloud in one corner. Why hasn’t he gone yet?

I flop down on a chair, exhausted, and close my eyes.

“Are you tired?” says Akanksha. “Shall I make something for you?”

My eyes fly open, and I grip the arms of my chair. “I’m not supposed to…” I begin, but my words trail away.

The drowned girl tilts her head. “Not supposed to what?”

Not supposed to cook for myself. The food would turn to ashes in my mouth. But what if someone else cooked it? No one’s ever offered before. “I don’t even know what I want,” I admit.

She gives an encouraging smile. “What about a simple cup of tea?”

“Oh, but it can’t be simple,” I say without thinking. “It has to be real chai with freshly crushed green cardamom, fennel, raw honey…” I stop short, realizing what I’ve just said.

Akanksha’s smile widens. “I’m sure I can manage that. My mother used to say I made the best chai in the world.”

The memory surfaces, so sharp it cuts me, leaving me gasping. Sitting on the porch swing, cradling a cup of fragrant chai in my hands while a monsoon shower sweeps into the garden, drumming the roof and splashing my feet.

“Amma!” calls a familiar, beloved voice. “You’ll get wet.”

My daughter hurries outside, grabs my cup, and chivvies me indoors.

My daughter. I am someone’s mother, or at least, I was. No wonder I love being called Amma. I blink back tears.

Is she still alive? Or have multiple lifetimes passed since then?

Mira.

I start at the sound of that voice. That name. My gut twists.

The Shadow Man perches on the counter above me. I stare at him, petrified. The hood is drawn over his head, hiding his fearsome visage, but his eyes glow with the flames of hell, and his elongated teeth gleam white as bone. He smells of fire and blood, death and decay. The smoke of funeral pyres swirls above his head, and ash rains down on his coat. I lean back on my chair, breathing through my mouth, trying to put as much distance between myself and him as possible.

A sweet humming sounds in the kitchen. Akanksha, making me my first cup of chai in forever. Have I broken the rules? Is that why the Shadow Man is here, forcing me to face him?

Mira, he whispers in that voice which puts me in mind of echoing canyons and depthless seas. You have served your time.

Mira, my true name from my mortal life. I swallow the lump in my throat. What time?

But he’s gone. The diner is empty but for the sleeping twins and the frog on the counter, flicking his tongue out to catch a ghostly fly.

How should I know what the time is? says Mandy. You think I have a watch?

I stare at the frog, and reality shifts beneath me. Did you see him? The Shadow Man?

The Shadow Man. The god of death. Yamaraja. The punisher of sins. The first mortal. The lord of justice. The guardian of the south. Mandy grimaces. Yeah, I saw him. “Perk” of the job.

What are you? I demand.

Hungry is what I am, says Mandy. More caviar, my good woman.

Akanksha bustles in, bearing a tray with a steaming cup, and the aroma of freshly brewed chai invades my nostrils. She isn’t dripping on the floor any longer. Even her clothes and hair are dry. When did this happen? Everything is strange. I feel disoriented and out of sorts. You have served your time, he said, but he didn’t bother to explain, and I still have no more than my name and the precious memory of my daughter’s face.

Akanksha plunks the tray in front of me, beaming. “One cup of the best chai in the world.”

A grumpy, unreasonable part of me wants to push it away, to say I don’t want it, and what does she think she’s doing in my kitchen anyway?

But the scent of green cardamom and fennel is impossible to ignore. “Thank you.” I pick up the cup, filled with trepidation—will it turn to ashes? Poison me?—and take a tiny sip.

It is hot, sweet, spicy, and delicious. I close my eyes and take another sip. And another. My mouth feels like it’s gone to heaven.

“You like it,” says Akanksha with satisfaction.

I set down the cup, trying not to cry. “It’s wonderful.”

She nods, pleased. “What about a snack to go with it? Something savory?”

“Plain sugar biscuits, please,” I say. “The kind you can dunk into tea.”

“I’ll see if there are any,” she says, heading back into the kitchen. But I know, even before she returns, waving a packet of my favorite glucose biscuits in her hand, a triumphant smile on her face, that she will find them. That she will find whatever anyone who enters the diner needs. The baton has passed. The thought is both alarming and exhilarating. I don’t know anything but the diner, neither of life nor of what comes after it. Where would I go? What would I do? The window is still dark, the sky fog-swallowed. I see no stars.

Akanksha opens the packet and arranges the biscuits in a festive spiral on a plain white plate. “Go on,” she says. “Try one.”

I snag a biscuit from the plate and dip it in the tea, careful not to let it fall in.

And as I take the first bite, I remember.

I am five, running barefoot on wet sand, screaming with laughter as my mother chases me. Far in the distance, the line between sea and sky blurs into a hazy blue. Closer by, colorful fishing boats bob on the water. One of those is my father’s. I helped him paint it, and as a reward, he named it Mira, after me.

I take the second bite. I am eleven, crying bitterly because I am to be sent away to the city to live with my cousins so I can go to a big school.

I pop the rest of the biscuit into my mouth, tears streaming down my face. I am twenty-one, a junior researcher with the Marine Institute of India, studying coral reefs and seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park.

I reach for another biscuit. I am twenty-eight, marrying the love of my life in a simple ceremony in my village. My parents are old now, their faces lined, their movements slow. My father can no longer fish, my mother can no longer chase me. But their expressions, as they gaze at me, are full of pride and joy.

I demolish the biscuits, memories flooding me, sweet in their ordinariness, their small griefs and joys. I committed no sin. I lived a good life. I had a daughter I loved with all the strength of my human heart.

The last memory is the one that guts me.

The freak storm that flooded the village and took the roof off our ancestral house. The sharp, sick pain of something hitting my head. The clenching sense of loss and grief as I beheld my daughter’s body next to mine, drifting in the debris of what had been our home. The Shadow Man standing before me, holding out his hand.

And the bargain I made. Let her live a full life span, and I shall do anything you ask, be whoever you want.

What is a soul worth? Can you weigh it against an ephemeral human life? I did. I bound myself in servitude to the god of death. And I would do it again, and again, many times over, to save my child.

The bell rings, and a customer enters—someone new I’ve never seen before. Akanksha glances at me. “Shall I?”

I nod, speechless, and she greets the customer with a warm smile, asks him what he wants.

The frog gets another bowl of caviar. More customers filter in, and Akanksha gets busy. I nibble the last biscuit and sip the cooling chai, putting off the moment I must get up and walk out the door.

Mandy hops over to me. When are we leaving?

We? I gaze at him, surprise pooling in my stomach.

You’ll need a guide, and I’m the best there is.

Realization hits me. The Shadow Man sent you to me.

Mandy gives a hiccupping laugh. You finally figured it out.

My eyes stray to the window, and I leap out of my chair, barely feeling the twinge in my back. It’s still dark, but the fog has cleared. A light flickers in the distance. A lamp?

Akanksha hurries out of the kitchen and plonks a heaping plate of food and a mug of coffee in front of a customer. She wipes her forehead with a sleeve and smiles at me. “Leaving?”

“Are you sure?” I stumble over the words. “There are rules…”

She shrugs. “They’re different for everyone. I choose to be here.”

I hesitate. “Did you meet him? The Shadow Man?”

She pushes the hair out of her eyes. “Of course. We all do, sooner or later.” Her gaze sweeps the diner, her attention already gone from me.

“Good luck,” I say, and she nods, distracted by the arrival of one of my regulars.

Mandy hops onto my shoulder, and I make myself walk across the diner, every step a wrench. It’s hard to leave. How many lifetimes have I spent here, serving the dead?

I push open the door, filled with a mixture of dread and anticipation.

The sky is a vast black bowl filled with white spears of light. So many stars, all unfamiliar to me. I step out, letting the door swing closed behind me, and turn in place, trying to orient myself.

Multiple roads radiate from the diner. Some have a streetlight; others are shrouded in darkness. An unseen boat laps against a ghostly river. In the distance, massive shapes loom against the blackness of the night. Mountains? A lone light shines at the top of the highest one. Another diner? A bar? A teahouse? A library? Or a haunted inn? Goosebumps prickle my skin at the possibilities.

Get a move on, says Mandy. I’d be dying of boredom if I weren’t already dead.

I pick a road to the mountain and take my first step away from Amma’s Kitchen. My heart feels like it will burst inside my chest.

I am no longer Amma. That role has passed to someone else. I am Mira, and I am here, out on the afterlife road, where I belong.

Born and raised in India, Rati Mehrotra now lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of the science fantasy novels Markswoman (2018) and Mahimata (2019) published by Harper Voyager. Her YA fantasy debut novel Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove was published in October 2022 by Wednesday Books. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for The Sunburst Award, nominated for The Aurora Award, and has appeared in multiple venues including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Podcastle, Cast of Wonders, and AE – The Canadian Science Fiction Review. Find out more about her at ratiwrites.com or follow her on Twitter @Rati_Mehrotra.

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after the summer we harvested pumpkins,
child-sized, glossy-skinned pumpkins,
apricot-gold.
were they exceptional?
were they sweeter, or fatter?
shouldn’t they have been?
how else would a stream
pay a debt?

but there was no magic—they were only
pumpkins,
good for carving and pie,
this is only the truth:
a flood came and went,
we planted a garden,
we picked what it grew,
the world was ordinary—

except that the moon, when it rose,
after the ruin,
was orange, stuffed with white seeds,
and my sister, when she told the flood story,
said the brook had crawled up
like it was alive
—wet elbows and knees,
silt eyes, pebbles for teeth—
and all we could say was
no, no it didn’t
have teeth

Grace Cahill holds a B.A. in English from Castleton University. She is from Vermont, but currently lives in rainy northeast Scotland. “flood fish/pumpkin moon” is her first published work. Grace is always lurking and sporadically active on Twitter, @gracewords.

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