"Yes," he replied to her, and she took in a deep breath. It wasn't because he knew people in and around this place like the white witch or the oracle, but he knew many things because he came from the land of the dead, "Give me a moment," he said to her.
She saw him pick up the shovel and start pus.h.i.+ng the mud into the hollow pit where the dead man laid. Raindrops had started to pitter-patter down the sky, and Lucas looked at Barron, "Take her inside."
Barron only hoped by this conversation that Lucas was not going to reap him along with the rest of the creatures who had shown up at the Adams' residence.
The rabbit himself was getting drenched, and soon his body would turn heavy and hard to move because of the soaked cotton. He looked up at the girl who looked at Lucas and then at the grave before walking back inside the mansion with the rabbit following her trail.
Stepping back inside the mansion, she made her way into the parlour room and started the fire. Once it was burning enough, she took a seat on the couch. She remembered what Lucas had told her recently when she had questioned him why he wasn't willing to accept her feelings for him. He had spoken something about him going at night and killing people.
Barron walked inside the room.
Now that the lady already knew about him, there was no reason for him to play dead, but the lady also had come to know about what they were. Very slowly, he walked around the chairs, and he got on one of them to take a seat before he decided to sit quietly without moving.
"Are you a reaper too?" Belle asked the rabbit, who had not been expecting a question from her. The rabbit stared at her, "I know you have been in the rabbit for some time."
Barron snapped his rabbit neck to look at her. She knew?! She knew her stuffed rabbit was possessed, and she was calm about it?
Well if she knew, thought Barron to himself, he got down from the chair and went near the fireplace to dry himself up with the heat that was being produced. He cleared his throat and said, "Yes, I am a reaper. I am Barron the Fourth card of the Grims. The reaper who brings plague and illness. Who kills people without-" he stopped talking, not wanting to give out more information when he realized what he just said to her. If he spoke more, the girl would come to question him, and therefore he stopped his sentence abruptly.
By the time Lucas had arrived back after burying the man in the mansion, the rain had started to pour from the sky, and instead of being wet, the man appeared to be dry and crisp as if not a single drop of water had fallen on him.
As he entered the room, Lucas saw Belle, who was seated on the chair while Barron was waving his hands in front of the fire. A little push and the rabbit would turn to ashes.
Belle saw Lucas walked towards her with a gla.s.s of blood and he handed it to her.
It was slightly hard to believe that the creatures she had been running away for some time now, Lucas belonged to the same form. Her mind was numb to ask more questions, therefore, she drank the warm blood that he had got for her.
"No questions?" Lucas asked her and her eyes went up to meet his eyes.
Belle let go of the gla.s.s that she was slowly sipping on to place it at the side. She opened her mouth while trying to frame the right questions to be asked, "You are a reaper," she repeated her question and he gave her a nod, "How long?"
"For years," that didn't answer her question but it seemed that she was right. He was old, way too old. If her memories served her right, Lucas was not supposed to be here and even the rabbit named Barron who had introduced himself as Barron the reaper. Lucas had lied about the rabbit and he had hidden his ident.i.ty for many years. At least since he had started to work here.
"What are you doing here?" she asked the main question that was biting in her mind right now. As happy she was to have Lucas next to her side, she couldn't stop wondering why a death reaper would be living in the land of the living when his actual home was in the land of the dead.
Barron who was standing in front of the fire didn't dare to turn around and instead, he decided to sit down in front of the fire.
"How did you end up here?" she asked him. Was it because she was the alignment of stars which was why he had come to protect her? "Did you know I was part of the prophecy?" she asked him.
"I came to know it very recently. I didn't know you would be part of the fated stars," answered Lucas to her, "The land of the dead is similar to the living, a reflection of what exists here but in a darker kind of life which is beyond the living. When you were young, you often fell sick because there were creatures called as the scavengers who had taken home in this mansion, eating you soul which is why half of your soul resides in the land of the dead," he explained to her, "I happened to stick around for certain reasons."
"Is it allowed?"
Instead of Lucas answering her question, it was Barron who turned around while getting up and said, "Of course, it is not allowed!"
