My oldest memory is not my own.

I can imagine the part I played in it, feet rooted to the floorboards and arms rigid by my sides. Aunt Luce would have guided my hand towards the dead man’s forehead before stepping aside. Then, she’d squeeze her fingers together, moulding her anxiousness like clay. She did that a lot in the beginning.

I hope I shivered or retched—or something normal—as I laid my fingers on his cold skin. I doubt I rolled my eyes like I do now, whenever the workload piles up as the extra bodies roll in from the Living Kingdoms. Those clients often don’t have a good reason to investigate a passing, just gold and a fascination with our foreign magic. I wish Aunt Luce would turn them away.

I would have touched the dead man’s skin, but I don’t remember that part. Not really. What stuck is what happened next: a vision I would never forget. My very first descent into a life’s last moments.

Acrid smoke. Bubbling vats. Red-stained lights.

Oh, I do enjoy the view! My fingers grip the railing of a grated balcony, wrinkles and liver spots mapping a lifetime across my skin. My bones rattle with age, and yet I stand tall. Proud. I have a job to oversee, and for the queen, no less. Pride and guilt lace my spine upright as the potion distillery chugs on, ever reliable.

I grit my teeth as pretty blond curls bounce across the factory floor and then behind the machinery. My newest worker is hiding behind the piping again, probably rolling damned spices. This will contaminate the batch! My livelihood—and hers, if she had any sense—wasted, before my eyes, and for what? A couple of puffs that make your head spin?

Anger fastens my knuckles because I knew better than to hire a friend’s troubled daughter. She has a knack for brewing, he told me. A gift that can disintegrate rot from old ingredients. Ten a penny, round these parts, but I’d softened to their plight. Now I’ll likely fire her, and what will come of our friendship?

Off balance, and tired, and just so frustrated by it all, the anger builds in my knuckles until—snap!

The railing collapses, threatening to fall to the workers below. I haul the old metal backwards in the nick of time. The bars crush me, only scattering mere flakes of rust on the workers below. Phew.

My body tangles with the old railing. I laugh as some of the workers look up at me with grateful, wide eyes. Silly things, they seemed concerned! I’m not that old yet. I…

Sliding out from under the railing, I touch my stomach, and my hand is wet. Without pain, I can’t fathom the red on my fingertips. I don’t want to.

Oh no.

Oh heavens, oh no.

Daring to glance down, a patch of red blossoms brighter and brighter. A slat must have broken into a dagger and torn through me. How stupid, stupid, stupid. This will get infected—and how deep? It doesn’t hurt much until I try to move, and then it hurts a whole hell.

Another wave of pain—

Letting go of the dead man’s hand, my mind returned. No longer in the potion distillery, I gripped a handful of Aunt Luce’s skirt as she shushed and rubbed my shoulders, releasing the hum of magic knotting my muscles. The man’s liver-spotted fingers were no longer by my sides as they were in the vision. Instead, they were clasped together over the old brewer’s heart. His belly would be stitched whole beneath his fine suit, and a mortician mage would be preserving his form and banishing the smell.

The look Aunt Luce would have given me…I imagine it would have been hopeful. Patient. Maybe even a little unhinged with excitement—that’s just Aunt Luce.

“Accident,” I remembering declaring, and my aunt’s smile swelled. I guess there are fragments of the memory which are my own, but it’s not much. I can’t even remember how I felt as I confirmed my first cause of death. I just knew I had passed the test.

My aunt’s gift runs in me, too.

We would have told the family they were wrong to suspect foul play. We’d have signed the certificate with a sense of pride. The family would have said their goodbyes, knowing it wasn’t a wrongdoing. Nobody had hurt their loved one. Life is enough.

But I don’t remember any of that. My earliest memory is someone else’s anger, regret, and a sharp pain in what very much still felt like my stomach.

Chapter 1: Two Gifts I Never Asked For

A heaviness squirms in my gut like a stirring storm. The steely blue of the manor walls usually offers a calming energy, but today it reminds me more of thunderous clouds. Something isn’t right, even when I tell myself it’s fine.

I carry on my work the best I can, unboxing the fresh batch of certificates and washing the tea tray from the early morning appointment, but there’s something about today that demands to be heard. My limbs are clumsy, my brain foggy, and then a headache gnaws and gnaws…

When I stop busying my hands long enough to glance out the window, the first tinge of amber leaves sparks a memory. Without pause, I seek the kitchen calendar, and I’m right. I had tried my best to forget, but a part of me still knew. Hasn’t let go.

Today is the anniversary of my mum leaving. The day she left the Gravelands and its ‘morbid magic’. The day I messed up and lost everything, including my right leg.

Not everything, I remind myself, just like the Soul Readers taught me. I shouldn’t catastrophise.

Francesca the tabby cat bunts her head against my prosthetic, marking it with her scent. Within a few more minutes, Aunt Luce’s warm hands rest on my shoulder, and she gives a squeeze that jolts me from my memories. She brings me back to the present.

To Blueslate Manor.

“I’m here,” she reminds me.

“I know.”

“And…” she says, drawing out the word before finishing it with the most terrifying words possible: “I have a surprise for you!”

I chuckle awkwardly to banish the nerves and then follow her over squeaky floorboards, past midnight blue wallpaper, and into the preserving room. The vents clatter, and an autumn chill whips round the steel room. A girl with the long face lies still, freshly delivered this morning by our mortician mage.

“Poppy is the surprise?” I ask, pointing to the girl.

“Graves, no! Not today’s platter,” Aunt Luce says, rolling her eyes. “I might have a warped sense of humour but I wouldn’t get you a corpse as a present.”

My eyes dart around the room, still quite nervous of what Aunt Luce might have prepared this time. She eventually waves madly at the side table, so full of sticky notes and jotter pads, I almost miss the point entirely.

A parchment with a lovely teal bow sits atop the mess that is our organisational system. I have no idea what a parchment could mean to me, even as Aunt Luce nods and smiles, brimming with an excitement I’m too nervous to share in.

She places a hand either side of my shoulder and smiles warmly. There’s a copper tone to her tight curls, whereas my hair is straight red fire, just like my mother’s. Although we share the same heart-shaped face and wide cheeks, her nose is flat whereas mine is hooked. We think it’s a trait from my dad’s side, but that’s a secret my mum will take to her grave—and then the Deadcentre soon after. Aunt Luce has theories about my true heritage, but I don’t ask.

She’s always been my dad energy.

“Listen, I know what day this is.”

It’s the day my mother left. It’s the day I lost…

“It’s the day you promised to always look out for me,” I say, filling the silence with words that swell. They close the space between us until we’re embracing. She pulls back, a tear twinkling her eye.

“Goodness, girl. We’re not ready to go there just yet. You haven’t even had your gift.” Once composed, she thrusts the document in my hands and urges me to open it. “I came to realise I can’t just ‘promise’ you the world. People are fallible, as you already know. No, instead I want to contractually oblige it under the flames of the Law. Nothing will ever take it away from you.”

With confusion winning, I unravel the scroll and read out loud.

‘I, Lucinda Graveheart, hereby appoint the role of Death Examiner and an equal share in the property of Blueslate Manor to my astute niece, Nell Tatters.’

An echo of a chuckle takes me. “You’re placing your whole livelihood, estate, heritage, and all the perks that comes it ‘in Tatter’s’?”

“Can’t think of a better place,” she says, kissing the top of my head. She busies herself, tidying up the notes and checking our schedule in the call book, things we both know she doesn’t normally do, all while I stand and stare at the document, my brain buzzing so much it takes me a while to read the next set of terms.  

‘On signing, Nell Tatters will be fully liable for her own judgement while assessing cause of death as well as naming a suitable successor with the required abilities, all accountable under the flames of the Law. Furthermore, Nell Tatters will perform as an equal partner and share equal profits on all Kingdom admissions and King’s requests.’

I shiver at those last words. The king’s requests have always been spontaneous and secretive, like a spot of mould on bread only visible once taking a bite. The thought of answering to him makes me nauseous, but I know Aunt Luce can’t be everywhere at once, even if she’s always been there for me. Always.

“It’s all just legalise, worded the way the king prefers and all that,” Aunt Luce says, unable to contain herself any longer. “It means I’m officially instating you as a fully-fledged Death Examiner. You’ll be able to sign your own certificates and this place will legally be yours as much as it is mine.”

“Oh,” I say to fill the void. The weight of the document stifles me. It’s a simple piece of paper, yet my arms ache from holding it, my eyes tire from reading its words, and the thought of picking up the pen to sign the thing? Exhausting.

“Well?” Aunt Luce says, her smile broader than the sun and just as bright to look at.

“Th-thanks. This is…a lot.”

“Oh, I know you might feel that way, but you’re ready, my dear. You’re eighteen—a legal adult—and you’re doing the job better than I could at your age. You should have the title, the gravitas! And the house if anything were to happen to me, the ground forbid.”

“Do I have to sign it right now?”

“Oh, in your own time, my love. There is no rush.” Grabbing a fountain pen, Aunt Luce runs her thumb over the nib until the ink bleeds. Then she places it in my hands, smudging ink on my arm, before searching high and low, eventually finding a tissue for her fingers. She adds it to the organisational pile.

I can’t articulate my thoughts. They’re spinning, dizzy, and mixed with my emotion in an indecipherable stew. While I can’t figure myself out, I don’t want Aunt Luce to see anything other than a grateful smile, especially when she’s beaming with love and pride so strong.

So I think back to my time with the Soul Readers. I’ve spent many months this year in all type of therapy and rehabilitation, and now I reach for one of the many tools the Soul Readers provided.

Deep breaths. Rhythmically clenching my right hand and releasing it. Listing three things I can see: an ink splodge on the tiled floor, the painting of a hedgerow, and a dead girl, waiting as patiently as ever.

It helps. I think.

“Right, time for me to nip out,” Aunt Luce declares, clapping her hands together. “There’s a mid-morning update about the pending jubilations in the town square. Did you want to get started on Poppy?”

I nod as a reflex. It isn’t long before Aunt Luce is whipping round the room for her keys, her bag, her trusty notepad, and then with the slam of the old front door, she’s gone.

It’s dead quiet without Aunt Luce. Except for my head. My head is always loud.

“All right, let’s do this,” I tell the contract.

Laying the paper against the workbench, pen in hand, I picture signing it. Aunt Luce is right, I’m already doing the job. Blueslate Manor is already my home. The life I’m living right now fits. I will sign the contract and become a certified Death Examiner for the Gravelands forever more. It’s set in stone, even if I can’t seal it in ink.

Fiddling with the locket around my neck, I consider reaching out to my friend Marcy to talk it through. But given Aunt Luce has steered me on this career path for a long time now, Marcy and I have already discussed it to the graves and back.

The final nail in the coffin is when my stomach growls. I can’t sign my soul away on an empty stomach, so I set it aside for now.

I will not be making Aunt Luce proud today.

So, without any meaningful commitment on my part, I turn my focus away from the contract and to the fresh body lying on the slate in front of me. For some twisted reason, she’s easier to look at.

Curly brown hair frames an oblong face. Her eyelids are seized in place by an under-the-lid cap, and her lips are sewn into a peaceful rest, not a stitch to be seen. She’s like a doll, no sign of what happened to her. Our mortician mage really is an artist.

Time to get to work.

Reaching above my head, I grab the steel bar fitted for my mobility, and hoist myself level with the top drawer to swap the contract for a fresh certificate. The premium paper has a clean, fibrous scent infused with the rosemary preserving balm that stains the walls, floorboards, and curtains in the main house. It’s a better smell than the alternative.  

I lower myself effortlessly. My arms are so strong these days, I could snap gravestones. It’s strange to think a year ago they were so weedy they ached after carrying a basket of mushrooms to the village, but I really have adapted well to my missing appendage.

Says my Soul Reader.

With no more distractions, it’s time for the magic to begin. As I reach for the girl’s bare arm, my phantom foot digs its heel into the ground, not that it gets much of a say. Despite how the job makes me feel, I remind myself the overwhelming memories only last for a minute or so. I can do this.

I touch Poppy’s hand.

Stony clifftops. Fresh fish. Gull squawking.

Heart steady, I scan the horizon between the grey clouds and the glistening sea. Waves thrash the cliff below, spraying foam and salt into the air. My sister’s out there, somewhere, choosing the lonely life of a hauling deadreeds and spurntails instead of collecting shells and building sand sculptures. Big sis has moved on.

Wind blasts from behind, combing the sun’s heat from my skin. The sun dives behind the clouds, and the waves whip high, splashing my cheek. My fingers shake a little. Oh. I should have eaten more this morning, but I so wanted to be here when her ship docks.

Another howling gale knocks me akilter. Wow, this wind is furious! How long have I been here, again? My toes edge forwards for balance—and suddenly the ground isn’t beneath me.

I’m at the edge.

Slipping, heels digging—it’s not enough, not enough—

My elbow bashes the steel table. It jolts me free, the memory shattering as my vision returns to the steel room, just in time to catch myself from falling. Not off a cliff, though, just…a little to the side in the preserving room.

Aunt Luce told me yesterday the girl had drowned, but that’s not what her spirit remembers. I had expected her to be on the sandy beach, but instead she was up on the clifftop. And then…blown over by the wind? Even with the recent storm, that can’t be enough for someone to topple off the edge of a cliff. Teeter, yes, but fall? There’s a piece missing.

Did someone push her? Is there a murderer within our village? I doubt it.

One answer is clear. The girl’s heart was calm, her mind steady. I’m almost certain her untimely end wasn’t her choice like her father feared, and that might bring him a slither of comfort. Her last moments didn’t harbour numbness or adrenaline, not until her feet made a mistake. I know death well, and my gut calls ‘accident’, although I haven’t ruled out someone else’s intervention…

Did I feel pressure on my back when I lived through her?

Um, did I?

I sink down until my head is against the cold table and let out an overdue sigh. I don’t know her cause of death, which means I’m going to have to relive it.

Again and again.

Until my heart aches and all I can see when I close my eyes is death.

Urgh. I might not enjoy the job, but that doesn’t mean I’ll half-arse it. That’s even if I slip on the job and full-arse it.

Reaching for the dead girl’s skin, I curl my fingers into a fist just shy of her arm, not ready to relive her last moments—especially not before lunch. So I clean the worktops, reorganise my whitling tools, and start a shopping list. Anything, but what I’m supposed to be doing.

Another hour of avoidance, and the door slams. The house rattles, awoken by the intrusion. Aunt Luce must be home. No mere customer enters with such gusto, but is it good gusto? My stomach swells with dread at the thought of either. She gets excited about new ‘clients’ whereas I feel sick. She growls and rants at the orders from high court whereas I shrink under the pressure. It’s better to hear a partial rattle of the door when she returns, but today seems to have hit a nerve.

“The Hero of Kindlewood has done it again!” Aunt Luce announces as I round the corner into the living room. Her eyes gleam like polished topaz that matches the warm tones of her skin.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“The hero just north of here.”

I nod. Frown. “Who?”

Aunt Luce tuts and rolls her eyes, her excitement undamaged as she hugs me. She brings with her the scent of pine and wet grass, and I know where she’s stopped off this morning—or I should say, whom she’s stopped off with. Aunt Luce has a soft spot for the gravedigger, and the feeling seems to be mutual.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aunt Luce says, pulling back and waving her hands around emphatically. “The chimera, your chimera, is no more. The Hero of Kindlewood has slain the beast, and it will not be returning for your other appendages, no matter how much you dangle yourself in front of them.”

It’s a strange sentence—not the second one, that’s just Aunt Luce’s humour—but the first. “Technically, it’s the late queen’s chimera. Just because it took my leg doesn’t mean I own it.”

“You feed a stray, it becomes yours,” Aunt Luce jokes, and we share in a grin. Her humour might be dark, but I’d rather laugh than cry, and those tend to be the options. “Besides, once they get a taste, they lock on. You weren’t truly safe until this afternoon, my dear. Now I can rest in peace. For your second gift of the day, I hereby lift your curfew.”

A smile eases from me as she turns to stoke a fire in the hearth. The house warms when Aunt Luce comes home in more ways than one. She quirks a brow over her shoulder at me. “Will you return to your youthly noctambulations?”

I chuckle. “My night walks?” I say, thinking of my friend Marcy. We used to walk around the village past sunset, enjoying the stars and venting freely about school and crushes and dreams of travelling, but of course, that stopped after the attack. Now I’m comfortable in my prosthetic and have finished therapy, not to mention losing my tasty snack status, it’s probably time to slip back into a normal routine, like a body into a grave.

“Are we sure? About the chimera?” I ask as Aunt Luce hangs a kettle of water over the fire. Got to make sure, after all.

She ticks the parts of the reanimated monster off her fingers. “Red eyes, antlers, a bear’s head, wolf’s body, and a snake’s tail. It was a snake’s tail, right? Not many of those around these days.”

“No, they didn’t work out well, did they?”

“Well, snakes aren’t meant for tails,” she says, pouring the boiling water into a teapot. “Sends the whole beast out of sorts, poor things. The palace really is full of idiots.”

I gnaw my lip, replaying the list of features in my head. Once a chimera tastes human blood, it’s eyes glow red and its hostile nature kicks in, as designed by the late queen. Although the prototypes are variable in temperament, I’ve seen many red eyes on warning posters. The other features are more specific, but it’s hard to picture ‘my chimera’ subdued. It really wasn’t well in itself.

It’s fine. Probably. And probably is enough for now. Right?

“Shall we make sure?” Aunt Luce asks, glancing at me from the corner of her eye as she stirs the pot, almost like she can hear my thoughts. The gleam in her eyes promises adventure as she hands me a brew. Tea was the first thing she gave me after my mum left, and I’ve accepted a cuppa ever since, despite not really enjoying the taste. She drops her voice low and says, “Let’s visit the beast.”

The teacup is hot in my hand and the fire grazes my cheeks, yet those words freeze me to the core.

I don’t want adventure. I just want lunch.

Aunt Luce brushes my cheek, and I thaw, enough to place the cup down on the side table. It’s where a mottled patch of skin marks my face, a birthmark very similar to her own. The gesture reminds me of every time she’s stood by my side. How we share the same magic, and how she promised to help me stay strong. We’re in this together. Neither of us say it, but we feel it. It’s a connection more beautiful than words or magic.

I recite my options, just to be sure: relive falling into the sea, sign my life over to death, or visit the beast that…that took my leg. I’m avoiding too many things, I can’t outwit them all, but with Aunt Luce by my side, maybe I can face one of them.

“Okay, fine, let’s do it.”

“That’s the spirit, my girl.”