What if they weren't set up by Audrey? What if they were, in actuality, a creepy cult that seriously believed I was going to marry a complete stranger simply because my book had an odd bookmark?
"Oh, crap," I swore, telling my brain to stop thinking and start making my legs move. I bolted down the street, spinning around a corner into a darker street, hoping to lose Mattias despite the fact that he was much more fit than me, not to mention probably quite familiar with the town.
I dashed around tidy trash cans, emerging into a lit street, screaming at the sudden noise of an approaching car slamming on its brakes and squealing to a stop a few feet away. I didn't wait to apologize, just gathered my tattered wits and sped across the remainder of the street and into a twisty narrow passage that ran between two tall stone buildings.
A man's voice called out behind me. Damn that long-legged Mattias. I was already out of breath and had a suspicious pain in my side that warned of a stitch.
"Please let me get away, please let me get away," I chanted in time to my pounding footsteps as I ran blindly through the still empty town, my brain squirreling around frantically for some way to escape Mattias. I had to double back somehow. That would surely throw him.
As I emerged from behind a different church, I spied a narrow set of stairs that led down to a small landing beneath the entrance. I flung myself down it and hunkered beneath the cement bridge that spanned the area, my back plastered against the cold stone. I covered my mouth to silence the sounds of labored breathing.
A few seconds later, a shadow flashed on the ground next to me, paused for a moment, then flickered past me toward the main square. I counted to ten, holding my breath, until black spots threatened to dance before my eyes. Cautiously I crawled out of my hiding spot and peered over the edge of the railing toward the street, my lungs wheezily drawing in much-needed oxygen.
People were starting to appear from the direction of the park, some heading for cars, others going to the central square, where sounds of a band warming up could be heard. "The fireworks must be over," I mused aloud, "which means if I stay put, there will be a lot of people I can use as cover. That sounds smart."
"Excuse me, could you help us?"
At the soft voice behind me, I whirled around, clutching at the railing as my heart just about jumped out of my chest for the second time in an hour. "Holy cheese and crackers! You almost scared… me… to… uh…"
The two people who stood before me, at first glance, were nothing to make a mature, reasonably intelligent woman turn into a babbling fool, but that's just what happened. The man and woman were clearly a couple, because the woman, petite, with big, soulful eyes, clung to the man's arm as she peered up at me from under the low brim of a hat I vaguely remembered was called a cloche. She was wearing a low-waisted dress, while he was in an old-fashioned-looking suit and a fedora. But what had me stammering to a startled stop was the fact that the two of them were translucent, almost transparent, an odd bluish sort of glow about them as if they were made up of the ghostly images sometimes seen on old TVs.
The word "ghost" reverberated around in my head with growing intensity.
"We're lost. Can you help us?" the woman said, glancing up at her man.
"Uh." Hesitantly, I held out my hand, the hairs on my arm standing on end as my fingers reached the man's arm and passed right through it with only a tiny tingle.
"We were on a ship," the man said, looking around him. "We were going to Canada. But now we're lost, and we don't know where we're supposed to be going. You are the one who is supposed to help us, aren't you?" the man asked, a doubtful look on his translucent face.
"You're… not real," I said slowly, trying to understand what was going on. "Are you?"
"I am Karl. This is my wife, Marta. We were on a ship," the ghostly man said again. "What happened to it?"
"Karl, I'm afraid," the woman whimpered, pressing herself closer to her husband. "Maybe she is the other one."
I blinked in dumb astonishment. "I'm Pia, and frankly, I'm a bit confused."
"There's nothing to be afraid of," Karl told his wife, obviously trying to appear brave for her benefit. His expression continued to indicate that he was anything but calmly confident. "You are the reaper, aren't you? The old woman said there would be someone in town to show us the way. She said we'd know you by the light you carry." He gestured toward my hand.
I looked down in even more astonishment. The stone-bedecked bookmark that I'd looped around my wrist while I made my escape from Mattias had somehow morphed into a small lantern shaped like a crescent moon. It dangled like a charm from my wrist, and from it, a gentle glow illuminated the area immediately around me. "All right. This is going way beyond weird or possibly a mental condition, into the land of… well, I don't know quite what land it is. Maybe the unbelievable? Regardless, I'm not quite sure what to tell you. I don't think I'm the grim reaper—at least no one has informed me of anything like that," I said with a forced little laugh that sounded hollow.
"She doesn't seem to be anxious to help us," Marta said, a sob in her voice. "What are we going to do? What if the evil one comes?"
As if on cue, Mattias appeared briefly at the end of the street. I ducked down until I could just barely see him. He stood for a moment in indecision, quickly scanning the front of the church and the street before he made a right turn and hurried off down a cross street.
"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what it is you want me to do for you. You say an old lady told you to find me? Did she say her name?" I asked, wondering if the woman at the church could have sent the pair after me.
"She was on the ship. She said she would stay there, where her son was, but that we should go ashore and the reaper would show us the way. She said we'd know you by your light, and that there might be another one, an evil one, who did not have a light. You do have a light," Karl pointed out.
"Yeah, and I'm not quite sure how that happened, but given the present situation, I think maybe I'll just move past that point. Where exactly did you need directions to? I'm a stranger here, myself, and don't know too many of the local spots, although I do have a good map."
The couple squatted down next to me as I pulled out the detailed map I had for the area.
"We were going to Canada. To Halifax, to be with Marta's brother and his family," Karl said as they peered at my map.
I glanced at their period clothing, and bit my lower lip for a moment. "Would you mind me asking you when you were on the ship? What… er… what year was it?"
"It was 1922," Karl answered quickly, looking puzzled. "Why?"
I reached out to touch the lapel of his coat. Just as before, my hand met no resistance and passed right through him. "I hate to tell you this, but I don't think your ship made it to Canada. I have a suspicion that it might have wrecked offshore of Iceland, and you're… well, you're ghosts."
"Karl," Marta said in a near wail, grabbing her husband's arm again. "She is not the good one. She is Ilargi!"
"Shhh!" I hissed, peeping over the edge of the railing to see if Mattias had come back. The street, luckily, was clear. "I'm not anything other than really confused."
"Now, love, don't panic," Karl said, patting her hand. "She is a reaper, not Ilargi. We just need to convince her we're worthy of her help."
"Oh, you don't have to convince me of that. I can see you're a very nice couple, and I'm really sorry to have to be the one to break it to you that you're… er… life challenged. And I would help you if I could, but I really don't think I'm the person you're looking for."