Necromancer: A Novella

An introduction to
Death & Waffles
, by Lish McBride

I wrote
Death & Waffles
when I was still in school getting my masters in fiction, which just goes to show you that some homework can be fun. This story came from my last year of classes, when I was finally at the point with my writing where I thought it would be good to let the weird out onto the page. Luckily I had a very patient instructor who didn’t mind getting this story along with a short about a unicorn death match and some third story that I’ve already forgotten, but I’m sure is languishing in my office somewhere.

Death & Waffles
was one of those tales that came about because I had a very strong image of the characters, Ashley and Matt, walking into a diner. Something about a young girl in saddle shoes working for death and being in a bright and shiny diner appealed to me, and I built the story around that image. I was working on the draft of what would become
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
at the time and, well, Ashley was just too much fun to leave in one short story, especially when she so easily fit into the novel. She continues to be one of my favorite characters to write, and I hope she becomes one of your favorite characters to read.

In the novel, we only really get to see the side of Ashley that she presents to the world, but in this short story, the reader is given the chance to observe a different side of her. Through Matt, a close childhood friend, we get about as near to the warm and fuzzy side of Ashley as I think anyone might get. She’s a feisty little nut to crack, that’s for sure. I hope you enjoy
Death & Waffles
as much as I do.

Death and Waffles: A Story

by Lish McBride

The sharp rapping of knuckles on my window pane woke me up. I’d like to say the noise surprised me, but Ashley had been showing up a lot lately. I rolled out of bed and walked over to the window.

“Matt,” she hissed, teeth flashing in a fierce and happy way, “open up.”

I stopped in front of the window, arms crossed. “Does it matter if I do?”

“It shows you’ve got some manners, jerk-wad.”

I sighed and flipped the latch so she could open the window and crawl in. She seized me in a hug the instant her feet hit my floor. Ash had always been affectionate to the point of exuberance. At least, she’d always been that way toward me. She said my family didn’t hug enough.

“C’mon, get your coat on,” she said after she’d let go of me and collapsed onto my bed. “And ditch the pj’s.”

I pulled some jeans on over my boxers and searched around in my drawer for a clean sweatshirt. The weather hadn’t turned to snow this week, but that didn’t keep the cold from hanging around. I finally grabbed my gray sweatshirt off the floor, deciding it was more clean than filthy.

“Hurry up, blondie,” she said. Ash swung her feet back and forth, saddle shoes flashing as they caught the moonlight.

“Do I even want to know where we’re going?”

“Probably not. But I want waffles and fries, and you’re my ticket to a night free of harassment. For some reason, a little girl alone in a diner at night is questioned.”

“Good to know I’m useful.”

Ash shrugged, an easy roll of shoulders. Her shrugs had always been graceful. Mine looked more like shoulder spasms.

I pulled on my hiking boots and grabbed my keys off my nightstand.

“Finally,” she said.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I jerked my chin toward her getup. Tonight, Ashley wore the tartan skirt, white button-up, and sweater of some Catholic school. I knew for a fact that she’d never once set foot in any private school, Catholic or otherwise.

She cocked her head to the side and raised one sable brow. “Like what?”

“Jacket,” I said.

“Oh come on, Matt. It’s not like I get cold.”

“You wanna blend, right?”

She huffed out a dramatic sigh and snapped her fingers. Ash became instantly wrapped in a large parka. She was nothing if not practical.

I looked at her dark pigtails, each one tied with shiny red ribbon. “What, no hat?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Fine,” I said, walking softly through the hallway even though I knew my parents wouldn’t wake up. They’d have to be home for that. Ash didn’t bother trying to be quiet. In fact, she skipped down the hall.

“Mom at a conference?”

“Yeah,” I said, “New York, I think. I forget exactly.”

“Where’s daddy dearest?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

My dad had stopped taking interest in me as soon as he figured out I wouldn’t be following in his footsteps in pretty much any way. Not in his love for baseball, not in his vocation as an architect, and certainly not in his frequent skirt-chasing. I guess my ability to see women as people and not disposable sort of killed any last chance we had. Pity.

By the time he realized my savings fund was for a new camera and not a sweet sixteen hot rod of some sort, I knew we’d never really understand each other. I cared more about taking pictures than cruising. To me, cars were a method to get from point A to point B, period. Dad just shook his head and muttered, a little disgusted. Mom bought me the Toyota so I could get to school when she was away and ignored the rest.

I unlocked the front door and waved Ash through. “And what’s with the snapping thing? Don’t you think that’s just a little cheesy in a sort of I Dream of Genie way?”

“She nodded her head.”

“Fine, Bewitched then.”

“She twitched her nose. Besides, I’m not a witch.”

“I know,” I said, “but don’t you sometimes wish you were?”

Ash laughed but didn’t answer.

I’d always been able to make Ash laugh. That seems like a simple thing to take joy from, but for me it was rare. Other kids made it look so easy. Not just laughing, but talking, playing, hanging out. I wasn’t good at it when I was five, and I’m even worse at it now at seventeen. The only time I ever got it right was with Ash. For some reason, she didn’t make me anxious. Didn’t make me feel like any second I was going to trip over my own shoe and embarrass myself forever. Maybe it was because, even then, she had the uncanny ability to not just accept, but glory in her own shortcomings.

When I first met Ash she’d moved into a place a few houses down, and even though she’d only been there two weeks, she always had someone to play with. I’d lived in that neighborhood for most my life, yet I usually had to be both Batman and the Joker. There never seemed to be anyone around to fill the other parts. I didn’t mind, I was used to it really, but it was always kind of hard to capture myself and beat myself up all while I was doing the Joker’s evil monologues.

One day I looked up from my new Batmobile toy, and there she was. The sun was behind her, so all I could see were inky pigtails and freckles.

“What do you got?” she asked.

“Batmobile,” I said.

“Well, duh. I meant what one? That one looks different than mine.”

“Oh.” Even at six I was old enough to know that different was bad. “I don’t know,” I said. “One of the old ones, I guess. My mom found it at a yard sale.”

“Cool,” she said. “We should build a bat cave.”

After that, I always had someone to play the Joker. At least, until she died from cancer four years later. I put all my Batman toys in a box after that and put the box under my bed, and that’s where they stayed until she started showing up again a few years ago. Then I began to find Batman under my pillow, Batman in my underwear drawer, and-my own personal favorite-Batman and Joker in compromising positions in the Batmobile. I found that one a little disturbing. Mostly because the last time I’d seen my Batmobile it had been in Ash’s coffin.

I let my car warm up for a few minutes. I sat huddled in my sweatshirt, hunched over the steering wheel, doing my best to collapse in on myself for warmth. Ash breathed on the windows and drew little stars in the fog. I wished I could ignore the elements like she could, but then I supposed she’d paid the price for her little benefits.

“Can we go now?” she asked.

“You’re not working tonight, are you?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Would it matter if I was?”

I released the brake and backed out of the driveway.

Ash, or Death as some probably called her, pushed open the door to the diner, her saddle shoes making clacking noises on the floor, her pigtails bobbing with her excited movements. Okay, Ash wasn’t Death-death, but she was as close to it as I had come. Still, I’ve always wondered if people are surprised when they see her instead of the traditional Death with the scythe. Are they disappointed? Relieved? I looked around at the people in the diner: some travelers, a random trucker, a couple groups of kids in all black, a rowdy group who’d obviously come from a bar, and a handful of couples out for a late meal. Did they know, on some level, that my Catholic-schoolgirl-looking companion was a harbinger of death? Nobody screamed and pointed, so I guess not.

We pressed ourselves into a booth, the vinyl making a slick sliding noise as we moved to the end. I wasn’t that hungry, so I just got coffee and a piece of lemon meringue pie, even though I felt that, given the circumstances, a meringue was just too cheery. There is something almost optimistic about a slice of lemon meringue pie. I’m not sure why. Is it the bright yellow or the fluffy white topping? But I didn’t trust the cherry pie, and bread pudding just freaks me out because I can’t imagine bread as a part of a dessert, so I had to go with the lemon. Ash ordered waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, with a side of chili cheese fries. I’d blame the odd mix on her being dead, but she ate like this when she was alive.

“Hey, Ash?”

“Yes?” She didn’t look up from the creamers she was building into a pyramid.

“I know you can’t really tell me, you know, about your job, but are people ever let down by you? I mean, because they don’t get actual Death killing them?”

Ash looked up from her creamer stack. “I don’t kill anyone, Matt. Heart attacks, old age, an un-chewed hot dog-those things kill people. I’m just their guide.”

“Sorry.”

“Sometimes. I mean, most people are relieved to see me. Death is scary, and I’m not very intimidating. On the other hand, sometimes it takes people longer to believe that they’re dead because of it. Some people don’t care. Others have such a fixed idea-they expect the bright light and the tunnel, or pearly gates and a cloud, and I don’t look like either of those things.”

The waitress dropped off my coffee, and I stole the top of Ash’s pyramid for my cup. I stirred slowly, watching the white of the creamer take the edge off the darkness.

“So, no pearly gates, huh?”

She smiled and put her chin in her hands. “I didn’t say that. I just said they weren’t expecting to see me first.”

“You don’t find it depressing? Being Death?”

“I already told you, I’m not Death.”

“Fine, a psychopomp then.”

“Actually, we’re generally called Harbingers now. Most people don’t even know what a psychopomp is, so management called a meeting and changed our titles.”

“Wow, even when you’re dead they have boring meetings. Good to know.”

The waitress brought out our orders, but they were out of the strawberries so Ash had to eat her waffle plain. The frazzled-looking waitress seemed apologetic, so Ash accepted her food with a “that’s all right,” and a “thanks.”

We talked for a few minutes about nothing really: movies, books, whatever. It didn’t matter what we chatted about, it felt good to have someone to talk to. Ash had only gotten about a fourth of the way through her fries and one bite of her waffle when she jumped a little in her seat. I hadn’t even started my pie. I’d been too busy talking. Chances for me to have conversations were rare.

Ash pulled out a BlackBerry and started typing away on it. She sighed.

“You have to go, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, Matt.” She looked down regretfully at her food. “She’s early.” She gave another heavy sigh. “I didn’t even get to finish my waffles.”

“Where do you have to go?” I asked.

She didn’t look up.

“It’s here?” Leave it to Ash to be pragmatic, even in choosing her waffle joints.

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t think-”

“Can I come with you?”

She blinked at me-surprised, I think.

I knew, theoretically, what she did, but I had never seen it. I wasn’t sure I was allowed, and I’d never had interest in accompanying her before. In fact, I’d always been a little repulsed by the idea. No, not repulsed, scared. I’d like to say I was trying to face my fear, but in reality I think I just wanted to stay with her a little longer. Or maybe I couldn’t handle that Ash had a separate life I’d never seen. I felt a little guilty when I realized that, if our places had been switched, she would have asked much sooner than I had.

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “You can come.” She rubbed her mouth and chin with her hand, an adult gesture that sat weird on her. “For the collection anyway. I can’t take you where I’m going.”

“Okay.”

We both slid out of the booth. I waited for a second while Ash finished typing something on her BlackBerry. Then she flipped it shut and I followed her back to the bathroom. She walked right into the ladies’ room, the yellow door swinging behind her. I paused for a second, a built-in hesitation about entering the girls’ bathroom. Then I went in.

The room continued the overly cheery yellow of the door. The walls were yellow, the counters were made of a yellow tile, and the stalls were yellow. Only the sinks, floor, and ceiling were white. I once heard that yellow was a color of aggression and that restaurants only used it so that people wouldn’t linger. I guess the diner didn’t want people to hang out in their bathroom.

Ash was at the back by the third stall, waiting for me. Once I caught up, she knocked on the door.

“Marjorie?” she asked.

“Yes?” came a muffled reply.

“Marjorie Anne Clausen, wife of Harold, mother of Todd and Judy?”

“Yes, but how did you know that?”

Ash didn’t answer but continued. “Marjorie Clausen of 1342 West Highland?”

“Why, yes. Do I know you?”

“No, ma’m,” Ash said, “you don’t.”

She gently pushed the door open and revealed Marjorie sitting on the floor. It was the same frazzled waitress who’d served us a few minutes ago. She had slouched to the floor but looked exactly the same as earlier except for a few smudges and wrinkles on her uniform. She brightened when she saw Ash.

“Oh, it’s you, dear. The waffles.” She smiled, revealing a few off-white teeth.

Ash nodded. “It’s time to go, Marjorie.”

“Call me Marge, please. And go where? I’m right in the middle of a double shift.”

“Not anymore you’re not,” Ash said. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I hate it when they don’t know.” She squatted down so she could look into Marge’s eyes. “You know that heart arrhythmia the doctor told you not to worry about?”

Marge nodded, a confused look on her face.

“Well, you should have worried.”

“But he said it was just stress,” Marge said.

Ash shrugged. “Not to be insensitive, but you should have gotten a second opinion.” She held out her hand. “You need to come with me.”

Marge squinted at her hand but didn’t take it. “I don’t think I like you. I’ve changed my mind; you don’t get to call me Marge.”

Ash didn’t answer. She just continued to hold out her hand, like a mother waiting patiently for a child to stop throwing a tantrum. Which seemed weird, since Ash still looked like she was ten and Marjorie had to be in her upper fifties.

Marjorie still wasn’t taking her hand. “You’re too rude to be an angel.” She folded her arms and looked away. “I’m not dead. I feel fine, great even. This is just a stupid prank.” She looked back at Ash suspiciously. “Did the cook put you up to this?”