Managing Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

the door. I sigh. It’ll have to do. Still no one has said a word. I turn around: a dozen pairs of eyes flick this way and that.
    ‘Don’t you all have work to do?’
    A phone rings. Someone starts typing away furiously. A stapler snap, snap, snaps.
    I enter the hallway, suddenly I need to pee. But I can’t, I have to stay on the path.
    No turning back now.

3
    T he hallway creaks and groans, echoing the One Tree. Two, three steps in and the sounds of phones ringing, the beating of hearts, the snap of staplers grow muted. Then there’s just silence, but for that creaking and groaning. The brown carpet ripples in sympathy with a floor that buckles with the stress of keeping a link between dimensions. It’s hard to stay on your feet here, but I do my best, and I don’t need to grab a wall to steady myself.
    My right biceps starts burning. I take a few more steps and Wal pushes his way out from under my shirt sleeve. He flaps his wings and grins at me.
    ‘Hello again,’ he says, then his eyes widen. His little head swings from left to right. ‘Bugger, wasn’t expecting this.’ His voice is low and quiet.
    Neither was I. The last time I walked down this hallway, about a month ago, Wal didn’t appear. Something’s happening that shouldn’t. Just another thing to disturb me. At least I have company. Wal settles down on my shoulder and considers the walls and the rippling floor, his face pinched with distaste.
    The closer I get to Neti’s door, the heavier Wal gets. There’s a subtle hint in the air of scones freshly baked; of butter, jam and cream. Aunt Neti’s expecting company.
    I reach her front door and lift my hand towards the brass knocker which is shaped like a particularly menacing spider.
    The door swings open.
    ‘Good morning, dear,’ Aunt Neti says. Her eyes dart towards Wal, and the little guy almost topples from my shoulder. ‘Oh, and you’ve brought a friend with you, and not your rude Ankou, this time. How sweet.’
    Seeing Neti is like looking at an iceberg and knowing there are immeasurable depths beneath it. More than nine-tenths, I’m betting. And she’s terrifying enough as it is. Aunt Neti is all long limbs and bunches of eyes – eight of each. A purple shawl is wrapped around her shoulders. She straightens it a little, with a spare hand or two, and bends down to peck me on the cheek. Her lips are cold and hard, and the peck so swift and forceful that I’m sure I’ll have bruises tomorrow.
    Aunt Neti bustles me inside, all those hands patting and pushing and pulling at once, so I’m not quite sure what she’s touching, just that I’m being moved from doorway to parlour and that my pockets hold no secrets from her. Her nails are black and sharpened to points, and they click click click with her pinching and prodding. It’s all done before I can even put up a struggle. I’ve gotta say it’s not that much of a stretchto imagine that’s how a fly would feel as it’s spun and bound in spider’s silk.
    She shuts the door behind her. Wal’s keeping away from those hands, though at least a couple of her eyes follow him. And I’m making the decision that you always have to make when you’re talking to her: which eyes do you look at? I choose a bunch in the middle of her face. The ones with the most smile lines. They’re crinkling now.
    ‘Sit down, sit down.’ Neti gestures towards one of a pair of overstuffed chairs set across from each other, a low table between them.
    As we sit in her parlour, I keep to the edge of my seat – as though that would save me. The room is tiny and cosy, the walls papered with an old damask design. The paper’s peeling in one corner and a tiny spider has webbed the gap between wall and curling edge. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s staring at me. And those eyes are no less hungry than Aunt Neti’s.
    There are two plates on the table. On both there are crumbs, and butter knives, covered with jam as red as arterial blood. And my seat is