Find The World’s Magic
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT about how extraordinary our world is? I mean, really thought about it. A spherical world with just the right amount of land and water and just the right temperature (for now, you destructive people) that life is able to flourish on it. It’s sort of hard to believe when you put it like that. And that’s before you really, properly look at it.
There’s a part of the world where lights literally dance across the sky. There is an ocean so deep that part of it has simply never been seen, while caves lie under the ground that twist and turn like the coils of a snake. Stones move on their own across deserts and ice forms structures larger than islands.
When you’re clearing up the dead, it’s easy to forget that such magic exists. But it does. In little pockets across the world it can be found. In the way that spring comes back every year and the way that people continue to come into existence despite the chances being so small. In the way that a whole storm of crabs can all simultaneously migrate to the same place to lay their eggs, and the way that people just quietly accommodate it. Murmurations of starlings, the courting dance of the male puffer fish. The list goes on.
I like to think that we can all find a little bit of magic somewhere in the world. We just have to remember to look.
When Violet and I were small, we made a bucket list. Being eight, we didn’t call it that. We called it our “Non-Negotiable” list. Mum had been using that term with me a lot in regards to homework and ice-skating lessons, so we decided to use it for our means. We made a list of things that we would do one day, no matter what. Number one was move to London (even back then we felt a desperate need to escape the cul-de-sacs of our nondescript town). Number two was join the Spice Girls, which admittedly was a little optimistic for a non-negotiable.
Number three, though, that we thought we could one day achieve. Number three was to visit New York. We both had our reasons: Violet was desperate to visit Broadway and be swept off her feet in Central Park, while I wanted to visit the Public Library, Grand Central Station, see the view from the top of the Empire State Building. We’d grown up being fed all these romanticized scenes of New York in movies and we couldn’t think of somewhere more perfect for us to go together. When we finally moved in to our London flat we started saving up straightaway. All our little bits of loose change were stored in a ceramic Statue of Liberty piggy bank that Mum bought us. One day we were going to go there.
Well, that never happened. To be fair, though, I think that was my doing more than hers. I didn’t give us much time for saving before I cracked my head open and left for the afterlife.
So I wonder if Scout knows how monumental taking me here is, or whether he just thought New York was the sort of city even the dead could feel alive in.
Whatever the reason behind it, we’re here. In New York City. And even when there’s a painful association with Violet attached to it, I can’t quite pull back my wonder. Traffic roars in my ears, huge pavement vents drift steam across my vision, and a nearby cart wafts the smell of hot dogs and pretzels into the air. It’s a million miles away from that tiny, lonely cottage. Here, life hits me, heavy and thick like pollution. It’s everywhere, clinging to my skin and making my head spin. People are all around me, living their lives, texting, chatting, hopping over murky-looking puddles. Doing those little things that I crave so desperately.
“This is amazing!” I exclaim.
Scout sniffs. “Yes, amazing. Amazing how humans can take up so much space.” But then he glances at me and grins. “Kidding. Come on, I know somewhere we can go.”
I follow him, drinking in every little detail around me. The infamous skyscrapers stretch luxuriously into the clouds, and I’ve never felt so small. I like it, though; Scout’s offices seem so tiny, so claustrophobic, even when they wind on forever. You feel as if you’re stuck in an anthill while not being ant-sized. Here I feel tiny and insignificant and it’s wonderful. Wonderful to finally feel like I’m not making a crater-sized impact on somebody’s well-being. I become so lost in the sheer volume of life and the vast complexity of the city that I begin to lag behind until Death impatiently calls my name from ahead.
Hurrying to catch up with my companion, I bump my shoulder against his arm. “So, where are we going? You look like you’re on a mission,” I comment, because he does; he’s paying no attention to his surroundings, except for the street names.
“We’re going somewhere that every self-respecting dead person should visit when they come here.”
My mind fills with a thousand different possibilities. I imagine climbing the Statue of Liberty in the dead of night when there is nobody else to disturb us, or watching the sun rise from the Empire State Building, where the city will sprawl out beneath us and we will have the view to ourselves. But when I voice these ideas to Scout, he laughs outright.
“Not quite. We’re not just tourists, after all. When you come to New York City invisible, the city is completely open to you. Why go visit the tourist traps when there are tiny corners of the city that nobody else gets to see?”
Suddenly, we steer down a small alleyway. I step over a pile of garbage bags, wrinkling my nose as the smell manages to sneak through the barrier of death, into our world, and up my nostrils.
“This looks lovely,” I declare.
He stops at a door, or rather half a door as the other half seems to have been ripped off. “You of little faith,” he tuts, shaking his head. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover?”
“I’m not sure that saying counts if there isn’t even a cover to judge.” I gesture at the half-destroyed door to prove my point, smirking as Scout rolls his eyes. There’s a comfortableness between us once more, which I appreciate. I haven’t completely forgiven him for tugging me back (after all, one could argue that that kiss would never have happened if I had been there still), but I’m willing to put it to one side. I want this to be fun. We could both use a bit of that.
“Just open the door and trust me, OK?” he asks, nodding to the door.
Sighing, I step forward and gingerly pull the half-door open. Inside is a simple staircase, as grimy as you would expect. The second step is cracked, the third step is missing all together. It’s not looking particularly promising.
“Is this some trick? Are you just taking me to a job?”
Scout doesn’t entertain that notion. He squeezes past me and hops nimbly up the steps, somehow managing to avoid the gaps and broken pieces of wood. I am really tempted to turn and go and visit the Statue of Liberty on my own. But I am too curious. Besides, the worst that could happen is I trip and fall to my death and, well, I’ve already done that.
So, with a groan, I start after him. We climb flight after flight of stairs. I count ten and then give up. I would ask about a lift, but this place barely has walls. Finally, we reach the top, which consists of a dead end and a door marked “DO NOT ENTER.”
“How welcoming...”
“Right? Nothing better than a ‘do not enter’ sign,” Scout replies, almost gleefully, as he gestures for me to keep going. Pushing open the door, I step gingerly outside, expecting to see a building site or some sort of hideout for criminals.
But I am pleasantly surprised. And not just because there’s no crime going on or builders demolishing walls. But because I have just stepped into an enchanted world.
It takes me a moment to work out what I’m seeing, as a sparkling, iridescent light is dazzling my eyes. Then my eyes adjust and I realize that the glorious and glittering color I am looking at is being caused by thousands and thousands of pieces of colored glass stuck to the floor of the flat roof. A mosaic of sorts, but there does not seem to be any order to it, just a glorious mess of vivid, glimmering colors. I feel as if I have stepped into an ocean, but an ocean that has been flooded with a paint factory, or merged with the rainbow.
I step out from the gloom of the staircase and let the tiles’ reflection bathe my arms in a blur of different colors. My fingers turn blue while a pink strand snakes up my arm, meeting a slowly twisting starburst of green light settled on my shoulder.
“How...?” I begin, because surely this light should just pass right through me? But Scout gets there first, clearly having read my mind:
“It’s an anomaly. A chink in the world’s armor. For some reason, up here, we are allowed to feel the light of life upon us.”
I want to cry, because my previously deathly pale skin is now a patchwork of color and, what’s more, I feel warmth from the sun seeping into my skin. It’s completely impossible and it’s completely wonderful.
After a few moments, I find myself drifting to the edge of the roof and sitting down, looking out across the city with feet dangling over a stomach-churning drop. Heights have never bothered me particularly and certainly don’t bother me now I’m dead. Especially when there’s a view to admire. We’re not quite high enough to have a full view of the whole city, but I can see the unmistakable flash of green that is Central Park peeping through a gap in the towering buildings and tiny taxis buzzing along the road below. “It’s perfect,” I declare, and I’m treated to a rare noise of approval from Scout.
“I agree. It is. A little slice of perfection in this mad city.”
Scout comes to sit beside me, though he leaves a little gap between us, just like he did in the cottage. An odd sign of respect for the still quietly present divide between us. His legs swing gently over the edge, clearly not bothered by the height either. “How did it get here?” I ask curiously.
“A woman, named Amelia Burtscott. She owned this building about twenty years ago. Had a business making ornate glass bottles, I believe. Her company went bust and she had to sell the building. But before she left, she took all the glass left over, smashed it up, and stuck it up here. She wanted to create a beautiful thing out of a horrible circumstance. And here it is.”
I smile, struck by the magic of the living and the world they inhabit. I wonder what happened to her after she left, if she’s still alive or if she’s somewhere up in Death’s offices. Maybe I can find her, tell her how her name lives on in the shimmering light of a New York afternoon.
“Did she...?” I begin to ask but Scout shakes his head.
“Not yet. She was an art teacher for a bit. Had a few kids, had a husband, had a house. Think she’s probably retired now. Living in Vermont.”
He rattles this off with such ease that I can’t help but wonder if he’s just making it up or whether he truly knows this much about one person. “How do you know all of that? You can’t know that about everybody, surely?”
Scout shrugs. I think he’s considering pretending that he does indeed know this much about everybody. I mean, he could try; I’d end up having a lot more fun than him, I’m sure. He obviously comes to a similar conclusion because he shakes his head a second later. “No, I don’t. But when people do things like cover an entire roof with colored glass, just for the hell of it, I like to see how they turn out.”
That makes sense. “Anyone else you’re keeping tabs on?”
Another shrug. “A few. There’s a guy in Sochi trying to teach his pet weasel how to fetch chicken eggs every morning. I’m kinda intrigued to see how that turns out.”
He sounds like a little boy watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon for the first time. In awe and amazed by the world around him. I can’t help but find it endearing. “Well, do let me know how that goes.”
“If I can.” He says the words so quickly that I know he didn’t think properly about them. Indeed, when I look over at him, I can see regret creased into the corners of his eyes. “Sorry, that was uncalled for,” he goes on to say almost immediately. “And I didn’t mean for it to sound so...harsh.”
“I wasn’t leaving because of you,” I blurt out, the words surprising me a little.
A plane roars above our heads, heading toward the Hudson River. Scout watches it for a moment, then meets my gaze. “I know,” he says. But I don’t believe him.
“No, you don’t. You think it was all your fault. But it wasn’t. And I’m sorry for what I said back in your office—I didn’t mean it, not really. I am happy with you. And leaving you would never be an easy decision. I mean, I’d really miss you. But they’re my family. My friends. Most of them I’ve known my entire life and if there was any chance of going back to them, it would be madness not to take it, even if leaving you would hurt.”
“It...would hurt?”
I nod. “Sure. I’ve spent the last few months with you and only you. You might be an ass half the time but the rest of the time you’re all right and, well, we’ve grown close.”
“Yes, I suppose we have.” Scout states this carefully, thoughtfully. “Like friends?”
The word doesn’t quite sit right and I don’t quite know why. I’d call the girl I do my book club with a friend, I’d call the people I sit with at lunch my friends. Scout doesn’t quite seem to fit into that quota for some reason. It feels...too small. But I’m not sure what word I’d use instead so, for simplicity’s sake, I nod. “Sure. Friends.”
He grins at that, pride beaming from him like he’s just won his first Sports Day. It settles on him like snow and he sits back a little, legs still swinging merrily over the drop. “So... New York City. Tell me.”
I glance over at him. “You’ve read my file,” I reply, a little hesitantly. I’m not sure I want to go into the backstory right now, when even saying Violet’s name feels like a challenge.
Scout shifts so he’s looking at me more directly. “I know the story. But the file doesn’t tell me why you and Violet got so obsessed by the idea.”
I shrug, feeling the memories prickle against my skull. “Who doesn’t want to go to New York?”
Scout’s shuffling means that his legs now bump against mine. The contact feels strange, charged almost. “I mean, I have a list if you’d like one?”
“Funny.”
“Come on, Daisy, tell me. Why here?”
I can see that this isn’t going to be a conversation I’m going to be avoiding easily. “We thought it was magic,” I say simply, before going on a moment later. “We grew up in this gray little suburb with identical houses and identical-looking people. Can you imagine someone like Violet growing up there? She hated it—so I hated it. We wanted to go somewhere with color and excitement and unpredictable days.”
Instinctively, as the flash of that kiss arrives again, my side comes to rest against Scout’s, seeking some sort of comfort from his presence. I feel him hesitate, then wrap one arm around me. “Do you wish I hadn’t brought you here?” he asks after a moment of almost somber silence.
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I murmur, lifting my head briefly to shoot him a reassuring look, while also hiding my surprise at this unusual show of insight. “This is amazing, truly. And hard, of course. But there’s always going to be something reminding me of her. Or Mum. Or Dad. Or Eric... I can’t hide away from the world just because of that. Not when the world can look like this.”
Scout nods at that, smiles as he gazes out across the city again. The sun is beginning to set behind him, causing his jet-black hair to light up a little. A night sky dappled with stars. “Lucas was good at that. Finding pockets of magic. Once he found this waterfall that could make a rainbow—and a pretty awesome waterslide.”
I grin at that, the image coming to mind easily. “I think I would have liked Lucas.”
Scout makes a small noise of agreement, a little weighed down with sadness too but not entirely. Certainly less heavy than the last time he brought up his lost friend. “Yeah, you would. He had all the heart I’m missing.”
“Stop fishing, you’ve got plenty of heart,” I reply, almost automatically. Once the words are out, I find myself silently considering how confidently I uttered them. That’s certainly a change from those first few days in his company. Scout grins at me proudly, before looking back out across the city, obviously deciding to drop that particular line of conversation. Which is fine by me; there’s something to be said for silence when you’re in a place like this.
I follow his gaze, basking in the kaleidoscopic sunlight and the sense of well-being that is so different to how I was feeling a few hours ago. The magic of New York, viewed from a glittery rooftop at sunset, has chased the darkness away. There’s no place for it up here, where the sound of life fizzes around us like fireflies: sirens wailing, chattering people on their way home from work, the hiss of a bus as it stops. Across the wind, there’s even the sound of a saxophone—from some street performer, I guess. They could be miles away, but the sound is so clear it’s like they’re right next to us.
“There’s a good echo up here,” I comment, my foot gently tapping to the rhythm. I see Scout nod in agreement, before he suddenly hops up with the confidence of a mountain goat traversing an impossible cliff. He brushes himself off, then holds out a hand. “You’re kidding, right?” I ask, because I know what he’s getting at and I don’t dance. Not unless I’m incredibly drunk.
“Come on. When else are you going to get the chance to dance with Death on a rooftop in New York?”
“We can barely hear the music!”
“Not if you keep complaining over the top of it,” he shoots back. Sighing, I take the offered hand and allow him to tug me up and into the middle of the roof. He comes to a halt and turns to face me, raising an eyebrow with a challenging smile. That smile of his that never fails to drive me mad. “What? Does the world explode if Daisy dances?”
Groaning with defeat, I pull his hands from mine and then move them into the right place, one on my shoulder, one on my waist. “Do not move those,” I warn fiercely and he nods, looking incredibly serious about the matter. I take a deep breath, then begin to sway. For a moment, his body is stiff and unmoving, but then he seems to get the idea and matches my movements. I have to smile as I glance up at his face and see concentration deeply set into it.
“I’m guessing you haven’t done this before?” I ask after a moment of this swaying, the music just about audible enough for us to keep time.
“Danced on a rooftop?”
“Danced, full stop.”
Scout’s grip on my shoulder shifts a little. “Oh. No. Not really. Well, not at all. It’s not something I really get much chance to do.”
That makes sense, of course. It’s hardly going to be a part of his job and that takes up a great deal of his time. “Well, you’re not bad considering all that.”
He looks rather pleased at that, and his pace seems to pick up a little. Almost as if my words have given him a little boost. Of course, it means we’re no longer in time with the music so it’s up to me to gently coax him back into the right tempo. The minutes pass by and the saxophone continues, allowing us to keep on dancing, or just swaying. I’m not sure when it happens, but at some point I stop noticing his hands on my shoulder and waist. And somehow we shift a little closer to each other. I tell myself that it’s just so we can have better movement, but I sort of know that’s not true. I know that I’m finding an odd solace in being so close to him. Something about us both having shown each other’s vulnerabilities over the past few hours. It’s made us equals, and there’s certainly something comforting in that.
The sun begins to dip behind the buildings, dulling the glittering of the glass somewhat. The combination of the pink sky and this more subtle glimmer gives the whole place an ethereal glow. I feel as if I’ve put on a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. Then the music stops. The saxophone player must be heading home, back to his life and his friends and family. We are left without a melody. Just the thrum of the city. It’s peaceful, but I find the thoughts in my head wriggling back to the surface, demanding to be noticed.
“Scout?” He glances down at me, continuing to sway to a song we can no longer hear. “What do I do now?”
Scout brings the dancing to a slow halt, standing back a little but not taking his hands away. “You’re asking me?”
I shrug. “You’re all I’ve got, really. Do I go back? Even after what I saw happening? I mean, I just feel like there’s no place for me anymore.”
Scout watches me carefully. “There’s a place for you with me,” he says softly, moving his hands until they rest gently in mine.
His hands feel so comforting, so natural. It would be so easy to just hide away in his offices and forget the world. And yet I also know it’s entirely impossible. I can’t forget them. Besides, there’s something else bothering me about that idea. Biting my lip, I look down at my feet, as if I might find some answers there. “Remember that first death you took me to? With Jennifer?” Scout nods but says no more, and I can feel him watching me closely. “I was so scared and horrified and you had to keep telling me off for meddling...”
Scout smiles a little. “Yeah, I remember. You were a nightmare, if I’m honest.”
“Exactly. I was a nightmare. But I don’t do any of that anymore. I go along, I find the dead person, I do the paperwork, I send them through the door. And I don’t even blink an eyelid at it...” I step back, away from his grip as I feel tightening in my chest. The unmistakable sensation of panic, caused by voicing a fear that has been creeping up on me for weeks now.
Because it’s true. This world has changed me. I used to cry at the death of a person, regardless of who they were. I used to waste time finding out minute details about their lives. I used to fight against Scout using his calming influences. Their friends and families left behind would haunt me. Now it’s all just paperwork and procedures and time management. How can I even call myself a human when I view our mortality as nothing more than admin?
I don’t expect Scout to understand this—why would he? He’s been part of this process since the beginning.
But he surprises me, yet again, by getting my point instantly. “You worry about losing your humanity?” he asks.
I nod. “I’ve only been here a few months and I already feel as if I’ve forgotten what dying really means... What am I going to be like if I’m stuck here for fifty or so years?”
“You won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Scout comes a little closer again, places his hands on my shoulders. “Because if you were losing your humanity, you wouldn’t care about losing it. If you were losing your humanity, you wouldn’t come back from each job with a new story, you wouldn’t be standing on this roof with wonder in your eyes because of a few bits of glass and some sunlight. Daisy, this job isn’t changing you—I think it’s the opposite. You’re changing the job. Somehow, without breaking the rules for the dead, you’re changing it for the better.”
I stare at him as his words sink in. They’re completely sincere, without a shred of doubt in them, and maybe that’s why I find myself pulling him into a tight hug. My head comes to rest on his chest and I feel him take a sharp intake of breath.
When I pull back a moment later, he is grinning proudly, boyishly. “Wow. Daisy Cooper giving me a full-on hug—now I’ve seen everything,” he says.
“Not another word, or I push you off this roof.” He knows, of course, that I’m joking but he still doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns away with a little smile, focusing back on the view. “You know... I think it’s because they’re not just for the dead.”
“Hmmm?” He glances back to me, eyebrows crinkling with admittedly understandable confusion.
I let my gaze drift across to him as well. “Your rules,” I continue. “The reason I can follow them and still make a difference is because I’ve lived with those rules for years. They’re not just rules for dying. I think they can be rules for living too.”
Scout mulls this over for a second, then grins. “I think you could be right.”
We share a little laugh, turn back to the view. As we’re standing there, soaking it all up, Scout’s phone rings. He glances down at his pocket, then to me. “Well, that was fun while it lasted. Natasha will be wringing my neck soon enough...” He sounds truly regretful and I have to agree with him there. These moments of freedom have made me really wish for more of it. But he’s right; there’s a job to do.
“Thank you, Scout. For taking me here and—and all of the other bits. It was just what I needed. I feel a lot better.”
Scout rubs at the back of his neck, a sheepish expression of real pride on his face as he nods and accepts the thanks. “I just wanted to make it up to you. For everything. You deserve a lot better.”
He holds out his hand, fingers waggling a little. A silent question about whether all is OK between us again. The answer to that is easy, really. Because it is OK between us. His choice was dumb, but I’m not sure it was cruel or worthy of prolonged berating. This evening has shown me that, really, he cares a great deal about me. Which fills my heart with a warmth as I realize that that caring is pretty reciprocal.
But there’s something else. My eyes meeting his eyes, our heightened emotions in the air. I’ve seen this before. I know what comes next.
And there’s a moment, a solid and real moment, where I consider letting the magic we’ve found have its effect. Consider accepting that perhaps Eric and Violet weren’t entirely to blame for their own moment. But I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to them, to Scout.
Scout leans in, just a little. And, for once, I wish he hadn’t improved his social skills these last few months. Because it hurts. It hurts to watch a moment come toward you when you know you have to turn away.