Confidence exudes from him as he circles me.
“Well, are you the caller?” the man asks with a low voice.
“Yes, I am,” I tell him “I am h-”
“Name, age, and reason of death please,” Death says, cutting me off.
“Um, Anwen, Twenty, Three years dead,” I start, swallowing hard “Reason for death was drowning,”
“Drowning,” Death says, halting in his tracks “For what reason was I summoned? Nobody has dared to summon me for ages,”
I straighten my back getting back into the right head space. “I read that you can help me move on.”
He surveys the chalk I used to summon him. “Manual service is over as of now. We have self checkout services now. Did you try going to a body of wa-”
“Yes, yes I did! It didn’t work,”
Death raises his brow at my tone. “That’s unfortunate. You could have some kind of regret or some ties you need to sever. You can’t move on if you’re latching onto this world with your molar teeth. Unattach yourself and try again,”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“It will work. If you must summon me again, do it from 8am to 9pm CEST. That’s my working hours. Also, you have to pay me 200 gold coins each time. I’ll let you go this time since this is your first summoning,”
My breath quickens and I shake my head. No, this can’t be it. That was so vague.
“You’re supposed to help me,” I tell him.
“I did,” Death replies, noticing the location for the first time “You need to unattach yourself and try again,”
“I can’t summon you for another year. Can you give me some instructions or something?”
“Alright,” he says, holding up six fingers. “There are six steps in that hand book to detach yourself from the living world. Chapter… Eleven or Sixteen, one or both of those. Follow them and you will be able to move on with no fail.”
“Then, what?”
“Try moving on again. It’ll take a while to do the steps. If you still have trouble, which is highly unlikely, you can summon me again. 200 solid gold coins, do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to fit all the information in my head. “Chapter Sixteen,”
“And Eleven,” He says.
The man adjusts his suit and cracks his knuckles. “Alright, I’ll be on my way,”
Death walks backwards, his eyes on me until he reaches the center of the circle. He closes his hands and snaps his fingers. He sighs and peels open his eyes. He stands there with his hand up. He makes a confused face and looks around.
“What?” He asks.
He snaps his fingers over and over again but each time he still stands there. He cuts me with his glare. “What did you do?”
“What? I didn’t do anything,” I say.
“Why can’t I go back?” He says, snapping “You did something,”
His eyes frisk the library’s roof. He starts facing the sky before he lowers his eyes to the circle I drew. Death’s eyes widen. “What the hell is this?” He asks, pointing at my chalk work.
“That’s my summoning circle,”
Death stills, nothing moving but his twitching hands. He takes a deep breath. “Summoning circles have thetas and omegas. These have C’s and O’s. The lines are all wrong. The colors are wrong. Everything is wrong,”