He struggled with something to say, something to distract them both. “I made mistakes too. Before.” He paused. “No, that’s not quite right. I still make mistakes.”
“Why?” Hugo asked.
Why, indeed. “To err is human, I guess. I wasn’t like you, though. I didn’t let it affect me. I should have, but I just … I don’t know. I always blamed others and told myself to learn from their mistakes, and not necessarily my own.”
“What do you think that means?”
It was a hard truth to face, and one he still wasn’t sure he was ready for. “I don’t know if I was a good person.” He let the words float between them for a moment, bitter though they were.
“What makes a good person?” Hugo asked. “Actions? Motivations? Selflessness?”
“Maybe all of it,” Wallace said. “Or maybe none of it. You said you don’t know what’s on the other side of that door, even though you see the looks on their faces when they cross. How do you know there’s no Heaven or Hell? What if I walk through that door, and I’m judged for every wrong I’ve done and it outweighs all the rest? Would I deserve to be in the same place as someone who devoted their life to … whatever? Like, I don’t know. A nun, or something.”
“A nun,” Hugo repeated, struggling against laughter. “You’re comparing yourself to a nun.”
“Shut up,” Wallace grumbled. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he said, voice light and teasing. “Kinda would give almost anything to see you in a nun’s habit, though.”
Wallace sighed. “Pretty sure that’s blasphemous.”
Hugo snorted before sobering. He seemed to be mulling something over in his mind. Wallace waited, not wanting to push. Finally, Hugo said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah. Of course. Anything.”
“It’s not always like this,” Hugo said, voice hushed. “I could tell you I’m firm in my beliefs, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. It’s … like this place. The tea shop. It’s sturdy, the foundation’s set, but I don’t think it’d take much to see it all come toppling down. A tremor. An earthquake. The walls would crumble, the floor would crack, and all that would be left is rubble and dust.”
“You’ve had an earthquake,” Wallace said.
“I have. Two, in fact.”
He didn’t want to know. He wanted to change the subject, to talk about anything else so Hugo wouldn’t look as miserable as he did. But in the end, he said nothing at all. He didn’t know which was more cowardly.
Hugo said, “Cameron was … troubled, when he came to me. I could see that the moment he walked through the door, trailing after my Reaper.”
“Not Mei.”
He shook his head. “No. This was before her.” He scowled. “This Reaper wasn’t … like her. We worked together, but we clashed more often than not. But I thought he knew what he was doing. He’d been a Reaper for far longer than I’d been a ferryman, and I told myself he knew more than I ever could, especially seeing as how I was new at all of this. I didn’t want to cause trouble, and as long as I kept my head down, I figured we could make it work.
“He brought Cameron. He didn’t want to be here. He refused to believe he was dead. He was angry, so angry that I could almost taste it. It’s to be expected, of course. It’s hard to accept a new reality when the only life you’ve known is gone forever. He didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. He told me this place was nothing but a prison, that he was trapped here, and I was nothing but his captor.”
There was the guilt Wallace had been trying to avoid. It clawed at his chest. “I didn’t…”
“I know,” Hugo said. “It’s not … you’re not like him. You never were. I knew all I had to do was give you time, and you’d see. Even if you didn’t agree, even if you didn’t like it, you’d understand. And I don’t think you’re quite there yet, but you will be.”
“How?” Wallace asked. “How did you know that?”
“Peppermint tea,” Hugo said. “It was so strong, stronger than almost any tea I’ve made for someone like you before. You weren’t angry. You were scared and acting angry. There’s a difference.”
Wallace thought of his mother in the kitchen, candy canes in the oven. “What happened to Cameron?”
“He left,” Hugo said. “And nothing I could do or say would stop him.” His voice grew hard. “The Reaper told me to let him go. That he’d learn his lesson and come running back the moment he saw his skin starting to flake. And because I didn’t know what else to do, I listened to the Reaper.”
Wallace felt his own tremor, vibrating through his skin. “He didn’t come back.”
Hugo was stricken. Wallace could see it plainly on his face. It made him look impossibly young. “No. He didn’t. I’d been warned, before, what could happen if someone like you left. What those people could become. But I didn’t think it could happen so quickly. I wanted to give him space, to allow him to make the decision to come back on his own. The Reaper told me I was wasting my time. The only reason I went in the first place was the tie between us just … snapped. The Reaper was right, in his own way. By the time I found him, it was already too late.” He hesitated. Then, “We call them Husks.”
Wallace frowned. “Husks? What does that mean?”
Hugo bowed his head. “It’s … apt. For what he is. An empty shell of who he used to be. His humanity is gone. Everything that made him who he is, every memory, every feeling, it’s just … gone. And there’s nothing I can do to bring him back. That was my first earthquake as a ferryman. I’d failed someone.”
Wallace reached for him—to offer comfort?—but stopped when he remembered he couldn’t touch Hugo. He curled his fingers as he dropped his hand. “But you didn’t stop.”
“No,” Hugo said. “How could I? I told myself that I’d made a mistake, and even though it was a terrible one, I couldn’t allow it to happen to anyone else. The Manager came. He told me that it was part of the job, and there was nothing I could do to help Cameron. He made his choice. The Manager said it was unfortunate, and that I needed to do everything in my power to make sure it didn’t happen again. And I believed him. It wasn’t until a couple of months later when the Reaper brought a little girl that I realized just how little I knew.”
A little girl.
Wallace closed his eyes. Nancy was there in the dark, her eyes tired, the lines on her face pronounced.
“She was vibrant,” Hugo said, and Wallace wished he would stop. “Her hair was a mess, but I think it was always that way. She was talking, talking, talking, asking question after question. ‘Who are you? Where am I? What is this? When can I go home?’” His voice broke. “‘Where’s my mom?’ The Reaper wouldn’t answer her. He wasn’t like Mei. Mei has this … innate goodness in her. She can be a little rough around the edges, but there’s a reverence about her. She gets how important this work is. We don’t want to cause further trauma. We have to offer kindness, because there is never a time in life or death when someone is more vulnerable.”