I sit and watch them. All of them. My charges. I watch their lives then I take them. I take their souls, I cut their life force. I get their name, I send it to the reaper, and then I cut their life force. They die. They go to judgment. Unless they are a reaper. Then they go to limbo if they hadn’t found their soul mate. I have always followed my instructions. I have never once waivered in my duties, until his name came up. This is my story. My tale of how I fell from glory, how I gave up my soul, to save his. Join me if you dare.


I am a fate. The beings life force is in my strings. All my strings interlace somehow. Someone touches one life, which touches another, and so forth. I was made to do this. The fates, we control all life and death of the mortal or potentially mortal beings. As non-mortals such as angels and other beings can give up their mortality for mortality at anytime, even a reaper who is forced to be immortal can give up their life, even if they haven’t found their soul mate. They can still die. All beings can still die. It is rare but it happens. My job was to cut their life force. After that it is the reapers job to take them to judgment. I give each life challenges that have been assigned to them, I do not choose their paths; I just make sure they happen. By placing very specific knots in their strings of life, I will do this for eternity, until the last being on earth dies. Then we shall have our paradise. Our promise of paradise, we shall once again enter heaven and be welcomed. Each of us use to be angels of life, we fought against death in mortals. Since we lost, our punishment is to bring about that death. And I do my job, as I knew the joys of heaven, and I knew what awaited me there once we had served our sentence.


I was sitting there making sure that I intertwined the strings of life, which would be tangled together for eternity when handed a black thread. I never received a black thread before, I had received others, and an example would be a dark blood red is for a sociopathic killer. They are wrapped tightly around their victims. I know my humans’ fates long before they do. I looked down at the black thread and I knew it was a reaper. All reapers had a thread. But they were rarely cut. In fact most of the senior fates took the strings of the reapers, as they are intertwined with so many threads at the end. This one came with a bright gold bottom, I had never seen that. When looking closely it was two threads combined into one. Meaning that this person found their soul mate. One line was a little longer then the other, but not by much. I had never seen gold before, and that gold cleared up his black. Most reapers had the potential to be joined to a mortal, but o see it come with the gold thread intertwined already it was strange. The gold being long and full of a million knots. Not that length matters, a very long string could mean a million challenges in a short life span.


I never really thought much about it, I saw him as he grew up, as he came to term with his fate as a reaper, as he did his duty for four thousand years. As I watched him, I fell for him. No matter what life threw at him, or should I say I threw at him, he still kept his goodness. He never was going to be tempted; he waited patiently for his soul mate. I knew there was one for him; the gold string was proof of that. So I watched and let myself feel for him, even though I was supposed to be neutral. Even though I knew the punishment for falling one of my beings.


One day was sitting there waiting for my list of names and their time of death, when another fate was escorted to the main office. We never went in there. Only to be demoted, or destroyed. I felt fear because I knew one of the reasons that we were destroyed was refusing to kill a being, falling for that being. I talked to the fate next to me. “What happened?”


“Drew fell for one of the beings she watched.”


“What will happen?”


“Don’t know, if she didn’t cut his thread her soul is forfeit, she will be destroyed, darkness of limbo forever. Or hell. Whichever the council decides. I hope she only gets limbo.” Tyler stated and grabbed his file of the desk.


My file was quite large as I was in charge of a reaper thread, this file would be my work for the next fifty years. I sighed and returned to my station. Carefully pulling off the top paper and I started to make the knots of the beings’ challenges in their life strings. I was biding my time to paradise. And I wasn’t having such a bad time watching my beings, especially William. He was just as patient, for his chance at a normal life, as I was to go back to heaven. There was very few ways I could be allowed back in the, simplest was I did my punishment. The other was to become mortal and follow a mortal life, and die a mortal death, then be judged upon that death. There was a chance then that I would end up having to go through purgatory before entering heaven. And that could be a long time depending on how I was judged.


I passed the years watching him, falling for him more with each passing year. I wished him all the best, I wished for his soul mate to enter his life. I wondered what it would be like to be mortal. I was half tempted to ask for a mortal life. But you would be dropped in the middle of nowhere with only an identity. No place to live, no steady work, nothing but the clothes on your back and a brand new identification card. Then all of a sudden your life string would be full of knots and bumps and fringes. I was tempted only because of him.


I was getting to the end of my file, I sighed. I knew it would just mean another wait in line and a new file. I cut a string of a child and I could feel the same sadness her family was feeling. I always could. I was an angel who once gave life. Now I take it. Some angels couldn’t bear becoming the fates, they choose mortal lives, or to be in limbo until the end of days. I don’t blame them. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice to stay here. To take the lives I once wrote down. All lives are written in the book, from the first to the last. They are born, and they live. Then the Morning Star had to tempt Eve with that bloody fig. Now because of that not only are the humans and other beings of our creation forced to die, but the angels of life are forced to be the bringers of death. I sigh and return to my work.


I pick up the last paper, and I gasp. It was William’s name. They wanted me to cut his life string. But he hadn’t found his soul mate yet. No I would not allow it. I didn’t cut the string. I go up and went to the main office. I knocked. I knew by doing this I was going to be destroyed. I would cease to have ever existed. The lives that I would have touched now would be set to take a different road.


“Come in Alexis.” The voice on the other end stated calmly.


I walk in; I take the paper and ripe it in two. “I will not do it. He deserves his chance at finding his soul mate. He is good. He does not deserve limbo! Destroy me I do not care. Allow him to live, to find his soul mate. Please.”


“Very passionate words from very promising fate, one that would have become head fate in time to come. But you would give all that up for a reaper to find his soul mate? Why?”


“Love. I fell in love with him.”


“Very interesting… very interesting indeed.” The head fate stood up, and walked around to me, placing both hands on my shoulders. “There is no going back. Are you sure you are willing to give up everything for this reaper to find his soul mate?”


“Yes. His thread showed that he would. Why is it to be cut?”


“We do not question why, but his thread did show another soul attached to his. Gold I believe was the thread?”


“Yes, stunning gold.”


“A fate’s thread.” Was the last words I heard then I was standing in the middle of a road, in the middle of nowhere.


I looked around and there was nothing but corn fields. I sighed. I don’t know what the head fate’s last words meant, but I knew I had been made mortal. I pulled my ID out of my pocket. Alexis Burton. So my name was now Alexis Burton. Well I had to make the best of it. It was better than limbo or hell. I turned to start walking down the road when a car came out of now where. There was another being in the road, he was not moving. The car was coming upon him quickly.


I didn’t think. Back when I was a fate there would have been nothing I could do, but now I was mortal. I could change this man’s fate. I ran to where he was, I don’t even know how I made it time. But I pushed him out of the way just as the car would have hit him. It hit me instead. I lay on the ground, I didn’t feel hurt. I didn’t feel different, then I had in just moments ago, but I knew the car had it me. I opened my eyes and there staring back at me was William. “What were you doing?” I asked before I could think.


“I live here, this is my farm land. I was trying to catch the man who running down the animals. Instead he ran down you, but I got his plate number. Let me help you up.” He stated, as he grabbed my hand to help me up.


“Thank you.” Then the head fate’s words came back to me. ‘A fate’s thread.’ I didn’t put them together but a fate was his soul mate. I was his soul mate. I knew looking into his eyes, he knew it as well. I all of a sudden was really happy for that reaper gift of knowing when they found their soul mate. I had known fates had threads but we had never seen them, because the only one who could cut them as highest being in creation. She held onto them.


“I can’t believe it. There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all.”


“Well you are not a doctor. Maybe is should get checked out.” I knew that mortal bodies could not have taken that hit, but I felt alright.


“No I can tell, you are alright. Probably because you are a reaper’s soul mate.” He said, and it shocked me he would be so open and so blunt about being a reaper.


“A reaper?” I tried to play it off like I didn’t know what he was talking about but I was too late, he had caught my pause.


“You are not a mortal.” He said as we reached his front door.


“I am now.”


He opened the door and led me to a couch, where I sat down. He walked out of the room and came back with a pitcher of tea and a couple of glasses. He handed a glass to me and filled it, filled one for himself and sat down. “What were you?”


“A fate.”


“A real fate? Why are you now mortal?”


I sipped the tea for a moment before answering. But I told him it all. Everything. Form the moment I received his string to the moment I pushed him out of the way of the car. “They wanted me to cut your string. You would have died at that moment the car hit you. But I refused to cut your string. I thought they were going to destroy me. Instead they sent me to you. I asked them to give you your soul mate. To destroy me instead of cutting your life force.”


“So they sent me my soul mate. They allowed me to live.” He smiled. After four thousand and some odd years he was going to be able to live a normal life. “I hope you like Iowa honey because this place is the closest to heaven I have found on Earth. Allow me to introduce myself. I am William Burton.”


I laughed. “My name is Alexis, the surname they gave me on my ID is Burton.” I said laughing.


“Well they didn’t spear any time.” He said and hugged me close to him. “I can’t believe I have you finally in my life.”


“I have watched you for four thousand and some odd years, wondering who would be your soul mate, what being mortal was like. Now I know that answer, and I get to be mortal with you. And maybe again see heaven someday. Until then you can show me the joys of being a mortal in Iowa.” I said with a smile, as he bent to kiss me for the first time, and that started our new and wonderful life.


I opened my eyes and found at the window of the house the head fate smiling back at us. He winked and disappeared. And at that moment I knew no matter the knots in our string, we would weather them together, forever.

Here I am stuck between worlds, watching the person I am assigned to, and wondering why I ever did what I did. What did I do? I killed myself. I broke up with someone I had loved, well he dumped me. I felt like I could not live without out so, I was tempted by the razor in my shaver. The next thing I really remember is waking up in front of a dark figure. He told me I would have a chance to redeem my soul. I had taken my life because of love. So love must save my soul. I would be given a person, who was on the same path as I was, and I was to save him. I must show him life is better, to find him his soul mate. Only when he said “I love you” to a person and he really means it, will I be released from my punishment.


Meet my ward so to say, his name is Adam, and he ran again from another relationship. The man is hot, he has bright blue eyes, and unruly black curly hair, and he works out, and you can tell. And the trouble is he knows it. He is also very rich, so he is under the impression that people only love him for his money. Not his mind and quirky ways. Like being a gamer. Or the fact that his sense of humor can be dark. He really is a nice guy. He donates to a lot of children charities; he spends his time with children who have nothing. He gives out scholarships; he is truly a good person. I wish I had met someone like him when I was alive; he is a perfect man, money or no. You should have seen his face when I was dumped in the middle of his apartment. It was classic, but after about ten shots and a lot of explaining he seemed okay with it, well he was going to deal with it. Of course I was also dumped quite nude into his place, so we had to find me some clothes. Thankfully I could put clothes on! I was nude because I had died that way. If I knew that was going to happen I would have wore that tiny black dress I had made just a few weeks before I died. My sister wears that dress now, all the time. He is the only person that can see me, and that sometimes upsets me. I wish I could tell my family I am sorry. Sorry for what I put them though, what they will always have to live with. I wish I could tell them that it wasn’t something they did, it was me, and I knew how to hide my depression. And how abusive my relationship was, but my focus is now on Adam. I have been in this limbo land for three years now, and he has still yet to mature enough to say I love you to anybody.


Thankfully I don’t have a time limit I have until he dies, if he dies without saying those words then I fail, I will be stuck in limbo forever. So it is not like I am not trying! I have talked him into plenty of relationships, however he always runs when he feels like he might be falling in love! I am about to strangle him, and now he hasn’t been on a date in over a year. He says why should he go out when he has me at home. I just roll my eyes and keep reminding him that I am dead. He always reminds me that it is a pity that another man drove me to take myself from the world. He thought I was quiet interesting, and much better companion then the women I kept telling him to ask out.


One day I was sitting there filling my nails, or pretending to, so I could pass the time, as I can’t really file them. I was waiting for him to come home from his job, which was being a big shot investment manager on Wall Street; I figured with a new bar opening up I can find someone else to set him up with tonight. As soon as he walked through the door I knew we were going to be fighting again.


“Adam, I told you we are going out tonight.” I stated standing up, I was wearing a cute little outfit I had made from some fabric he had bought me.


“I don’t want to go out to find my so called ‘soul mate’!” He stated making the quotation marks with his fingers.


“You don’t know what will happen if you don’t.” I stated and went to his bedroom and started picking out clothes for the club tonight.


“You keep saying that, like it is some horrible thing that will happen if I don’t find someone to say ‘I love you’ to.” He stated following me.


I sighed. I couldn’t tell him what happens to me if I fail; it is in the bloody rule book. “I told you I can’t tell you some things, but you could end up going down the same path as I did. I don’t want to see that!” I yelled back at him.


“Why?” He asked grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from the closet.


I flinched; remember my last boyfriend, and the violence I endured. I pulled my arm away, and he let go right away. I just glared at him as he sputtered his apologies. “It is fine.”


“No it is not, I never should have touched you that way.” He stated, as I started to walk away he pulled me back to him, holding me in his arms. “I should not have touched you that way! Look at me!” He said as I looked down at his chest.


“It is fine let’s just concentrate on you! You have a chance in this world, I don’t anymore, and I took that chance away from myself. I won’t take it away from you!”


“Why?”


“Why, what?”


“Why don’t you want that for me? Is it just to save yourself?”


I looked up at him appalled at his question. “NO! I truly care for you. I love you; you don’t deserve what happens when people like me do what I did! I don’t want that for you!”


He just smirked and bent down and kissed me. It seemed like time stopped. “I love you.” He whispered against my lips, kissing me before I could respond.


Out of the corner of my eye I saw the being that had met me at my death. He smiled. He waved his hand and the next thing I know my heart was beating, and I could feel myself coming back to life. There was a large burst of light and a voice. “Don’t make me regret giving you a second chance at life.”


I smiled and knew that this time around I wasn’t going to make my same mistakes. Adam smiled at me, and I at him. “I get a second chance.”


“Good, then it won’t look so weird when I marry you.” Adam stated and then kissed me again. And everything, for once, was right in the world. Even if for just that moment in time. After all life is made up of little moments that define us, make a life or even take a life. But sometimes you get a second chance.

Okay I have year two completed, year two and three will make up book 2, as far as year four it might be thrown in there so it may be a long book, the reason is that year 9 and 10 will be one book, i know that know as the events of those two years are too connected to rip apart. Year 5 will be a big book for me, not in the sense that it will be long, but in the sense that some big events will happen, year six and seven might be combined with eight, at this point i am not 100% not sure, but there will be somewhere between 5 and 6 books in this series, but we shall see…  right now back to NaNoWriMo just at about 41k words!!!!!!  Also there will be a composite book of poems and short stories coming out at the end of the year beginning of next and in Jan I will have a book signing at The Cellar in Waterloo, IA Book Launch party!  Book 2 of Katy Lily will be published sometime after the new year, and book one of Katy Lily will soon be available in paperback via Lulu.com!!!!!

I am Death. I mean whoever hears those words outside of a play, or now in this future most only dreamed of in 1515, movies. NO ONE! Well that is what I thought as well until I came back to my home and found a man who was about five seven or five eight with a dark tan and graying brown hair and the bluest eyes in the world sitting with my black green eye cat in my chair. My mistake was asking him who he was. Man do I regret that question. His answer was just that. “I am Death.” And to make matters worse it was followed by “and I am your father.” And that it was time for me to come home. That is how I ended up here. And where is here? Good question. Here is about five hundred years after that fateful date and I am waiting for this drunk to get into his car. I thought this day would be a total bust, after all I had twenty souls to collect that day and I was only on number five. That was until I saw his daughter. Then those human feelings I left behind five hundred years ago came rushing back. And I knew she was the one who could save my soul. But how do I convince this angel from heaven itself, when I just took her father’s life force? This is my journey to salvation, join me if you dare.

Maybe I should explain, when you are a child of death, you became a reaper yourself. It is not as cool as you think. Father was quite the ladies’ man, so to say. I have about a thousand half brothers and sisters all over the world doing the same thing. Now we are not evil or good. We are neither. We are neutral. We walk this Earth, taking the souls of the dead to judgment. But we never are judged. Each reaper has one soul that can save theirs. Our souls are in a limbo state, we could go either way. Good or bad, or stay neutral. Most of us stay reapers forever, I mean forever! There are reapers that have been here since the dawn of humans. Before there were six plus billion humans, it was just my father. He was the angel chosen to be death. It was decided by both God and Lucifer, so that way the angel would be neutral.

Well it was like that until about five thousand years ago, then my ‘father’, to use the term loosely, was tempted by Lucifer with a ‘fair maiden’ well my father fell. She had a child and when the child came of age that child became a reaper. To punish my father and to make sure he remained neutral, God came down with a punishment. That my father would never see heaven again unless his true soul mate saves his soul, the same punishment was dished out to his children. He has yet to find his soul mate. When he does a new death is chosen from the reapers who have not been saved. Which to date is all but five.

A reaper was given a gift though, to know when their soul mate enters their life. Just great that I had to be collecting her father’s soul at the time I meet her. Well not meet her but see her. For my soul to be saved I have to tell her I am a reaper and she has to accept that. That is why only five of my half siblings have been saved and allowed to live a normal life and death. People have issues dealing with the fact we are the ones who take the souls of their loved ones. How we do it would take more time then I have to explain, but basically it works like this: everybody has a certain amount of time on earth, they have to fulfill their goal, which they may not know, and they die. For example an infant, they are put on this earth to remind people how fragile life is, or for other reasons. God is not very good at giving reasons. Or a father may be taken early so that his children can go on to meet their goal. Sometimes I feel that the humans we take are God’s pawns in the war against Lucifer.

Before I thought I would just keep on reaping until the end of time and spend my time in limbo for eternity, that would be better then this life. Now I have a choice. Now I can choose to go after this woman.

After a few days of thinking, and waiting for the funeral, I went up to her and introduced myself. “Hello my name is Dylan. So sorry for your loss.”

“Did you know my father? By the way I am Suzanna.”

“In a way I did.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was there for an important event in his life.”

“Oh.” Before she could say more she was swept up by the next round of guests.

I watched her for the whole night and for the following few weeks. Making a point to bump into her when she was getting coffee or at the grocery store, of course I also had to perform my job, so I couldn’t be too much of a stalker. Which was what I was turning into. One day I took the chance to ask her out. “Hi.”

“Hi! Dylan right?” She turned to look at me, as we waited in line for coffee.

“Yes. Suzanna right?” I pretended to ask with a smile.

“Yes.” She smiled right back.

“Would you like to have dinner?” I stopped and waited, holding my breath.

She smiled and said “yes, that would be great!” So we made plans to meet up that night. That was six months ago.

We have been going strong and no I have to tell her who I am. So as we lay there watching her favorite film, I look down at her. “We have to talk.”

“What is wrong?” She looks up with me in worry.

“I have something to tell you.”

“You are breaking up with me aren’t you?”

“No. But you may leave me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Here what I have to say first.” I move to sit in front of her, to look her in the eye.

“I am a Reaper. That is my job. You asked but I never really told you.”

“What is a Reaper?” She asked.

And I told her. Everything. About my father. How I found out. How the first time I saw her I was claiming her father’s soul. Taking him to his judgment, then making sure his judgment was carried out. It seemed like forever. I spoke and spoke never really listening to my words, just watching her face. Watching her go though hatred, revulsion, sadness, and the final one I could not name. I had never seen that look. “There is everything.” I hung my head and waited for her to leave, waited for my soul to be crushed.

“I understand. I am okay with this. Do you always have to stay a Reaper?”

“No.”

“Well what did you do before you were a Reaper?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was she really accepting me? “I was a carpenter.”

“What do you do for money now?”

“I own a lot of furniture businesses.”

“Okay. I love you. No matter what I love you.”

I just kissed her. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to be saved. All of a sudden I saw this flash of light. My father stood inside of it and smiled. I knew that I was released from my curse. I could really have a life with Suzanna. “Suzanna, marry me?”

“Yes.” She smiled. And in that smile I knew heaven.

Everything, unless otherwise noted, is copyrighted by Katherine Rochholz various years of course depending on the post all rights reserved…. unless they are songs but all the poems and short stories are mine.

COME SAIL AWAY COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME HONEY DON’T YOU SEE WE JUST NEED A LITTLE TIME FOR YOU AND ME

SO COME SAIL AWAY COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME

I am about 28500+ words into book 2 but still kinda blocked on where to direct this as it is different then my original plan!

Today I remember the day so many lives were changed, I thank those everyday heroes among us.  And make a promise to never forget the reason I am free!