Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

I heard my dad huff behind us.

“You’r

e not giving her any money, woman.”

“But, Stepan, it’s her birthday,” she said in a small voice that had no fight in it.

“So what?” He looked up from his tablet, bushy eyebrows furrowed, pure hate flickering in his brown eyes. “Oh joy, it’s the day she came along, ruined our lives, and emptied our pockets. Hooray! Let’s fucking celebrate!” His voice became highly accented. “Dolna kuchka,” he mumbled.

I bit the inside of my cheek. My mom made herself small and turned back to the stove, motioning for me to pass her the salt. I dragged in a deep breath and complied. When my father was angry, he started cursing in Bulgarian. Right now, either me or my mom was a fucking bitch. I curled my fingers around the knife handle, grabbed a tomato, and imagined it was his head as I stabbed it in the middle. The blade hit the wooden board underneath so hard that seedy tomato guts spilled all over the table. And a bit on the floor. The chair behind me creaked, and I knew my dad was just straightening his back, getting ready to yell at me. Call me kurva this time, probably. I squeezed the knife harder.

“Dear, why don’t you go get the mail?” Mom’s thin, trembling fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I let go of the knife. “I got this. Two minutes, and we can all eat.” As if I could swallow anything right now… I looked up at her, did my best to mirror the feeble smile on her tired face, then turned on my heels and headed to the front door. I kept my head low, not daring to look Dad in the eyes. If I dared, then I would’ve risked losing control.

Once outside, the crisp morning air filled my lungs, and my head cleared. I took longer than necessary to get the mail, knowing full well that my parents were probably waiting for me, my dad annoyed that his food was getting cold. But he would wait. Oh, he would wait. It was tradition for him to say a short prayer every time the family ate together. There was no way of getting out of this one, not even for my eighteenth birthday. I sighed and went back inside, looking through the stack of envelopes and wondering what elaborate curses were waiting for me once Dad was done blessing our breakfast and the hands that made it.

What is this? I took the envelope out of the pile and turned it over. It had my name on it. Mila Lazarov. But it didn’t make any sense. I never received any mail. Every day, our mailbox spat out a stack of overdue bills and credit cards, but never something addressed to me. This is so weird. It wasn’t just a normal, plain envelope, either. Bright red with golden decorations that looked like runes, my name and address written in black ink. Instead of a return address, just three words: Grim Reaper Academy. I wonder who’s got time for these pranks… Because it had to be a prank. I closed the front door behind me and went into the kitchen to find something to open the pretty envelope. Joke or not, I liked the artsy design.

“What have you got there, dear?” Mom threw a quick glance at the mail I’d left on the table but didn’t touch it. As usual, she wasn’t going to open the bills. She was going to get rid of them later, and pretend she’d never gotten them in the first place. Innocent and clueless. Like a saint.

“I don’t know. Looks like a lame joke.” I pulled out an equally red letter and unfolded it. It was decorated with golden runes, too.

“Can we eat already?” Dad growled.

I cocked an eyebrow as I scanned the letter quickly.

“Is it from your friends?”

“She doesn’t have any friends, woman.”

“No, it’s from…” It felt stupid to say it out loud. “It says…” I shook my head. “I’m not even sure it’s addressed to me.” But it was. It had my name under Recipient. “Maiden of the Sun, born under a Mercury Moon, rising toward Mars, on this day you enter womanhood, and on this day, we are honored to invite you to apply to the prestigious Grim Reaper Academy.” I snickered. “Yeah. It’s a practical joke. It even says… Oh my God, that in the history of their institution, this is the only special exception they’ve ever made… by inviting a mere human. Well, gee… thanks! Thanks for letting me know, for my birthday, that I’m just a plain, boring human.” I laughed out loud, or at least tried to.

I wasn’t special. I knew I wasn’t. But that didn’t stop me from wishing and dreaming that one day my life would change, that one day someone would pop out of nowhere and tell me: “You, Mila Lazarov, you were made for great things”. Also: “Sorry it took us so long, our bad”. As a kid who was crazy about Disney and Japanese anime, I’d made many stories and scenarios in my head. I wasn’t from around here. No, I couldn’t be. And I wasn’t thinking about my nationality. Bulgarian-American. Coming from a family of immigrants who’d put their hopes into the American Dream and left their poor village in the north of Bulgaria for the promise of a more decent future. No, I was thinking about… how I didn’t belong here, on Earth. How the world confused me, how I couldn’t understand people, relate to them, how their routines, motivations, little joys, and overcomplicated sorrows didn’t make any sense to me. There was only one reasonable conclusion: I must’ve come from somewhere else, somewhere far away, a different planet or a parallel dimension. I must’ve landed here by mistake. A terrible mistake and misunderstanding. And one day, someone from my home world would show up, apologize to my adoptive family, take me back, and tell me that it would all be fine from now on, because I belonged. I belonged.

As a kid, I’d stay up in bed at night, unable to sleep, and focused with all my might on my own body. There had to be some clue that I wasn’t human. Maybe, wings would sprout out of my shoulder blades if I concentrated hard enough. I couldn’t tell how many hours I’d spent staring at random objects around my room, trying to make them move with the power of my mind. Once, when I was five, the curtains shuffled and rustled after I’d been focusing on them for an hour. The windows were closed, and back then, I didn’t understand how the drought sneaking underneath my door worked. I was a happy kiddo for a week after that.

But I never grew wings. If I wanted something, I had to move my ass and get it, because my mind wasn’t willing to make the effort for me. No one ever came to take me back home or tell me that it was time to embrace my true nature and fight evil to save the world. Now, looking at the red letter in my hand, I had to laugh out loud. I had to. I wasn’t five anymore. I was eighteen, and I’d stopped believing in such nonsense years ago. Except… Something wasn’t right.

“Give me that!”

I jumped in surprise when my father snatched the letter and the envelope from my hands, looked at them for a split second, then proceeded to tear them to tiny pieces.

Something wasn’t right with my dad. Why would he react like that at a stupid joke?

“Why did you do that for? I wanted to keep it! Find out who’s the asshole who sent it!”

Yes, the asshole who knew all my secrets and had felt it was their duty to make fun of me. But I had only told Korina about my dreams and silly stories. She was my best friend in primary school, and when we were both bullied because we liked anime and fairy tales, we’d go to her place, watch our favorite shows, and act out new stories we came up with. Kind of like live fanfiction, if that was a thing. It couldn’t have been Korina, though. For one, she’d never do something like this to me. And two, I hadn’t seen her or spoken to her in ten years at least, since she and her family had moved to California. I hoped she was doing better than me.

“Dad, seriously! Stop!” I tried to save the last intact piece of envelope he was holding, but he pushed me away so hard that my hip hit the edge of the table. Pain shot up my side, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Thanks so much, moron. That will bruise. Although, it would be one of the less ugly bruises my dad had given me over the years.

“Go to your room right now and forget about it. You didn’t receive anything.”

“Stepan…” my mom begged in a small voice. “Let her eat something, at least.”

He ignored her and pointed a stubby, shaking finger at me.

“Your room. Now. You’re not going to the diner today. Fine, whatever. Take the day off. But I don’t want to see

your souka face around the house, either.”