The Taker

“MAGDALEN, Peter.”

The name on the card glittered in the fresh sunlight of a new day. Amber opened the file and ran her finger over the mugshot and felt the connection. Another client. Another day. Another twenty-four hours.

**

I saw him standing in the middle of a crowded shopping square, neatly dressed but staring around the place like he was confused and afraid. He seemed lost and dazed, but no-one approached him to help. I could see the thoughts running through his head. Why is no-one helping him? Why didn’t anyone see him? What was wrong with the world? Why did he suddenly feel empty?

After watching him suffer for a little while more, just to get the gauge of him, I approached.

“You look like you could use a friend right now,” I said softly, standing beside him.

“What?” He turned to look at me. Peter Magdalen. “No, thanks. I’m just a bit lost is all.”

“Then let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” He became defensive. They usually did. I checked my watch. Time was already ticking. I’d used up my first hour observing him so I could help him better. Before I could say another word, Peter marched away from me. So, naturally, I followed him. After all, I was on a time budget. After twenty-four hours, he wouldn’t pass.

I followed him for another hour, listening to his ramblings. His train of thought was a wreck, crashing here and there, trying to figure out exactly what was missing. He wasn’t stable enough to know, not just yet. He needed to be calm. He walked without purpose, but fast, his thin-soled shoes barely making a sound on the hot concrete. I watched him walk towards the busy intersection he hadn’t seen. I watched cars whizzing past at seventy miles per hour. I watched as he stepped out, and then realised, and stepped back.

“ARGH! FUCK!” I stepped beside him. “What the fuck?! Jesus… I don’t need to die today!” he breathed, clutching his chest. Then, he froze. “Wait.” Still, I said nothing. He looked down after a moment and frowned, but then shook his head, dismissing the thought entirely.

“Hot day, huh?” I asked, with a glance up to the cloudless, sunny sky. Peter gave a vague nod and smiled at me.

“Yeah, sure is…” he sighed, leaning against the traffic light post. It was almost instinctive that he would want to keep his virtually unprotected feet from burning. It always happened. His girlfriend Georgia usually nagged him for it, but he had okay feet. He frowned again, looking down. He stood normally.

Something wasn’t right.

“Not as hot as it usually is, though,” I offered up politely.

“Did you follow me from the square?” Peter was defensive again.

“You got me.”

“Why?”

“Because, Peter, I’m making sure you’re alright.”

“Wait… how do you know my name?!”

“Have you noticed anything, Peter? Anything odd? Anything strange?” I asked gently. I wanted to touch him, but to do that would risk taking him over early.

“I…” he thought, but I could feel his reluctance to admit anything. “No. No, nothing out of the ordinary.” He gave a no-committal shrug to demonstrate just how blasé he actually was, but I knew he was worrying about what he’d noticed. No-one on the planet could ignore such things. “Anyway, whoever you are –“

“Amber.”

“Amber… alright… please leave me alone. Please. Go away. It’s creepy.” He glared at me and, as the crossing light turned green, he practically ran across the street.

Cases like this usually annoyed me, but I hadn’t had one for a while. I’d helped enough people let go quite easily, given we’d just overseen a pandemic. Peter was a welcome challenge. It did get a little bit tiring when my wristwatch read ’13:42.09’, meaning just over thirteen and a half hours left to get this guy to calm the hell down and listen to me. It also meant I’d spent twelve hours tailing him to make sure he didn’t go super nova on anyone.

The hours I’d tailed him were permeated with him rounding on me and barking at me to stop following him, but I altered my appearance slightly to make him comfortable. A stooped posture made me shorter, a pair of sunglasses and some obnoxiously-chewed gum threw him for a penny too. But when he arrived home, I had to be myself again. Because he was about to have an incredibly transformative experience – the only one perhaps that could wake him up properly.

“Girls! I’m home!” Peter stepped through his open front door and grinned, his arms outstretched. He waited for his girls to run to him, but they never did. Georgia never came to greet him with her usual kiss, and Harriet never came with her attack hug and her cry of ‘Daddy!’. Neither of them came. “Girls? Daddy’s home! Georgia? Harry?!” I followed him in, silent footsteps. He’d need me soon enough. “Girls?! Hello!” He’d found them, sitting in the living room on the sofa. Both of them were crying. “Girls? Georgie? Harry?” he kneeled down in front of them and took a hand each. “Girls?! What’s going on?” he waited, but neither of them acknowledged him. “What did I do? Have I done something? Please, speak to me?!”

Behind him, on the coffee table, Georgia’s phone rang. She reached past Peter and picked it up.

“Hey, mum,” Georgia whispered, her eyes wet with tears. She didn’t look at Peter at all. Neither did Harriet. “Yeah… no, I’ve got her. Yeah… mum… c-can you come over? Mum? N-no…” Georgia descended into tears. “Mum, Peter’s dead.”

The coldness that gripped the room then was palpable, and I had to act fast. I sat down in the armchair next to Harriet.

“Peter? Look at me, Peter.” I kept my tone gentle and even. Peter looked at me, his eyes betraying every single thought in his head.

“D-dead?” he breathed. He didn’t listen to the rest of Georgia’s conversation with her mother. “I’m… I died? I’m dead? What?” Panic rose in him. I fought the urge to touch him. “I died?! What?! How?! How did I die?! Is this some prank?! Some fucking awful prank because – because why?! Because Bella told you I was cheating with her?!” Peter took Georgia’s face, but the woman didn’t flinch. “Georgia?! GEORGIA! HARRIET! NO!” He began to cry when he realised his girls couldn’t hear or see him. Harriet cried into her mother’s lap. I let him cry on them, because he needed it. Eventually, after another half-hour, he turned to me. The question that he couldn’t form repeated over in his mind.

“Peter, come outside with me. The energy here is being drained by you. Come outside. Let them both rebalance.” I stood and walked to the door, which I walked straight through. Peter followed, realising now that he wasn’t constrained by walls and doors.

“How… how can I be dead when I’m still here?”

“Notice, Peter. Notice it and look at yourself.” Peter bit his lip, his hand moving to his chest automatically.

“I noticed. My heart wasn’t racing when that car almost hit me.”

“That car did hit you, Peter. It was the feeling of it passing through you which startled you.”

“And… and the ground… the pavement should have been too hot to stand still on… but it wasn’t. It was cold.”

“Because your skin is now impermeable by the elements.” I nodded at him sagely as he reeled off his feelings. But there was still that seed in his mind that he didn’t ask me outright about. “Peter, my name is Amber, and I’m a Guide. Your time on this earth is done, and it’s time for you to let go.”

“How can I let go when I won’t get to see my little girl grow up?!” Peter hissed at me. I smiled softly.

“Because there are other things that need you now more than she does. As cruel as that may sound, if you don’t let go, you won’t be able to pass through. And if you don’t pass through, when she eventually dies herself – and Georgia, of course – neither of them will be able to find you.”

“But why couldn’t they see me?” Peter whispered. “I was right there…”

“You are dead, Peter.”

“I always thought Georgie was my soulmate…”

“She is your soulmate.” I turned to him properly and held out my hands, offering him some soothing light. He reached over and took it, not touching me still. “You died prematurely, Peter. Which is why I’m here.”

“So… so I shouldn’t have died?”

“No. You were killed, Peter. By someone who had intent to kill you. Bella, her name is. She intended for you to die because she couldn’t have you. She hit you with her car and then she burned it out. There were drugs involved, which heightened her intentions… but that’s by the by – you’re here because when a soul leaves its body prematurely, it clings to the Earth because it is confused.”

“So… I’m a confused soul?” Peter scratched his head, but at least his thoughts were slowing down.

“Yes. You are a confused soul. Because your life path was a lot longer.” I gave him a smile and sighed. “Peter, you were murdered. And you need to come to terms with that before you can move on. And you have to move on.” Peter could only nod. Understandably, he was a little put out, but we still had plenty of time to help him make peace and let go of his old life.

“So… so I need to say goodbye now?” he asked after a moment, watching his family from outside the house. I shook my head.

“No. Not yet, not to them. We can come back later and they can be your final goodbye.” Peter nodded.

“I… I can’t be dead… there was so much I needed to do… I mean, I didn’t do much, did I? I only really had Harry… that was it…” he palmed his face. “I could have done so much more…”

“Let’s go and see someone special, shall we?” I offered him my arm, and he took it. The world around us changed in a snap. We left the wide-open space of the garden, and arrived in a packed corridor, filled with students milling around, heading to lesson with the usual rush a teenager has. Peter stared around, but one particular group of boys came into focus. A young girl was trying to collect dropped books from the floor, but each time she stood with them in her arms, she’d had them slapped out of her hands again. Her energy was at a low ebb as she reached down again for the books. The group of boys around her catcalled at her and jeered at her, calling her some horrible names. Peter blushed deeply, more out of shame than anything else.

“That’s me,” he whispered. “Oh God, that’s me… wait – that’s ME! How –“

“Peter, you’re dead. You have access to your entire timeline now.” I gave him a smile. “One single action changed your life path. I want you to see it.” I nodded towards the group, watching as a fifteen-year-old Peter stepped forward and crouched down, picking the books up for the girl.

“Leslie Jones,” Peter whispered. “She was the school’s bully victim… Everyone hated her, but I never understood why deep down.” I touched Peter’s arm, and a rush of thoughts fed into his head.

I don’t know why I’m still here. I might as well kill myself tonight. No-one will fucking miss me. Everyone hates me. Even my own mother can’t bear the sight of me.

I watched as Peter stood with the books and turned to his friends.

“What are you doing, Maggie?” the leader, Jason, asked. Peter clutched the books and stood in front of Leslie.

“I think it’s enough now. She’s upset. It’s not funny anymore. It’s cruel.” His voice shook. The thoughts feeding into Peter’s head changed.

He’s standing up for me. I’ll pay for that. God, I can’t wait for this to be over.

“She was going to kill herself?” Peter asked beside me. I nodded. He continued to watch as Jason aimed a punch at Peter and then left, spitting on him. Peter turned to Leslie and helped her up, putting her books in her bag. He took her bag from her and carried it for her.

“See, Peter, that act led to Leslie going home and believing that someone out there cared. She confronted her mother about why she hated her, and learned that her mother didn’t hate her at all – she just didn’t understand why her daughter was so reclusive. That chat empowered her to get through school, and she actually went on to become one of the best doctors in the world for cancer treatment and diagnosis. You did that, Peter.” Peter stared at me.

“Oh…” was all he could manage. He licked his lips. To prove my point, I took him to see Leslie, who was at the present moment embroiled in a rather tense game of Boggle with her son, daughter and husband. Lining the walls, plenty of awards and plaques bearing her name. All of them accolades for her work in science.

“See?”

“I do…” Peter shook his head. “I mean, alright, I helped one person! One. But the rest?”

“Alright. Let’s go and visit another person.” I took him to the same packed shopping square I’d found him in, although the day was wet and dreary. Peter aged twenty crossed our path and headed past a homeless man to get into a coffee shop. He kept looking out of the window to the homeless man who sat getting wetter and wetter. Shortly after, Peter emerged with two hot drinks in hand, and a bag with food. He stopped next to the homeless man and handed him the coffee and the food, and then a ten-pound note.

“And?” Peter asked me, sighing. “One homeless guy in the fifty times a month I go to that coffee shop.”

“Watch.”

The homeless man stayed there, enjoyed his food and drink, his heart glowing with the kindness. Whereas the man faced another few days on the streets trying to make another few pounds, Peter’s kind donation had given him enough to rent a room at the local homeless shelter. The man, armed with the prospect of a hot shower and a meal and a proper bed, conducted a job search with the employment volunteer than night and ended up landing an interview the next day. And he got the job, too. He was able to afford a small studio apartment and got on his feet properly in three months.

“So if I hadn’t given him the money… he wouldn’t have had that job?” I nodded.

“Because that job was fleeting, and the man- Willis, his name – had those skills. You helped him with a coffee, a meal and a tenner.” Peter sighed again, and pressed his lips together. “I can do this all day, Peter.”

And indeed, we did do it. For the remaining hours I had left with him, I showed him past and present the people he’d helped. All the small acts of kindness he’d given, and how they’d suffered the butterfly effect and become something far greater. His death had been untimely, and I’d shown him why his death had happened.

Peter’s one single bad action had led to his death. He’d met Bella in University, and she’d fallen in love with him quickly. He hadn’t returned it, though, because he’d fallen in love with Georgia. Georgia was the girl he knew he’d marry. They’d lost their virginity to each other after six months of dating, and when they were together the world was right. The world was good. Bella didn’t like it at all, and even though she did everything in her power to break them up, Peter and Georgia married shortly after leaving Uni. Bella was incensed, but she’d remained friends with him because she still had hope that he’d choose her. And he never did. He still held her in his life, but when Harriet was born, it was the nail in the coffin. The day Harriet was born, Bella had invited Peter to a party in the hopes that she could make him cheat on Georgia and that Georgia would ‘conveniently’ find out. But Peter chose to be at the birth of his baby girl instead. Bella went off the rails. She turned to drugs that night, and fell down the rabbit hole of cocaine and heroin. In the end, after seeing Peter dropping Harriet off at nursery for the day, Bella had taken a couple of lines of cocaine and had sought Peter out in a stolen car. She’d made her resolve. He’d die. And he did.

Watching his death play out sobered him, and Peter’s soul relaxed. “I think I want to go and spend some time with my family,” he said softly. I checked my wristwatch and smiled.

“You’ve two hours with them, and then it’ll be time to go.” Peter nodded. “Which bit first?”

“Our wedding… and then the birth… and then I want to just be with them.”

A wedding and a birth later, I spent time outside as Peter spent time with his family. Harriet picked up on his energy and stopped crying.

“I love you, Harry. I love you Georgia.”

“Daddy says he loves us, mummy,” Harriet said softly.

“Daddy loves us very much. He’ll always be here, darling.”

“Always,” said Peter, as he placed a kiss on their heads. He turned to me, and nodded.

I took his hand and lifted him up into the light.