Chapter Text
“You know Emily, for someone begging for me to bring her with me, you’re surprising upset about being dead.” Death raised his eyebrows in a contemplating manner. “Wasn’t this what you wanted?”
“Oh fuck off!” Emily replied indignant. “You said you wouldn’t come for me for many years. At least give a girl some warning if you suddenly change your mind. I had unfinished matters to attend to!”
“Like what?”
“Like... like... like collecting more bird nests! And writing poetry!
“And you’re sure that is all? No personal matters that would need attending?” Death leaned back into the velvet carriage seat.
Emilys face fell, and she turned to look out at the rushing landscape. For a long moment she stayed silent before finally mumbling “I don’t know.”
She took a deep breath. “Anyway that isn’t what’s important. Why did you change your mind? Why know? I simply must know.”
This time it was death that reminded silent. For a long time he only starred at Emily without saying anything. Then he shook his head in a dismissive movement. “Death isn’t set in stone. I don’t always make the rules.”
........................
After a long journey the carriage came to stop and Death walked out, offering his hand to Emily.
She took it and together they stepped out of the carriage and into a small field bordering up to a large forest. For miles and miles were little else but trees and wild blooming flowery grass shimmering in the dusk light.
The last thing Emily remembered, before waking up in the carriage, was a small lake reflecting the early suns rays. Her traveling party had stopped to give the horses a small break and a quick bite to eat before they reached the next city. They had tried to get Emily to stay with them, but she had wanted to explore, to find life in the small wood they had stopped in. Then they had found the lake and then she had woken up besides Death.
“Sooo what now?” Emil asked watching the quiet place. “Like is there some kind of white light thing I’m supposed to be seeing?” Her eyes widened. “Or am I a ghost? Like Poe?!” She glanced down herself and pinched the skin on her wrist. “Aw! Shouldn’t ghost be untouchable?” She spun around trying to get a look of herself. As far as she could see she looked exactly the same as she always had. And just as clumsy as she had always been, which meant that the only thing she actually accomplished was falling over her own feet.
Death chuckled fondly. “You are nothing like Poe. Yes, you are both in a matter of words, dead. And for a while Poe did stay here before moving on. But he was always meant to die, you my dear Emily, you are special.”
He offered her a hand to stand. Emily ignored it, getting to her feet on her own. “But I’m dead, when I woke you told me I had died. You said you had stopped for me.”
Death turned his back to her and started walking, Emily followed him.
“I did say I stopped for you, didn’t I?” He laughed. “I’ve always stopped for you. But you’ve never stopped for me. And you still haven’t.” He turned and started walking towards the tree line. I may be death and you may just be human, but you have yet to stop for me, and therefore I can’t take you with me. I promised you your own immortality in form of your poems. And while I have broken my promise of when your heartbeat would stop, it is still intend for you to be the only Dickinson worth remembering.”
He stopped just before they would have entered the woods. “You have to search for your own afterlife. And with that I can’t help you anymore than I’ve already have.”
“What do you mean?! You haven’t helped at all! Emily stomped her foot in frustration. Death only shrugged and shoved her in between the first two trees and into a graveyard.
...........
Even with all the poems Emily had written imagining her own death, her funeral turned out to be a nothing like any of them. In fact it turned out to be a plainly boring and unoriginal. The priest said the same word he had said at the last funeral and the same words he would say at the next. People stood by her casket and cried, roses where thrown, dirt was being pilled and then people just left. And she followed them, how could she not. She was dead, it’s not exactly like she could do much else, other than being a ghost cliche and hunting the graveyard. And while following around the priest and scarring the living daylights out of him would be pretty funny, Emily had seen something else in the crowd, something she felt like she needed to follow.
Someone.
Sue.
She looked different than the last time Emily had seen her. Granted most of the crowd had looked different that the last time she had seen them. Grief had a habit of doing that to people, she knew that, but Sue had looked like something else. Like someone else. Emily had done her best to memorize every face Sue had ever worn, from long before their first kiss to their last fight, every little thing about Sue were tattooed in her mind, but this Sue she had never seen before. She looked more like a ghost than Emily herself did. Pale and small with Mr. Dickinsons heavy hand resting on her shoulder.
And when they entered the Dickinson house, Emily right behind them, she looked even less like the Sue Emily had known just before her death. That Sue hadn’t been Emilys favorite Sue, too caught up in parties and being an well to do influencer, but she had still in some way been Sue, unrecognizable, but she had been Sue.
This new Sue didn’t even try to be a hostess, she was polite but she just sat there besides Austin, stiffly thanking people and listening to their stories. Even when Austin made his speech she stayed motionless and pale.
The first time Emily saw Sue move that afternoon was when Austin took her hand whispering something about a Jane woman and home. Sue had nodded and they had turned away from each other.
Apparently a lot of people had known her, or at least they had heard the stories about the Dickinson girl, cause most of the people at her wake could tell you one. Of course most of them added or forgot details, and some outright made up stories, but most of them knew something about her, knew a little piece of her. Emily was delighted when she heard the bakers son telling the story about the time she tried to challenge him to a duel with a baguette, and when Austin actually laughed telling the story about her bird nests. She had craved this before she had left, to be known.
But the one person she had wanted to know her best stayed quiet the entire time.
Only after people had left, Austin had disappeared somewhere and the Dickinson parents had gone to be bed did Sue get up and walked to Emilys room. Slowly as Sues gaze took in the small room did she start to resemble a Sue Emily had known before.
And then she broke. Becoming a Sue Emily had only seen part of before.
And for the first time since waking up besides Death did Emily resent him. Sue sobbed and whimpered before her and she couldn’t do anything.
Emily frantically tried to wipe away the tears and take Sue into her arms, but her hands couldn’t make contact with Sues skin, it was like there was a invisible wall that prevented Emilys arms from hugging Sue.
She had been furious with Sue before, she still was, but standing and only being able to watch as Sue broke down into deep sobs and a broken whisper started to form, made her anger seem less important.
At first Emily could only make out ‘I’m sorry’s’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ but then Sues whispering started to become clearer and Emily heard her through the tears.
“You were right you know, without you I don’t think I feel anything. Except for you. You’re still the only thing I feel.”
Emily tried desperately to push past the invisible barrier that prevented her from grabbing Sues hand.
“As if it isn’t my fault that you’re dead.”
Emily pulled her hands through her hair. Trying to answer Sues accusations.“No, no it isn’t, sweetheart it isn’t your fault.”
Sue continued crying, not able to hear Emilys hurried reassurances.
“You said you would be here always! You promised me—”
In her haste to comfort Sue Emily hadn’t noticed how her mute whisper had turned into a non existing breath, blowing out the flickering candle, creating a small spark and blowing it onto an old poem, lightning a small frame that lit up a single word. ‘Forevermore.”