The Blunt Reaper

The ferryman remained upstairs to sleep. Rook and Mara returned to the crowded common room and found space at the end of a long table near the kitchen. A woman brought them roasted chicken, dark bread, vegetables and two bowls of broth without asking what they wanted.

Mara stared at the roasted leg resting upon her plate.

The skin had been browned until it glistened beneath the lantern light. Fat gathered in the shallow grooves of the wood, carrying the smell of herbs, smoke and warm meat. Beside it sat several pieces of roasted carrot and something close enough to a potato that she decided not to question the shape.

Rook tore a piece from the loaf between them. "What?"

"Where did this come from?"

"The kitchen."

"I know where meals come from."

"Then why ask?"

Mara lifted the roasted leg slightly, examining it from both sides. Bone showed through one end. The flesh separated beneath her fingers exactly as cooked meat should.

"I haven’t seen a farm since I arrived here," she said. "No fields. No chickens. No cows. Nothing. The Eighty-Sixth barely had grass, and most of that tried to kill us. Where did they get this?"

Rook dipped the bread into his broth. "It isn’t chicken."

Mara slowly lowered the leg. "What do you mean it isn’t chicken?"

"It tastes like chicken."

"That was not my question."

"Then ask the dead chef who remembered it into existence."

Mara looked toward the open kitchen. Several cooks moved through the smoke beyond the doorway. One stood before an empty counter with both hands pressed against its surface. As Mara watched, pale shapes gathered between his palms. They began as indistinct lumps, almost translucent beneath the light, then gradually acquired color and texture until a row of onions rested upon the wood.

Another cook immediately seized one and cut through it.

The knife met resistance.

Pieces fell across the board, releasing a scent sharp enough to make the cook blink and wipe his eyes.

Mara turned back to Rook. "He remembered those?"

"Probably spent most of his life preparing food. Some memories become strong enough to manifest, especially if they involve every sense."

"So this is someone’s memory of chicken?"

"More or less."

She looked down at the leg again. It appeared less appetizing now that she understood it had never possessed feathers.

"Whose memory?"

Rook pointed his bread at her. "You don’t ask that unless you want every meal ruined."

"Why would knowing ruin it?"

"Could be the cook’s. Could be something taken from a memory fragment. Could belong to a farmer who recalled feeding the animal better than eating it. Depending on how the memory was preserved, this might be someone’s recollection of the finest meal they ever prepared."

"And the less pleasant possibility?"

"It might be the last thing someone tasted before dying."

Mara put the leg down.

"I warned you."

She examined the other food. "Is any of this real?"

"Depends what you mean by real."

"Can it be eaten?"

"You’re holding it."

"Does it provide nourishment?"

"No."

"Then what happens to it?"

"Eventually it dissolves and returns to whatever the Underworld was made from. Might take hours. Might take days. Depends how clearly it was manifested."

Mara prodded one of the vegetables. It yielded beneath her finger and left a faint trace of oil upon her skin. "So none of this is actually food."

Rook continued eating. "It can be touched, tasted and swallowed. That’s more than can be said for some meals some ate while alive."

"Does it at least taste right?"

"Depends how good their memory was."

Mara cautiously raised the chicken leg and took a bite.

The skin cracked beneath her teeth. The flesh was warm, tender and recognizably chicken, although the taste possessed a strange perfection that made it feel less like a specific meal than the idea of every roasted chicken she had ever eaten. It had smoke, herbs and rich meat, but none of the tiny imperfections that distinguished one meal from another.

Rook watched her chew. "Well?"

Mara swallowed. "Needs salt."

Someone inside the kitchen shouted, "Then remember your own!"

Laughter rose from two nearby tables.

Mara looked toward the doorway but could not identify which cook had spoken. Rook pushed a small wooden bowl across the table. Coarse white grains filled it.

"Someone did you a favor."

She scattered some across the meat and took another bite. This one tasted better, though she could not decide whether the salt was genuinely responsible or embarrassment had made her less critical.

The lack of physical hunger should have made the meal pointless. Instead, warmth settled through Mara as she continued eating. Her stomach stopped aching. The tension in her shoulders gradually eased, and the noise around them became comforting rather than dangerous.

People argued over portions at the neighboring table. A pair of ferrymen compared routes while sharing a bowl. Someone near the hearth complained that the drink tasted nothing like what he remembered, prompting the innkeeper to tell him that his memory had probably been poor before he died.

Mara broke a piece from the bread. "If none of us need food, why does everyone eat?"

"Habit," Rook said. "Comfort. Something to do with your hands while avoiding conversation."

"So you don’t need it."

"No."

"But you still eat."

"I’m currently demonstrating that."

"You know what I mean."

Rook set the bread down. He looked around the common room, taking in the crowded tables, the cooks working behind the open doorway and the travelers drinking near the hearth.

"The dead who abandon every human habit tend to stop thinking like humans," he said. "At first, they decide there’s no reason to eat because they cannot starve. Then they stop sleeping because they don’t tire like the living. Clothes become unnecessary when cold cannot kill them. Houses become pointless when exposure means nothing."

"And then?"

"They sit somewhere and do nothing."

Mara waited for the familiar sarcasm, but his expression remained flat.

"At first, it might be peaceful," Rook continued. "After a few years, they stop speaking. After a few decades, they forget why anyone does. They lose the difference between waiting and existing. Some walk into the wild because danger no longer means anything to them. Others remain in the same room until the building collapses and leaves them buried beneath it."

"Do they become Abominations?"

"Some do. Others simply stop being people long before their memories are gone."