My Tippet, Only Tulle by Allister Nelson

The carriage rides to eternity. It is still and dark in the shady expanse between Death and me. He wears a starched, button-down white linen shirt with breast pockets, dark slacks, a midnight blue waist coat, and holds a silver beveled edge pocket watch that he checks every quarter hour.

“Maiden, you came early today,” Death says, wry amusement on his smile, lighting his black eyes and hair.

I am dressed in an outfit that would put a Gibson Girl to shame. My umber skin glows like Kentucky whiskey, and my black curls press against my chignon with pomp and circumstance.

The carriage clacks over the rough oyster shell lanes of Yorktown. The heat of July in Virginia in 1893 is sweltering, rich off tobacco kings and the red clay.

I cool myself with a painted Venetian fan, then spare some waved, chilled air Death’s way. He grins.

“Well, Dee, you had to try my new raspberry scone recipe,” I reply. Out comes my picnic basket of clotted cream, butter, freshly made jam, scones, tea sandwiches, and lavender sprig lemonade. “Shall we take a walk to our usual place?”

It is midnight. It is always midnight on the Soul Road, a netted silk visage cast over the mortal realm that traipses like a spider in my shadow. I was born with an hourglass birth mark on my cheek, like a black widow, marking me as Dee’s. It is a strange thing, to have Death be your Guardian Angel.

“At your leisure, Delilah,” Death replies fondly, helping me out of the carriage that rides towards eternity. “I’m looking forward to the new recipe!”

We walk the road of bones and apples to the far shore, where angels weep and cavort and sing in the air, and souls set passage to emerald isles, like a dog seeking its supper. One by one the revenants of the dearly departed board golden skiffs, paddled by little deaths, and the opaline souls laugh, feast, and dance, dipping their feet in the lilac waters.

Dee and I take our picnic in the shade of an emerald willow and Death tastes the first raspberry scone. A bit of clotted cream sticks to his handsome cheek: “Delilah Macon, this is your best batch yet,” he says happily, devouring it.

Death is always hungry; I have learned this all too well.

“Oh Dee, here, you have a bit on your stubble.” I reach for my hand-embroidered handkerchief with a pattern of the Sun Tarot card—I love telling fortunes—and wipe it away.

He smiles, squeezing my hand. “I am a particularly messy eater. Nothing can sate me, Delilah.” His fingers graze the black widow port wine stain mark above my left eye, over my thickets of black brows. He wipes ash-brown curls from my chignon, then fixes the pale pink parasol that shades us both.

“Not even a poem can whet your infamous appetite?” I ask my Guardian Angel.

Dee smiles, bemused. “And what have you dreamed up over a dram of absinthe into spills of words today, Lila?”

I take my notebook out and unbind the leather thong. “You know, Dee, that these poems you edit, besides reading fortunes, are how I make my money, keep rent on my apartment, afford Sears dresses of the latest fashion from Paris, and pay my bar tabs. I am in dear need of my editor—you—and your fastidious pen.”

Dee laughs, and it sounds like a bell. The souls all cry out in joy at the clarion sound, then the churning movement of the cosmos continues its forward spheres. Elves and goblins dance, peddling wares, drinking blackberry wine.

“I cannot create art or write, my dear. Hence, I edit. What is Death but a well-placed comma, linking to greater things?” Dee reverently takes my bookmarked poem, bites his lip, then begins to mark the poem.

I knock my knees together under my blue dress. My corset itches. But to take it off around a man—even if he is my Guardian Angel—would be impolite. Instead, I set to feeding some fairy ducks Death’s leftover tea sandwiches.

“This one is particularly clever, Lila,” Death says, smiling. “But I would change the words from “For fabled, eternity” to “For forfeited, eternity.”

“Forfeited?” I rankle. “But eternity is surely a fabled thing!”

He stretches, sunning himself on that far shore, where the sun sings a pink pale homage. “Is it? More a curse, I would think, to not pass on. As alive as I have been, since God breathed life upon the womb of the cosmos, or perhaps I was awake even before that, is a strange fate. To not die, or grow, or change as miraculously as mortals do, seems more like a tragedy. I’d forfeit all my miracles for one perfect night alive.”

“Then, whosoever would be Death?” There are tears in my eyes, as I contemplate my treasured friend no longer walking life’s road with me. “You are irreplaceable, Dee.”

He shrugs. “Do not mind me, Delilah. It is not like I can shirk the black holes I am made of. Still, a night off the ghost roads, for once not lost in a thicket of harpy trees, would do wonders for my humor.”

“But you do that all the time,” I protest. “You travel the world, have many friends from Asia to the Adriatic!”

He winks. “Yes, but I am always starry and removed in my compatriot’s eyes. You are the only one, Delilah Macon, who truly understands me. For each Death, a Maiden. That is the balance of things. I need someone to tell my story, which you do, so beautifully, in your clarion poems.”

The angels and souls play a particularly beautiful melody. “Dee, I fear I love you.” I say, my heart in my hands.

I have nothing left to give. Nothing to say. My silver tongue eludes me.

I have nowhere left to run.

“The Maiden always falls, in the end, and Death always returns her affection,” Death smiles. “Dance with me, Lila, my heart’s bosom friend.”

I do. Dee strikes up God’s choir, and the luminaries and shattered stars bleed pianos and organs like accordions. A mazurka. A violin reel. A bright, fulsome Irish jig.

We kiss—for the first time in this life. For the last time in the Heavens. For all the Hells He put us through. My soul, always, in Death’s hands.

In truth, I am the one who keeps time, his pocket watch brought to life.

A terpsichore whirling around Father Time.

“That kiss was particularly ravishing,” Death says, his pale cheeks flushed, breathless. His hands skim my birthmark, the small of my back, the emerald pin in my hair, teasing at my plump breasts. “I do not remember ever being kissed so… fervently.”

I smile. “Give me your pocket watch, dear.”

He obliges. “What trick are you up to, Delilah?”

I smash it under my high heel, and my time stops. “I would like to live with you and like you, forever frozen, to at least keep you company upon this lonely road, my tippet only tulle, my bosom heart’s friend Dee.”

I throw the pocket watch shards into the sea.

There are tears in his eyes, and Death gives a wild laugh, scooping me up to ravish me in the carriage. “The Maiden has never done that, Delilah. You are rewriting the Reaper’s chessboard as we speak.”

“Let’s see what other trouble I can get up to, shall we? But first, breakfast. You’ll make me your fabled Florentine omelet, and I’ll fetch some fresh oranges for juice from the market.”

And so, Death stopped, only once in an eternity, for me. He kindly led me on. Time shattered for one of his heartbeats, and then the world carried on, one of his carriage passengers—his dearest Maiden—forgotten for all eternity.

And oh, the wonders I saw. And oh, the havoc we wreaked.

Endless time, Death and the Maiden.

Entwined.