"I don't know," she exhaled, as if she'd been holding her breath during a sprint. Her chest heaved in erratic rhythms; her eyes, large and almost frantic. "Is my inability a curse? Why can't I seem to master this?"

  "Each soul unfurls its wings at its own pace," he assured her, cradling her bewildered state with his words. "As for the barrier, I will mend it. You remain here, ensconced in the safety of your creations. Observe me if you can, and bolster the boundaries with your intent, if possible."

  "How? 'Bolster the boundaries'? What arcane language is that?" Ruth's voice betrayed her frustration, a crescendo of emotion climbing its scale.

  Foreheads touching, Jeremiah's eyes met hers in a momentary sanctuary of intimacy. Slowly, he withdrew, his form lifting into the air, levitating for the first time before her astonished gaze.

  Her eyes widened, reflecting the mystery and the impossible, and she took a tentative step forward. But he was already ascending, carried aloft by unseen currents of power.

  "Understanding will come in time," he assured her from his elevated vantage, "just keep reflecting on it."

  "That's less than helpful!" she called out. And as he veered away, soaring toward the compromised barrier, her voice erupted in a desperate cry, "Be careful, Jeremiah! I can't bear to see you hurt again!"

  Though he couldn't make assurances of emerging unscathed, her plea warmed him, even as he ascended through the looming storm clouds, her form blurring into the darkened landscape below. Instincts, honed sharp as a blade, guided him away from the human realm, steering him to the zone of conflict.

  His trajectory took him over a waterlogged crater, leading to a stretch of forsaken soil beyond. In this inhospitable land, grotesque worms had taken residence—ghastly creatures that would surface from subterranean lairs to snap at demonic birds and stone-faced gargoyles. One such monstrosity lunged at him now, a fury of soil and grit marking its ascent.

  Emerging from the soil, the worm was a nightmarish spectacle, its corpulent body culminating in a flared head that unfolded into three segmented sections. A rancid saliva oozed from its maw, its scent redolent of decomposition. Rows of jagged teeth lined the inside of its mouth, from which a prehensile tongue shot out in a ghastly attempt to ensnare him.

  In an instant, a scythe of black metal materialized in his hand. With an effortless sweep, the blade sheared through the lunging tongue. The worm let out a roar, a sound like rolling thunder, before retreating hastily into its shadowy lair.

  In that moment, as he stared down at the writhing creature slithering back into the earth, Jeremiah's thoughts turned to Ruth. Her exasperation, her yearning for understanding, her unspoken fears—they all weighed on his mind. He wished for her sake that he could make the world less labyrinthine, less fraught with peril. But as a reaper, his role was not to simplify the complexities of existence, but to guide lost souls through them. And so, scythe in hand, he returned his focus to the tenuous barriers, ready to do what must be done.

  "Abominable," Jeremiah muttered to himself, staring at the writhing horde before him. Each monstrosity was a manifestation of some corroded memory, a fragment of torment given form. If he had the authority to obliterate them all, he would—especially for Ruth’s sake. But his jurisdiction was limited: he could not reform the world into a sanctuary she could adore and crave.

  His role was singular: to maintain the barrier, to provide Ruth the secure environment she needed to navigate her own path to self-love.

  As he stood before the bulging perimeter of the barrier, he discerned the architects of this incursion: dark fairies, unique variants of darklings, diminutive yet malevolent. These creatures were mostly humanoid but carried an unsettling, almost feline, twist to their features. Their bat-like wings unfurled in darkness while their hands morphed into talons, sharp and curved like a reaper’s scythe.

  They were a canvas of shifting hues—black and deep purple mingled on their skin, occasionally interrupted by flashes of pallid white and silver, or even a streak of rusty pink, a testament to some past injury.

  They hurled themselves against the barrier with a ferocity that belied their size. Each individual might be negligible, but their collective mass transformed them into a formidable, almost sentient tide of darkness. The barrier wavered, quivering like taut film resisting pressure.

  Dust clung to the hem of Jeremiah's robes as he touched down on the earthen ground before the strained boundary, its terra cotta red reminiscent of landscapes Ruth had once described from her own cultural history. For a moment, his thoughts veered toward her, toward her grappling with the metaphysical landscape just as she grappled with her identity as an Mizrahi Jewish woman in a world that often couldn't see past its own preconceptions.

  Turning his gaze back to the issue at hand, he found that 'dozens' had been a gross underestimate. These dark fairies always manifested in the hundreds, multiplying their menace exponentially.

  "Retreat," he attempted to negotiate. In rare instances, darklings responded to reason. "This soul is on the verge of tranquility. Seek your malevolence elsewhere."

  "Hungry," one shrieked, its voice an unsettling dissonance. "Hungry, hungry, hungry!"

  As if possessed, the swarm amplified its assault on the fragile partition between worlds. It was a hunger, all-encompassing and indiscriminate, a hunger that eclipsed rationale. They were ravenous for the very essence that made up this realm, and Jeremiah, standing between them and their insatiable appetites, felt a new urgency rise within him.

  For Ruth, for the countless souls navigating their self-discoveries, and for the integrity of the spiritual landscape itself, he knew he had to act. With a deep breath, he summoned his dark metal scythe, preparing for the somber work ahead.

  With a steely grip, Jeremiah tightened his hold on the scythe, its blade glistening ominously in the fractured light. "This is your last chance, darklings," he warned, his voice heavy with both dread and finality. The scythe hummed, as though imbued with his own pent-up magic. "Leave now, or face the consequences."

  But their response was an unholy chorus: "Hungry, hungry, hungry!"

  There would be no reasoning with them. Unless Ruth could mend the breach, Jeremiah had no option but to slaughter these malevolent entities before attempting to stitch the wounded realm back together. He tried to infuse his own energy into the pulsating barrier, but Ruth’s fledgling command over her dominion blocked him.

  This was the tipping point for any soul—a perilous threshold where they had neither the mastery to repair their realm nor the innocence to allow their guardian to do it for them.

  Bracing himself, Jeremiah sensed the imminent rupture. The barrier moaned, then tore asunder, not shattering like glass but ripping like taut fabric. Through this torn veil, the dark fairies cascaded in a deluge, a malevolent tide breaching the sanctum.

  Taking to the air, Jeremiah swung his scythe with grim determination. A crescent wave of darkness—so radiant it almost shone—erupted from the blade, engulfing a swarm of the assailants. They erupted into luminous fragments of obsidian light, disintegrating into the ether. Whirling around, he sliced through another battalion, his scythe a deadly arc of judgement.

  But some of the creatures had already begun their sacrilege, consuming the essence of the realm, eroding its hard-won serenity to reveal the desolate underbelly. Swiping his scythe, Jeremiah obliterated them, his darkness colliding with theirs in a spectacular burst of conflicting energies.

  Yet the damages were already mounting, scattered like pockmarks across the celestial landscape. Just as quickly as he eradicated them, more fiends moved in to gnaw at the metaphysical terrain. A dark fairy latched onto his shoulder; he hurled it off with a forceful gesture. Another clamped onto the nape of his neck, tearing away a strip of his ethereal flesh.

  Jeremiah howled—a sound that echoed through the realms, a painful reverberation that no reaper should ever emit. Pain was a remnant of mortality, but pain also carried a lesson. It was a reminder, perhaps from the All of the All, that suffering would always precede transcendence.

  In the wake of his agony arose both determination and fear. The influx of dark fairies showed no sign of waning; their sheer numbers made them formidable. He knew that if he didn't act swiftly, other darklings would detect the breach and join the unholy pilgrimage.

  Another attempt to mend the vulnerable barrier was futile; his energy still wouldn’t meld with Ruth’s dominion.

  So, Jeremiah was left with an age-old solution, one as eternal as the cycle of life and death itself.

  He would have to fight. And he braced himself, scythe aloft, for the harrowing battle that would ensue, each swing a declaration of his unwavering duty, each clash a testament to the fragility and resilience of the realms he vowed to protect.

  29

  Nightmare Screams

  Tovah awoke with a scream that cleaved through the air, a sound that didn't belong to her but to the pure, raw terror that had consumed her. Her father, Ahmed, bolted into the room, his eyes wide and frantic, and enveloped her in his arms, desperately trying to muffle her piercing cries. But she couldn't stop—she just couldn't. Each scream felt like it was scraping a layer off her already raw throat; she could even taste the metallic tang of blood.

  "Enough, Tovah, enough!" Ahmed's voice quivered with a paternal mixture of fear and helplessness. Despite his firm grip, she continued her heart-wrenching wails. "Stop this. Now!"

  Clutching the fabric of his shirt as though it were a lifeline, she kept screaming. It was as though an indomitable dread had physically twisted around her core, turning her into a living manifestation of fear. Her eyes widened as if seeing her own soul, and she felt dizzy; her screams had left no room for breathing.

  Ahmed, his face etched with both love and a harrowing sense of distance, shifted his hands to her upper arms and shook her with urgency. Her head lolled back and forth like a broken antique doll, one that had outlived its time and purpose, yet she couldn’t silence her screams.

  Deep within her, a vile feeling took root. It was as though the air had become thick with something unclean—something monstrous. It slithered through her veins, compelling her to contort and writhe. She remembered the sensation of hands in her hair last night, hands that belonged to something different from what had visited her in the past. This new entity was darker, twisted, and radiated malevolence. It had whispered, "Hungry, hungry," in an otherworldly tone that left her paralyzed with horror.

  The sensation was a torrent of fear and dread, too overwhelming for her conscious mind to separate or even comprehend. With a primal urgency, Ahmed shook her once more, and then did something he had never done before. His hand moved through the air with a decisive swiftness, striking Tovah's face. The slap resounded in the small room, silencing her screams.

  Her head snapped to the side, and her eyes fixated on the window where the morning light was just beginning to seep through the veil of darkness—a light sullied, almost begrimed, by the approaching dawn.

  Finally, her screams ceased.

  Ahmed drew her close, his chest heaving with the weight of the moment, as he whispered prayers under his breath. "Mi Shebeirach."

  It was a melody Tovah had heard countless times during her younger years, a prayer for the ailing and distressed. A prayer that had often flowed from the lips of rabbis in the synagogue, but one she had heard just as often from Ahmed. He'd whispered it while clutching the frail hand of her dying mother, murmured it as he held a younger Ruth tight during the still nights, and recited it as he gently stroked her sister's hair.

  And now, in this room, filled with the vestiges of Tovah's screams and the burgeoning dawn, Ahmed whispered it for his terrified daughter, as if the ancient words could banish the inexplicable dread that had ensnared her.

  To Ahmed, the prayer was more than just a recitation of words; it was a balm for the soul, a remedy for all that ails. Today, he whispered it gently as he ran his calloused fingers through Tovah's hair, before caressing her cheek and planting a soft kiss on her temple.

  "I'm sorry, Tovah," his voice quivered, filled with an ache that mingled regret and love. "I didn't want to hurt you, you have to believe me."

  "I know, Abba," she replied, her voice faint as a whisper, as he pulled her close again. His arms, pillars of strength and tradition, enveloped her. Typically, the looming presence of her father was enough to make the eerie sensation of being watched dissipate, but not today.

  The dream—or was it a dream?—hung heavy in her thoughts. Fairies had swarmed through the streets of Tel Aviv as though they were a pestilence let loose upon the land. Was that what they were? A plague? Tovah couldn't tell.

  Her cheek still bore the stinging imprint of her father's hand, and her breaths came out in shallow huffs. Her throat felt scraped, as though she had been swallowing shards of glass. The lingering taste of copper invaded her mouth. With a small shiver, she closed her eyes and nestled even closer to her father.

  "This room is wrong," she murmured. "Something evil lurks here."

  Ahmed, ever the stalwart rock of his family, nodded gently. "I'll find someone to consult about these nightmares," he assured her softly. "I had hoped they would pass on their own, but living like this...it's not acceptable--especially with--" He hesitated, and she could sense the question he didn't ask: Were these nightmares spawned by the grief of losing Ruth?

  Tovah knew better. She might have been young, but she had a wisdom that most adults failed to perceive—a wisdom acknowledged only by Ruth and Asher. This was no simple matter of grief; it was an issue that existed in the complex space between sorrow and solace, something entirely different.

  Ahmed was deeply devout, his faith steeped in the teachings of the Torah and the wisdom of the rabbis. But Tovah? Tovah was intuitive, in a way that existed beyond faith—she was superstitious.

  Her father may have sought solace in sacred texts and venerated tomes, but Tovah understood that there were certain truths even a synagogue couldn't fully embrace. The peculiar events that had begun unfolding shortly after the deaths of Ruth and Asher signified more than mere coincidence.

  And now, with the intrusion of these menacing creatures into her dreams—or were they visions?—Tovah had an unsettling certainty: something malevolent was unfurling, perhaps already in motion.

  And it was only a matter of time.

  "Is she in Gan Eden?" Tovah's voice emerged brittle and fragmented, as though her previous screams had splintered it.

  Ahmed's hand, which had been tenderly tracing the arch of her back, came to a sudden halt. Instead of answering, he redirected, "Let's get something warm for your throat."

  "No tea," Tovah asserted, her face scrunching at the thought of the drink. She had always been repelled by the idea of dried tea leaves, stagnant on some forgotten shelf, later steeping in her cup. The thought sent shivers down her spine.

  "Definitely not tea," Ahmed confirmed. Though he was advancing in age and Tovah, at thirteen, had long outgrown the cradle, he managed to lift her as if she were still his little girl. He carried her out of her room, through the dimly lit hallway, and down the creaking staircase.

  The unseen presence that stalked her seemed to float along, a haunting whisper on the air.

  Tovah whimpered and buried her face into the warm, familiar crevice of her abba's neck.

  Ahmed refrained from probing into the contents of her dream. She offered no explanation either. The last time she had tried—confiding that some unspeakable entity lurked in her closet—he had dismissed it. Why would another week make any difference?

  She doubted it would.

  It wasn't until they reached the haven of the kitchen that Ahmed gently placed her down, emitting a soft grunt as he did. Flicking on the lights with one hand, he guided her toward a row of bar stools snug against a kitchen counter.

  "Sit here," he instructed. "I'll make you something warm."

  "Remember, not tea," she echoed.

  "Of course, not tea," he reiterated, turning the knob on the stove to bring the kettle to a low simmer. He began assembling ingredients for a spiced cider, the scent of cloves and cinnamon promising to fill the air soon.

  Summoning the courage of Ruth and Asher, Tovah endeavored to be brave. Awake and under the watchful eyes of her abba, the twisted fairies from her nightmare wouldn't dare manifest. And even if she felt watched, at least there would be no spectral fingers threading eerily through her hair.

  So Tovah looked.

  She searched for the thing, the malevolent entity that had her under its gaze, though she found no trace of it. However, a fleeting memory flickered—of a shadowy figure present at the wedding, right before Asher's life was tragically cut short. It had lurked in the corner, just too indistinct for her eyes to fully capture.

  And when Asher had collapsed, she had sensed something more—an added density in the air, as though spirits had been summoned. She had felt something similar at her grandmother's funeral, but never quite like this.

  This was different.

  Everything was different.

  Her gaze still roving, Tovah barely noticed when her father settled next to her, placing before her a steaming mug of spiced cider, and for himself, a mug of aromatic chai. The moment her fingers curled around the warmth of the mug, it felt like liquid courage flowing right up to her heart.

  "Be careful," he cautioned softly, the wrinkles around his eyes tightening in concern. "It's very hot."

  "Yes, Abba," she replied, cradling the mug close but not daring to sip just yet.

  "What haunts you, Tovah?" His voice bore an undertone of urgency, like someone tiptoeing on a fragile surface.

  "I...I don't know," she hesitated, crafting a lie. "You always told me it's just a dream."

  "Do you think someone was in your room again?" Ahmed's words were tinged with worry, each syllable hanging heavier than the last. "I checked, Tovah. There was no one there. Do you...see it now?"