• • •
Citra’s father arrived just as dinner was about to be served. Her mom had apparently informed him of the situation, so he was much more emotionally prepared than the rest of them had been. As soon as he entered, he went straight over to Scythe Faraday to shake his hand, and pretended to be far more jovial and inviting than he truly must have been.
The meal was awkward—mostly silence punctuated by the occasional comment by the scythe. “You have a lovely home.” “What flavorful lemonade!” “This may be the best baked ziti in all of MidMerica!” Even though everything he said was complimentary, his voice registered like a seismic shock down everyone’s spine.
“I haven’t seen you in the neighborhood,” Citra’s father finally said.
“I don’t suppose you would have,” he answered. “I am not the public figure that some other scythes choose to be. Some scythes prefer the spotlight, but to truly do the job right, it requires a level of anonymity.”
“Right?” Citra bristled at the very idea. “There’s a right way to glean?”
“Well,” he answered, “there are certainly wrong ways,” and said nothing more about it. He just ate his ziti.
As the meal neared its close, he said, “Tell me about yourselves.” It wasn’t a question or a request. It could only be read as a demand. Citra wasn’t sure whether this was part of his little dance of death, or if he was genuinely interested. He knew their names before he entered the apartment, so he probably already knew all the things they could tell him. Then why ask?
“I work in historical research,” her father said.
“I’m a food synthesis engineer,” said her mother.
The scythe raised his eyebrows. “And yet you cooked this from scratch.”
She put down her fork. “All from synthesized ingredients.”
“Yes, but if we can synthesize anything,” he offered, “why do we still need food synthesis engineers?”
Citra could practically see the blood drain from her mother’s face. It was her father who rose to defend his wife’s existence. “There’s always room for improvement.”
“Yeah—and Dad’s work is important, too!” Ben said.
“What, historical research?” The scythe waved his fork dismissing the notion. “The past never changes—and from what I can see, neither does the future.”
While her parents and brother were perplexed and troubled by his comments, Citra understood the point he was making. The growth of civilization was complete. Everyone knew it. When it came to the human race, there was no more left to learn. Nothing about our own existence to decipher. Which meant that no one person was more important than any other. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, everyone was equally useless. That’s what he was saying, and it infuriated Citra, because on a certain level, she knew he was right.
Citra was well known for her temper. It often arrived before reason, and left only after the damage was done. Tonight would be no exception.
“Why are you doing this? If you’re here to glean one of us, just get it over with and stop torturing us!”
Her mother gasped, and her father pushed back his chair as if ready to get up and physically remove her from the room.
“Citra, what are you doing!” Now her mother’s voice was quivering. “Show respect!”
“No! He’s here, he’s going to do it, so let him do it. It’s not like he hasn’t decided; I’ve heard that scythes always make up their mind before they enter a home, isn’t that right?”
The scythe was unperturbed by her outburst. “Some do, some don’t,” he said gently. “We each have our own way of doing things.”
By now Ben was crying. Dad put his arm around him, but the boy was inconsolable.
“Yes, scythes must glean,” Faraday said, “but we also must eat, and sleep, and have simple conversation.”
Citra grabbed his empty plate away from him. “Well, the meal’s done, so you can leave.”
Then her father approached him. He fell to his knees. Her father was actually on his knees to this man! “Please, Your Honor, forgive her. I take full responsibility for her behavior.”
The scythe stood. “An apology isn’t necessary. It’s refreshing to be challenged. You have no idea how tedious it gets; the pandering, the obsequious flattery, the endless parade of sycophants. A slap in the face is bracing. It reminds me that I’m human.”
Then he went to the kitchen and grabbed the largest, sharpest knife he could find. He swished it back and forth, getting a feel for how it cut through the air.
Ben’s wails grew, and his father’s grip tightened on him. The scythe approached their mother. Citra was ready to hurl herself in front of her to block the blade, but instead of swinging the knife, the man held out his other hand.
“Kiss my ring.”
No one was expecting this, least of all Citra.
Citra’s mother stared at him, shaking her head, not willing to believe. “You’re . . . you’re granting me immunity?”
“For your kindness and the meal you served, I grant you one year immunity from gleaning. No scythe may touch you.”
But she hesitated. “Grant it to my children instead.”
Still the scythe held out his ring to her. It was a diamond the size of his knuckle with a dark core. It was the same ring all scythes wore.
“I am offering it to you, not them.”
“But—”
“Jenny, just do it!” insisted their father.
And so she did. She knelt, kissed his ring, her DNA was read and was transmitted to the Scythedom’s immunity database. In an instant the world knew that Jenny Terranova was safe from gleaning for the next twelve months. The scythe looked to his ring, which now glowed faintly red, indicating that the person before him had immunity from gleaning. He grinned, satisfied.
And finally he told them the truth.
“I’m here to glean your neighbor, Bridget Chadwell,” Scythe Faraday informed them. “But she was not yet home. And I was hungry.”
He gently touched Ben on the head, as if delivering some sort of benediction. It seemed to calm him. Then the scythe moved to the door, the knife still in his hand, leaving no question as to the method of their neighbor’s gleaning. But before he left, he turned to Citra.
“You see through the facades of the world, Citra Terranova. You’d make a good scythe.”
Citra recoiled. “I’d never want to be one.”
“That,” he said, “is the first requirement.”
Then he left to kill their neighbor.
• • •
They didn’t speak of it that night. No one spoke of gleanings—as if speaking about it might bring it upon them. There were no sounds from next door. No screams, no pleading wails—or perhaps the Terranovas’ TV was turned up too loud to hear it. That was the first thing Citra’s father did once the scythe left—turn on the TV and blast it to drown out the gleaning on the other side of the wall. But it was unnecessary, because however the scythe accomplished his task, it was done quietly. Citra found herself straining to hear something—anything. Both she and Ben discovered in themselves a morbid curiosity that made them both secretly ashamed.