1,087 words!
Recap: Cora is non-verbal. Samuel is hard of hearing. They use sign language to communicate. Romy is a ghost. Lena is a 7yo. They are currently in the underworld. Cora sucks souls. Badabing badaboom.
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Cora gasped, completely freezing with no idea how to respond. Her hands were restricted by her side, Samuel’s arms enveloping around her in a large embrace. For a few moments, she considered leaning into his warmth, his physical body heat represented by the orange glow that seemed to entirely encase him. Cora thought back to the other times she had been hugged since her father died, since Romy’s explanation of the awfulness that resided within her very core being. Cora banished those thoughts.
Staggering back, unwilling to sap from Samuel’s warmth anymore than she already had, she wiped away the crusted tears from her eyes.
Samuel took a steep step back hands held high and out of her personal bubble —he probably finally realized that she literally sucked from his soul. The space wouldn’t protect him, but it was morbidly humorous that he thought it did. His eyebrows pinched up, mouth held slightly agape as he signed, “I’m sorry — I should have asked. You had already cried a bunch and—“
“You’re fine,” Cora signed, putting on her best sincere smile. “I’m dangerous.”
The worry faded as his shoulders slumped. “I won’t force it, but… don’t worry about death stuff with me, okay? If you want a hug, then I’m here.” Samuel extended a hand outward, leaning forward slightly and brushing against her personal space.
She shook her head. “Thank you, but no.” The knitted worry quickly spread across his face again, so Cora added, “The hug was fine, but I won’t let you hurt yourself for me.”
Romy floated in the gap between the two, facing Cora. Samuel narrowed his eyes, retracting his hand and putting more distance between himself and the ghost. Oblivious to Samuel, Romy spoke with a falsetto chipper. “See? They don’t hate you.” Her winding voice struck Cora’s ears as an irritant for the first time. “Now, let’s get the girl and find a reaper village, okay?” Romy twirled her luminescent locks, tilting her head to the side and blowing a rather largeish silvery ghost bubble with her ghost gum.
“Stop,” Cora signed, following it with: “Wait.”
Seeing around the edges of Romy, Cora loosely followed Samuel’s movements as he walked over to the patch of grass where Lena lay on the ground. She saw him sign to get up, then saw Lena’s little hands sign something incomprehensible in response — a loud “eeergh” emanated from Lena’s direction.
It was cruel to leave the two siblings down there any longer than she had to. Their bright dispositions didn’t match the encroaching gloom that lurked around them, including Cora’s gloom. Lena and Samuel were her responsibilities. They had to go back to the overworld where they at least fit in with the overcast days, still belonging to a human gloom rather than a mournful sorrow not quite describable.
“We need to take them back through the portal,” Cora signed, grounding her feet into the grass and looking back at Romy’s face. “It’ll be morning soon and their parents will be worried sick.” She glanced down at her watch — a gift from Mrs. Kiplinger, along with a sketchbook — reading the time of 4:47am. Old routine struck her like the chime of a grandfather clock, remembering that Mrs. Kiplinger woke up at 8:30am to get to work on time.
Romy continued to loudly chew on the bubblegum. “Cordelia,” she said, her voice falling flat with a radio drone, “you really should have come to the underworld years ago. You’re honestly so ignorant.” Something danced in Romy’s blank eyes. “Portals are one way for mortals. Those who climb back through end up rotting.”
Cora froze, her face now an empty canvas. “No…”Her sign was soft, no longer the automatic snap. She put it down gently.
Victory dawned on Romy’s face, her aura glowing brighter. “That’s right, Cordelia! We’re finally going to cross that bridge. If you want to help your friends, you’re going to have to meet Death. There’s no more running from your duty and purpose. You have to accept your station.”
Cora shook her head, curling and uncurling her fists. “I said wait until I’m eighteen. Three more years, Romy.” She looked back to Lena and Samuel, watching as Samuel quite literally picked Lena up and hoisted her over his shoulders. The girl giggled loudly, beating on his back as he spun her around — something about Samuel reminded her of his father. Maybe it was his patience. “You can’t keep them down here.”
Romy smiled, reaching forward to clasp Cora on her shoulder with a hand that passed right through. Cora shivered. “If you meet Death, then they won’t have to stay down here.” She shrugged, floating back a little bit. “I don’t want to hurt you or them, Cordelia. I’ve always had your best interests at heart. But really, you’ve been a defective reaper for… over a decade now? Sorry, years get harder and harder to track. But honestly, if you stick around them, then they’re going to die. You can be effectively immortal soon enough, if you just let go of wack overworld stuff.”
Cora caught Samuel’s new expression — he stopped twirling Lena around, looking Cora dead in the eyes with a frown on his face. With a deliberate hand, he took his hearing aids out of his ears and stuffed them into a pocket of his pants. “ASL only,” he signed, one hand still holding onto Lena lest she fall down. Then he continued to swing Lena around again, purposefully and obviously distracting her.
Cora winced, hesitating to sign again for fear of causing further pain to Samuel. “I don’t care about becoming a reaper. It’s fine. But I’m not going to run away—”
Romy tapped her wrist, smiling more. “We honestly need to head to the village, Cordelia. Time is of the essence. The longer your friends stay down here, the closer they are to meeting death with a lowercase d.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No.”
“Don’t you care about me?” This question came as a surprise, escaping Cora’s fingers before she had a chance.
Romy’s smile carried a trace of something unplaceable, but familiar. “Yes.”
With that as a small consolation, Cora walked away from Romy, heading over to tell Lena and Samuel that it was time to follow the ghost and head to the reaper village. Wherever that happened to be for whatever purpose it happened to serve. An inkling of something had lodged itself in Cora’s psyche, but she couldn’t sort it. So she ignored it.
End of chapter
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140,681 Literary Works • 673,591 Reviews
BRB SOBBING because Samuel literally cares so much about Cora that he's like "yeah I literally don't care that you're involuntarily sucking my soul out with our every touch, I will hug you if you need hugs and just SEE IF ANYONE CAN STOP ME." That said, the end of the last chapter felt like the perfect place to leave off before diving back into some action, so the opening of this chapter feels superfluous.
Ohhhhhhh Samuel and Lena interacting in the middle of Cora and Romy having kind of a terrible conversation about how to get them out of the underworld is so tragic omg. I love the contrast of this normal, intimate interaction between siblings and the idea that one way out of the underworld will eat them up and the other requires meeting Death.
BRB SOBBING AGAIN. Between Cora surprising even herself with that second question and the something in Romy's smile. I'm such a sucker for snarky characters who don't seem like they care but secretly they do.
Now the end, though, I have to say that this chapter largely feels like filler. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought something about a reaper village came up in the last part I read? ASSUMING I READ IN ORDER, that really makes this chapter feel pointless. Even if I read out of order, I feel like there's a lot here that could be trimmed down? Like at least the first half, probably, skipping from the hug at the end of the last chapter to Romy telling Cora that they can't merely go through a portal because it's one way for mortals. That's just one suggestion, but anyway it's something to think about for revision.
Hey, Adri!!
I'm very rusty! It's been weeks! I'm super sorry about the lack of reviews! I fell of the wagon and struggled to get back on and oh man-- but I'm here to give it another try!
Hopefully this review is up to par!
This is worded awkwardly. It kind of reads as though she freezes due to the lack of knowing how to respond? Whereas I'm fairly certain you're going for her freezing and simultaneously not knowing how to respond. You might fix this by making it two sentences, a la “Cora gasped, freezing completely. She had no idea how to respond.” or something of that sort.
The second sentence is also little choppy. I'd recommend the following edit for it: “Her hands were restricted by her sides [plural because both arms on one side is weird, broski] as Samuel's arms enveloped her in a large embrace.”
Dropped “around” because “enveloping around” is a little weird. “Enveloped” achieves the same affect with less bulk in prose. Also dropped the comma because it sorta stunted the flow.
I'm currently floating in a surreal mixture of caffeine high/bad headache, so I hope those edits make sense, but they're also just suggestions! You can reword the sentences however you see fit!
???
“his physical body heat” is an awkward wording. I supposed the orange glow is his soul? It's been a while since I read from this story, but I recall souls glowing. Unless his body heat is also now radiating off of him in visible colors, or Cora has developed some sort of infrared vision, the soul glow is the only explanation I can think of.
But if it is his soul and Cora's deduced as much, describing it as a representation of his “physical body heat” is weird.
I'll admit that “awfulness” sounds rather unprofessional? I wonder if this is an attempt to combat the fear of Cora sounding “thirty-something”. She doesn't as far as I've read, but this strikes me as an apparent attempt to make the language sound younger?
I was gonna rip into it a bit because it struck me as out of place, but I got off on the wrong foot with the word. It's not as bad as I initially thought. I went looking for good synonyms and most are the same level as “awfulness” or would sound like attempts at cramming in overly-grandiose language. “Awfulness” isn't as awful as I first thought.
Something that might be as awful as first thought, though, is: “resided within her very core being”. What's a “very core being”. You might say “the core of her very being”? That makes more sense and sounds better. But “very core being” just sounds like she's a... giant... sentient... apple core? Like a literal core being ahaaah.
(Core Being could also be a mediocre name for some monster from the core of a planet, but. Nah.)
Moving on!
It feels a bit too soon for the tears to be crusted? Not sure.
Few issues with this sentence. Firstly, I'm having a hard time envisioning this “steep step”. Like, I just imagine him stepping backwards, down a slope, but there's no slopes as far as I can tell? And even if there were one, it feels like a weird way to word it.
Secondly, I think a comma after “step back” would be appropriate. Are his hands, like, held up and away to show that he's not gonna touch her? Like you'd do when approaching an animal or something? I'm having a hard time visualizing what you want me to, but an equally hard time describing how I actually visualize it, haha.
Thirdly, the assumption that he “probably finally realized that she literally sucked from his soul” feels... baseless? Unless the glow from his soul has shifted slightly and Samuel is acknowledging that, or he exhibits some physical symptoms (maybe his expression grows more weary and dark? Or he looks at his hands like “whoa things feel weird”).
It might be difficult to display with him being a secondary character and not the main POV, but if his reaction is what tips Cora off to this, then you might give it a try. Otherwise, the assumption remains without grounds and comes across as an attempt to hurry things along on the soul-sucking front? Or restart Cora's waterworks? If any of that makes sense.
[pause]
Reading on, I realize that maybe you meant that Samuel's sudden step back was due to him realizing the soul-sucking thing. My mistake! I'll leave the above, though, because the sentence could still use a bit more clarity on that, I think.
Smiling and then saying she's dangerous is so sad, oh no. But the general mood of this scene feels a bit bouncy. I think “I'm just dangerous” might work better as clarification(?) to Samuel? I'm not really sure how to explain my feelings for this scene, but the comment alongside everything else doesn't sit well with me.
Brushing against her personal space makes her personal space sound like a physical, tangible thing. That's fine, because writing doesn't always have to be so literal. But this case of it sounds weird to me. Brushing against her personal space. I dunno, something about it just doesn't sit right. I wish I could offer more clarity or an edit suggestion, but ack.
I'd change this to “into the gap”, because saying “in the gap” sounds as though she's been there all along. “Into” has her currently move there, and flows better.
I like this sentence. Ghost gum, ghost gum! My only issue is the use of “rather largeish”, because it feels redundant. The “ish” seems to make up what “rather” would indicate? So using both is jumbly. I'd personally keep “rather large”, but it's up to you.
I also unfortunately have to touch on the repetition of ghost/ghost. Ghost bubble with ghost gum. It doesn't flow all that well to me, but if you were going for an intentional repetition, then you can disregard this. Otherwise, I might suggest switching one up? You could say “silvery spectral bubble with her ghost gum” or something similar. There's lots of neat substitute words for “ghost” that you could try out. But yeah, if it was an intentional repeat, then no problem!
So I take the use of “there” to be an attempt at avoiding that awkward space where using “here” makes the story feel like the present tense. But I've gotta say that “there” here makes it sound like it's just referring to the there of the siblings' short distance from Cora and Romy? Like, “oh we can't leave them down there, bring them along with us!” but I'm fairly certain that it's Cora not wanting to leave them in the Underworld.
You might be able to scrape by with a “here” in this instance? But I'm not sure. You might be able to combat “there”s effects by switching “leave” with “keep”? But this is all very nit-picky. I'll leave the course of this edit up to you--
I think it'd be fun to describe it as “incorporeal bubblegum” here, to keep the ghost vibe going. It adds a bit more to the description without going too overboard and coming off as a constant reminder that it's ghost gum, I think? I dunno, I just really like the ghost gum, haha.
This has a large chance of being incorrect because I'm so bad at hyphens, but I think “one way” might be hyphenated?
Missing a space between the dialogue and “Her sign”.
Romy is obviously putting Cora in a difficult position right now, but I really enjoy her character and the way her dialogue is written. She's very lively for a ghost and fun to read.
“quite literally” feels like a pointless addition here. I don't think it's necessary to specify that it's literal when picking Lena up and hoisting her over his shoulders couldn't (as far as I can tell) be seen as a figure of speech? I'd drop the “quite literally”, but otherwise the sentence is great.
This might be incorrect, but I think “something about Samuel reminded her of his father” should have Cora referred to by name rather than by “her”, since Lena is mentioned between the last instance of Cora being mentioned? It's got “the girl” and “her” in reference to Lena a couple times before Cora is brought up again, so using Cora's name could avoid any potential confusion with just who is reminded of Mr. Kiplinger here.
This is very confusing to me. Did he overhear the conversation between Cora and Romy, and tell Cora to have Romy stick to ASL? Does Romy even know ASL?
Samuel also feels largely inconsistent. He's mad at Cora, then he tries to comfort her, then he's upset(?) that he can't, then he goes to talk to Lena and she makes the “ergh” sound which seems to imply that Samuel said to her or asked her something she wasn't a fan of? Then he's playing with her (to keep her calm? But it sort of read like he was chill again), and now he's upset again. He seems to be bouncing around a lot and it's difficult to keep track of how everyone is feeling and theee overarching vibe of this chapter has been a bit inconsistent in that respect. Things are pretty wobbly.
While I appreciate the visual pun(?) of a lowercase 'D' in the case of one being mentioned, I think it'd remain grammatically proper to spell it out as “lowercase D”. But I'm not sure, so don't take my word for that!
And done!
I really like the last paragraph of this chapter. It was nicely written?
As I said before, the chapter overall felt rather inconsistent with everyone's moods kind of swinging left and right. I understand this was very rough, so I won't cling to that too much (though oops I think this review is already pretty long with rambling and nit-picky stuff).
But yeah! I'm gonna avoid touching on character consistency in the overarching novel itself because I've fallen out of the loop and don't really remember how things were last chapter.
Will say that, while this was a rough read, Cora and Romy's conversation was pretty good, and definitely progressed the plot at least a little bit? I love Romy's character and dialogue. She and Cora have a decent chemistry going on, too, which can be difficult to build with characters (especially if you have them related prior to the events of the story, because you've gotta make it realistic and believable that they know one-another).
Anyway, I think I'll wrap this review up now. I hope to get to the other chapters soon. Many apologies for the rust coating this review, but keep up the nice work!
- Hatt