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“How would they find us here? Who would look for a fugitive in a place like this?”
“On the contrary, it's exactly the kind of place you'd look for someone trying to hide. We have to go,” she insists.
Whatever the reasons… wherever she goes, I go.
This problem keeps going round and round in my head: how can I get hold of a competent Sin Eater? I keep thinking back to the difficulties I encountered a few days earlier in hiring one. Then I imagine the distress of other parents who, unlike me, didn't see the solution. I can't bear to leave them in this pain, beyond the loss of a loved one. Despite my fears, I've managed to get my family into heaven without too much difficulty. I must continue on this path and offer peace to others. More than a duty, I see it as a vocation. So, I’ve formally decided to leave everything behind to become Sin Eater.
Do I even have a choice? I don't know and probably never will. However, taking this decision in such a categorical way puts my mind at ease. I feel a bit better, more in tune with myself and, above all, in perfect coherence with my convictions.
Following this major turning point in my life, the strange dreams have multiplied. Hardly a night goes by without nightmares invading my sleep. Is the secret Brotherhood of Sin Eaters using this method to distill information for me? An intuition one day, a vision another; all lead me to desperate families in search of salvation for someone they’ve lost.
Eltz's journal
13
Believ
I walk part of the night with only a will-o'-the-wisp ghost to guide me through this darkness I could cut with a knife. Although neither he nor I would admit it, something decisive happened at the river; the barriers erected between us crumbled, dispersing an unsettling unease.
No one's fooled by the inexplicable alchemy that binds us together, which nonetheless hampers our prospects; how can we envisage a future when one of us is dead and the other is sure to die soon?
Scattering the traces of our passage, we move forward, progressing along paths invaded by sharp greenery and through dense undergrowth surrounded by a silence heavy with undertones and impossible expectations.
I can't take it anymore.
Determined to fill this emptiness to avoid my existential questions, I return to the circumstances of our departure, which I still can't explain to myself.
“Something strange happened when we left the village,” I begin. “The old man...”
The ghost freezes and turns toward me. The glow emanating from his body allows me to discern the surprise on his worried features.
“What happened?” he asks immediately.
“He came after me. Don't worry, he didn't hurt me—well, not yet—but he challenged me.”
I inhale deeply and tense up before letting go of the essence of this exchange. “He knew.”
“Knew what?”
“What I am. He knew.”
Again, the silence stretches out, a sign that what alarms me is indeed worrying.
“He begged me to come back for him.”
“Did he? Did he really fear for the salvation of his soul?”
I shrug vaguely. “What do I know? To be so insistent, he must have a few skeletons in his closet. Who doesn't? Unless... Maybe he's a serial killer who stuffs his victims in his attic.”
Don't overdo it; you're getting paranoid!
What really gets me is how he found out about my profession. With the exception of my tattoos, which I'm careful to hide wherever I go, there was nothing he could do to unmask me! So how did he find out?
“Isn't there anything about your appearance that's conducive to finding out?” My deceased interrogates me with timing that leads me to believe that, once again, he has penetrated my mind without my consent.
“No. Nothing, except my hair. It used to oscillate between chocolate and honey. As I worked, it gradually faded until it turned completely white.”
“Oh, so that's it...”
