Page 63 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

The accusation is absolute.

Her mother immediately starts apologizing, but Lavinia waves her off with an easy smile.

“Grim is famous now,” she says. “Do you want to say hello?”

The little girl nods solemnly.

I crouch, because I have learned there are rules for approaching small, suspicious creatures.

She studies me with the seriousness of a customs officer.

“Are you really Death?”

The shop quiets.

I can feel everyone's attention settle around us.

“Yes,” I answer. “I am.”

She thinks about that for several long seconds.

“Are you nice?”

Of all the questions I have answered over the centuries, this is somehow the hardest.

“I try to be,” I tell her honestly. “Sometimes I don't know how. But I try.”

She nods as though that makes perfect sense.

“My grandma said you helped her.”

“She asked me to sing,” I say. “So I did.”

That seems to satisfy her.

“She also said you were very tall.”

“I cannot help it.”

Her smile blooms slowly, then all at once.

She steps forward with her arms open.

I am not prepared for hugs. I suspect I never will be.

But I am learning.

I wrap my arms around her carefully, holding her just long enough before she lets go.

“Thank you,” she says.

She buys a single daffodil, pays with a fistful of coins, and leaves hand in hand with her mother.

For a long moment I simply watch them through the window, the yellow raincoat bobbing along the sidewalk like a bright spring blossom. Halfway down the block, they both turn to look back at the shop.

Lavinia joins me, her arms full of fresh tulips. She arranges them in the front window, somehow managing to rearrange me in the process.

“You handled that beautifully,” she says, quietly enough that only I can hear.