18 Pinkie Promise

Lily

Siedah’s gentle kindness was palpable as she squeezed Lily’s waist. “You have one heck of a story to tell, girl! You go from wondering if you were going to make it to Paradise to being on a trivia team with multiple deities?”

“I contain multitudes.” Lily chuckled, squeezing her back. “Trust me, I have no idea how that happened either, I’m just rolling with it.”

Siedah shook her head as they linked arms and walked down a bustling side hall towards a coffee place Siedah had suggested and Lily hadn’t explored yet. Lily listened as Siedah described in greater detail what happened at the Front Desk, and the highs and lows of dealing with a wider range of souls than Lily had in Hell. Her friend moved through the Afterlife with a sweet, quiet assurance that Lily couldn’t help but envy.

“You’re so confident here,” Lily said during a lull in conversation as they waited in line. The coffee place was much smaller than Common Grounds and looked and smelled amazing.

“So are you.”

Lily blinked down at her, waiting for the laugh.

Siedah smiled and squeezed her arm. “I was just admiring your confidence. My confidence stems from familiarity. Yours seems to come from here.” She tapped her own chest. “I’ve been in the Afterlife much longer than you, and I’ve had other lifetimes before this. Every time I’ve returned here, it feels like my eternal home. I work here, have friends and family here. I enjoy being here. But,” she said with a sly grin that was at odds with her soft features, “even I, familiar as I am, have never dared venture into a punishment realm out of curiosity. Especially not Hell. Working at the Front Desk is intimidating enough, let alone the idea of starting one in Hell. Please give yourself some credit.”

Lily tried to laugh it off and move forward in line, but Siedah held her arm.

“We don’t go until you give yourself credit,” Siedah said sweetly. “No coffee. No pastries. And they are delicious pastries; we’ll have to get some boxed to take back to the Front Desk.”

Lily winced. She could smell very well how delicious the baked goods would be. The warm, familiar, earthy scent of freshly ground, high-quality coffee caressed her senses like silk.

“You realize this is torture?”

“Of course.”

Lily waited.

Perhaps she would get bored?

Siedah waited.

Fuck.

“It didn’t seem very gutsy at the time, I just did it. Admittedly, there was some spite involved, but I mostly wanted to see what was down there, and I figured that the worst thing they would do would be kick me out.”

“You’re discrediting yourself. Please try again.” Siedah smiled innocently. “You know, they have the best blueberry muffins here.”

“Cruel.”

“A perfect ratio of berry to muffin.”

Lily shook her head, rolling her shoulders and reaching for the hard-won self-confidence that still sometimes scared her. “I did something that most people wouldn’t think of doing, and I have a lot of fun doing it. Most of the time. All things considered. The people I work with and the people I’ve met make even the worst parts worth it.”

“Excellent!” Siedah led her forward through the vibrantly colorful little shop. “So, what is it exactly that you do? I know there’s already an established intake program…”

Lily explained how she had started working in Hell, and the still evolving nature of the Hellp Desk, a name that had Siedah giggling into her coffee. Lily hid her self-satisfied grin with her cup.

The chatter from the surrounding patrons was light and happy, the occasional burst of laughter a cheerful staccato amongst the melody of voices. A child with feathered wings and brown hair tugged at her father’s arm, pointing to a cupcake frosted like a ballgown. A table of souls chatted in old Gaelic, though Lily somehow understood it.

The bite she took of the berry cobbler she’d ordered was very, very good, but paled in comparison to the ecstasy of the pie she’d shared with Bel. Or what touching him in the smallest of ways had been like.

The memory of his smooth, warm skin against her fingers, the kick of his pulse, his warm scent, like leather and cloves, came to her unbidden. She’d only held his face, yet the moment had kept her up last night. His silver eyes meeting hers, holding hers, like he could see into the fibers of her being. Steady, patient, curious. For a mind-bending moment, she’d thought that if, someday, Bel saw her, all of her, he wouldn’t be disgusted with what he saw. Wouldn’t realize she was too much work, required too much effort, and turn away.

But then reality had kicked in. Bel was wonderful and kind and loyal, a prince and a general, with a family that he loved and that loved him. Maybe Bel wanted his own family, wanted children. The desire for her own family and children had been the dream of her life, and still burned bright. They could never share that together.

And all of that was assuming that he felt even vaguely the same way she did. Emotionally, anyway. She was pretty sure he recognized the tension humming between them. Surely, he felt the…chemistry.

She sure fucking did.

Once she’d finally fallen asleep, her dreams had been filled with hot skin and growled words she couldn’t understand, typical dream gobbledygook, but damn if she hadn’t woken up with her hand between her slick thighs, wishing it was someone else’s fingers making her gasp instead.

She shouldn’t have thought about how his hand had felt on her wrist, shouldn’t have imagined his heavy, warm weight above her, shouldn’t have wondered how his bulk would feel between her thighs.

She’d come apart when she’d remembered his gravelly voice calling her princess . A title, she’d realized, gasping in the rolling aftershocks of her orgasm, she deserved to be called about as much as he wanted to be called a prince.

She took a too-large gulp of coffee and forced herself back to the present, then nibbled on another bite of cobbler, hoping that her poker face had kept Siedah from sensing her filthy reverie.

“Do you want to come down and see the desk sometime? I promise Hell isn’t nearly as bad as you think. The souls can be a pain in the ass, but most of them just need a little…guidance to grow.”

“That would be great.” Siedah sipped her tea. “It’s much less intimidating when you have a guide.”

“The demons would have taken care of you, the big sweeties.”

“Of course they would,” Siedah agreed, then rested her hand on the table, her eyes gentle. “Has this always been your superpower?”

“My superpower is the ability to make my presence a punishment, according to my brothers. If you ask my mom, it’s the ability to leave a mess wherever I go.”

“Those are minor powers at best.” Siedah’s eyes twinkled. “I think your superpower is that you see people. Even when they’re not ‘normal’ people, you see them for them . It’s beautiful.”

The urge to brush the observation off or turn it into a joke clawed its way up Lily’s throat. But she’d already learned that Siedah wasn’t one to let her get away with that.

“Thank you.” It felt icky to say it, but she did.

And I thought I’d gotten better at accepting compliments.

Lily blew a raspberry and smiled, hoping it wasn’t as awkward as it felt. “Guess I’ll have to get used to a soul-baring existence, seeing as I’m, ya know, literally a soul.”

Siedah nodded knowingly. “If you stick around long enough, you get rather used to it. Getting to just be can be rather nice. Though sometimes”—she leaned in—“it can still scare the pants off you.”

“Depending on who’s scaring me and how attracted to them I am, they can get the pants off me anytime, no scaring required.” Lily grinned and took a drink.

Siedah laughed and snorted, clapping her hand over her mouth with wide eyes. Lily tried to spill her sip of coffee back into her cup and was only mostly successful, shaking with laughter of her own. Her Achilles heel of stoicism: people who snorted and laughed. She loved it.

They cackled together, and just as they were about to pull themselves together, Siedah would snort, and they’d set off again. The table of souls next to them started to catch the giggles too, which didn’t help matters.

Humor. One of the great unifiers.

Lily eventually wiped her eyes with a napkin, stomach and cheeks aching. “That was good.”

“It was,” Siedah agreed breathlessly, pressing a steadying hand to her chest. “I haven’t laughed that hard since the comedy show.”

“Where?”

“The Theater, the most unoriginal name for a place in the entire Afterlife. The story is that no one could agree on a name, so they just called it what it was: The Theater. They hold lectures, classes, plays, readings, concerts, comedy shows, all sorts of stuff. It’s run by souls, but all are welcome.”

Lily opened her mouth, then chuckled. “I almost just asked if it was free.”

“Oh.” Siedah’s face grew serious, though her brown eyes sparkled. “I should mention it can be rather exclusive.”

Lily raised an eyebrow.

“People are just dying to get in.”

Lily barked out a laugh, smiling wide. “You actually almost had me.”

“I’ve been waiting to use that line!”

* * *

Lily adjusted the stack of pastry boxes in her arms.

“Crocell and Zagan, bless them, found a hacky sack who knows where, and they kept it in the air for a solid hour, just bopping it back and forth over the line of souls. The problem was, this one soul decided to get in Zagan’s face over something, right as Crocell sent the hacky sack to him. Fortunately, everyone had gotten invested in keeping it going, so we ended up with this, like, forty-demon hacky sack game. I was laughing so hard I could barely deal with the souls in my line, just watching this stupid little thing fly through the air at the most random times.”

“Can we get a hacky sack?” a guy carrying a stack of files asked.

“I’m down! I am so down!” another Front Desk worker, a woman, said, spinning in her chair.

“A moment,” another man said seriously. “Are those pastries from Brewhaha?”

Every Front Desk worker in hearing range who wasn’t occupied with a soul whipped their heads towards them.

“Yes,” Siedah said, ignoring the rush of pumped fists, high fives, and subtle exclamations. “They’ll be waiting in the breakroom. No repeats of the croissant incident this time, please.”

“The croissant incident?” Lily asked, following her to their breakroom.

“Don’t ask. Half of us didn’t speak to each other for days.”

Where Hell’s breakroom was all dark elegance mixed with casual comfort (and an assortment of misplaced weaponry), their breakroom was a vibrant and eclectic patchwork of different cultures and styles. A kotatsu with a trio of cats sleeping on it sat on a gorgeous Moroccan rug. An Indigenous woman played cards with a man who looked like he’d stepped off the pages of a Swedish ski ad. A Filipino man reheated something that smelled like Adobo.

“Come on,” Siedah said, “I want to show you what the other side of the desk looks like. Plus, I have some sticky notes you might enjoy.”

Lily followed her, taking time to look at the lobby without the echoing confusion of being freshly dead. The elderly man still sat on his bench, still peacefully smiling, still radiating serenity, still waiting for his beloved.

The twisty, hollow feeling was back in her chest.

She turned her focus to the full spectrum of humanity arriving at the desk. All races, genders, and ages.

“Sometimes it takes a moment for a soul to settle enough to take the appearance they’re most comfortable with. For the little ones, well, if they stay, they have a chance to mature, and if not, they can immediately reincarnate,” Siedah explained when Lily asked. “Here we are! I got a new set of animal sticky notes, which one would you like?” She slid open a drawer filled with neatly organized stationery and office supplies, as well as a half-finished embroidery project.

“Dinosaurs, definitely,” Lily said, immediately enamored with the set of multicolored cartoon T-Rexes.

Siedah handed them over. “It’s a little different from this side, huh?”

“Way less intimidating,” Lily agreed. “Though, I think I’d like to see it from the other side, but with some confidence this time.” She hopped over the desk in a fluid motion that was becoming startlingly familiar.

Siedah laughed, leaning her hip against her desk. “I can’t believe confidence has ever been your problem. I heard a rumor that you introduced a new drink to multiple deities and two princes of Hell?”

“Oh yeah, the Fuzzy Navel. They almost had a fit before they tasted it. You should’ve seen Lucifer’s face—”

“Excuse me?” a voice asked. Lily automatically turned to look, and saw nothing. Then the voice registered. How small it was. Unsure. Young.

Lily looked down. If she’d had a working heart, it would have cracked.

A little girl with a wild mop of shaggy, blond hair and large, uncertain blue eyes looked up at her from under the hood of a shark onesie. She had a snub little nose and a round face, and carried herself hunched, like she was trying to minimize the space she took up. She hugged her midsection and swayed slightly—self-soothing—meeting Lily’s eyes hesitantly, frequently looking down in the general area of her shirt.

“I think I’m lost.”

Oh, baby…

Lily crouched down and found that they were nearly the same height, despite the fact that the kid seemed older than her size would suggest. The girl took a tiny step backward and hunched smaller on reflex.

Whoever scared this kid is going to get dragged down to Nine by their eyeballs when they show up.

“Really? Do you know what happened to get you here?” Lily asked gently.

The girl swayed a little, staring at the floor. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“You won’t get in trouble, hon, I promise.”

The kid looked up at her, suspicion and hope all over her little face. Lily reached for the most powerful tool in her arsenal.

She held out her pinkie finger.

“I pinkie promise you that you won’t get in trouble for telling me. Do you know what they say about pinkie promises?”

“No?” The kid’s voice was a whisper.

Lily nodded solemnly. “A pinkie promise is sacred. It’s unbreakable. Isn’t that right?” She looked up at Siedah.

“Absolutely unbreakable. No one ever breaks a pinkie promise,” Siedah confirmed with a firm nod.

“So when I pinkie promise that you will be okay, I mean that,” Lily said.

The girl looked at her dubiously, then down at her outstretched pinkie.

Come on, baby shark, let me help you. It’s okay.

She slowly reached out and hooked Lily’s pinkie finger with her own.

“I snuck out of the house to go to the aquarium for my birthday,” she whispered in a rush. “Then there was a car and a loud noise and then I was here. My foster mom is going to be really mad at me if I’m not back in the house soon.”

Lily swallowed hard, hoping that her voice betrayed none of the tightness in her throat. She tightened the grip of her pinkie finger. “Remember the pinkie promise while you listen to me, okay?”

“Okay.” It was barely a whisper. The girl started shaking like a leaf, but she stared at Lily with wide eyes.

“The good news is, you’re gonna be okay. It might be a little confusing, maybe even a little scary, but I promise it’ll be okay.” Lily kept her tone and expression reassuring.

“Pinkie promise?”

“Pinkie promise.” Don’t cry, you fucking marshmallow. Cry later, help baby shark now. “The…other news is that you’re not going to go back to that house, because you died, sweetie. It’s okay; I’m dead, she’s dead, we’re all dead, and this is the Afterlife. Do you know anything about that?”

“I’m dead?” Baby Shark’s eyes were huge.

Ah, fuck, this is why the Universe never let me have kids. I suck at this.

“Yeah, baby, but pinkie promise, remember? I’m here with you. You’re okay.”

“Oh.” Baby Shark looked at their hands, then up, up, up at the indistinct ceiling, then back at their hands. “I have to go to Hell. Do you know where that is?”

Well. Lily hadn’t expected that. She looked up at Siedah in concern.

Siedah held a blue-green file and shook her head, mouthing Paradise or reincarnation . Lily huffed a sigh of relief and looked back at the kid, who seemed scared. And determined.

“Actually, you don’t. You have options. You can either go to Paradise, which is super, super cool. That’s where I live. Or you can go back to the mortal world and get born again as a new person and live a whole new life. You won’t have to go back to your foster mom. You get a clean slate.”

“No, I have to go to Hell! My foster mom and Mr. Pastor always said that when I died I was going to go to Hell, and that I better do as I was told. I have to go to Hell, or I’m going to get into trouble, and I don’t want to get into trouble!” She grew more panicked with every word. Fear, real fear, was in those blue eyes.

Icy fury shot through Lily’s veins, even as her soul melted for this child who was clearly so sweet and so scared.

Fuck the rules. I’m going to make sure this kid is okay if I have to rip this whole place apart to do it.

She wasn’t sure if it would work, or if she was going to overstep every boundary in existence, but she had to try. No innocent child should think they belonged in Hell. She knew all too well the damage that particular belief could cause.

“Okay,” Lily said soothingly. Siedah’s eyes bored into the side of her head, but she ignored her, focusing on the child in front of her. “Well, you’re in luck, Baby Shark, because I happen to work there, so I can take you with me. In fact, I can take you down to the big cheese himself, and we can get this all sorted out, okay?”

“The big cheese?”

“The person in charge.”

“Satan?” Baby Shark whispered.

“He prefers Lucifer, but I call him Luci. He’s nice, you’ll see. Hey—” Lily shook their linked pinky fingers. “I pinkie promised that you’ll be okay. I know you don’t know me, but can you trust my pinkie promise?”

Baby Shark considered it, glancing up at Siedah, who smiled. She looked back at Lily. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Awesome. Well then, Baby Shark, let’s get you to Hell.”

Lily stood, letting their hands separate. She glanced at Siedah with a loaded, but hopefully reassuring look. Siedah nodded and handed over the file, and Lily tucked it against her side, looking down at the girl.

“Baby Shark?” The kid sounded a little excited.

Oops.

“Yeah, ’cause of the onesie. Which, by the way, is very cool. You don’t have to go by Baby Shark, I just don’t know your name. I’m Lily.”

“Hi, Lily.” Baby Shark squirmed a little, eyes brighter than Lily had yet seen them. “My name’s Zoe…” She trailed off. The bright eyes, the little squirms, the way she fiddled with the floppy sleeve of her onesie. Snuck out to go to the aquarium… This kid loved fish. Or sharks.

“Do you want to be called Zoe? I can call you whatever you want.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. One of my best friends calls me princess, even though I’m not one.”

“Maybe not Baby Shark. I’m not a baby.”

“A fair and valid point. You like the ‘shark’ bit though, huh?”

“Yeah… What about Sharkie?”

“Sounds cool to me. Nice to meet you, Sharkie.” Lily held out her free hand. Sharkie shook it with the uncertainty of a kid who’d seen a handshake, but never been taught how to give one. “Now, if you’ll follow me, we’ve got places to go,” Lily said with an element of forced cheer.

She walked slowly, every fiber of her being focused on the kid at her side. Sharkie stayed close, hood shifting as she looked around with wide eyes. Learned fear. It had to be. The kid seemed like she hummed with natural curiosity, but there was a conditioning there that made Lily’s grip tighten on the file. She wouldn’t pause to let her fingers brush the pages inside while they were in such a public place, and probably not where Sharkie would notice. The last thing she wanted to do was violate the kid’s privacy, but she didn’t want to misstep by saying something accidentally cruel either. Just the basics, then she would let Sharkie share the rest in her own time. If she stayed.

As they walked through the pillars of the Entry Hall, a little body brushed her leg. Sharkie’s curiosity had disappeared. Her eyes were huge and watery, her steps uneven, shoulders up by her ears.

Lily held her hand out. Sharkie stared at it, then up at her, chewing on the edge of her sleeve.

Her little hand was clammy when it slid into Lily’s palm.

“Pinkie promise,” Sharkie whispered, huddling close to Lily’s side.

Just like that, the last piece of Lily’s silent heart melted.

“Pinkie promise,” Lily said, squeezing her hand. Together, they walked towards Hell.