Chapter 2- Harvester’s Eyes
July
"Sofia July Crimson, your report should have been on my desk two hours ago. Have I gone blind? Have you started to use invisible paper? Please, explain.”
Standing tall behind her desk, Miss Popplewish fights to keep her annoyance under control and her tone flat, but her fingers, drumming on the mahogany desk, betray her fast-racing thoughts.
Miss Evelyn Popplewish. Lovely, gentle and ferociously keen to change my mind and turn me into a Donatore because that will make me softer and less lonely.
No, thank you. I’m perfectly fine on my own.
Trying to prove my point, again, won’t take us anywhere. So, I pick a more neutral start. “I’m sorry,” I pant by the threshold, a bottle of water in one hand and a mess of wrinkled papers in the other. “I hav… I have it, Miss P.”
She dropped the case against the too-friendly version of her name only weeks after I'd pioneered it—the night she caught me and Galen downing a bottle of red in the orchard. She reprimanded us, and we promised we would never force the cellar open again. Galen and I threw up all our past and future sins that night, but it was the best birthday I’d ever had.
“Please don’t tell me this is your first draft, Sofia—” Her lips disappear into a thin line as if trying to take back the version of my name she knows I hate. I move one foot over the threshold, clutching the report to my chest, pretending I didn’t hear it.
“What’s a draft anyway?” I sigh, marching inside her classroom, hoping my attitude would mask my terrible attempt at an excuse. “Does it even have a universal meaning?”
As I lay my work on Popplewish's desk, she looks at me from behind her narrow glasses. “Playing with words won’t save you forever… July.”
The amount of knowledge required to be excellent, like Popplewish, would take its toll on anyone’s body and mind.
Her face is a portrait of ancient wisdom and infinite patience.
I can see it streaming like a river in the lines on her forehead when she tries to remember that she was once young and hungry for life, like I am.
But her eyes have never changed. No rims, small black irises, and soft nuances of indigo, turquoise and blue twirling in the space where the white sclera is supposed to be. Miniature galaxies behind fair lashes.
Our Harvester’s eyes and our breath - light purple, unless we’re in distress or excited - are the physical attributes that distinguish us from the Horigeans.
The purer the Harvester line running within our families, the more peculiar the eyes.
Mine are not that mesmerising like hers or Galen’s.
My right is just green, like leaves in spring and wet frogs; my left is pomegranate-red with tiny yellow freckles and a slit pupil.
Something that Horigean people recoil from, and which I prefer to keep concealed when I’m on a mission.
She sighs, ironing my papers with her hands; her eyes linger on me as I shrink, torturing the skin around my nails with my hands behind my back.
Despite my long black hair and cherry-black smirk, to her, I am still that unaware little girl that she brought to Libera when my talent manifested and freaked out my parents.
I can sense souls close to their end—or so I thought until I learned that all I experience is their final, atrocious plea for mercy as they approach the deadline Roden gave them once they’ve shaken hands, when they turned from Horigeans into Nistarei.
Doomed half-souls, destined to become Roden’s precious possessions because the deals they strike are never fair.
This feeling works the same for all Reapers, but they must be told where to go and whom to look for; I only need to know where the Nistares lives. Not a skill a mother would be happy to share at her weekly gatherings of the I Found the Best Freaking Yeast for Cakes group.
I, too, once believed it abnormal and mostly unfair, as it only worked with strangers and when it wanted to. But despite my parents’ worries and long nights spent on their knees praying for my soul, I thought it was also fabulous because it made me—me.
I never feared the feeling of my mouth going dry, of my heart beating so fast it felt like catching fire, or the shade of my breath turning dark purple, almost black in the presence of a Nistares. All I knew was the uncontrollable need to be with them in their final hours.
Until Popplewish suggested that I could collect those souls like cherries, and that I had the gift to offer some of them another chance at life.
The familiar scent of paper brings me back from my memories when Miss P. waves the report under my nose. “July? Are you even listening? You need to work on your tidiness. Remember what I said when you returned from your first mission?” Her face softens.
“Truth tastes sweeter if spoken well,” I recite.
“Your reports are always excellent. Straight to the point, no fancy descriptions of your crop, their desperate pleas, or attempts to escape. As if they willingly deliver their last kernel to you, without asking for more time to pay Roden back…”
More time. Something itches at the base of my skull.
Miss P. doesn’t seem to notice as she continues, “Neat and clean like the marks you leave on their chests when you harvest their souls.” She releases a big breath, lowering the paper onto her desk.
I chew on my lip, lost for words, as the silence grows thick between us, disturbed only by the sound of my right foot tapping uncomfortably on the shiny marble floor.
The more I hesitate, the more her glasses slide down her nose like sand in an hourglass.
“It looks like you don’t want to process the outcome of your actions and can’t wait to throw them behind you. You could be—”
“The greatest Donatore in centuries,” I interrupt her, throwing my hands up before spinning on my heel, rushing to one of the chairs behind me to hide my blushing face. I sit down, finding the floor pattern incredibly interesting as I study the dark veins of its tiles.
“What else is there to learn?” I shrug, still not making eye contact.
“I’ve been doing this job for years, I know its routine by heart.
Roden finds out someone cannot hold up their end of the deal.
And,” - the image of the woman in green flashes behind my eyes - “that they opted for easier ways out, like using their newfound wealth to become a name in the dark market, or to work as Rogues’ hunters.
I literally burn my way into their heart and wake up the day after like nothing happened… ”
I take a breath. “I honestly still don’t understand why we’re not going after whoever is helping the Nistarei steal Rogues’ souls instead of punishing them—I mean, how did they even find out about the existence of Rogues?”
I brace my forearms on my knees, balancing the bottle on my left palm, hoping to find answers in the sloshing water.
“Punishing? July, they come looking for us. We don’t force them.” Her voice rises, and I sink deeper in my chair. “They decided, long ago, that bargaining their souls for instant riches was better than working hard.”
My face quickly turns hot and red. If I can feel it, Popplewish can surely see it and understand the reason behind it.
I slap a hand on my thigh. “Working hard? When was the last time you visited Horigos? Not the Fields for a routine check on empty vessels, not for an official meeting with Horigean leaders—I’m talking about its suburbs, where people cannot work harder because they’ve already broken their spines over…
” I swallow tears and gulp air, feeling my eyes sting.
“There’s nothing left to work hard for…And the Rogues—”
I jump at the sudden noise of my report slamming on Popplewish's desk. I went too far.
I close my eyes, breathe, and slowly reopen them to assess her stance, expecting whatever sanction I called upon myself.
But all she offers is a loud sigh as if to reassure me she won’t write my name on the insubordination list. “That business is just a theory. We don’t have proof of any Rogues being captured—or worse, harvested by Horigeans. You, better than anyone else, should know.”
I hold her stare, not because I’ve stopped feeling small in her presence, but because my opinion will never sound strong if I can’t hold my head up.
I shake my head, unsure, toying with the bottle lid.
“What if there is someone else like me? Not just a Reaper, but someone who can harvest the souls of the gifted ones, of the Harvesters that Roden never had a chance to find and train?” I set down the bottle and press my hands between my knees to stop myself from fidgeting.
A loud screech of Popplewish’s chair tells me I won’t like her answer. “You know that’s impossible. And even thinking that Roden somehow didn’t realise someone like you exists is madness. I’d say arrogant enough to deserve temporary isolation.”
“Right, because Roden has never lost a Harvester before—” I blurt out, accidentally kicking the bottle away from me. I snap my head up so quickly my hair comes undone, cascading like dark curtains on my shoulder—the perfect image of a perfect arrogant fool.
“Enough,” Popplewish whispers a warning, eyeing the door before walking towards me, her fingers interlaced on her front. “Roden loves his people, and he is the reason why you’re still alive.”
But my brain is in motion and impossible to control. “Love? I’m alive because he gave up on Rogues, and I’m the only one who can hunt them down.” I instantly cover my mouth, regretting my audacity, surely shining behind my wide eyes. My heart gallops in my ribcage.
Miss P. drops her head, looking at her hands as if her answer to my sudden folly is carved along her long fingers.
Every step resonates in my ears like the ticking of a clock counting down the seconds separating me from my punishment.
When she’s close enough, I can see the colours in her eyes twirling and darkening.
She says somberly, “You know it’s not that simple.
You’re not just a tool, but you are the only one who can gift those Rogues with the peace they deserve.
It is not lack of love that forces Roden’s hand to find them, but his need for atonement. ”
“He wakes up every day with the constant reminder that he saved us, his people, but that there are still many out there, he couldn’t sense in time, damned to live with a gift they will never understand. A talent that would have driven you to madness had he failed to find you.”
I contemplate her words. Wise, righteous, but still not fully sitting well with me.
“But he is not the one who has to live with the voices of Rogues begging for one more day. Harvesting their souls is not like plucking Nistarei’s souls.
It hurts me—every single time. It’s like dismembering my own heart…
” I realise I’m crying only when a tear drops onto the back of my hand.
Popplewish’s tall, slender figure, wrapped in a mustard shawl, crisp white blouse and wide light blue trousers, blurs behind the veil of my tears, like a mirage in the desert. But her hand is warm and solid on my knee when she crouches before me.
“You know you could stop if you wish,” she reminds me.
I shift in the chair, blinking her hand into focus, registering the freckles on her skin and the marks of black ink on her fingers.
I shrug, offering a crooked smile. “It’s too late for that. If I stop, there will still be Rogues out there losing their minds because their untrained gift slowly eats them alive. I could never live with the idea of innocent people abandoned to their destiny because I was too weak to accept mine.”
And yet, Roden seems to live well even if he loses hundreds of them every year because he fails to find them before their fifth birthday. But I keep that to myself. Today, I’ve already walked too close to the edge.
A newfound peace lingers between us, until Popplewish straightens back up, flattens the creases of her trousers, and walks opposite the classroom door, where the bottle has rolled, to pick it up.
She doesn’t need words. When she turns back to me, it’s all in her eyes—the gleam of understanding that speaks more than a thousand words.
The plastic bottle screeches in her hand, the annoying sound sending shivers down my spine.
“As you wish, July. My door’s always open should you change your mind…” The smile she dispenses hurts me more than the discouragement in her voice. The heels of her shoes don’t make a sound when she turns her back, a silent dismissal.
No matter her age, she still deserves the nickname she was famous for as a young Reaper—Silent End.
“You’ll have my comments on your report before the end of the week. Off you go,” she adds, standing by one of the bay windows.
I’m already at the door when I hear the whoosh of her linen trousers caressing the floor as she walks back to her desk. I can’t help but throw her a last look over my shoulder.
Sat behind her desk, she reminds me of a normal sixty-something-year-old teacher.
Respectable, with fewer doctrines than her first day in class and a collection of books to flip through, like photo albums of her knowledge—except for the fact that she celebrated her sixtieth birthday over forty years ago.
We don’t age like Horigeans. Our souls, blood, veins, and tissue are born different.
But only Roden and a few senior Harvesters, like Evelyn Popplewish, treasure the secret behind it until their time approaches, and they are finally allowed to select someone in Libera they trust enough to carry their knowledge.
“I’m sorry...” I breathe against the door. My forehead pressed against the rough wood.
Evelyn Popplewish is already mentioned in our history books, and I’ve just refused her wisdom and help.