Chapter 133 - Therapy

“So, you believe he truly was cursed?” Larson’s spirit asked, leaning forward over the table in an engaged but not overly invasive posture.

“I mean, if he’s saying it, I don’t doubt it,” Morrigan answered. “That kid he mentioned—Todd—his sister actually is a witch, and she’s, uh… well, I wouldn’t put it past her to do something like that to someone. When I met her, she planned on sealing my spirit inside a little bottle and putting me on a shelf or something. She’s kind of crazy.”

“Fascinating,” Larson said. “I never expected such things could be real. Perhaps if I had known, I could have done a better job treating Frank. I wonder if any of my other patients with similar ailments were, in fact, affected by something supernatural…”

Morrigan frowned; she still hadn’t had her question answered. “So, Dr. Larson. When he mentioned me… I mean… did he feel guilty at all?”

Dr. Larson folded his arms and seemed to think deeply for a moment. “I normally wouldn’t talk about my theories of a patient to anyone. But, well, considering the circumstances, I may be able to make an exception.” He paused, his gaze distant as he stared through the table, then began again. “Unfortunately, I do believe Frank lacks the ability to feel true guilt over his actions. According to his past records, he had a history of being abusive to animals. He showed antisocial traits from a young age. Though, I believe his upbringing is largely to blame.”

“Is that right?” Morrigan asked, not sure if she could feel sympathy for him one way or another.

“Yes. His parents were both abusive; he’d been hospitalized several times for supposed accidents as a young boy, but he was never removed from the home.”

“Why not?”

“Unfortunately, some cases fall through the cracks if the right social worker or hospital worker doesn’t see what’s going on and intervene. Not only that, if a victim has come to normalize such things, they’re not likely to seek help—or even realize they need help. I wouldn’t know specifically why in Frank’s case, as he wouldn’t talk to me about it. Our sessions usually involved him insisting on these curses and, well, that he had murdered you.” Larson shook his head, frowning. “If only I had known, I could have given him better treatment.”

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. “Why do you sound so guilty about that? I mean…” She gestured toward the doctor’s body that was still lying on the floor. “He killed you.”

Larson frowned. “He was my patient. It doesn’t matter who he was, what he did, or what he would do. My job was to try to help him. I believed helping to break him of his delusions would be the way to do that, but I was wrong.”

Morrigan clenched a fist. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to hear that Frank felt bad about what he’d done to her. Whatever she had interpreted as guilt in his eyes when he stabbed her was really just fear of the trouble he might get into. She should have known that, though. After all, he and his friends had laughed when they ran her down and assaulted her. If it was true he used to abuse animals for fun, then that’s basically all she’d been to him that day—just another random animal he’d decided to torment—and she lost her life because of it. She felt herself tensing with anger.

“Morrigan Livingston…” Dr. Larson said, leaning back and studying her. “You look rather troubled.”

She scoffed. “Me? Heh, no. Not at all.” Her voice sounded hollow and distant to her own ears.

He crossed one leg over the other, hand on his chin as he regarded her. “As an assault victim coming near your abuser, it’s natural you’d feel a certain level of tension. But I sense something else going on with you beyond that.”

Morrigan raised an eyebrow and gestured at her white face and red eyes. “You think?”

“That is not what I mean,” he replied, his no-nonsense expression and calm attentiveness drawing her in. “So, if I recall, you were a missing person last summer.”

“Well, yeah… ever since dying, my life—er, existence—has been kind of weird for me.”

“Yet you came back.”

“Well…” She lowered her eyes. “I had to.”

Larson didn’t press her. A silence hung in the air, as if he was giving her time to expand on it at her own pace.

Morrigan began absentmindedly playing with the hem of her skirt before finally speaking. “My mom didn’t know if I was alive or dead, or if I’d run away or gotten kidnapped or what. I… didn’t exactly bother letting her know I was still out there, or try to tell her not to worry or anything. I think she blamed herself.”

“Why would that be?”

“We never got along, I guess. And then she…” Her fist bunched up on her skirt, and she felt her eyes sting as she remembered walking into the hospital when her mom was still unconscious. “Sh-she tried to kill herself.”

Dr. Larson’s spectral expression softened, his translucent form flickering slightly. “I see,” he said gently. “I imagine that must have been very difficult for you.”

Morrigan let out a shaky breath, forcing herself to keep her voice steady. “I just… I felt like the worst daughter in the world. I used to think she wouldn’t care if I just disappeared, but then, when I actually did, it affected her so much that—” Morrigan’s words trailed off as the last few months flashed through her mind.

“Things have just been hard,” she said.

“I’m here to listen. You mentioned your job as a reaper. How has that been going?”

Morrigan scoffed, waving her hand flippantly. “Totally overwhelming. Sometimes I feel like I’m in control, but at best it still adds daily bullshit to my list of things to deal with. Like—I have so much crap in my personal life that’s already way too much to handle! My mom’s alive, but I don’t see her because CPS is treating me like some missing person case gone wrong, and they won’t let me near her. They think I’m some unstable runaway or something, even though I’m literally fine—except I’m not fine, because apparently, I’m supposed to be proving I’m a functional member of society while also ferrying souls to the afterlife!”

Her voice cracked, but once she started ranting, the words just kept flooding out.

“And let’s not forget the fact that I’ve been stabbed. Twice. Oh, and my body? Yeah, it’s been torn to literal shreds multiple times. If magic wasn’t a thing, I’d probably just be a walking skeleton right now, but the next best thing is I have a demon living in my flesh that I sometimes lose total control over! So yeah—that’s fun!

“Not to mention, my screwed-up home life, which I haven’t even told you about, has become local town gossip because of that stupid missing-person report. Through all of that, I still have to show up to work every damn day and deal with death! Just—constant, never-ending death! Watching people die, hearing their regrets, guiding them to whatever afterlife they deserve, and then moving on to the next one like it’s nothing! Because that’s my job, right? I’m supposed to be detached. I’m supposed to just deal with it, even when it’s gruesome and horrible and unfair!”

Her breath hitched as she angrily wiped at her face, but it didn’t stop there. Her voice only grew shakier and angrier.

“And then there’s the Arbiter, who, by the way, has it personally out for me because she’s my mentor’s ex-apprentice, and they had some kind of falling out. Not to mention my companion while I’m out reaping souls is an apathetic cat who barely understands anything outside of adhering to the fucking list.

“Like—oh no, I made a joke while reaping someone’s soul, guess I’m ‘disrespecting the system.’ Or maybe I showed too much sympathy, and now I’m being ‘too involved.’” She threw up her hands. “Like, what the hell do you want from me?! I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be! A machine? A robot? Just another cog in the grand wheel of fate?!

“Oh, and let’s not forget my current living situation. Because now I’m staying with my grandmother, who I’d only just met! Apparently, my whole family’s got issues I never even knew about because my mom never talks about her side of the family. And now I’m just supposed to live with this woman I don’t even know and pretend everything’s fine? She’s actually nice and everything, but it just—it feels weird! I don’t know if I’m supposed to trust her, or if there’s some horrible secret waiting to drop, or if I’m just overthinking everything, but I don’t know how to feel about it!”

Morrigan let out a small, frustrated scream and then buried her face in her hands, her hair falling around her. She didn’t realize she’d started crying until she said, “S-sorry…”

Dr. Larson gave her a gentle smile. “It’s quite all right, Morrigan,” he said softly. “You have every right to feel overwhelmed. You’ve been through far more than most people ever will—more than even I could imagine.”

Morrigan sniffled, lifting the sleeve of her hoodie to wipe her cheeks again. “Yeah, well… I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. Sorry if I sort of… dumped it all on you. You, uh, just died and everything.”

“No, it is quite all right. You have been holding all of that in for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s not something that I can really tell people about.”

“Really? So you don’t have anyone who you can just…” He made a circular motion with his hand. “Bounce things off once in a while?”

“Uh… well, there is my girlfriend.”

“Oh? And how are things with her?”

“Pretty good. She definitely makes me feel better most of the time just being around her, but we don’t actually get to see each other very often. At least not lately.”

“Because of your issues with CPS?”

“Yeah, pretty much, but I guess now that I’m with my grandma, it might be a little easier.”

“That’s good. It helps so much to have someone willing to listen. I believe it is essential. Just like anything else in life, there is a limit to what we can process, and it’s helpful to unload once in a while. Imagine you’re carrying a bag over your shoulder and, as you walk through life, you keep adding things to it without ever taking anything out—eventually, it becomes so heavy that even basic tasks become impossible. That emotional weight can sometimes be what we call depression.”

“Huh…” Morrigan pondered, taking that in.

He smiled softly. “That is why it’s essential to find people willing to shoulder some of that burden. Sometimes just knowing someone is there to help you through the worst of it makes those heavy objects you come across on the road less of an encumbrance.”

“That’s… pretty insightful, I guess. You’re a pretty poetic guy, you know that?”

“Ha, well, it is my job to think about these things. What you’re going through is a major burden, Morrigan. I think if I had the opportunity, I would love to work with you on a more regular basis.”

“Yeah… uh…” She glanced over at his physical body, still lying on the floor. “Guess that’s not an option anymore, is it?”

His smile was faint but sincere. “No, I suppose not. But my recommendation stands, Morrigan. Whenever you find opportunities to speak to someone who can help, you should take it. You deserve that.”

Her throat felt tight, but she forced a smirk. “Noted.”

They sat in silence for a moment as distant sounds filtered through the wall. Just outside the door, she could hear footsteps and muffled voices.

Dr. Larson glanced at his hands, flexing them experimentally before looking back at her. “I suppose it’s time, isn’t it?”

Morrigan nodded as she stood up and reached for her scythe, pulling it out of the air. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Dr. Larson didn’t look afraid. If anything, he seemed at peace. “No need to apologize. We all have our duties in this world. I imagine you’ve done this many times before,” he mused.

“More than I can count,” she admitted.

He nodded. “Then I trust you’ll do it well.”

Morrigan hesitated for just a fraction of a second before lifting the scythe, the soft blue light illuminating the space between them.

“Thanks again, doctor. I do appreciate the vent session.”

“Of course,” he said. “After all, it is my job.”

With a smooth, practiced motion, she swung.

His form dissolved in a soft glow and floated upward until it disappeared into the ceiling.

Morrigan let out a breath and flicked the scythe away, letting it extinguish into blue flames.

Noir, who had been watching silently, flicked his tail. “All right, NOW can we leave?”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

Morrigan left the room just as orderlies, police, and medics came down the hall. Her perception-blocking ability kept them from noticing her as she pressed her back against the wall and watched them pass.

She looked the way she had come, and then down the hall in the other direction, wondering where Frank was. The changeling stirred slightly, but it was just a mild vibration—almost like a cat’s purr.

“Morrigan. What are you waiting for now?” Noir asked. When she didn’t answer right away, his ears folded back. “If you try to go talk to that boy, I will stop you.”

Morrigan exhaled slowly, her fingers twitching at her sides. She didn’t turn to Noir right away, her gaze still fixed down the hall.

Frank was somewhere in this building, likely restrained, sedated, and locked away under heavy watch after what he had done. Maybe he was unconscious. Maybe he was awake, stewing in whatever thoughts rattled around in his fractured mind. She didn’t know.

What she did know was that the changeling was reacting. The soft, almost purring vibration under her skin wasn’t aggression—it wasn’t hunger. It was something else. It might have been satisfaction. The person who had destroyed her life was living in a hell of his own, and that thought gave her an odd sort of peace.

Noir’s voice was low, a warning. “Morrigan.”

She finally turned her head slightly, glancing at him. His golden eyes were narrowed, his ears flattened.

“Sorry… yeah, let’s get out of here.”

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Chapter 134 - Changing