Keepers: A Timeless Novella by Laura Kreitzer

CHAPTER 1: KICK THE
BUCKET
     
    Time is a precious gift. I
recently figured that out—more like it’d been forcibly thrown in my
face like a mud pie. Today was another example to drive the point
home, just in case I didn’t get it the first time. I stood at the
foot of my best friend Gabriella’s gravesite, a myriad of emotions
bombarding me. For whatever reason, I had an overwhelming urge to
laugh, which was either ludicrous or, for some people, made perfect
sense. Using my best judgment, I held it in.
    “ An entire lifetime buried
under a ton of dirt and topped with an engraved rock,” Gabriella
comically remarked as her hand glided over her tombstone. “Now I
know I can be a pain, but this is a bit over the top, isn’t it?”
She turned to me and grinned.
    “ I don’t think joking is
appropriate,” I said, eyeing Gabriella’s sister Jenna for any
negative reactions. Though who really knew what was appropriate for
this kind of situation?
    “ Oh, Joseph. If anyone has
a right to joke, it’s me,” Gabriella said in a sing-song voice. “I
was the one who kicked the bucket, after all.”
    “ Kicked the bucket?” asked
Andrew in his Italian accent. His expression was confused, while
mine remained amused.
    “ It means I died,”
Gabriella explained, as if this was normal. Hah.
    Oh, no. This conversation
wasn’t at all macabre. Not in the least.
    Jenna laughed, a mixture of
emotions that could only be described as hysteria. Andrew’s stare
traveled back and forth between the two, looking as if he wanted to
join in with Jenna. None of us wanted to relive the memories of
Gabriella’s funeral.
    “ Sorry,” Gabriella said.
“Either I go through this with a sense of humor or you’re going to
see me cry.”
    Andrew reached for her
hand—he did that a lot. By their facial expressions, I knew they
were having one of their mind-to-mind communications. I didn’t know
if I should have been upset or grateful for their silent
conversation.
    “ Then humor it is,” Jenna
exclaimed. “When Gabby cries, there’s snot and eye boogers, and no
one wants to see that. Trust me.” Got to give it to Jenna; she
could make a joke out of anything.
    At that, we smiled.
Gabriella, however, visibly winced at the nickname Gabby, which
only made me want to use it more often.
    The gravediggers were in
the process of removing Gabby’s (hah-hah) empty coffin and
tombstone. People had complained that their loved ones’ gravesites
were being destroyed by the hundreds of thousands of tourists that
morbidly wanted to take their picture with Gabby’s grave. Now that
she’d exposed herself as an angel, along with Andrew and the other
angels, anything and everything that had to do with them had become
a commodity. The cemetery Gabriella was supposedly buried in had to
go on lockdown. To appease the owners and stop the outcry of the
survivors of those buried there, Gabriella agreed to let them
remove the empty casket and tombstone.
    I wrapped my arm around
Jenna and pulled her close. I bent down and whispered in her ear,
“You realize this is where we first met?” As soon as the words left
my mouth, I realized how messed up it was for me to bring this up.
Too late now.
    She glanced up with her
big, green eyes and smiled woefully. “How could I forget?” A second
passed, and the dejection left her face as her grin widened.
“Especially that kiss.” She snuggled into me.
    Ah, yes. The kiss.
How could I forget
that? I returned the smile, remembering when I stopped by Jenna’s
to check on her after Gabby’s funeral. A bottle of wine and many
tears later ended in a kiss I couldn’t shake from my memory—one I
didn’t want to forget. When I found out Gabriella had written
letters to Jenna explaining everything but was afraid to send them
because Jenna thought she was dead, I took it upon myself to mail
them. So maybe it had been selfish of me to send them to Jenna
without Gabriella’s permission, but I wanted so desperately to