Never by K. D. Mcentire

girl?”
    “Nothing,” Wendy said, shrugging. “But I hear that the Reapers are ticked off over it. Elise even tried to bribe me to ‘take care’ of you a few days ago.”
    Surprisingly, the Lady Walker began to laugh, a broken, rusty sound, as if she'd spent her entire life with a three-pack-a-day habit. “Did she now? Good.”
    Smirking, so that Wendy could see the wriggling things moving behind her terrible smile, the Lady Walker wiggled her fingers at Wendy. “You Reapers amuse me. You are family, a clan, yet you fight among yourselves, attacking from the shadows, and laying blame on nature running its course. And all the while I taste your tears and laugh and laugh and laugh.”
    “Nature…do you mean that vortex thing up there?” Wendy glanced over her shoulder. They were deep in the spirit web forest—Wendy had no idea why she kept expecting to see clear sky above and the rip in the distance—but all she could see was the sagging shapes of cocooned Shades twisting in the breeze.
    “I mean the old woman, and the fretful way they fuss and blame you,” the Lady Walker said. “It was simply her time. It comes to us all. Except Piotr. Except me.”
    “Because you're the Unending Ones,” Wendy said, wondering how the Lady Walker already knew about Nana Moses’ death. “How'd you two manage to land that gig?”
    The Lady Walker patted her hip and for the first time Wendy realized that the Lady Walker had a swatch of fabric hanging there, a thin curl of cloth that hung nearly to her ankles. “The how of things is of no matter. It is the why. ”
    “Are you going to let us keep going?” Wendy snapped, suddenly tired of this rotting woman and her horrible riddles. She reminded Wendy unpleasantly of the White Lady, not because she was rotting and awful to look at, but because even the cadence of her voice had a lilting, tortuous rhythm to it. Every conversation with them both was nothing but riddles and rhymes and Wendy was sick to death of it. “Or is that animal thing going to block the way?”
    “I contracted with Jane to bring you to me. She failed and yet, poof, here you are.” The Lady Walker's fingers played with the rotting hole in her face, drifted up and brushed the horror that had once been her eye. “I am lucky.”
    “Maybe,” Wendy said, resting her weight on one foot, prepared to run like a rabbit if she needed to. “Maybe not. Why did you want to talk to me?”
    “I have heard…many things, girl. Many whispers make their way to me. I have heard that you do not reap the unwilling spirits anymore. Is this true?”
    “Yeah, it's true,” Wendy said, narrowing her eyes. The way the Lady Walker was swaying back and forth was giving her the heebie-jeebies. “What of it?”
    The Lady Walker tilted her head far too far to the left, looking at Wendy quizzically through her ruined face. “Why? Do you hope to gain from the remaining spirits the way Elise and the Reapers do?”
    “Because I think maybe it's not my job to force souls to do what they don't want to do.” Why was the Lady Walker asking these questions?
    The Lady Walker laughed shortly. “Oh, flesh, how you amuse me! The words that spring from your mouth dance in the air as if they were butterflies and yet…they are meaningless and dead.” She spat on the ground. “They are filth.”
    “Look, creepy, all I want is to get to Nob Hill.”
    The Lady Walker pursed her ruined mouth. “I see.”
    “Everyone wants something, Miss…Lady.” Wendy squared her shoulders. “What do you want? What will get my friends and me out of this forest and up the hill? Jane says you want to gnaw on my bones or something, but I'm thinking that if that was your deal you'd already be chewing. So what's the plan? What do you want?”
    “My greatest desire is within my grasp, scratched out of nothing with my own two hands. I want for nothing…except one thing,” the Lady Walker said, fingering the curl of fabric. She pulled it off her dress and