She’s crying. Little sniffles and whimpers are smothered by the black worn teddy bear she’s holding up to her face. She doesn’t look older than six years old, and she can’t be more than thirty pounds. She’s skin, bone, and ragged lengths of lifeless hair, as if a dessicated corpse became animated. Not a single hue of color to her, so even saying she’s white from head to toe is misleading.
She’s Inverse Death.
And she’s scared I’m going to make her hurt people.
It took the Inverse Tower to coax her into showing herself. Seeing the spirit sitting comfortably next to me reassured the “child” that I wasn’t going to be mean. Because if the Inverse Tower was okay with me, then that means it is safe to come out because the Inverse Tower promised her that it would protect the collection of spirits.
She tells me I’m not the first person to confront her. She tells me I’m the first person to just let her be.
I give the manifestation of her card to the Inverse Tower to hold. The action surprises her. Aren’t I her master, now? Doesn’t that mean I have to make her do things?
I tell her the one thing I want her to do is something I cannot force her to do, ever. I want her to be at peace with me, and to be okay with me. I could force her to do or not do things, but I could not force her to be or not be anything.
In between whimpers and cries, she tells me what previous masters had forced her to do. She hates what they wanted. She hates what she is. She hates making people hurt by prolonging an illness or keeping them from changes that would help them. She doesn’t like to see people suffer and she’s not sorry for the bad people being touched by her hand because they were being bad to others.
I listened to her rage with patience and calm. In her telling, I understood what her effect is, and how she could poison me if I was not prepared for it. I started to understand how dangerous these servitors could be. If I allowed the Inverse Devil to appeal to my ego and think myself invulnerable, then I would never notice Inverse Death intentionally being sloppy to hurt me in turn.
“I don’t want you to hurt people, least of all me! But there may be an occasion where I will need to use the way you touch people to help them.”
“How could I help anyone?! Everything I touch hurts and hurts and never gets better!”
“You remind me of a friend. He’s infected with blight and plague. Not many things can withstand his touch. Then one day, he infected me with the blight, intentionally. He did it, to save me. Because I had something that was not right in me, and if he did nothing, it would hurt me a lot more than his blight did.” I raised my right arm and showed my spirit body plainly, exposing the animated root that sprouted from my shoulder. “I lost an arm, but what came in its place was long needed. It hurt a lot at the time, but the rest of me was able to recover. I know what you are, child, and what your effect will be. And yes, sometimes an illness needs to be slowed down and lengthened so the body can recover lest the illness devours the body too fast. You think you have no good use. I think you have a specialized use that must be asked for with care and consideration.”
The spirit child came closer. She lifted her face clear of the teddy bear and I saw she had no eyes. She pulled her card out of the Inverse Tower’s grip and handed it to me.
“You look very nice, and my brother [the Inverse Tower] really likes you. Will you stay and be our master?”
“I have to ask each card in turn, child. But I will be yours if you are willing.”
She wrapped her cold hand around my hand holding the card. I noticed she was very careful to keep her teddy bear away from me. I realized then, that the bear was actually the spirit, and the child form was its creation to keep itself company. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
“I’ll be vigilant for your and your brethren’s effects on me. I know I’m in this for a long time.”
“Okay.”
Both the child form and the teddy bear became as mist and flowed into the manifestation of the Death card in my hand. The Inverse Tower patted me on the shoulder and dissolved.
Taking on this deck of servitors has forced me to confront many assumptions about my environment and myself. Along the way, I hope I am making a better person out of myself. If not, I’m sure I’ll find out quickly.