Nanowrimo 2020 Day 23 - Word Count and Favorite Bit (Patreon)

Today I added 4348 words to Match.God, bringing my current total word count to 50,012! While the challenge is complete, the novel is not. I'll continue posting word counts and favorite bits until it is, though!

“Ha-yun?”

Hannah looked up from the blank sketchbook page she’d been staring at for the past hour or so. She’d been something of a creative slump since she’d returned from the funeral. Commissions were easy enough; everything was laid out in front of her for those kinds of things. Original art, however, was eluding her. And it was starting to frustrate her.

Death stood over her shoulder, a look she could only describe as unsure on his face.

“Yes?”

“There is someone who wishes to speak to you,” Death informed her.

Hannah set down her pencil, trying to figure out who would come out all this way to see her. “Oh?”

Death nodded. “Follow me.”

Hannah pushed away from the desk, and did as requested. Curiosity compelled her to actually jog to keep up with Death’s long strides. He led her out into the back garden, and, to her immense surprise, to the rod iron archway that separated Death’s physical home from his actual domain.

Hannah stumbled to a stop. “What’s going on?”

Death glanced down at her briefly, but his eyes quickly shifted back to the archway in the middle of the vast yard. “Your grandmother wishes to speak with you. I have granted her request.”

Hannah felt the blood drain from her face, hands clenching at the deep red color of her skirt. “Is that even possible?”

“It is. You must simply stay on your side of the gate, and she must stay on hers. It is possible to speak across the gap.”

Hannah took a deep, shuddering breath. “I see.”

Death reached out, brushing Hannah’s hair away from her face. “If you wish not to speak with her, you do not have to. I will simply tell her that she cannot see you.”

Hannah didn’t want to speak with her grandmother. She was dead and, supposedly, gone. What good would it do? But, at the same time, she felt that it was necessary. There were so many things she’d held close to her chest. So many things that she’d needed to say but never had the chance to. Her grandmother could not hurt her anymore. What better time was there to say it?

“I’ll talk to her,” Hannah said. “I think it’s important that I do.”

Death nodded. “Very well.” He led her a little bit closer, close enough that Hannah could feel the chill radiating off the gate. “Stay here, I will return with your grandmother shortly.”

Death disappeared through the gate, literally. The moment he stepped through, it was as if he never existed. And so, Hannah stood in the silence for what felt like an eternity, wind whipping her hair about. Even though she could ‘see’ through the gate to the other side of the garden, she could not see Death approaching with Grandmother until they were suddenly on the other side of the gate.

“Kim Hyeoung-ja.” Death addressed Grandmother in a voice far deeper and frightening then he ever used around Hannah. “I have granted your request. You have as long as Ha-yun will allow you, and no more than that.”

He stepped through the gate, returning to Hannah’s side. Her grandmother eyed the gate suspiciously, reaching out towards the gap between them. Her hand stopped right at the threshold between the two worlds, unable to move forward.

“Anneyeong, halmeoni,” Hannah greeted, crossing her arms tightly to hide the shaking of her hands.

“So casual with your grandmother,” the old woman sniffed. “And here I went through the trouble of convincing the ghastly one over there to let me see you one last time.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Hannah warned.

“Do not tell me what I can and cannot do, stupid girl,” Grandmother snapped.

Hannah sighed, strangely disappointed. “I don’t know why I agreed to this. Of course dying wouldn’t have changed you. You’re still as nasty as ever.”

“And you are still a rude, ungrateful brat. Did your father not teach you not to speak ill of the dead? After everything I have done for you, this is how you speak to your elders?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed dangerously, her fear fleeing in the face of her anger. The atmosphere shifted, as Grandmother quickly noticed that Hannah was not cowering as she’d once done in her presence.

“Everything you’ve done for me?” Hannah hissed.

“That is right,” Grandmother replied snippily.

“You treated me like shit my entire life!” Hannah shouted. “Nothing was ever good enough for you! You threw your weight around and forced your desires onto others without ever thinking about their feelings. If I enjoyed something, it was a waste of time. If I worked hard to make something, it was mediocre at best to you. You belittled me constantly, and made me feel like garbage! You hit me! No child should ever have to go through what you put me through!

“It took me going hundreds of miles away to be free of you! It took total strangers and death itself to make me realize I am worthy of love and respect!”

Grandmother laughed, sharp and humorless. “Child, if you think you deserve anything in life, then clearly your mother failed in raising you.”

Hannah’s shoulders rose like hackles on a cat. Her hands dropped to her side, shaking in anger as she clenched them into white-knuckled fists. “And there’s the worst of it.”

A single, condescending brow rose on Grandmother’s face.

“Not only did you treat me like trash, you can’t even bother to take responsibility for your own actions. You act like very failing is someone else’s fault. You act like you’re perfect, above reproach. You’re a heartless bitch, and I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me. Or to my mother.”

“I did not come here to ask for your forgiveness, Ha-yun.”

“Don’t call me that! Only he gets to call me that!”

Her grandmother flinched, cowing under the volume and vitriol Hannah’s voice suddenly took. It made Hannah feel powerful, seeing her grandmother react in shock like that. For once, she was on the higher ground; she was the one looking down at her grandmother.

“I don’t care what you came for.” Hannah’s stance shifted as she braced herself for what she was about to say. “I came here to thank you.”

“Oh? Finally coming around to see things the proper way?”

“No,” Hannah corrected. “I came here to thank you for setting me free.”

“Excuse you?” her grandmother hissed.

“Thanks to your harebrained scheme, I was able to leave the cage you’d created in that house,” Hannah explained. “I was able to meet wonderful people who understood me, who supported me, who loved me.”

“I loved you, you stupid girl!” Grandmother shouted, her voice croaking with the effort of it.

“No. You loved the idea of me that you created in your head,” Hannah shot back, her voice calmer than she could have expected. “If you did love me, you wouldn’t call me stupid. You wouldn’t constantly discourage me. You wouldn’t hit me. You would have accepted me for who I am. But you never did. You didn’t want me. You wanted another you. Because if you had to be miserable your whole life, you were going to make it so everyone else was miserable, too.

“Thank you, halmeoni. Thank you for stabbing me in the back one last time before you died. At least by doing so, you made it so I could find people who can help me heal. I will never forgive you, halmeoni, but I will heal.”

“Ha-yun!”

“Good bye, Grandmother. Rest in peace.”