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The minister clears his throat, hushing the simmering murmurs of the crowd. He delivers a dispassionate eulogy for my grandmother. Each word causes goosebumps on my skin like a screeching record. Àvia didn’t believe in any of this stuff; if anything, she was culturally Catholic from her youth in Barcelona, but when you have a daughter and granddaughter who can tell you from reliable sources there’s no such thing as Heaven and Hell, it’s difficult to believe in anything but the inexorability of death itself. She would roll her eyes so hard, and the thought makes me smile.
It’s easy to tell which of the twenty or so people gathered under the makeshift white tent witnessing my grandmother’s burial are there for genuine interest, and which have ulterior motives. I recognize Sara, the owner of the bookstore I used to work at in high school, wrapped in her wife’s embrace, a tissue pressed against her eyes. Àvia’s knitting group is there, too — three ladies in their later years, all with heads in various shades of pearl and deep lines marring their features.
Everyone else is either in a state of poorly masked boredom, eyes glazed over and tapping their feet with the rhythm of the rain, or morbid curiosity, stealing glances around looking for something. Someone, rather.
They’re looking for me. The prodigal child. The freak show. Hazel Creek’s favorite source of gossip.
Wetness slithers down my cheeks, and I raise a hand to collect it. It’s dry under the awning, so I can’t blame the tears on the punishing rain. Àvia’s all the family I had left, and I’m hiding at her funeral.
For the next twenty minutes, I fight with my feet to move closer, but every time I think I’m ready, unwelcome images invade my memory. Of children laughing over me as I cried, curled up on the mud of the playground. Of the whispered urban legends that made me out to be Creeperalda, dangerous dark arts practitioner. Of the police visits to our house, when townies thought it appropriate to blame every mishappening on the teenager who was different. Once I make my presence known, I can’t go back. And I’m not prepared to face all that again.
In the end it’s Bernie, the graveyard keeper, who lowers Àvia’s casket in the freshly dug hole and covers it in dirt, and when he’s done I’m still hiding under the mausoleum. As everyone else leaves, I stay still as a statue. Even the rain eases while I work up the courage to leave my hiding spot. As the sun dips below the horizon, turning the cemetery shades of purple, I step out.
My mother’s headstone, dark green, coarse-grained gabbro, has gotten duller in time, the etching less pronounced as the stone starts to erode; it’s flanked by newly poured soil, the smell of earth still strong in the air. Àvia’s burial site doesn’t have a proper marker yet; the grave needs to settle before the headstone can be put in, so all she gets for now is a wooden stick in the soft dirt, her picture stapled to it. Eventually, her site will be covered in short grass, the way Mama’s is, and the headstone will be the only noticeable indicator, but right now it’s far too easy to make out the contour of the hole they dug to lower her body underground. I shudder, curling into my shoulders and crouching to run a finger over the picture.
Àvia is dead. She was the last person who truly knew me, the last person who accepted me despite everything. The only one, since Mama died.
I sink into another memory. One where I was nine years old, and my eyes were full of tears, and my knees and hands stung with scrapes and scratches from being pushed by bullies.
“You know nobody can know about your… skills, Esme. They will think you’re mad,” Àvia had said.
“Yeah, well, it gets lonely being the only person like this,” I’d admitted in a whisper. “I just wanted someone to share it with.”
Àvia’d reached a hand for my thigh and squeezed. “You have me.”
I’d asked her what if it wasn’t enough. She told me it’d have to be. As much as I tried, it never has been. But at least I had someone.
I steal a glance around, confirming everyone else has left. It’s only me and the ghosts here. Then, I lower my head and clamp my eyes shut.
“Ara què, Àvia?” My voice is a trembling whisper. “Who do I get to share this with, now?”
No one.
The thought shakes a sob out of my throat. I’m alone. I’m well and truly alone.
“Àvia?” I call out through the tears. “Àvia, if you’re still here, please come out. I just want to see you.”
I have a strong feeling she’s not here. The scent of rot is thick in the air, but there’s a dozen other spirits to thank for that. They all keep their distance, so their chill isn’t enough to cool the stifling post-storm humidity. Àvia’s grave is unassuming, lacking any sign of the Beyond. That doesn’t stop me from trying again. And again. But when she doesn’t answer a third time, I know without a shadow of a doubt that my grandma has passed on.
The way hope shatters in my chest at the realization makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. I know there’s no peace for spirits roaming the Earth, I’ve felt their despair like a clawed hand to my throat. And yet I was still willing to wish that end upon my own grandmother, one of the two most important people in my life, all because…
I’m lonely. And selfish. And quite frankly exhausted.
Sobs shake me, and I don’t try to contain them or the wail that splits through the eery quiet of the cemetery. I can’t do composure. I can’t keep the darkness contained. It swirls in my stomach, that feeling of wrongness I’ve tried smothering my entire life, and claws its way up my throat, turning my cries hoarse.
I’m so taken by my own grief, I don’t notice the approaching footsteps until they snap a twig a few feet from me.
There’s someone here. And they’re not dead.
chapter 2
shadow prince
teizel
It’s happening again. I feel it in the way my blood thrums in my veins, like a sickness pervading every inch of unoccupied space in my soul, pushing everything else aside until only it exists. Try as I might to ignore it, I know it will eventually win out. It will deprive me of sleep, pleasure, thought — every last bit of me, until I satisfy it. Until I find another challenger.
The curse demands its sacrifice.
