Page 29 of Melancholia

But it’s better than worrying about my birthday. The only thing that matters is if anyone asks, I have to remember to say I’m twenty-six now. Not twenty-five. Apart from that, however, there’s nothing. I’m the same mortuary assistant I was yesterday, last week, and last month.

Well, maybe not last month, since back then I hadn’t discovered a murder, gotten confronted by the murderer, nor had him sic his dog on me.

Which I am clearly still not over.

But other than that, I’m the same Eleanor Collins who graduated mortuary school with an excellent record, and who hasn’t seen the inside of a mental hospital for almost nine years.

After ten, maybe I’ll throw myself some kind of party. Though there will be absolutely no cake involved, and it won’t look anything like a birthday celebration.

For two hours, I listen to music and the rain. Part of the time is spent actually doing the little tasks that need to get done around here, while I sit at the desk in the embalming room and staring at my phone while I scroll on and on through reels that I barely see for the rest.

My head hurts a little. Not from the smell of chemicals, since that’s become faded into the background for me by now. And not from the rain or not getting enough sleep.

When the front door opens, I glance up, surprised someone is here this early. My shift doesn’t start for another hour, technically, and I hadn’t expected to see Cecil until later tonight. While he doesn’t have anything in the embalming room to do, he’s just as nocturnal as I am and prefers to do his office work at night as well.

“Sarah?” I call, slipping my headphones down to rest against my neck. “Is that you?” Without the music, I can hear the rustling of cheap plastic, and something in me goes cold.

What if it’s Amir?

With my active imagination, it’s so easy to imagine him rolling out tarps or some other plastic, though the sound I hear reminds me more of plastic bags than tarps. But either way, it’s a possibility. Especially when he obviously knows how to get in here without me knowing. Did he stalk me here? Watch me drive in? Or maybe he somehow saw my car through the pouring rain outside?

I’m standing, phone gripped in my hand, when footsteps in the hall from the office to the embalming room make me tense and freeze up. But the person who appears, pushing the swinging double doors open, isn’t Amir.

It’s Cecil.

His look of confusion barely registers as I let out a breath of relief, and my shoulders fall. “Holy shit, Cecil,” I gasp. “I thought you were”—I have to change the last word of that sentence to a quick, strangled—“breaking in or something.”

“Breaking in?” He gives me a bemused look. “To my own mortuary? I’ve only needed to do that, oh, three times? And it hasn’t happened in over a decade.” My smile grows at his humor, and I work to look like a normal human being with a normal expression, instead something that would haunt these mortuary walls.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, more sharply than I’m used to.

I blink and glance down at my phone before looking back up at him. He’s never cared before if I’m here early, as long as I’m not doing anything weird. And I don’t think sulking and organizing is weird. At least, not for me.

“Uh, well, I finished putting away that new tank cleaner you ordered. The rest of it was here in a big box, so I took care of that. I’ve been doing a few things. Organizing?” I offer, suddenly nervous. “And just doomscrolling on my phone.” Waiting for a moment, I can’t help but add, “Is that okay? Do you want me to not show up early like this anymore⁠—”

“No! No, no, you’re completely fine. I’m sorry.” He laughs suddenly, looking abashed. “I just wasn’t expecting you here, and⁠—”

The front door opens again. “Cecil?” Hestia’s voice rings through the mortuary. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late. I wanted to swing by the shop and grab coffee for her. And I got the balloons.”

Balloons.

No.

Oh, God, no.

Cecil looks away before the horror shows on my face, and by the time he’s giving me an apologetic, friendly smile, I’ve schooled my expression back into something less awful. “You weren’t supposed to be here for another hour,” he reminds me with a grin. “We thought we’d have time. I guess the surprise is ruined, but uh, we will totally make the best of it. Just hang out in here for twenty minutes, okay?”

With that, he turns and walks back to the public part of the mortuary, and I can hear him telling Hestia that I’m already here. She comes back to admonish me for being early, then hands me my favorite coffee.

I’m certainly not complaining about two in one day.

But I am absolutely full of displeasure at the birthday party being prepped down the hall.

I considered leaving. Running away, packing up my shit, and leaving Still Pines. It definitely wouldn’t be an overreaction, I tell myself. No matter what my therapist might have to say about that.

When the door opens for the third time and I hear Betty’s voice in the other room, the urge becomes a lot harder to ignore. It would be so easy to bolt out of the loading bay door, run to my car, throw it in drive, and never see this place again as it shrinks in my rearview mirror.

Anything else feels like an underreaction.