Page 64 of Florescentia

As soon as he spotted me, he shifted over to the side to make room on the bench.

“Have you done something?” I asked, sliding next to him and glancing behind us.

“You could say that.” He clicked his tongue at the horse, and we took off with a jolt. He even tapped the sleepy gelding on the behind.

“Is it legal?”

“Partially,” he admitted, “but it is just.”

Knowing his propensity for the lawful good, I chose to accept that answer.

The city of a million starry windows and a culture of noise well into the night slowly traded its man-made idols for nature. Buildings turned to trees, people turned to fauna, the lights of living quarters turned to stars in the sky as clear as glass.

Our path turned rougher, the pavement faded to dirt, and soon even the tree line opened up to the oceanic horizon.

Out east was quiet, eerily so. Among nature, occasionally you’d get the cracking of wheels on pebbles, sometimes a call of a steamship out among the fog.

Even so far from the city, the smell didn’t change. It was the low-settling fog. The cliff overlooked the sea, but I could only see the cool mist. The humidity from the bad air made the fog hang low over the water.

The wagon stopped before the peak, the moon lending its light for our mischief.

Little did I know, what we were about to do was a sacred duty, the most important type of ritual in our world.

We disembarked from the wagon and opened the back.

I thought it was a dream, pure disbelief.

“I told you we’d make it up to him,” Maxim said, placing his hand on my shoulder.

Unblinking, my vision adjusted to the dark to see the coffin.

“We buried him.”

“We buried a casket. Never said he would be in it,” he said. “No one will know he is missing unless they dig him back up.”

“You did this for him?” I turned to my brother, his face dark in the night.

He leaned down, both hands on my face. “I can only hope someone will do this for us. It’s only right. It’s what he wanted, you said.”

I couldn’t help a grin. “You are not afraid of breaking the rules? The law?”

“There is no need to be afraid when your heart is true,” he laughed, “but I think I’ve expelled a few times on the way over, from motion sickness and adrenaline.”

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” My knuckles shoved against his chest playfully.

“It feels”—he paused, glancing over the ocean view—“it feels right.”

“Well, let us begin, then.” I yanked at one of the handles of the funeral cart, heaving it once before gasping. “By the stars, we should have thought about employing a couple more hands.”

“Just roll him out,” he said with a sigh, hopping into the back to grab the other end of the cart to unlock the wheels.

The first two wheels dropped to the ground, then the last two, the metal creaking as the weight shifted. With more care this time, we wheeled it to the ledge.

I unlatched the coffin, heaving up the lid. Maxim stood at the head, holding it open.

The smell of alcohol and, briefly, something putrid. But with the strong breeze and the cold air nipping my nose, I forgot the scent swiftly.

In the dim light, he almost looked as if he were sleeping. A gentle, breathless nap under the moonlight. I couldn’t even tell the reconstructed parts from the natural.