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I quickly look down at the flagstones, avoiding eye contact with anyone. I don’t want them to notice me. I don’t want them to wonder who I am and why I am here.
My quick glance had shown that everyone is dressed in somber black attire. I didn’t have time to change. These people are dressed more respectfully than me at my own mother’s funeral. It’s fitting I suppose. No doubt they knew her better than me.
I walk slowly down the central aisle between the pews. A small queue is shuffling down towards the open casket to pay their last respects. I join it.
My head is a mess. I am not ready for this. I had wanted a private moment with her in which to say a few words of goodbye. I don’t know what I would have said, but something to fix this hollow feeling inside of me. To ease my guilt that she’s dead. Killed by a monster who was after me. I want to tell her I’m sorry, and that I wish I had believed her when she warned me. That I wish I hadn’t run off, leaving her alone. I can’t even remember what my last words to her were, but I know they were not kind.
As the queue gets shorter and I get closer to the front, I begin trembling. Nothing I can ever say will make it right. Maybe I shouldn't even be here. I feel like a fraud, surrounded by those who are grieving for her who actually knew her in life. I will never know her now. She had been my only hope of having a real family, and she is gone.
What will she look like after two years? Will she look the same? How could they have left her casket open?
When I reach the front I almost flee. But
I make myself step right to the open casket and look in. It is a shock. Seeing her face, I am immediately transported back to the last time I saw her, face speckled with blood, eyes glazed and blankly staring at nothing.
Her eyes are closed now. She does not look like herself. They have painted her skin with heavy makeup. She never wore any in life. It makes her look less real. Death has made her dark hair and haughty features more austere. I try to see myself in her face, but I am not there. She looks nothing like me, and yet she is my mother. This is the woman who gave birth to me. What must she have thought when she saw her squalling infant with a monstrous stone fused to her navel? Yet she had done everything in her power to save her baby from harm, including giving me up. I had grown up never knowing her. And now it is too late.
My hand reaches out to touch her, but then I stop. I can’t do it.
My lips tremble, trying to find something to say, but words do not come out. She was the one person who had known what I was, who had seen all of me, and loved me anyway. Fiercely. Until her dying breath. And I cannot find any words to say to her. The church is almost deathly silent. I can hear every movement of the other mourners who have taken their seats on the pews, their clothing rustling as they wait for me to finish.
Only her face is visible. The blood specks are gone. They should have buried her with those specks. They were a mark of her courage. It was I who found her body. That monster DCK had torn it almost to shreds, leaving only her face intact for me to recognize. It was like he had done it on purpose, taunting me. Her body is covered now, but I know the truth of what lies beneath that pristine white shroud.
A monster took her from me, and I have to find him and make him pay.
I’ll do it, I promise her inside my head. I’ll get him for you if it is the last thing I do.
I know that she would not be happy with this promise. She had told me to hide, to stay safe and grow strong. But I won’t cower. I can’t let him get away with what he has done.
Unable to look at her corpse for a moment longer, I wish her a hasty goodbye in my head, and then return to the back of the church to take a seat. By myself.
The priest begins to recite his prayers. His words should be comforting, but I am barely aware of them. I see heads turning one by one to take looks at me. I feel their eyes. They are wondering about me.
There is a video of me on the internet that went viral. It appears to show Constantine Storm and Xander Daxx fighting over me in a plush guest bedroom at Wintersdeep Castle during Xander’s Royal Engagement Gala two years ago. It’s not the truth of course, but the millions who watched it didn’t care to know the truth. The sordid lie is more entertaining.
The snatches of chit chat I heard earlier in the queue told me these people worked with Magda. Their heads turn more than once and I know one must have recognized me and told the others. My long pale hair is distinctive, even though I have chopped it shorter than it was. They don’t know my relationship to Magda. She had given me up for adoption when I was a baby to keep me safe. She would never have told.
I wonder how many of them truly loved Magda. Not many, I think. She’d kept herself isolated, always fearful that she would be found and killed. Most of them must be here out of curiosity. It was big news when she was killed during Princess Caroline’s Royal Engagement Gala by no less a notorious persona than the Devil Claw Killer himself. They are probably disappointed with how normal this whole service is. Not a single member of press to speak of.
Princess Caroline has not bothered to attend. Unless she is that stiff-backed heavily shrouded woman in the front row who has sat statue-still through the whole service and is the only one not to have turned to look at me. I doubt it. Princess Caroline likes to be seen. Hiding herself away under a veil would serve no purpose.
That she has put any effort into organizing this funeral has come as a surprise. It is beautiful. A huge floral bouquet has been laid atop the gleaming coffin, and white floral wreaths line the central aisle leading down the middle of the pews. I am pathetically grateful for them. I could not have afforded this. Magda deserves this. All she got for her sacrifices is a daughter who serves canapes and clears tables for a living.
A woman gets up to say some words in remembrance. She speaks of how dedicated Magda had been at her job, and she offers up an anecdote from a staff Christmas party. I listen dully, grinding my teeth. This is all Magda will be remembered for.
When the service is over, I follow everyone out of the church, walking behind the coffin to its final resting place in the churchyard cemetery outside.
The rain has started up again. Umbrellas go up. I do not have one. I determinedly bring up the rear, not wanting to be looked at or sought out for conversation. Remi said there would be a wake afterwards, but I cannot go to that. I stand behind the group, listening to the priest say another prayer.
It hurts that Princess Caroline did not come. Magda was her loyal servant for over a decade, since the princess was a girl. Her absence speaks volumes about how little Magda meant to her in the end. My mother. It is so hard to think of her as my mother. As her coffin is lowered into the ground I suddenly clench my fists. I want to cry out at them to stop. I haven’t said my goodbyes yet. I still need her.
And then a warm big hand closes over mine gently, wrapping reassuring fingers over my clenched fist. I look up at him, startled. For half a heartbeat I expect Storm. But it is Xander Daxx.
As soon as I notice that he is here, so do others. His tall and imposing presence, that tawny lion look, makes it hard for people to not see him. Whispers spread through the group, sounding almost excited. It makes me grind my teeth. They have got what they came for. Something gossip-worthy, involving a royal, no less.
One woman’s hand slips into her pocket towards her camera phone. A single skewering glance from Xander makes her desist. She turns away, cheeks flushed hot red.
I pull my hand away from Xander’s. Why the hell is he even here? He puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently before letting it drop. He stays beside me, holding his umbrella over both of us. I wish Storm were here. And Remi. But they are not.
