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Chapter 18
Then
I wanted to faint, to slip into an unconsciousness that was nothing but darkness. “Are you sure?” Solise said. I looked to my mother and we both nodded. My mother’s cheeks had not dried since she collapsed on the kitchen floor yesterday, the day a blur of screaming and rage and despair and tears.
Solise nodded and gingerly pulled back the sheet, revealing my father’s familiar face. He looked peaceful, like he had simply fallen asleep, but his skin was too gray. My mother’s face was plastered with longing, regret as the rise and fall of her chest quickened once again. A steady stream of tears still poured from her eyes, her nose rubbed raw and red.
I gave Solise a slight nod and she covered his face again. “You must arrange a burial today. His body will not keep much longer.” I knew Solise was doing everything she could to help, but hearing my father be referred to as nothing more than a body was a dagger to my heart. My mother had slipped into despondency, which had happened multiple times over the past few hours. I wished I could join her in that detached state, floating aimlessly through my emotions, but I had to be the steady one here since she clearly couldn’t be.
We had no money for the funeral he deserved, for a plot of land under a shady tree where the vines twisted into the sky. Even in death, the city shit on Inkwell. There was a designated section of the city’s cemetery for those without the funds to secure their loved ones a peaceful resting place — the Backwoods, they called it. It was only established because in the years before I was born it had been common to see dead bodies rotting in the street. Families had no choice but to leave them outside the walls of their homes. The rats began to overrun Inkwell, and as soon as they made their way into other districts, the city sprung into action.
It was an unregulated area, and people often came upon unmarked graves as they dug a resting place for their loved ones. It was not manicured or sustained like the rest of the cemetery. It had garnered the name because of the unkempt trees that grew gnarled and wild, the grass and weeds knee high. Small stones marked the graves, some taken by the overgrowth of time. Mice skittered through the weeds. It was somehow both eerie and peaceful, ghostly yet exploding with life.
I left Ma with Solise and walked quietly through the city until I reached the cemetery, a portion of green grass with fences that bordered the northern side of Prisma and the southern side of Ockhull. We were close to Ockhull’s well-known patisserie, the scent of fresh honey apple bread and iced biscuits wafting through the air. As I entered the gates of the cemetery and strode through the immaculately kept grounds, I kept my gaze forward, ignoring the welling emotion in my throat. Straight through to the back, to a place an outsider might assume wasn’t a part of the cemetery at all. To the Backwoods.
Birds chirped overhead, unaware of the decay that they had built their nests over. Wrapped in my cloak despite the humid summer air, I began to weave through the trees and grass and stones, looking for a place suitable to hold my father for eternity. Some of the grave markers had flowers and trinkets on them, evidence of friends and family who remembered. Others were so old that they lay alone, the words etched crudely in their faces barely legible after Saints knew how long. I did my best to avoid stepping on any graves, but the clutter of the Backwoods made it nearly impossible.
Thwack.The sound of a shovel hitting loose dirt echoed through the trees. Dirt hit the ground.Thwack.I shuffled my way around a twisted tree trunk that had grown almost sideways until I saw a figure about 100 feet away. He was facing away from me, tall, broad shouldered, intent on his work as he coveredsomeonein dirt. By the looks of it, he had just begun to return the dirt to the pit he had dug.
“Have you seen any other good spots?” I called, hoping he could help me return to my mother quicker. He jumped, whirling around, hoisting the shovel in front of him as if it were a weapon. I put my hands up as I approached. “Apologies. It wasn’t my intention to–”
Calomyr. He lowered his shovel as he surveyed my face, half hidden under the hood of my cloak. “Petra,” he said, the smoky voice low and shaky.
“Apologies,” I said again, the word short. I glanced behind him at the pit in the earth. “And apologies for…” I lowered my head. He simply stared at me, the pigments of his eyes still as unbelievable as they had been the first time I saw him. They were maddening, the clash of ice and emeralds in his left eye impossible to ignore, even through my grief. He shifted from one foot to another. “Don’t stop on my account,” I muttered. “I’m just looking for a suitable spot for…”
“For your father?” he cut in, his face immediately flooded with regret.
“How did you know that?” What the fuck?
“I just assumed. I’ve seen him around town. His…tremors,” he said awkwardly, lowering his face. I gave a short nod, looking away, tears threatening to spill. “Apologies,” he said to me, and the word reverberated through me so thoroughly that I shuddered. “Are you okay?”
That question again. Aside from my Da a few weeks ago, was he the only person who’d ever asked me that? Was that why my reaction to the words was so disconcerting to me? The tears spilled then as I choked back a sob. I simply shook my head. He dropped his shovel and started to walk toward me. I threw my hands up to him. “Don’t come near me,” I snarled. “I don’t know who the fuck you are or why I keep running into you. But I do know that for somebody who isn’t from Inkwell, you sure seem to be there a lot.”
“How do you know I’m not from Inkwell?” he breathed, the breathiness of his voice wrapping around my nerves.
“The cloak, youfuckingidiot. Never mind the fact that youtold meyou lived in Ockhull.” I fell into the pattern of speech Larka had used when speaking with strange men who didn’t know how to keep their hands to themselves. Sharp. Despite the fire I spat, I felt weak, fragile. “Why are you in Inkwell so often? What business could you possibly have there?”
He sucked on his teeth, his face unreadable. “My sick aunt lives there.Livedthere.”
I had no strength to conjure up any pity for him, not while the last day and a half had changed my entire life…again. “So I’ll no longer be running into you in Inkwell then, correct?” I sniped.
Hurt flashed on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. “Correct,” he finally said quietly.
“Good. Nowpleasetell me if there are any more suitable spots where I can lay my father to rest.”
???
The exhaustion that pounded through my body was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I dug a hole with Solise’s shovel next to a mangled tree, one of the branches dipping low enough to the ground to serve as a makeshift bench. With blistered hands and an aching back, I stood beside the hole where my father lay wrapped in a sheet. Larka’s face flashed in my mind, wondering how it would have felt to look into a hole in the ground and see her covered form.
It almost made me thankful there had been nothing left of her to bury.
Solise had steadily been falling into the role of a friend since the first time she came to our home, our conversations when I stopped in for more tonic growing longer, more personal. I had no idea what my mother and I would have done if she hadn’t been there to stitch him up, to make him look more like himself, to dress him in fresh clothes for his ascent to the Saints. So it was a comfort, small as it was, to see her standing at the head of the grave, ready to pray over his body.
Kolvar and Selina stood with Elin, their arms linked and heads bowed. A few acquaintances of his that neither my mother nor I knew stood by as well. My mother had curled herself on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, deep sobs breaking from her chest as Solise began to read simple prayers from the Book of Benevolent Saints.
“Glorious Saints, divine lights that guide us, please lead Sarek Gaignory into your arms. May he live forevermore under the protection of the Benevolent Saints and kept from the wrath of the Blood Saints.” My mother’s wail pierced the air as she began to scream his name. Solise’s steady voice began to crack as she continued to read, placing a hand on my writhing mother’s shoulder. “May Cyen, Saint of Death, grant him mercy as he moves into the next life.”
I looked down at the shape of him in the dirt and it hit me.
