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“Don’t. I just don’t want to deal with Persi’s comments,” she insisted.
“I didn’t say anything,” Rhi insisted, but a smile played on her lips for the next few minutes.
That liminal space of twilight seemed, to me, the right time to hold a funeral. There was something wrong about standing around a coffin at ten o’clock in the morning, and then having to just… continue with your day. Eat lunch. Run errands. Twilight felt more fitting somehow—saying goodbye as the day says goodbye, and letting the stars rise over a quiet night of reflection. If you simply wanted to tumble into bed and cry yourself to sleep, you could; and no one would expect you to make conversation or politely pick at a plate of buffet pasta. Still, as the sun reddened the horizon and we walked quietly up the road together, it was hard to feel anything but dread and sadness.
The four of us walked side by side in the sand. Rhi had given us each a small lantern with a candle burning inside, and we carried them swinging from our hands up the winding path to the clifftop. As we got nearer the top of the path, more lanterns began to appear, shining like stars in the gathering darkness. They came from the direction of the woods, from the beach, from the road behind us; and as they drew closer, I could make out the people carrying them.
A few of the faces were familiar from the time I’d spent downtown. Lydian rolled past us in her rickshaw, lanterns hanging from the corners. The woman from the gallery, whose name I’d already forgotten—Penelope? No, Phoebe—smiled gently at me as she passed. The lanterns all began to converge on a point ahead, moving into an evenly spaced formation as people filed into rows of benches that had been arranged on either side at the top of the path; it was like watching fireflies suddenly fly into formation. I spotted Eva Marin sitting between Xiomara and another woman, who looked so much like Eva, she could only be her mother.
Eva smiled at me, gave me an exaggerated once over with her eyes, and then winked, mouthing the words, “Looking good!”
I rolled my eyes and smiled back as though to reply, “It wasn’t my idea.”
But I had to admit, I fit in much better than I would have in my shapeless black dress. All around me were flowing skirts, fluttering scarves, and clinking jewelry. No fewer than a dozen people had brought pets, and one woman was absently feeding sunflower seeds to a bird that was perched on her shoulder. Even those among the guests who wore black did so with pops of other bright colors, and I spotted at least half a dozen flower crowns on people’s heads. Even the men—though there weren’t as many of them—had dispensed with the traditional button-down shirts and suits they usually had to stuff themselves into at these kinds of things and joined the crowd in soft linens and bare feet. I returned a wave from Zale, who smiled at me over the ruffly collar of the same kind of shirt Roman Peterson had thrown a tantrum over having to wear. On Zale, it looked perfectly natural, somehow.
As we approached the back row of benches, a group of women stepped forward to greet us; and I realized I already knew several faces amongst them, including Nova, who hung back a little from the others, like she’d rather not have been associated with them. She gave me a quick quirk of a smile before dropping her face to watch her own toes drawing circles in the sand. All of the women in the group had hair so blonde it was practically white, and when the eldest of the group cleared her throat to address us, I knew her at once.
“From the heart of our coven to yours, our sincerest condolences on the loss of your matriarch,” Ostara Claire said in a solemn voice. She had loosely braided her long hair and it lay draped over her shoulder with several blossoms tucked into the plait.
Rhi seemed to be waiting for someone else to speak, and then realized, with a start of surprise, that she was now the eldest member of the coven—in essence, the new matriarch. Her voice shook as she answered, “We thank you for your words of comfort.”
I spotted Bernadette at the back of the group, recognizing her despite the fact that she seemed to be trying to hide behind the curtains of her hair. As I looked at her, she ventured a glance up and caught my eye. I tried to smile at her, but her eyes went wide and she dropped them again to her feet at once, murmuring something under her breath that I couldn’t hear. Nova threw a warning glance at her, and she lapsed into silence again.
The Claires floated off to their seats in the front row, and we continued our slow walk up the center aisle. As we walked, hands reached out to grasp ours, and murmured condolences created a soft, solemn soundtrack to our progress. The sense of community took my breath away—I’d never experienced it before.
Finally, we took our seats in the front row, across the aisle from the Claires, and I finally lifted my eyes to the sight I’d been trying not to look at since we’d arrived on the clifftop: the funeral pyre. It loomed before us, much taller than I’d expected it to be. Atop it was Asteria’s body, the outline of which was just visible beneath a fluttering white gauzy shroud strewn with flowers. It was only the suggestion of her, like a ghost, and yet I felt like I could recognize her: the sharp point of her chin, the slender lines of her form. Beside me, my mom was shaking. I reached over to grasp her hand and felt her gentle squeeze in return.
In that moment, music began. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but someone nearby was playing a flute of some kind. The music had a soothing sweetness to it, carried over the gathered mourners by the ocean breeze. As I glanced around in search of the source of the music, I realized that many of the other mourners were involved in their own rituals. Candles were being lit, herbs were being burned or else bundled or tied with ribbons. Soft incantations were being spoken. One woman walked in a complete circle around the entire assembled group, circling a great bundle of burning sage over her head, cleansing the whole area, and offering comfort to those gathered there. When she had finished, she called over the assembled mourners in a clear, calm voice that nevertheless carried.
“The mourners are invited to come forward to send our sister off on the next part of her journey.”
People began, in ones and twos, to leave their seats and approach the pyre. They left things in the sand around the base of the logs: candles with guttering flames, sealed jars full of herbs and liquids, bundles of dried flowers, charms on strings, crystals and gemstones scattered on the ground or else tied up in pouches. Some of them were silent, others were speaking or singing softly. One woman scattered a pouch of what looked like ashes as she sang in a language I didn’t know. Another was working studiously over what looked like a voodoo doll. Through it all, people came up to us and dropped other things into a basket that had been placed at our feet. Sometimes, the object was simply left without a word. Other times, the person who offered it explained what it was.
“A tincture for grief and mourning.”
“A charm for connection.”
“An oil for healing of rifts and separations.”
No one seemed to expect us to say anything, and so we didn’t, merely nodding our thanks as the basket at our feet filled with a community’s potluck of magical offerings. Xiomara appeared before us with several small, stoppered bottles and a huge baking dish covered in tinfoil.
“Perfumes espiritualesfor you,pobrecitas. And dinner, because you need to eat.”
Rhi sniffled and reached out a hand. Xiomara took it and squeezed it tightly in her own, before shuffling back to her seat. I smiled softly to myself. It seemed even witches brought casseroles to neighbors when someone was grieving a loss, and something about that made me feel unexpectedly comforted.
Finally, the last of the mourners had left their offerings, both for Asteria and for us—the ones she had left behind. The music flowed to a natural conclusion, and then Aunt Rhi stood up, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from somewhere in her flowing skirts. She walked to the base of the pyre, and then turned to look at the crowd. Beside me, Persi made a sound like a dry, stifled sob; but when I chanced a glance at her, she had composed her face into an expressionless mask.
“I thank you all, on behalf of the First Daughters of Sedgwick Cove, for those that have gone before us, and of those who still tread this sacred ground. I know that my mother Asteria would be overwhelmed by the number of you who have come this evening to wish her well on her journey.”
It was so hard for me to think of death as the start of a journey, rather than the end of one. Perhaps it was both. There was something comforting in that thought, and I tried to cling to it while I listened to Rhi talk about Asteria.
Even an hour later, I’m not sure I could have recalled many of the details of that speech. I listened to it in a haze of emotions that made it very difficult to concentrate. She named many people I’d never met and told anecdotes that held no memory for me. She mentioned Asteria’s stubbornness, which got an appreciative chuckle out of nearly everyone listening, including my mom. But what I would remember most of those moments, listening to my aunt talk about my grandmother, was a terrible sense of disconnection and grief.
I was saying goodbye to someone I’d barely known, and yet my grief felt bottomless because, I realized, I was grieving for all my lost chances. I always thought, one day, Asteria and I would find each other and gather up the thread of our relationship. I would get to know her, and she would get to know me—maybe even help me get to know myself, which I’d felt like I’d only just begun to do. Surely a woman so in tune with herself, so comfortable in her own skin, and living life on her own terms, could help her awkward granddaughter learn to do the same?
But now she never would. And none of the magic heaped in the basket at my feet could fix that.
I suddenly realized that Rhi had stopped talking. I refocused on her and saw that she was placing her own little charm on the pyre, tucking it between two of the logs, and whispering softly to herself. Then she sat down again, placing both of her hands on her knees. As I watched, Persi and my mom both reached out and placed a hand on top of Rhi’s. A lump came into my throat and wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I swallowed against it.
