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I could hear the crack in my voice as I stared at the tall, brown-haired man in front of me. The party was still in the long, windowed corridor, but now everyone was back to mingling and drinking. Uncle Lucas dressed nicer than I’ve ever seen him before, even better than the outfit he wore to his own brother’s funeral, as he wore a dark grey suit that was tailored to fit him perfectly. He was talking to another woman, and whether she was someone he came here with or not, I didn’t care, nor did I want to find out.
“Uncle Lucas?” I repeated, as if he was an illusion I could make disappear by the sound of his name.
He turned to me, the blood draining from his face, his skin turning a shade of pale. “Celeste?” he spoke with the same tone of disbelief as me. “What are you doing here?”
I wanted to ask him the same thing, but I didn’t have to.
Because I knew.
He wanted to be buried here, just like Uncle Russ.
That was the whole purpose of the Open House, right? To come here, to watch the ghosts, to figure out if this is a good fit for your soul in the afterlife?
Do you want to spend the rest of eternity’s days in this plot of land? Do you want to watch the rain, feel the mist, endure the fog for all of infinity? Do you want to wander the paths at nightwith no purpose, no life, no feeling? Do you want to stay here until time doesn’t exist? Until we all reach the end of the world, the end of this realm and the realm that is built here?
Do you want to be alone?
“You shouldn’t be here,” Uncle Lucas took a step toward me, reaching for me, but I pulled away.
“Neither should you.”
The woman that Uncle Lucas was with had walked away, moving on to someone else to talk to. I could feel a warm presence at my back, and without looking, I knew it was Caius. I could sense his ambient energy, even without him saying a word, but I chose to ignore him for the time being.
“Celeste,” Uncle Lucas echoed, but his request to defend himself fell on my deaf ears.
“Did you always know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“About this. About what happens here. About Uncle Russ choosing this.”
He wondered for a moment, then shook his head. “No, not always.”
I gave him a look that implied I needed an explanation.
“He told me about it about a month before he died, right before his decline. I didn’t believe him at first, but when I came here for the burial, I knew he was telling the truth. I could feel it.”
I sighed quietly. I knew the exact feeling he was talking about because I could feel it, too.
The essence of the living earth mixed with the elements of the afterlife.
The unknowns colliding with familiarity.
The comfort of the inevitable grief.
But even though the pull was there, that didn’t mean he needed to consider being buried here, too.
Without asking him to, I knew he was going to try and justify his reasoning for being here tonight, and I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to know why he was taking an interest in this place.
Then again, I was here tonight, too. I may not wonder about my afterlife just yet, but I still had a nagging fascination that brought me back here, time after time.
It was the constant state of mental tug-of-war. Sometimes, this place gave freedom; sometimes, it gave restrictions. Sometimes, it gave power; sometimes, it took it away.
Sometimes, it was soothing; sometimes, it was terrifying.
“Why did he choose this?” I asked.
A softness reached Uncle Lucas’ face, one that I’ve never seen before. It was a type of sadness that he had never expressed, at least not around me.
