Sixty-Eight ◑ The Funeral

Three Months Later

The morning skyline of New York stretched before Lucille, gloomy and gray in the month of April. It was supposed to be at least a little sunny, as it was spring, but it seemed that the weather itself was feeding off her emotions.

Even though she was separated from the world by this pane of glass, she could still feel the world going still, tuning in to what she was experiencing and seemingly becoming grayer before her very eyes.

Today was the hundredth day. The hundredth day of Agnes and Cade’s death.

And today, she had to hold some sort of a funeral service for the two of them, as insisted by her friends at Paradigm Publishing.

Lucille took a deep breath, clenching her hands on top of the black dress on her lap. Her white knuckles were a stark contrast to the dark velvety fabric. She was still in her silk robe, her hair dripping wet around her shoulders.

The service was scheduled to start in about an hour, at Elridge Funeral Home, a quaint little house at Brooklyn that would accommodate their ceremony. She had a very short time left, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to move.

Even now, after all these months, she couldn’t believe she was back at her suite at Chateau Hotel, back in this city, like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had ever gone wrong.

She didn’t even know how it happened. All she knew was that after the deaths, she had dug up a grave in that hill and buried the lovers, then she’d managed to summon a portal to go back to this place. Bloody and weak and broken.

Everyone she’d known in this city, the friends she had made, all had said the same thing: she, Agnes, and Cade had gone on a vacation. A simple vacation. And Agnes and Cade’s deaths had only been a result of some sort of an accident. They hadn’t said anything about their true connections, nothing about what had really happened.

It had been as though some sort of a force had readjusted the events in the mortals’ lives and made all the supernatural things appear normal.

At one point, Lucille had hoped that this was all Keiran’s doing, but there had been no sign of him.

No sign of Dimitri too.

For a hundred days. A hundred days since her return, her supposed triumph, and the twins had not shown up yet.

And she was all alone.

“Stop,” Lucille muttered to herself, shutting her eyes tightly as tears began to brim her eyes. “Stop it.”

She tried to rise, but her body seemed to have a different idea. It stayed frozen on the chaise lounge. She remembered the first few weeks after she’d come back, when the pain had been so bad that it had been nearly impossible to leave the bed.

The tears in her eyes began to gather, to threaten to spill, and she gritted her teeth to hold them back. However, it was futile this time. Her chest heaved a great sob, and the next thing she knew, she was crying. Hard. Her heart was hurting to bad that it seemed like it was shriveling up inside her ribs. Her whole body ached with it, making her double down and hug the dress on her lap.

This was Agnes's favorite dress, a loose number with an A-line skirt and cap sleeves. And now Lucille would be wearing it to her funeral.

A funeral with no bodies, no ashes, no anything.

Lucille wept. She sat there and hugged the dress and just exploded. Collapsed. Gave up.

How long she'd been there, she didn't know. The only time she'd snapped back to reality was when she heard the elevator doors ping and slide open.

"Lucille?" Shanry's voice was loud and clear. "Are you here?"

"Here," she tried to reply, but almost no sound came out of her mouth. “I’m here.”

Knowing that her feeble call wasn’t enough, Lucille forced herself to get up and head outside her closet. Her feet were still bare on the soft carpet, making almost no sound. This caused the Paradigm party to flinch upon her arrival. There was Shanry, Clifford, Rosie, and Jamie. All dressed in black. All wearing cautious, somber expressions that made her feel prickly, guilty, and defensive all at once.

She’d seen them a couple of times since her return. They’d even helped her arrange the whole funeral service. But even now, she still couldn’t look any of them in the eye.

Shanry handed Clifford the lilies she’d been holding before sweeping over to Lucille. “Let’s get you dressed, darling.”

The fact that Shanry didn’t ask why she was still a mess made her throat constrict. “Okay.”

The older woman smiled briefly, flashing a subtle look at their friends, who all nodded encouragingly. Lucille let Shanry steer her into her closet, trying to stay steady and act normal. Or at least as normal as her swollen eyes and stiff body could allow.

If Shanry noticed her clear apprehension, she didn’t say anything. She just followed her closely, her hand on the small of her back. It was a light touch, but Lucille could feel the support she was trying to communicate. She was grateful for it, to the point that it was beyond words, but at the same time it brought her closer to tears.

“I’ll wait here, okay?” Shanry said, staying by the door as Lucille set one foot in. “Call me when you need something.”

Lucille opened her mouth to say yes, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Something about having a friend inside the empty suite for the first time in weeks made her never want to be alone ever again. She lingered at the entrance, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She didn’t want to sound pathetic or worthy of so much pity, but her desperation won. “Can you go in and keep me company?”

Shanry looked taken aback. “Of course.”

Trying hard to force a grateful smile, Lucille stepped aside to let her in. “Thank you.”

“This is a beautiful closet.” Shanry’s gaze roamed around the room, staying considerably longer at the litter of shoes, dresses, and bags on the dusty white carpet. Lucille could tell that she was worried about the mess, but Shanry didn’t comment on it.

Still, Lucille felt the need to explain. “I’m sorry,” she began, “I just wasn’t able to do much cleaning since Agnes was. . . .”

She trailed off.

This was the first time she said Agnes’s name out loud.

Lucille tried to continue, to recover, but as she searched for the right words, she remembered all the times Agnes had walked into this very room, how they’d spend lazy afternoons just lying around and talking about stuff. Then she realized that that would never happen again, that she would have to live in this empty shell of a suite for God knows how long, and that she’d never get those times back.

A sob escaped Lucille, a deep, raw hitch of breath that left her with a gasp. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. And another. Until she was left crumbling into pieces right before Shanry, whose face immediately softened into a look of pure understanding.

“Oh, honey,” she whispered, crossing the room in long strides and enclosing Lucille in a tight hug. “Come here. Don’t fight it.”

“I’ve been trying hard not to feel anything,” Lucille said against her shoulder. “I don’t want to feel like this. I’m tired of hurting.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being hurt,” Shanry told her gently, holding her at arm’s length. “It means you’re still alive.”

Lucille didn’t say anything. She just slipped back into Shanry’s arms and buried her face on her shoulder, letting more of her grief flow out of her, even though it didn’t make her feel the least bit better. About anything.

The truth was, she didn’t feel lucky to be alive. She didn’t feel like she deserved to be, either. She thought all her suffering would lead to something better, but this was far worse than anything she had ever encountered.

She just wanted to be . . . gone.

◑≡◑≡◑≡◑

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“They’re in a better place.”

“We’ll pray for you.”

All the words of the people who’d attended were swimming in Lucille’s head. She wasn’t even sure who was speaking anymore. She could no longer tell them apart. Their voices and their faces were blurring into each other, blurring into the growing emptiness in her chest as she stood by the door and watched the other people go.

The only ones left in the home were a few people from Paradigm Publishing. And while she was ever thankful for their support, the only thing she wanted was to go home, curl up in a ball, and wait for daybreak to come and signal another day.

“Take this.” Jamie zoomed into her view and handed her a fresh cup of coffee as William headed out the door. “And why don’t you sit down for a while? You’ve been standing for hours.”

“Oh.” Lucille had no idea. “Alright.”

Jamie put a hand on the small of her back and led her to one of the benches facing the small wooden altar in the far corner of the brightly lit room. The walls were painted pale yellow with warm brick accents, but it still felt cold. Eerie. It didn’t help that beside the altar, there were blown up pictures of Agnes and Cade, smiling at them.

“I did say they shouldn’t put those pictures up.” Jamie followed Lucille’s line of sight and sat beside her. “My mom died when I was five. I know how it feels. It doesn’t get less awful, and saying otherwise is just bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucille said, looking at her. “I didn’t know.”

Jamie smiled dryly. “Don’t worry about it.”

They sat in silence, their gazes simultaneously shifting towards the silver urns that were perched on top of the altar, reflecting the glow of the candles beside them. Those were the ceremonial urns that the owner of this home had told Lucille to get, even though she had no ashes nor any kind of remains. The old man had insisted that it was only proper for her to get some sort of a symbol.

Personally, she didn’t feel like taking those two urns home just to stare at them and feel worse than she already did.

She took a sip of her coffee, idly staring at the altar as a funeral home staff began to replace the melted candles on the candelabra. She found it unnecessary, so she put her cup down and was about to signal the man to stop, but then she caught a glimpse of his face and froze.

Blond hair. Bright blue eyes. A sharp, handsome face that always seemed to have just a ghost of a smile.

*Keiran.*