Chapter Fourteen

The memory returned to her: Adam had just passed away and, unable to confront this horrific new reality, Nicolle retreated to her bathroom to be alone. Ten years later she was no different.

            In all of the time that Nicolle had attended Maple Hill High School she had never once set foot on its roof. That wasn't so odd; for what reason would a person need to get on the roof of the school? And yet, climbing out of the window of Room 44, she'd stepped out onto the top of the school and found solitude. The weather was cool and refreshing, a crisp autumn afternoon; from her vantage point Nicolle had a lovely view of the multicolored tree tops surrounding the campus. From her height, everything was quite. No practicing football team grunted or yelled; no band blasted their horns or beat their drums. Two sounds were all there was: the soft breeze in the treetops and the softer weeping of Nicolle.

            First Dominic was called, and soon the entire Chess Club arrived; there was yelling, there was arguing. Call 911, don't call 911, try to resurrect her, Elijah can't do that, is she truly dead or in a coma, she's truly dead look at her, dear God help us, how did this happen, stop yelling so loud, what's going to happen to us, what's going to happen next...?

            They eventually agreed to treat it as if Artistries did not exist; following this strategy Elyse ran to the office and summoned “anyone, quick,” while everyone else waited. Nicolle wanted to leave right then, needed to leave, but she was exhorted to remain at least until help arrived. And yet Nicolle could not take her eyes off the girl on the floor. That was her friend Maria, the girl with the Purple Eyes.

            Teachers arrived, some gasped in shock; they asked what happened, did anybody see? No ma'am, they answered, we found her like this. Eventually everyone was asked to leave; an ambulance arrived soon after, loaded Maria into the back, and drove away.

            Sitting on the roof of her high school, Nicolle began to bawl.

            Nicolle hated death.

 

            Procedurally students and staff were supposed to continue school operations normally in the wake of “an event” but that just wasn't going to happen. Some classes probably kept going but many, upon hearing the news that a student had died in the library, sort of disbanded; teachers spoke with teachers behind covered hands, students whispered to students about who it was, why they'd died. And wasn't she in the Chess Club?!

             Everyone was there. Nicolle, Vee, and Elyse sat together on one of the couches, huddled closely. Jackson and Darius stood across the room talking to one another, their typical explosive behavior toned down. Brooklyn stood by a window off by herself, for once in her life not texting on her phone. Peter took the entire second couch for himself, hugging his knees to his chest, his Red Eyes hurt and lost. Nicolle wondered what Maria meant to him.

            Elijah and Dominic spoke in low tones near the window Nicolle had only recently crawled back into Room 44 through; arms crossed, eyes intense, jaws tightened... the entirety of their body language was very adult, very mature, two men (not boys) discussing the most serious of matters.

            Elyse let out a soft cry on the other side of Vee; within a few moments Nicolle felt the couch begin to shake from her despair. Vee pulled her friend in and embraced her. No one said anything otherwise.

            Elijah and Dominic approached and everyone took notice; Vee looked up to Dominic with an expression Nicolle had never before seen on her face and could not describe. It was quite tender and possessed the air of a plea, perhaps tell me it isn't so.

            “We can't be sure,” Dominic started, “but Elijah thinks she killed herself by absorbing too much information at once.”

            “She had brain damage when I touched her,” Elijah said. “Something wasn't right in the area of the hippocampus. Even if I had been there as it happened I don't think it could have been healed.”

            “Why?” Vee asked.

            “Because it was too quick. From what you've told me she absorbed the information out of something like fifty books in just a few minutes. That would be kind of like hooking a generator up to a small appliance... it can run on small amounts coming in over time, but too much at once would make it... stop working.”

            “Blow it up, you mean,” Jackson said, using the word Elijah had sidestepped. Elyse succumbed to a new wave of wails, uncharacteristic considering her usually cool demeanor. Peter's face disappeared behind the cover of his drawn up knees. For some reason, at Jackson's comment, Darius smiled a small smile.

            “What's so funny?!” Dominic directed his fervor directly at Darius, anger clear on his face. “One of our own has died and you think it's funny?!”

            “I never said it was funny, damn!” Darius threw his hands into the air dramatically. “You better watch what you say to me, I don't take people talking smack lightly.”

            “Yeah, well I don't take disrespect lightly,” Dominic said, his jaw set.

            “And what'er you gonna do, come over here and act all big up in my face? Cause I'm gonna tell you, I'll knock you out if you try.”

            “Please, God, not now,” Elyse moaned from behind her hands.

            “Listen to me,” Dominic said, and Nicolle literally recoiled; the ferocity in his voice, the conviction, was lethal. “We exist in this Club to guide others, to help them to understand their Artistries so that stuff like this will not happen. We're playing with fire! All of us!! We weren't taught! We haven't been trained!!” Dominic grabbed a book off a nearby table " a book left there, almost surely, by Maria herself " and threw it into the wall; Elyse jumped at the sound. “It is a damn TRAGEDY that we were unable to learn enough, to WARN Maria what to do and what not to do, and Jackson says 'blow it up', talking about how she died, and YOU SMIRK ABOUT IT, I WILL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE, YES SIR, DON'T YOU DARE DISRESPECT A FALLEN CHESS CLUB MEMBER"”

            “B***H, YOU BEST LOWER THAT VOICE NOW OR I WILL LOWER IT FOR YOU,” Darius yelled, “I WILL COME OVER THERE AND BUST OUT ALL OF YOUR TEETH, TRY ME AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS"”

            “-- I WILL NOT PUT UP WITH SUCH IMMATURITY, HER BODY'S NOT EVEN COLD YET"”

            “-- TRY ME AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS, B***H, TRY ME AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!”

            “Dominic, please!” Vee yelled, tears in her eyes; Elyse was openly sobbing, her crying nearly overpowering the screaming in the room; Nicolle watched on with wide eyes, lost in the unreality of the moment. Elijah laid a hand on his brother's shoulder; when Dominic looked at him Elijah, quite compassionately, shook his head.

            Through her sobs Elyse spoke: “S-s-someone's... c-c-coming up...”

            Dominic forced himself to a calm, Elijah's hand still on his shoulder; Darius posed threateningly from beside Jackson. But thank God, Nicolle thought, no one moved. Everyone listened to Elyse sniffle for a minute before, as they anticipated"

            Knock, knock, knock. And before anyone could say “come in” the door opened.

            Mr. Levler, the principal, walked into the room slowly. He looked tired and worn out, which was to be expected under the circumstances. It felt off to Nicolle, seeing him inside their Hideout, as if the sanctity of their Club was being tarnished.

            “Ms. Robinson, Ms. van Valen... Ms. Darling? Can I see you three for just a moment?”

           

            There were two policeman, both men, middle aged and unsmiling. When Nicolle, Vee, and Elyse entered the room with Mr. Levler one of the men, a short balding man with a pudgy face, offered a softened expression of sympathy. The other, tall and seemingly emotionless, opened the meeting with a robotic voice that came to Nicolle as callous.

            “Thank you for coming,” Tall Cop said. “Principal Levler followed protocol this evening by calling us in to record and examine what occurred. I've been told you three witnessed the event.”

            For a second no one replied. Vee seemed to volunteer as their spokeswoman for the meeting by answering with, “yes sir.”

            “We're so sorry this has happened,” Short Cop said, looking truly as if he might cry. “Ms. Friendly was, er... your friend, I expect... this is tragic.”

            “What happened exactly?” Tall Cop interjected. “Where were you three when this happened?”

            Nicolle did not dare speak; she looked to the ground. Vee cleared her throat and took charge... Nicolle was nervous about what she was intending to say.

            “We were sitting at a table on the other side of this bookshelf,” Vee said, nodding to an out of sight table. “We were just talking. Maria was walking around looking at books. We called out to her to see if she wanted to go with us after school somewhere... … she didn't reply.”

            “Would you have any idea what caused her death?” Tall Cop asked. “The medics found no outward signs of anything that might have caused anything... was she taking anything, any medication...?”

            “Nothing,” Vee said.

            “Nothing?... her medical records say that she once required surgery and beforehand was on some pretty powerful painkillers... any reason to believe?"”

            “Maria wasn't addicted to drugs,” Vee said, the edge in her voice causing Tall Cop's face to momentarily harden.

            “I understand now's a difficult time, ladies... but today we need to get an understanding of how exactly this happened. It's not common for girls her age to die from apparently nothing... there was likely an external factor, because otherwise she was healthy.”

            “I don't know anything,” Vee said. “Things like aneurisms and strokes happen all the time.”

            “Sometimes,” Tall Cop said. “But not to seventeen year olds. If you know something, now's the time to tell me.”

            “I,” Vee repeated, “don't know anything.”

            Tall Cop's jaw muscles tensed, an impatient gesture. “Would you remove your glasses, please.”

            “Why?” Vee asked.

            “Because I would like to see your face when you talk to me, ma'am,” he replied.

            “Nicolle, what happened?! Nicolle!”

            Nicolle looked up so quickly, her look of confusion so profound, that everyone stared at her immediately. Standing a few yards behind Tall Cop was Maria herself.

            Nicolle gasped, put a hand to her chest, and collapsed to the floor. Vee was at her side, as was Mr. Levler; soon everyone in the room was reaching for her, calling to her, and on the other side of the shocked 'are you okay's and 'what happened's Nicolle heard that familiar voice: Nicolle, please say you can hear me! I'm so scared!

            “I hear you, I hear you,” Nicolle said, goosebumps on her skin. Short Cop seemed to think she was talking to him.

            “Good, dear, good... did you feel faint, a little dizzy?”

            “Post-traumatic stress,” Tall Cop said confidently.

            “Nicolle...” Vee said, laying a hand on her arm. Nicolle looked up to Vee, wanting to see her face the moment her telepathy came into play, the moment the Artist of the Blue realized that the Artist of the Purple was among them. Vee slapped a shocked hand over her mouth and did no more.

            “Do you need the nurse?” Mr. Levler asked.

            “I'll finish giving our statement,” Elyse volunteered. To Vee and Nicolle: “You two can go have a seat...” To Short Cop: “Is that okay? They've been through so much.”

            “Sure, sure,” Short Cop said. Before Tall Cop could input anything Vee took Nicolle's arm, helped her to her feet, and escorted her to the far side of the room to sit down at a reading table. Vee looked back over her shoulder.

            “She's taking off her sunglasses,” she whispered. “She's going to Mood Manage them.”

            Nicolle barely registered this, barely noticed as Vee sat them down in their wooden chairs. The ghost in the room

            Most of us prefer the term spirit, sis... calling us ghosts sounds a little Halloween

            the spirit in the room was approaching them with her hands covering her mouth and nose, her Purple Eyes " having made the trip with her to the afterlife " afraid and confused.

            “... is she in here?” Vee said softly. “... did she...?”

            “She's right there,” Nicolle barely choked out, pointing to a space only a few feet away; Vee eyed the spot with either awe or fear, Nicolle couldn't tell which. Maria's emotions, though, were easy to read. She wore a terrified expression that Nicolle did not like seeing on a face familiar with nothing but sweet smiles. Perhaps the notion had been born of movies and books, but Nicolle had come to expect all spirits to embrace death, to appear peaceful in that enchanted kind of way that Adam did. Maria hadn't embraced anything; she was in denial.

            “You can hear me?!” Maria asked.

            Before replying Nicolle looked back to the policeman; Small Cop was watching them with concern. That look of concern would become a look of outright puzzlement if he saw her speaking with an empty space...

            “Vee, come sit in front of Maria,” Nicolle whispered. “So I can talk to her and it look like I'm talking to you...”

            Vee obeyed but cautiously; she never came into contact with the spirit of Maria but seemed afraid of the possibility, and was perhaps uncomfortable with having her back to her deceased friend.

            “I'm here, Maria,” Nicolle spoke softly.

            “What happened...? I'm dead, aren't I?!”

            Nicolle hated death. Nicolle hated death. With all of her body, soul, strength, and mind, Nicolle hated death. She could only nod to Maria's question, a lump forming in her throat. Maria answered this by first covering her glowing face, then shaking from tears, then screaming her sadness. It was painful for Nicolle to hear; Vee watched her friend with worry.

            “Maria,” Nicolle choked out, looking for words of comfort and finding none. She remembered what she had been told so long ago, those gray skies easy to remember,

            Oh, he’s in a better place, dearheart. The angels came and flew him off to a happier place.

            but she was unsure if she believed it even now. What could possibly be said to a girl so young and already at the end of her life? The life of scholarship, the life of having friends in the Chess Club and always laughing from the thrill of it, was gone from a single unfortunate mistake, never to be regained.

            “I'm...o-o-only sev-v-venteen...” Maria cried. “I'm so s-scared... I d-don't w-w-want to die...”

            “Maria,” Nicolle said, willing to try again to comfort, but Maria's glow faded, faded, and she was gone from the room; Nicolle doubted this was her choice. Had she run out of the energy spirits need to stay in this world? Did that mean that in a few days Maria, sad and lost, would return to Nicolle begging for comfort?

            “Nicolle,” Vee whispered, taking her friend's hand. “What's happening? What's she saying?”

            Nicolle felt her face crumple, she shook her head, and Vee embraced her.

 

            The car door opened and Dominic fell into the passenger's seat. He looked around as if expecting something that was not there.

            “Where's Nicolle?”

            Vee barely shrugged. “She wanted to be alone... … I kind of needed a moment, too... figured I could come out here and sit.”

            Do you want me to go?

            “Do you want"”

            “No,” she said at once. Shocking herself, shocking Dominic, she took his left hand. The awkwardness was gone after a minute or so and they gave into the comfort of it; after some time she decided to break the silence; it was time to put on their Chess Club officer's hats. “What happens next?”

            Dominic breathed in, breathed out. “We have to be as careful as we can. This will draw a lot of attention on us, which means that a Seal of Back Rank Weakness is now underway, we'll have to let everyone know... with all eyes on the Chess Club we'll have to be extra careful with our Artistries.”

            “I'll send out a mass text about it in a moment,” Vee said; the exhaustion in her voice discouraged her to hear. “What about her eyes, Dom? They'll have to examine her body, won't they?”

            “They'll be closed most of the time, now,” he said, sounding very tired himself. “I doubt if anyone will notice that they're unnaturally Purple. If they do maybe they won't think anything of it. It doesn't matter, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway. What happened with the police?”

            “I think Elyse handled it, but I don't know what she told them,” she said. “She used her Mood Manage Artistry on them. I don't know if it worked. What's most troubling... I wasn't sure how to tell you this... that Maria is still here... Nicolle saw her.”

            To this Dominic said nothing; he closed his eyes and lowered his head. She was most aware of the fact that their hands were still clasped. His mind was too heavy with thought, too complex and overlapping, to read properly at the moment so she didn't try. Instead she heard his voice in her memory: We're playing with fire! All of us!! We weren't taught! We haven't been trained!! “It could be any one of us next.”

            “I know,” he said. Both of them were looking straight ahead.

            “You were right. None of us were taught... we're flying blind. We're... we're just kids, Dominic. As much as we like to pretend we're adults we're just kids, untrained kids playing with explosives.”

            “I know,” he said.

            “Tomorrow Nicolle could somehow inflict herself with her death touch. Peter might... I don't know, charge up too much energy and explode. I could... could hear too many thoughts at once and overstimulate my brain or something and induce a brain injury"”

            “Stop it,” he said. She did; she wanted to lean her head over onto his chest, to feel his sympathetic arm on her back, but she didn't move. They both needed to be strong.

            “Well,” she said, wiping her eye of an unfallen tear, “now we don't have to worry about what your Up-and-Coming Artistry was warning us about... if only we could have used it to stop all this...”

            It took a moment for Dominic to turn and look at her. “What?”

            “We were all worried about what was coming,” she said. “I guess this was it.”

            Dominic didn't have the heart to tell her no; he didn't need to, for she heard it all in his head. This hadn't been what his Up-and-Coming Artistry was warning against. Whatever it was... it was still coming.

            His grip on her hand tightened. For the moment " and only a moment " her worries receded. But they would return soon.

 

            That night Nicolle never fell asleep, not once. She was afraid of many things. She feared sleeping in the same house as her mother, perhaps waking to see her mother's angry eyes lit from the moonlight, standing over her bed. She feared being visited by poor Maria, who would likely be seeking out the one person who could see her still; she cried thinking of the round faced girl lost in a place of unfamiliar things, never to return home, never to see her mom and dad again, never to enjoy the Chess Club. She feared the same fate, that her untrained Artist of the Black hands would kill herself or another. So Nicolle never slept.

            The next day passed rather quietly. A school-wide moment of silence was announced over the loudspeaker for “a Maple High student, Ms. Maria Friendly”... thirty seconds of silence that teetered on the edge, as if about to tip over, until at last it was finished and the students resumed talking, laughing, playing, complaining once more. Dominic announced something he called The Seal of Back Rank Weakness, which was apparently a state of high alert. Everyone will be watching us, he said, Vee by his side. Be even more careful than usual with your Artistry. Nothing foolish. If anyone catches wind that we might be even a little suspicious then you don't need me to tell you we're all screwed.

            No one felt much like pursuing fun after school was over, going separate ways until Maria's funeral the next day; Nicolle made a slow walk over to Granddaddy Longleg's house but was disappointed... there was no one home. She stayed on his porch, listening to the wind, watching the light rain begin to mist the countryside, waiting for Adam to return to her, holding his flannel square. Hours passed but he never did; weak and sad Nicolle began the walk back home; though it was raining she walked even slower than her trip up. At one point, for no reason she could think of, she knelt in the wet pasture grass and prayed. She spoke no words and understood not who she prayed to.

            Bypassing her mother without a glance, Nicolle retreated to her room and laid down. She hadn't slept since Maria had died; physically and mentally, Nicolle was falling apart, her body aching from lack of rest, her mind swimming from lack of sleep.

            “Would you like me to make you some hot chocolate?” Granddaddy Longlegs had said these words so many years ago. Nicolle watched him pull two mugs from the cabinet, not three, and missed the way things used to be.

            Nicolle drank the hot chocolate of her memory, let warmth and melancholy fill her inside, and at last she fell asleep.

           

            He couldn't sleep. Typically listening to the rain made for something of a lullaby, but tonight it wouldn't do; he stood by his window and watched the streams fall down the glass, lit by the dim hallway light just outside his bedroom door.

            It wasn't an Artistry he was very good at, but he tried it nonetheless: not twenty minutes ago Elijah had been in his brother's room, his hand on Dominic's arm, revitalizing his muscles, soothing his overactive brain. He felt a little childish, waiting for Dom to fall asleep before doing this, but that was something brothers just didn't do... touch one another and such. Dominic needed it, though; he had walked the halls and spoken to the Club as a real leader in the wake of the tragedy, never showing his exhaustion, always acting strong, yet Elijah knew, and so did Vee. He was wearing down on the inside. That was the least Elijah could do for him.

            Dom wasn't the only one Elijah had watched carefully from the sidelines: Peter, quiet as usual, was hurting more than he showed. Vee was a bundle of nerves; much like Dom she stood up straight and wore a face of strength as an officer of the Club, but Elijah knew she was in pain. Elyse, usually exhibiting a professional air, looked lost and far from recovery. And Nicolle.

            Nicolle Darling. What was her deal?

            What was it about the girl who'd signed her name in the membership log as Salem?

            Why did she look at him as if he were her best friend and he'd merely forgotten it?

            Where was the girl who spoke with the dead going in her life?

            The story went that she stood strong in the face of death, that when Maria approached her, unable to move into the next stage of life, she did not buckle as some would do. Vee herself, far from a weakling, admitted she was unsure how she would have handled the moment, but Nicolle, she said... Nicolle showed strength.

            From the sound of it Nicolle had attempted to soothe Maria, to help her. Elijah wasn't used to Artists of the Black acting that way; his father left room for compassion and healing in the White, Blue, and Yellow Artistries, but he viewed Red and Black Artistries as cold weapons; when he saw the dead he never attempted to soothe them, he used them for information, strategically placing spirits in locations to eavesdrop on others without being seen, whatever came to mind. As a former Marine it seemed natural that his father would develop his abilities that way; Nicolle was developing her Artistry to suit her nature as well, it seemed.

            “Having trouble sleeping?”

            Elijah didn’t turn around at his mother’s voice. He just said, “yeah.”

            He heard her moving toward him and could eventually see her in the corner of his eye.

            “You couldn’t have saved that girl, Elijah. No one could have… don’t beat yourself up on it.”

            “I’m not.”

            She hugged his arm. “You know, Eli… you’ve done this for years. Ever since your father left. You turn your head away from civilization and act like your heart is made of rock, but I’m your mama and I know your heart. You were the one fixing me oatmeal when I was sick, that’s just you. You’re far softer on the inside than you want people to know about. ‘Don’t let’em see you sweat’, that’s going to be your life’s motto.”

            Elijah didn’t respond. She was probably right, in any case.

            “I learned good and well from your father how you Artists act,” she said with a smile. “You trick yourself into thinking that because you’re so powerful that you can do all things. But sometimes no one can do anything, life just happens. You may be an Artist of the White, Eli, but you’re still my son and you’re still human. Don’t let what you couldn’t change drag you down. Life goes on, sweetie.”

            Elijah nodded slowly. “I know.”

            “I know you do… I’m just being your mama and telling you anyway.”

            He chortled softly. “Thanks.”

            She patted him on the shoulder and left. Elijah remained at the window for a long time after that, watching the rain fall, thinking on how an Artist of the White could possibly heal an overloaded brain.

           

            Nicolle had been dressing in the chic new clothes that Vee had bought for her every day for school, but she had no clothes for a funeral. She selected a black dress that she’d had for years and didn’t feel very attractive in.

            Her mother was in the bathroom when Nicolle left. Vee’s Bug was waiting for her in the rain outside the door; Nicolle hopped over mud puddles to reach it. She opened the door and sat down in the passenger’s seat. Vee said hey, and Nicolle returned it, and then neither said anymore.

            They drove into the countryside, the car bumping from the potholes of the badly patched back roads. A small church came into view finally, a cemetery beside it. Some thirty people, perhaps, were gathered under a pavilion, most of them dressed in black. Vee parked and together they walked through the wet grass beneath her umbrella. Dominic was there, as was Elyse, Elijah, and Presley. All of them wore their black sunglasses, even Presley, which was likely interpreted as signs of mourning.

            They stood around for a moment, some people whispering, most choosing to not talk at all. Breath came out as vapor in front of mouths; the world was cold. Everyone was gathered around a hole in the ground. Maria’s grave. On this freezing, pitifully wet day, Maria Friendly was going to be buried and covered in dirt. Just a few days prior Nicolle had been looking right at her, and she was alive and walking around, and today she would be underground.

            A table had been set up nearby with pictures set across them, some pictures depicting Maria as a little girl, some as the young woman Nicolle had known her as. In one picture an older man " her grandfather? " held a small baby with brown eyes; in another the same brown eyed girl, likely around the age of ten, was waving at whoever was taking the picture from a boat in the middle of a pond. A photograph from the school annual was there as well, a shot of the Chess Club before Nicolle had joined; Maria grinned explosively, overjoyed to be included in such a cool group. The last picture on the table was, as far as Nicolle knew, the last one ever taken of Maria: the shot of the Chess Club girls the night of the bon fire, Nicolle in the center, Vee on her left, Elyse on her right, and Maria up top.

            A short skinny man and a short heavyset lady stood at the head of the grave; the man’s face was covered with a handkerchief and he cried openly. The woman’s lips trembled violently and her face was covered in tears. Nicolle assumed this was Maria’s mother and father. She was taken with a strong urge to go to them and explain everything, to tell them that if they wanted to say goodbye to their daughter that they could, that Maria was still lingering, that Nicolle could act as a mediator for them.

Vee grabbed Nicolle’s hand -- had she heard that thought? " and did not let go.

            The crowd began to move aside for some reason; Nicolle and her friends moved to the side without knowing why. Coming from the church were four men, each at a corner of the casket. There was Maria, and carrying her body, the pallbearer at the back right corner, was poor Peter Bones. His face gave nothing away but a stream of tears fell from beneath his sunglasses. Elyse burst into tears.

            The casket was set onto a contraption that was set above the grave itself, a mechanism for lowering it down. Peter backed away to join the rest of the attending Chess Club, his head lowered, his hands in his pockets.

            Someone turned on some music " a celtic song, a beautiful woman’s voice, haunting " and the pastor began to speak.

            “Maria… Nicole… Friendly. As everyone here would surely testify, there never has been a sweeter or gentler soul. Our faith tells us that she isn’t truly gone… but lives on, both in our hearts and in the presence of angels. She was born in June of…”

            Maria Nicole Friendly. How had Nicolle never known that Maria’s middle name was the same as her own first name? She had never met Maria’s parents, or asked her where she came from, or anything.

            As the pastor spoke Nicolle noticed a figure in the pasture, standing in the rain and watching on. The light surrounding the figure was golden and soft, the markings of a spirit; Maria was attending her own funeral.

            “… her mother tells me that Maria had a knack for academics, that she often spoke of which university she would attend… some of them even overseas. Maria was an ambitious young lady…”

            Maria walked forward slowly, unable to believe what she was seeing. Had she ever seen her father cry? She stood just outside the circle of funeral goers, looking on in pain and shock. Then, knowing who alone could see her, she looked to Nicolle.

            “Can you see me still, Nicolle…?”

            Forcing her trembling to stop, Nicolle nodded.

            The pastor’s remarks ended with him stepping back; the machine lowered Maria’s unseen body into the ground slowly. Once the casket was down fully and the machine pulled away, her parents each took a handful of dirt, lowered onto their haunches, and dropped it onto the casket. Her mother straightened back up but her father, still knelt down, remained.

            “Goodbye Little Lamb,” he said, trembling. Maria’s pet name from her father, Nicolle supposed. The crowd took turns dropping various things into the grave and saying aloud their goodbyes… flowers, folded pieces of paper, photographs; Dominic pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Peter, who stepped forward and dropped it in: a small, purple chess piece.

            “Bye,” Peter said, and nothing else.

            “Goodbye, Maria,” Elyse said.

            “See you,” Vee said.

            “Sleep well,” Dominic said solemnly. “Sleep well.”

            Nicolle looked right at Maria, and Maria looked right back at her.

            “Be at peace, Maria,” Nicolle said.

            The celtic music played on, the sounds of angels. Maria nodded and, a true miracle, smiled. She walked to the edge of the cemetery, her hair blew hard from a wind no one else knew, her glow brightened, and she was gone.

Reviews

[Melody]

More tears...More tears...Damn it! I don't handle sad scenes well when it comes to book. You should have seen my reaction to The Book Thief.