The House (50 page)

“Hello,” I
said and managed an almost-smile. For a moment I forgot myself. For
a moment I thought that there had been a mistake, that Marie was
alive and that these people would tell me to go to a hospital to
see her. That she was shaken but otherwise unhurt. They just didn’t
look distraught enough for the news I knew they must carry.

“Why don’t we
come in?” asked one of them. He was an older man, maybe in his
mid-sixties with his shirt perfectly pressed. I could see myself in
his boots as he moved past me and I realised that I had motioned
them in without really meaning to. The other was a young woman who
looked sheepish and altogether too nervous to have been doing the
job long.

I showed them
into the formal living room. Everyone else in the House seemed to
have gathered around us; those that couldn’t fit in the living room
were crowding the hall. I found myself standing, waiting. Sure that
they would tell us good news. The past week had been alright.
Hannah was getting settled, life seemed to have continued. It would
all be fine.

Except it
wouldn’t.

I didn’t
register which of them had spoken. It didn’t matter.

“We are so
very sorry, but we have recovered a body that has been identified
as Ms Marie Clarence.”

I was halfway
to the floor. There was someone screaming and it was me. The sounds
raging through me didn’t seem like they could have come from a
human throat. It wasn’t magic that made them alien to me. It was
that I hadn’t thought myself capable of such noises.

I had known
Marie was dead. I had seen the hole through her chest, watched her
body fall. It just hadn’t really gone in. I knew academically that
it was true but I hadn’t realised until that moment that I hadn’t
believed it. Not really, not in my heart. It had been the worst
night of my life. I couldn’t possibly trust what I had seen then.
Even if I knew it to be true.

Those words from the police had sealed the knowledge. Some
people say that they need to see the body to really know that their
loved one is gone, they won’t trust the authorities. I
had
seen it; it was my
eyes I didn’t trust.

Eddie eased me
down to the floor in the living room. I wasn’t the only one feeling
weak. I saw Stripes turn her face into James’ shoulder so that
nobody would see her tears. I didn’t have enough dignity left to
care who saw the tears streaming down my face.

Then there
were the others, the people that came for the full moon to run in
our garden. Some of them had known Marie longer than I had been
alive. Her loss was etched across their faces, their hearts. I
could feel it eating into me. In my grief I had lost control and I
didn’t know how to find it again. I had tried to be strong. I had
tried to run the House as Marie would have wanted. I couldn’t
believe that I’d ever thought it was possible.

I did realise
that it was more than just my own sorrow filling me. All of the
careful barriers in my mind had broken down. I could feel the
madness starting again and I welcomed it. Anything to get away from
my own thoughts, my own mind. I cast my net wider. I couldn’t
listen to the horror of Marie’s oldest friends all together in the
House – or the police with their sympathies, thought but not spoken
aloud. I didn’t blame them, there would be other things to cover
but they would let us have our moment first.

The woman
cleared her throat before she spoke and I thought that the other
policeman might strangle her. It did what she had intended, it
brought my tearstained face up to meet hers. She hadn’t perfected
the look of gentle sympathy that was so important when giving bad
news. I could see from her mind that it was her first time doing it
as well. Lucky us.

I managed to
slowly pull myself back together. It took more effort than I liked
to admit to bring my barriers back up and drag my mind back into my
own head. I looked up from the floor knowing that I should stand up
and offer them something. Instead I clung to Eddie where he had sat
down next to me.

“The coroner
said that he is ready to cremate her if you are all ok with that.”
I nodded to her and she collected herself enough to carry on in the
professional manner she had come to my door in. “You’ll be able to
collect her remains straight away and set up whatever service that
you wish.” She paused to give me time to once again nod my
understanding.

“We can tell
you that she was found by a member of the public and that cause of
death was identified as a heart attack.” She stopped then, clearly
having run out of words. “The coroner may be able to tell you
more.”

I didn’t even
bat an eyelid at the cause of death. I knew some of what went into
covering up after ourselves. I’d also seen the spells to re-knit
tissue together, that it worked just as well on dead flesh as live.
It would be easy for them to spell her to look like she had had a
heart attack. More often than not the coroner was either one of us
or otherwise convinced not to look too hard at the body.

Once she was
cremated it wouldn’t matter what had killed her. Everyone looks the
same as ashes. Death was one of the world’s great equalisers.

“Can we get
her now?” Stripes asked. I saw that there were red tracks down her
cheeks even though her eyes were dry again.

“Yes, do you
know where to go?” the older man asked. It was strange to hear such
a compassionate voice come out of such a tightly wound man.

“Yes,” Stripes
replied. I wasn’t sure, but I knew she wouldn’t have said it if
someone didn’t know. “I’m sorry, but would it be possible for you
to leave now? We need to be alone.” It was a strange statement when
there were probably twenty of us there all together, but the police
just accepted it and showed themselves out. I’d never been so glad
to hear the click of the front door closing.

Eddie held me
as I sat on the floor. Nobody else moved. We were half in mourning
and half in shock. I’d lost track of Hannah and for the first time
that week I found that I didn’t really care. She could take care of
herself for a few hours and I wouldn’t be the one to walk her
through her change either. James would do it; he had told me
already that he was willing. He had actually taken Hercules through
his.

“Would you
like for us to go and collect her remains?” James asked. I looked
at him. He was clinging to Stripes’ hand with a vigour that
suggested she wasn’t the only one to feel her loss.

“No, it has to
be me,” I replied, and it did. Not just because I owed it to her
but because I was her next of kin. It was a conversation that I had
felt wildly too early when Marie discussed it with me. Now it
seemed eerily prophetic. She had realised that her father wasn’t in
a fit mental state to deal with anything so she asked me.

I didn’t get
up, leaning back into Eddie instead. It was still somewhat odd that
he should be the one comforting me. He’d shared my bed most nights
and for that I was grateful. I always had trouble sleeping alone
when I was upset. I had surprised myself by sleeping so much when
everyone had gone missing, even with the extenuating circumstances.
The past week had been worse; I hadn’t slept longer than six hours
in any one night.

“We’ll come
with you,” Stripes said. I had expected nothing less. My main worry
was that everyone would want to come and we wouldn’t all fit in
reception.

“Alright, but
we need everyone else to stay here.” I held up my hand to prevent
arguments before they started. “We can’t all go and we’ll bring her
back here with us. People will still be arriving for tomorrow and
we have never left the House empty before a full moon.” I looked at
Hercules. He was the one I was trusting with the House. I prayed
that nothing else would go wrong while we were out. It didn’t feel
right to leave at such a time, even for just a few hours.

Eventually,
Eddie helped me to my feet. I felt old and frail, unsteady standing
up. I held onto Eddie with such strength that he didn’t let go when
we reached the door. He was right. I would need someone to support
me. I could only seem to hold myself together for so long before
the pain hit again.

We didn’t take
the pods. I for one relished the fresh air as we walked. It wasn’t
far and it was traditional. We had walked all the way from the
Covenant to the funeral home when my parents had died. Not that
there had been all that much left of them after the inferno of our
home.

We walked in
silence. It still didn’t seem exactly real.

I knew that a
lot of them hadn’t believed us when we had given word of her
passing. I wondered if there were a few who actually hadn’t known.
We hadn’t made a public announcement because we hadn’t been
formally told that she was dead. We hadn’t been supposed to
know.

The funeral
home was light and airy. An attempt to take away from the sense of
death you got from the place. It was better than walking into a
dank, dark room, but not by much. I could still smell the blood and
death on both the building and the attendant. I couldn’t pick out
the smell of Marie, which was a relief, but it certainly didn’t
help with our appearance. All of us were trying not to breathe too
heavily. Humans wouldn’t have been able to smell the undertones;
they would only smell the flowers on the desk.

I squeezed
Eddie’s hand as I approached the desk. There wasn’t anyone behind
it but there was a button to press for attention. The funeral home
never seemed to have money to keep enough staff. Either that or it
had trouble finding decent staff. It wouldn’t be an easy job,
guiding people through the loss of a loved one.

The attendant
came through immediately. I had been able to smell him from the
next room, so I wasn’t surprised to find him still with slightly
damp hands as he shook mine. He didn’t make me let go of Eddie and
he seemed to know that I was the one he was supposed to speak to.
Of course, my picture would be on file with Marie’s last wishes. It
still made me feel better that he’d taken the time to look at
it.

“Ms
SinClara...if you and your friends would like to follow me? I’m
afraid you’ll need to sign some documents before you can take the
remains.” He was solemn without being upsetting, efficient without
being energetic. I wondered if he’d always wanted to be a funeral
director, the job seemed to suit him so perfectly.

We all trooped
through to a smaller antechamber with a table and an assortment of
chairs. There were already papers set out before one of the seats
so I headed for that one. The funeral director, whose name I still
didn’t know, sat opposite me.

“I need your
signature on this front page here. It says that you were informed
of cause of death and such...you’ll need to sign the bottom form to
indicate that you have received the remains as well. I’ll need to
see some ID before we can progress to that.”

I nodded and
signed the top sheet without really reading it. There wasn’t much I
was worried about at that moment. The funeral home was also very
carefully watched and vetted to make sure nothing untoward happened
to grieving relatives. It was illegal for them to ask me to sign
anything other than the two forms about notification and receiving
of the remains. It was a rather tightly enforced law.

James pulled
my ID out of his pocket with a kind look to me. I hadn’t even
thought about it. I had focused only on wanting Marie, in whatever
form, back home with us.

“Thank you,” I
whispered. I realised that I was lucky to even be properly dressed.
If we hadn’t had so many guests I felt sure I would have left the
House in my pyjamas without a thought. I even had on my coat. Eddie
had put it around my shoulders before we left. It was worrying to
realise that I had missed so much.

The funeral
director looked at the ID for a moment before handing it back with
a nod. He walked carefully over to a secondary door, which I
presume had to lead to some kind of storage since he came back in
with a small urn. People don’t take up much room at all as
ashes.

I took the urn
in my hand steadily. I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t hold onto
it. I was sure that there was not a single chance that I would drop
it. The funeral director produced a foam-lined box anyway. It
wrenched me to put the urn in the box for transport back home. I
signed the second form as soon as my hands were free and stood up.
I just wanted to go home; I wanted to take Marie home.

“Thank you,” I
told the director. “I just want to check there are no outstanding
bills to pay.”

“No,
everything is covered under her life insurance.” I had been
reasonably certain that it had been, but I’d just had the terrible
urge to check. We would have enough trouble with inheritance soon
enough, we didn’t need any outstanding bills. He held out his hand
for each of us to shake as we left. It had to have been one of the
strangest experiences of my life.

Marie was the
first person I had lost when I was old enough to realise what was
happening. To be responsible for things. I’d only been seven when
my parents were killed; the experience then had been rather
surreal.

It had taken a
long time for me to realise that my parents were never coming back.
I didn’t feel like that with Marie, not really. Even thought I’d
spent most of the previous week expecting her to walk through the
door with a carefree smile.

We walked back
carefully. The box wasn’t heavy, even by mortal standards, but it
felt like it had more than just physical weight. It was hard for me
to comprehend that I held Marie in my hands. I thought about all of
the times I had held her, all of the times that she had held
me.

We walked in
silence again. It felt right. The noise of the world didn’t
penetrate my little bubble. It was like people knew that we were
carrying out a funeral march. They spoke quietly as we passed and
parents pulled their children out of the way so that we could walk
unencumbered.