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Ammie tucked her locket beneath the high necked ruffle of her mourning gown. Black dress sleeves above black-clad hands, black-clad windows and mirrors, black bunting around a coffin, no sounds from the grandfather clock, no sounds from the dear familiar body -- so alien, bloodless with all the blood washed away, still, cold. Geoff’s nose all wrong -- wrong color, wrong shape, too sharp, too bony. The man gone, the shell left, so wrong.
In the night, the candles flickered. An abyss beckoned, the dark edges closed in, senses sliding, lop-sided, downward, catching on impressions, so clinically sharp. The smell of death and candle wax, the scratchiness of gummed crepe against her skin, the taste of tears that leaked continually, the shiver that told her she was still alive but did not yet understand what loomed before her. Staying in the gray nothingness, maybe there would not be a painful awakening.
How to pray for Geoff’s soul? “Mea culpa. I played a game and now Geoff is dead. And my heart cannot hold its beat anymore. And I am inconsolable that he should pay such a price for me. Oh dear God, I have sent you such a dear soul.”
Her heart stuttered and raced as it had since that one moment, and her mind slid and she wanted to keep sliding but that was the coward’s way out. She knew Stephen was frantic to keep her tethered to sanity. She wished El was here with her. El could pull her back. But El was in Italy with her brother and daughter. Besides, El was so full of grief over her own husband’s death that she did not need to be here. Allie was coming as soon as she could get away from the mess surrounding the whole thing, but Allie was too bright, too long widowed, too unshadowed. And Clarey had been gone for twenty years now, since France had fallen under a bloodlust that swallowed her up.
Those who knew her well had dwindled and moved away. In this country she had adopted as her own, there were a few, but in the land of her birth scouring rage and madness had obliterated family, friends, schoolmates. The Marquess, bulwark of her youth and young adulthood lay ill, in frail health. Now Geoff was gone too.
The embers burned low in the parlor. Shadows grew longer as the candles flickered and gutted around her. Ashes to ashes. She wanted to pour the ashes over her face, to blend with the shadows, to merge with the abyss. But Stephen would be coming soon to take her place of mourning. She had to drag herself out, to keep herself sane for Stephen, for Geoff.
Ammie tucked her locket beneath the high necked ruffle of her mourning gown. Black dress sleeves above black-clad hands, black-clad windows and mirrors, black bunting around a coffin, no sounds from the grandfather clock, no sounds from the dear familiar body -- so alien, bloodless with all the blood washed away, still, cold. Geoff’s nose all wrong -- wrong color, wrong shape, too sharp, too bony. The man gone, the shell left, so wrong.
In the night, the candles flickered. An abyss beckoned, the dark edges closed in, senses sliding, lop-sided, downward, catching on impressions, so clinically sharp. The smell of death and candle wax, the scratchiness of gummed crepe against her skin, the taste of tears that leaked continually, the shiver that told her she was still alive but did not yet understand what loomed before her. Staying in the gray nothingness, maybe there would not be a painful awakening.
How to pray for Geoff’s soul? “Mea culpa. I played a game and now Geoff is dead. And my heart cannot hold its beat anymore. And I am inconsolable that he should pay such a price for me. Oh dear God, I have sent you such a dear soul.”
Her heart stuttered and raced as it had since that one moment, and her mind slid and she wanted to keep sliding but that was the coward’s way out. She knew Stephen was frantic to keep her tethered to sanity. She wished El was here with her. El could pull her back. But El was in Italy with her brother and daughter. Besides, El was so full of grief over her own husband’s death that she did not need to be here. Allie was coming as soon as she could get away from the mess surrounding the whole thing, but Allie was too bright, too long widowed, too unshadowed. And Clarey had been gone for twenty years now, since France had fallen under a bloodlust that swallowed her up.
Those who knew her well had dwindled and moved away. In this country she had adopted as her own, there were a few, but in the land of her birth scouring rage and madness had obliterated family, friends, schoolmates. The Marquess, bulwark of her youth and young adulthood lay ill, in frail health. Now Geoff was gone too.
The embers burned low in the parlor. Shadows grew longer as the candles flickered and gutted around her. Ashes to ashes. She wanted to pour the ashes over her face, to blend with the shadows, to merge with the abyss. But Stephen would be coming soon to take her place of mourning. She had to drag herself out, to keep herself sane for Stephen, for Geoff.
