That stance lasted exactly a microsecond, because then she had to be realistic:
“Well, I’m going to try not to care.”
“If someone stares at you,” Keith said, “just imagine them naked.”
Iris blinked. “Why would I do that?”
“Apparently it’s a human trick for dealing with stage fright and self-consciousness. Simon told me about it.”
Since she’d met Simon, Iris was a little skeptical of this. “Are you sure he wasn’t pulling your leg?”
“... No. Now that you mention it, I’m not sure at all. But even if he was, the idea sort of holds up. You can just think, ‘What right do all these naked people have to judge me? They’re not intimidating at all!’”
“Like the aquatic cannibals,” Iris said, glancing at her fish tank.
The aquatic cannibals regarded her with wide, innocent eyes:Who? Us? We would never judge you! Food, please.
Keith snapped his fingers. “Even better. Just imagine that anyone who tries staring at you is doing this.”
He pulled off a bizarrely convincing fish face, wide-eyed and gaping, and Iris burst out laughing.
Yeah, that would keep her from getting too nervous. The only problem now would be not dissolving into helpless gigglesat a funeralif she pictured Lady Alicia turning to her and pooching her dignified lips in and out like a goldfish gobbling up fish flakes.
Keith said, “Please tell me that you’re still attracted to me after I did that.”
“Absolutely,” Iris assured him. “In fact, I’m committing to the fish-face strategy because you’re the only person I want to imagine naked.”
With Keith at her side and the fish-face strategy at the ready, she finally got herself out the door.
It was just a short trot over to the village cemetery. Iris had to admit that as straightlaced and joyless as unicorn traditions could seem to her sometimes, their rituals offered exactly the kind of peaceful solemnity she wanted for a funeral. The graveyard was legitimately beautiful, with simple black and white marble markers laid out in a sun-drenched glade. The air was scented with wildflowers. There was a natural hush to the clearing, and the surrounding trees were tall and ancient. It was a good place to be laid to rest.
We just need to learn how to embrace the wildness of beginnings and middles, not just the peace of endings.
Despite the overall peace, though, there were distant rumblings of consternation. Iris soon saw why: this could be the first unicorn funeral in hundreds of years with strangers in attendance. Simon and Cooper stood at the edges of the scene, almost up against the trees.
The ceremony hadn’t started yet, so Iris kept her voice low and asked Keith why they were there. Just to pay their respects?
Keith said quietly, “They might be doing that too, but it’s definitely not all they’re doing. This is part of the investigation. Sometimes killers give themselves away by how they act at their victims’ funerals.”
“They go to the funerals?” Iris whispered, horrified. “That’s so macabre. I guess it’s not any more macabre than murder, but it’s just—slimy. So Cooper and Simon are keeping an eye out for anyone who might act strange? They can’t arrest someone just for that, can they?”
Even the Silver Council wouldn’t unanimously get behind arresting someone just for seeming a little off, right?
“No, not unless ‘acting strange’ means ‘shouting a confession.’ But every little thing helps.”
“Then we’ll keep an eye out too,” Iris said firmly. “I know I’m not an investigator, and I may not have a cool star-shaped badge, but I bet I’d look good in a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat.”
“I want proof of that at some point.”
He fell silent as two elderly Councilors approached them.
Keith made a slight bow. “Lord Reginald. Lady Annabelle.”
He clearly remembered them. Had these two had a small part in raising him, then? They must have; Iris knew they’d both been on the Council for decades.
The realization lit some kind of slow-burning fuse inside her. These were people who should have cared about Keith, and instead they were looking at him with sorrowful disapproval and wrinkling their noses like they’d smelled something bad. It was better than Lady Alicia’s open antagonism, but not by much.
Don’t make a scene at a funeral, don’t make a scene at a funeral ....
