I say nothing as the destroyed blooms are tossed into the holes. All I hear is the thundering cascade of them strikingthe polished wood with all the others from the sea of faces surrounding the graves.
Uncle Marcus drags a crisp, white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his coat. It’s pressed into the gashes, the shredded skin where the rose thorns had cut into flesh.
“Don’t bury them,” I blurt, knowing it’s too late. “Don’t put them in the ground, please. Eliah…” My voice shatters at his name. “He needs the sun and Ames…”
“Mrs. Pym.”
Our housekeeper since before the boys or I were even a thought shuffles up behind me. Her warm comfort hits me seconds before her gentle hands settle on my arms.
“Come along, Miss Lenora. Let’s get some hot tea.”
My eyes stay on my uncle’s grim expression through a rising flood of tears that blur the world around us.
The faces.
The naked branches clicking in the distance.
The heavy swaddle of snow, turning the cemetery violently white.
“Please, Uncle Marcus,” I beg.
Strong, despite her frail appearance, Mrs. Pym guides me away from the watchful eyes of every enemy the Usher Family has ever had. Those who wish our end while smiling in our faces. Vultures circling the carcasses of my family.
Mrs. Pym leads me away from the hushed whispers and prodding eyes. Their scrutiny is knives slipping between my shoulder blades. Deep in that sliver of space where Mom lives, I know she would be disappointed in my behavior.
“Never let them see you bleed, Lenora.”
Mom did know best.
She was born and bred into Uncle Marcus’s world. I suppose I was, too. But Mom understood the rules. She lived by the code.If there was a situation that required all hands, Mom knew what to do before a word was spoken.
When her brother was killed on the street, a senseless tragedy of being in the wrong place — just like my boys — Mom had taken a deep breath. A shaky one, but her shoulders had squared and she set to work preparing for the funeral.
No tears.
No hysterical blubbering.
She stood still and solid at his graveside, dark eyes solemn.
“They are always watching. You can never give them the satisfaction of seeing that they cut you.”
But this is different.
I have no one to explain the bubbling war of fire and ice in my stomach. The shrieking demon in my chest. I have no one to hold me when I can feel myself cracking and the world feels so small and endless. Too big and too dark. I have no one because they took the only people I did have. They carved out my soul and I’m hollow. A void sucking me in from the inside.
“All right. Just a little more,” Mrs. Pym soothes, but I know she’s warning me to keep it together.
The car is ten feet away.
“Keep it together, Lenora.”
Seven feet.
Something is buzzing.
The crisp air is brittle and unforgiving scraping down my esophagus.
Five feet.
