Elegy

  If that was how she wanted things to be, then I certainly wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I narrowed my eyes and kept them from watering by sheer force of will.

  Serena still wore that cold smile. She unfolded her hands and let them rest over my father’s headstone, her long, slender fingers almost brushing the carved scrollwork near the top of his stone. Then, without warning, her face fell and she sighed heavily.

  “I’m saying these things, Amelia, because you’re my bestie.”

  Serena’s tone was sincere, but it made me scowl at her. The last time she’d called me “bestie,” she’d shoved me over the guardrail of a suspension bridge. That kind of thing could really take the shine out of a word.

  “What are you talking about?”

  This time, my question sounded colder, angrier. Not like the timid little girl in Serena’s memories. She must have noticed the shift in me, because her expression hardened, too. When she spoke again, her tone was clipped. No-nonsense, like we were discussing a business proposal.

  “I’m talking about the choice you’ve been asked to make, Amelia—I’m here to help you make it.”

  I had to give credit to the newly dead version of my old friend: she was just full of surprises. Not only had she shown up here, away from the dark place where I assumed she’d be trapped, but she also knew about the demons’ ultimatum. Those two facts—her freedom and her knowledge—seemed like they should be mutually exclusive.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said icily, folding my arms across my chest. “How would you choose, if it were your decision?”

  Serena lurched forward so quickly, her grip on my father’s tombstone was the only thing that kept her from pitching over the stone and onto the grave.

  “If I were you,” she whispered harshly, “I’d march my skinny ass back to that bridge and beg them to take you in.”

  I automatically recoiled and spat out a curse word, low and soft. Then I forced myself to stop shaking and looked her right in her suddenly demented blue eyes.

  “And why would your crazy ass do that, if you were me?”

  Still leaning precariously over the stone, she shook her head sadly. “You just don’t get it, do you, bestie? If you don’t turn yourself over, then you’ll have to fight them. And we both know that you’re not strong enough.”

  “I am strong enough,” I growled, suddenly angrier than I’d been in my entire life.

  “You’re weak, Amelia Ashley,” Serena insisted in a singsong voice. “Weak, weak, weak.”

  I rose then, pushing myself up from the grave until I stood slightly above her. And for the first time that morning, something other than confidence flickered in Serena’s eyes. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a glimmer of fear as she finally leaned back across the headstone.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Serena.” I kept my voice even and low, but in my core, my emotions boiled. “You always underestimated me—always mistook morality and kindness for weakness. That was your fatal flaw, not mine.”

  She raised one pretty blond eyebrow. “Oh, really? Are we forgetting the night of your eighteenth birthday?”

  I bristled. “You mean the night you murdered me, Serena? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget that.”

  “You mean the night you screwed things up for yourself. You should have gotten the hell off that bridge. You knew something was wrong: you saw it, before anyone else did. But you stayed to look for me.” She shrugged, flashing me a condescending smirk. “Weak.”

  I felt that strange, floating sensation people get right before the bottom drops out from beneath them. “How . . . how do you know that? You were possessed that night.”

  Serena lifted one shoulder in another, half shrug. “I know it now. And it’s enough reason for you to do the right thing and turn yourself in.”

  Despite how much her words angered me, despite the hot swell of indignation in my stomach, my eyes began to sting again. Especially when the image of an eight-year-old Serena, flashing me a gap-toothed smile, rose unbidden in my mind.

  “Don’t you understand, Serena?” I pleaded, sounding so fervent that I surprised myself. “Turning myself over to the dark could never be the right choice, because it wouldn’t really save anyone. The demons never stop killing people, never stop acquiring souls. There would be more murders after I gave in—maybe even ones that I’d commit. I can’t do that to myself. And I can’t let your death be so . . . so pointless.”

  Serena’s smile made my skin crawl. There was something terribly wrong about that smile: it pulled hard at her cheeks, stretching her lips so far that too many of her teeth showed. Instead of looking like some angelic vision, lit up by the morning sun, she looked malevolent.

  Demonic.

  “Oh, bestie,” she hissed, still wearing that ghastly smile, “my death wasn’t pointless. My death was miraculous.”

  Before I could ask what she meant by that, a thread of black smoke began to weave its way around her shoulders and through her beautiful hair. It moved across her like a caress, so intimate and foul I nearly gagged.

  “You’re not light,” I choked. “You’re dark. They did get you.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but her nasty grin actually widened. Serena gave me one shiver-inducing wink. Then, in a voice that sounded like it rose from a rotted corpse, she rasped, “The choice, Amelia: make it soon. Or someone else joins me in paradise.”

  As she hissed out the last “ssss,” the smoke enveloped Serena and she vanished, leaving nothing but a trace of handprint-shaped black ice where she’d gripped my father’s gravestone.

  Chapter

  THIRTEEN

  I have no idea how long I stood there, dazed and staring blankly at the empty space behind my father’s grave. I only stirred when I heard a chorus of voices near the front of the cemetery. My head turned toward the noise slowly, almost reflexively, like I didn’t have the capacity to move it consciously.

  A small crowd had gathered about a hundred feet behind me, milling around the freshly dug grave and the plastic chairs. Watching the black-clad figures mingle, I shuddered. At this point, I was in no mood to attend a funeral. Especially Serena’s.

  I had to take a deep, shaky breath and remind myself that the thing I’d just talked to wasn’t Serena. Not really. That thing was a puppet—a newly created wraith that the demons used to terrify me. I couldn’t let their tactics work, not today.

  Still, I made a mental note to discuss a few details of this new threat with the Seers. Like the fact that the wraith-Serena could still access memories from her life—the darkest ones, at least. I was bothered by the fact that she had appeared here in the living world, instead of the netherworld where I usually saw the wraiths. This appearance could mean only one thing: that the demons had a new soul reaper working for them. One that might still be somewhere close, watching me.

  In case that was true, I stood a little taller and wiped the frightened wince from my lips. The phrase “game face” came to mind, and I actually smiled. My grim, close-lipped expression might not have been any prettier than Serena’s corpse grin. But if anyone—like Kade LaLaurie, for instance—watched me right now, I knew they wouldn’t see me rattled. If anything, my resolve to fight back had just strengthened exponentially.

  With my shoulders pressed firmly down and my head erect, I turned from my father’s headstone and went to join the other mourners. Once I entered the crowd, I tried to keep as anonymous as possible—I moved with the flow, exchanging sorrowful looks with people just long enough that they wouldn’t bother to notice me further. I didn’t see my mother in the crowd, which was both a relief and a disappointment.

  As I circled the area in which the funeral would take place, I realized that I didn’t recognize any of the other mourners. That was a little odd: I’d known Serena over half of her short life, so I should have known almost everyone there. The fact that I didn’t . . . well, it bothered me. More than it should.

  I glanced
over at a man in a navy pinstripe suit who was sweeping away a few stray leaves from Serena’s otherwise pristine new headstone. While I watched him work for a moment, I imagined this same man performing this same ritual on my own stone so many years ago. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the morbid thought. As a distraction, I let my gaze trail down to Serena’s epitaph. Seeing it, I frowned harder.

  I’d expected something along the same lines as mine: loving daughter, too soon lost, etc. Instead, beneath the usual information one finds on a headstone, Serena’s slab read:

  THE NIGHT WILL SHINE LIKE THE DAY,

  FOR DARKNESS IS AS LIGHT TO YOU.

  PSALM 139:12

  An ironically appropriate memorial, but not something Serena’s parents would have chosen for her. At least, not the parents I knew.

  Like an answer to my unasked question, a hearse and two black Town Cars finally pulled up outside the cemetery gates. A group of old men who looked like funeral-home attendants got out of the first Town Car and moved in unison, opening the back of the hearse and removing the casket. The sight of it made me flinch, and I almost turned away. Until I caught a glimpse of the sole person exiting the second Town Car.

  I guessed that was the family car—the car that should have carried Serena’s parents and her younger brother to this service. But none of them stepped out of the vehicle. Only my mother did, wearing a worn gray dress and carrying the same purse she had used when I was in high school.

  Seeing her smooth the wrinkles from her dress—something I did almost incessantly when I was nervous—I frowned. Why was she the only person in the family car? Why was she in the family car at all?

  My curiosity notwithstanding, I hung back, hiding in the thickest part of the crowd while my mother followed the casket’s procession. After the pallbearers had placed the casket on a steel mechanism hovering over the open grave, the man in the pinstripe suit motioned for us to take our seats. I chose one in the last row, where I could slip away easily if I needed to. Then I watched apprehensively as my mother moved to stand near Serena’s headstone.

  I thought one of the funeral-home employees—most likely, the pin-striped man—would start the service. But instead, my mother stepped forward and cleared her throat.

  “Serena Taylor,” she began, “was an exceptional woman. Most of you know that because you worked with her. You knew her as a good accountant: someone whose work could be trusted; someone who your clients could rely on; someone who you were friends with, outside of work. But I knew her . . . as my daughter.”

  When my mother spoke that last word—“daughter”—I gripped my plastic chair and dug my fingers into its rim until they ached.

  That’s not true. That’s not possibly true.

  I hissed the thoughts so loudly in my mind, I almost missed the next part of the eulogy. I had to pry my fingers off the chair and fold them, one by one, into little fists in my lap. Unaware of the storm of jealousy and hurt that she’d just brewed inside her real daughter, my mother continued.

  “Although you knew Serena, most of you probably don’t know me. My name is Elizabeth Ashley, and I met Serena when she and my daughter Amelia were both eight years old. They became close friends, so Serena became like a member of my family; that’s just how the Ashleys—and Serena—operated. We all stayed friends, throughout the girls’ childhoods and teen years. Then, after what happened on my daughter’s eighteenth birthday, Serena’s parents decided to . . .”

  My mother paused, obviously searching for the right words. She shook her head decisively, and changed directions.

  “When Serena could no longer count on the love and support of her own family, I made her a permanent part of mine. If her mother couldn’t see what the blessing of having a daughter meant, I certainly could—especially a daughter like Serena. I stood beside her through her hardest times, and she stood beside me through mine. Even after she graduated from college and found a job, she drove all the way from Tulsa at least once a month to visit me. That’s just the kind of girl she was: loving. I will miss her, as much as I miss my own daughter and husband.”

  As she spoke, I began to understand what my mother didn’t actually say aloud: after my death, which had undoubtedly seemed suspicious, Serena’s parents assumed that their daughter had something to do with it and threw her out of their home. And as was often her habit, my mother ignored her own financial troubles, her own loss, to save the day.

  When my mother began to weep openly, the man in the pin-striped suit reached across the headstone with a handkerchief, which she waved away. She used the heel of her palm to wipe at her at eyes and then struggled through her tears to finish the eulogy.

  “So I guess what I’m trying to say,” she concluded haltingly, “is that I hope we can all forget the tragic way that Serena died, and remember the most important things. Like how warm she was—how smart and beautiful and funny. Because that’s the best memorial Serena Taylor could ask for. And it’s the one we owe her.”

  Finally, the weight of this situation crushed my mother, and she dissolved into messy sobs. Like me, she wasn’t a pretty crier. But something about her grief made her even more beautiful to me. I had to fight the nearly irresistible impulse to surge forward and throw my arms around her shoulders.

  As I replayed her final words in my mind, I wanted to cry, too. Whatever had passed between Serena and me—whatever might still pass in the netherworld—Serena Taylor had been my best friend. I had to keep thinking of her as the smiling, laughing girl I used to know—not the rotting puppet I met that morning.

  I kept my burning eyes trained on my mother as she moved aside so that the other funeral goers could stand and pay their final respects. After what felt like ages, an attendant told the people in my row that we could file past the coffin. I stood in the center aisle behind a line of strangers, waiting dutifully for my turn, and then finally stepped forward.

  No expense had been spared on this casket: its ornate metal fixtures glinted in the morning light, and an enormous arrangement of white lilies covered the top of the coffin and drooped over its edges. I faltered, just for a second, before leaning forward to add my last iris—hot pink, Serena’s favorite color—to the pile.

  I was just about to withdraw my arm, but a soft gasp made me look up from the casket. I nearly tripped backward over my own feet when I saw that my mother had made the sound . . . and that she was staring right at me with a mixture of fear and uncertainty. Her hand, which had been clutched firmly to the lapel of her coat, wavered midair, and for one horrified second I thought she would point at me and scream. The urge to run and the urge to reach out to her warred within me, but I couldn’t seem to move. My paralysis didn’t pass until my mother’s hand dropped back to her lapel and she looked away, her face suddenly impassive.

  I forced my own head downward and tugged at the brim of my hat so that I wouldn’t be tempted to look at her again. Then I hurried away from the casket, skirting the crowd as I made a beeline for the cemetery gates. As far as I was concerned, this funeral was officially over. I needed to get away from this place immediately.

  But I’d only made it within a few feet of the entrance when someone called out, “Miss? Miss!”

  It was my mother’s voice . . . and she was nearby. Although I didn’t turn around, I knew she called out for me—who else would she be following this close to the exit? I ignored her and picked up speed, walking so fast that I almost ran out the gates. But that didn’t deter her.

  “Miss!”

  This time she shouted it, and I knew she wouldn’t give up until she’d caught me. So I had to make a choice: bolt, or finally turn around and face the person I’d basically stalked for the last few months.

  I skidded to a stop, cursing myself for not going invisible when I had the chance, right after my mother looked away at the casket. Then, with a shiver of apprehension, I spun around slowly on one heel.

  My mother had stopped too, and now she stood a few feet away, panting from the effort
of the chase. To my surprise, she didn’t say anything at first. Other than the heave of her shoulders, she didn’t even move. I followed her lead, keeping stock-still and silent in the gravel parking lot of the cemetery. Inside, however, I was a riot—all spastic heartbeats and rapidly firing nerves. I was pretty sure that if someone didn’t speak soon, I would start to implode.

  Finally, my mother sucked in one steadying breath and stepped cautiously forward.

  “Miss?” she repeated. “You forgot this.”

  I didn’t realize that she’d been holding something until she lifted one arm and opened her hand in offering. A single, perfectly round daisy sat in the center of her palm. I frowned at it, momentarily confused. Then I shook my head.

  “No, that’s not mine.”

  I kept my voice high and breathy in an attempt to disguise it. My mother didn’t react in one way or another to the sound of it, so the effort must have worked. But she still shook her head.

  “It is,” she said simply, stretching her arm out so that her palm was a fraction closer to me. I paused, looking between the daisy and her face. I could tell from the determined set of her mouth that she wouldn’t leave me alone until I took the flower. The real issue, then, was how exactly I would take it from her.

  Not sure what else to do, I reached out and, with the tips of my fingers, plucked the uppermost petals of the flower. It lifted from her hand without our skin ever touching, and I tried not to sigh in relief. When I cupped the flower to my side, I felt the petals scratch at my palm—the daisy was fake, a pretend blossom of fabric and plastic.

  My mother still didn’t react as I took it, nor did she say anything when, after one last glance at her, I spun back around and began to hurry down the road that led away from the cemetery. It wasn’t until I’d reached the main road—the one I would take back to the Mayhews’ house—that I realized what my mother had done.