The Time of Our Lives

Chapter 13: Funeral for a Friend

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

George Moore (The Brook Kerith, 11)

“By Fire, and Well, and Sacred Tree; From Land and Sky, and from the Sea; Gods, Goddesses and Ancestors of old; Guard your passing, rest your soul; Find peace in eternal sleep.”

The six had convened with some of the clergymen that had offered to perform Karen’s funeral, and all involved had agreed that the typical ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life’ wouldn’t have settled well with Karen’s soul. From what little they knew of Karen, they gathered she had wanted oblivion, something so simple yet so frightening. To exist, and then suddenly not, to not have to feel anymore – she would have liked that, they were sure.

It seemed anything particularly eventful had to be done on the campus of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s College – Karen revealing she was the Hand of the Gods, Caelum’s and Celeste’s wedding and now Karen’s funeral.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s College had sheltered them for many, many long years, and was a reminder from the past of the home they used to have. For Karen, ‘home’ hadn’t been anywhere in particular, but St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s College had been the closest they could do for her.

Her grave had been dug at the foot of the spruce in the middle of the glade hidden away in the forest, and only they and the clergyman had been there at her body’s internment. The clergyman had suggested that Mark and Anthony remove the memory of where the grave was, considering how much they wanted this place to remain something that was theirs and only theirs. Something private, a secret that wound their lives together.

The place that had been Karen’s more than anyone else’s.

As having a cross would have been slighting the other gods and goddesses Karen had represented, they had settled for having a small marble pillar with a statue of a winged angel on top, carved to look just like Karen would have if they’d been able to see her with her wings. In the face of the pillar, Karen’s name had been carved along with the epitaph the six had decided on.

As the Fearsome Dragon that Protected Us in Eons Past,

So We Shall Remember Her in the Eterne of Death

Sing me a song of years past

Remind me of the joys and terrors

Tell me about the future

Show me what kind of woman you’ll be

What happened to the people of today?

What happened to your promises?

Karen hadn’t liked flowers much. The petals would inevitably droop and fall, where they would lie until the constant crushing of being underfoot and the burning heat of the sun browned the colours, decomposed them. It had been one of the reasons she had loved the glade, for there had been no flowers, no petals that were so ephemeral in their temporary beauty, no ugly brown and yellow of decaying plant matter.

They would never leave flowers at Karen’s grave, choosing instead to bring small mementos like softly glowing spheres of memory glass (they would be red or green or blue in colour depending on the mood of the memory, and Karen’s grave was awash at all times with diffuse rainbows) or a wood carving someone had made in their spare time. The most common thing that was brought to Karen’s grave was stories – lots and lots of them, as they told the statue about their lives, about the troubles that still plagued them.

Anthony, Cailey and Mark had approached the Guild of Magicians and had them perform a charm on a small crystal that they themselves could transfer to the statue. Without telling the others, they applied the charm on the statue the night before the first year anniversary of Karen’s death.

“Ah! The statue moved!” Amanda had cried, and the three guildmembers had smiled.

At times, the statue would flex its wings, blink and move a little. The Guild of Magicians had pulled out all stops when they had been told it was for the statue of Karen – it evened smiled at appropriate moments when someone was telling it a story, or if someone came to visit. The statue would also clap its hands happily if someone left a gift, and would hold it gently, before placing it back down again.

“It’s beautiful, Cailey, Mark, Anthony!” cried Celeste and Caelum had nodded numbly, grinning stupidly at the moving statue.

“It is, isn’t it.” He’d murmured.

For some reason – okay, so it was more than ‘some reason’ – I used to think that Karen would be around forever. That no matter what happened, she’d come back and I would have some constancy in my hectic, ever fluctuating life. For most other people, they think of close family or friends like that – it’s like as humans, we wrap all the people we care about in a layer of immortality, believing without actually thinking about it that if we’ll ever need them that they’d be there. But what makes the loss of Karen even worse is that we actually believed, theorized, that she was immortal. That the gods and goddesses would keep her alive for whatever insane plan they had.

But she wasn’t. Her mortality was brought home to us so sharply I’m wondering how we all kept on going, how we can visit her grave and smile and laugh and tell her about how we’re all doing. Not that she’s there, of course – I don’t harbour any illusion that some part of her soul still resides in her body or in the oh-so-realistic statue.

The Guilds understand that Anthony and Mark and I were touched ever so briefly (compared to how long Karen had existed) by an ex-S-class assassin that had whirled tumultuously through our lives like a summer storm, that what she did had rendered us so changed that… that what? If Karen hadn’t existed, Anthony and Mark would never have dared try that stupid experiment that fused them together for several years and I would never have had to go through the horrors of the aftermath of the Cataclysm.

Of course, we would all be dead as Karen had predicted would have happened if ‘our side’ had lost the Third World War, but that’s beside the point.

People might say that her existence altered everybody’s in the world, but we had been standing so close to the crux of it all, so close that it was impossible for us to have survived it all without being burned more ruthlessly than anyone else. I’m not saying this to garner sympathy – I’m trying to explain… explain what? I’m not sure anymore, I’m not sure of anything anymore, now that one of the pillars in my life has disappeared for all of eternity.

Ah yes, I was talking about how she had changed us. Not just the twins and I, but also Amanda, Caelum and Celeste. Through all these years, Amanda had still been in love with Karen and I knew that she knew that I knew, yet still I put up with having a relationship with her that could have terminated at any moment if Karen ever decided she could love Amanda. I know it’s heartless of me to feel that small modicum of happiness that with Karen’s death, I won’t be up against an unbeatable rival for Amanda’s heart, but it’s only… well, ‘human’ of me.

Caelum and Celeste? They’re starting on having kids already (the first one, if it’s a girl, will be called Karen – if it’s a boy, the one name they are most definitely not going to call it is Octavius). Without Karen, neither would have struggled so hard to survive in the war, to prove in their own small way that they were strong too.

Without Karen, we would have been nothing.

And now, now that Karen isn’t here anymore? We have to learn to be strong on our own.