Awry by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Author:Meghan Ciana Doidge [Doidge, Meghan Ciana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The salty wind and rain increases as full dark blankets the estate. The family plot, the mausoleum that Grinder mentioned, can’t be seen from the house or the beach. Behind its wrought-iron fence, that area spreads beyond the grayed-cedar-sided barn, beyond the overgrown orchard, set on a slight rise edged by the forest.

We don’t bury our dead in the family plot. We inter ashes. Though I was raised to understand that our physical bodies are simply vessels for the power, the essence, the abilities that flow through our immediate family, generation upon generation of Gages have been cremated — often wherever they’d died, all over the world — then interred in this plot. When I was younger, I witnessed my mother, two uncles, and a cousin I’d never met being set within the marble niches of the mausoleum. All but my mother arrived by courier, already collected within urns.

During my core training, my aunt insisted that no power, no energy, remained in a vessel beyond death. Now that I knew more about the other powers that exist in our universe, and specifically the power wielded by a mage with an affinity for the essences of death and the dead, I suspect that was a half-truth.

I suspect that we Gages are cremated for a fundamental reason. We are already terrifying to most when we walk the earth under our own power. But piloted by a death mage or dire mage with no moral compass, no allegiance to maintaining the delicate balance of the universe? We Gages — dead or alive — could be wanton devastation incarnate.

The remains, cremated or otherwise, of the Conduits who came before my aunt are not interred within the family plot, however. Because when the universe is done with a Conduit, nothing remains. Or so I’ve been told.

Still, that supposed fact isn’t currently stopping me from looking for my aunt.

I step through the already-open iron gate, vaguely noting Rath’s hesitancy to enter the fenced grounds behind me as I wander over to the main white marble mausoleum. Stark against the rain-clouded night sky, the structure is arched and open on two sides, just tall enough to walk within. For me, at least. Rath would practically need to bend in half and walk sideways.

Every space of the mortuary walls is filled with small niches, some open, some sealed. As I pass, I run my fingertips over the names carved in the exterior niches at shoulder height. Various pieces of white marble statuary are also collected within the plot, set against the wrought-iron fence, and mostly ornamental in nature. Angel and demon motifs dominate.

I don’t have to look at the names etched in the marble to read them. And at the far end of the mausoleum, the farthest exterior corner, I linger. As I always linger. My fingers, feeling just as cold as the stone, press to my mother’s name.

From this viewpoint, I can see legs sprawled across the ground just around the side of the mausoleum, clad in work pants.

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