The Arch Stone by Adam Faulkner

Author:Adam Faulkner [Faulkner, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2018-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

29

The funeral was in the small West Midlands village that Matt and Leigh had grown up in. There was something morbidly appropriate about the setting of the funeral. It was small, tucked away, private. Despite the fact that Matt and Leigh never really talked about their home, it felt somehow familiar. It was everything that you’d expect a small village in the English countryside to be; everything was surrounded by trees, there was a small shop and post-office in the middle, and the houses were scattered around the area, with few directly next to each other. The funeral was at a small village church. They weren’t religious, not particularly, but Leigh was a part of the community. That was just how things worked.

There weren’t many people there. Neither of Matt and Leigh’s parents had siblings, so they didn’t have much in the way of relatives, and most of their mother’s family still lived in Egypt, so it was hard for most of them to make it over. A few people from the village had shown up, but that was it. Their parents. Matt. August. Me. Raven hadn’t shown up. I guessed that she was pretty much impossible to contact, so I wasn’t surprised. There were a few other faces I had recognised. Sokolov had made it, which I was genuinely glad about. Dr Birchwood had sent a message, but had felt it wasn’t suitable to come. Artemis had made it as well, but I’d actually expected her to be there.

What I was genuinely surprised about was who I saw standing at the back of the small crowd: Professor Greyford. I hadn’t expected him to turn up, not in the slightest. I’d managed to convince myself that he didn’t care. It didn’t seem like he had at the time. But, as I eventually reminded myself, it wasn’t as if it had ever been possible to understand the professor.

The service was short and ordinary. We all gathered in the small church, went through the service, almost mechanically. The priest went through the order, just going through the motions. Matt gave a eulogy. I watched him up there, gripping the sides of the pulpit so hard I thought he was going to snap it completely in half. He managed to keep himself together for the speech, but it was clear that he was at the edge of exploding for the whole time. The service was open-casket, which made it harder, for me at least. Looking at her, all dressed up and prepared when I knew that underneath the carefully put-together appearance, Leigh still had the fatal wound that Elijah Blake had left her with, it made me want to throw up. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst feeling I’d ever experienced. Even the attack itself seemed like nothing compared to the feeling of seeing one of your closest friends lying dead in a coffin. It might be one of the most painful things a person can do. I had no idea what to say to anyone.

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