Endless (Shadowlands) by Kate Brian

Author:Kate Brian [Brian, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Young Adult - Fiction
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Published: 2014-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

I kept my head down as we walked two by two, following the matching caskets down the hill. The service had been brief and cold, as if everyone here had forgotten what wakes and services were actually for—sharing fond memories of the deceased and honoring their lives. The mayor had said a few words in her living room, where the roughly hewn caskets had sat closed on the floor, surrounded by fake flowers, since every real bloom on the island had long since wilted, grown moldy, and died. No one else had volunteered to say a word. But as the caskets were lifted and the crowd parted to form a makeshift aisle down the center of the room, I had suddenly started crying, and I hadn’t been able to stop since.

I cried for Cori. I cried for Nadia. I cried over the fact that they had both walked around this island with the same confidence everyone else had—that nothing truly bad could ever happen to them again—until it did. I cried for my dad and Darcy and Aaron. And I cried for my mom, whose funeral was the last one I’d attended on Earth. The moment I let myself open that door, the memories crashed over me like the waves at high tide. The pain was as fresh as if she’d taken her last breath just yesterday.

I thought of the way Darcy had held it together so perfectly, her posture like a prima ballerina’s, her smiles so gracious and polite as she’d received the guests, until she’d stepped up to my mother’s open coffin and let out an awful wail. I thought of how my father had gotten up from his chair to say his eulogy, but fallen right to one knee, where he’d stayed for at least five minutes until my uncle Morris finally helped him up. I thought of how I’d reached out to hold her hand inside her coffin and stared at her overly made-up face, just willing her to wake up and smile. Wake up and tell me this was just a dream.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, I’d repeated silently, desperately. Please, Mommy. Please wake up.

That was the memory that truly caught me now, closed my throat, and made me buckle at the waist.

Please, Mommy. Please wake up.

I wished for the thousandth time that I could talk to her, if only for a second. Now I needed her more than ever. I needed her to tell me what to do. I needed her to tell me everything was going to be okay. And I needed Darcy, too. And my father. It wasn’t fair that I was alone here. It just wasn’t fair.

“Rory?”

I looked up into Joaquin’s eyes. I hadn’t even noticed that we’d stopped.

“Are you all right?” he asked me.

I shook my head, glancing past the other raincoats and umbrellas at the caskets, which now lay on the grass next to the open graves. The caskets were made of raw birch, the bright yellow grain the only warm spot in the world around us.

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