We’re standing round the graves. Gabriel, Nesbitt, and I have lowered the bodies in, still wrapped up in the tapestries. Van and Annalise have joined us.
“Would you like to share any words of remembrance, Gabriel?” Van says. “Perhaps you might say something for Mercury. You knew her best.”
Gabriel stands straighter and says something in French. I think it’s a poem. It sounds nice and isn’t too long. Then he spits on the ground and says, in English, “Mercury was a coward, cruel and slightly mad, but she loved her sister, Mercy, and she loved Rose. Mercury was a great Black Witch. The world is less for her passing.” He picks up some dirt and throws it, rather than scatters it, into the grave.
“Nice, Gabby, nice,” Nesbitt says, and shuffles his feet. He picks up some dirt and shakes it in his hand as if he’s going to throw dice. “Mercury, you were one in a million. The world is duller but a lot safer without you.” He tosses the dirt into the grave. He turns to Pers’s grave. “And you were a nasty little piece of work. I wish I’d shot you the first time I saw you.”
Van also picks up a handful of earth. “Perhaps, in the future, witches like Mercury will be able to live more peacefully. Pers was a young whet doing what she thought was right.” Van throws the grains of soil over both graves.
I pick up some dirt and scatter it in Mercury’s grave. She was amazing. Wonderful in her violent way but I killed her and there are no words I want to say. But I remember her love for Rose and I pick up more dirt and throw that down on the ground too, for Rose. And I pick up more dirt and throw it into Pers’s grave for her and for Pilot. Then I pick up more for all the Blacks killed by each other and by Whites, for all who are dead and gone. I toss it in the air and watch it fall.
I say nothing. I can’t find words for all that; there are none.
Nesbitt is watching with a bemused look. Annalise stands beside me. She stays quiet and still. Van goes into the bunker and Annalise touches my arm to tell me that she’s going in too.
Gabriel gets the spades that are lying by the entrance. He throws one to me and we start to fill in the graves.
Mapping
After burying Mercury and Pers, I join Annalise. She’s been given the task of continuing the search of the bunker and wants to make a map of it. She says, “I keep getting lost. All the corridors look the same.”
I draw the map: the main corridors and the numbers of doors off each. There are three main levels of rooms, each with sublevels, and each connected by steps and slopes. The top level is smallest, the middle a bit larger, and the bottom is the most extensive; that’s the one with the great hall and the entrance tunnel to the bunker. There is definitely no way in other than the one we came through.
The kitchen and food stores are on the top level. The bedrooms, hallway, library, and music rooms are on the lower level, and the intriguing rooms are in the middle. These are the storerooms. The rooms full of the stuff that Mercury has acquired over the years. These are the rooms I expect might contain some weapons—not guns but maybe magical things similar to the Fairborn.
One room is full of clothes and shoes stored in drawers and wardrobes. Annalise holds a dress out. It’s pale pink, silk. “So beautiful,” she says. “Do you think she ever wore them? They all look like new.”
“I don’t know. Mercury only ever wore gray dresses as far as I know.” All the clothes appear to be for the same-sized woman. Mercury-sized. But also the size of her beloved twin sister, Mercy.
The next room contains men’s clothes, but there are fewer things. Three suits, some shirts, three hats, two pairs of shoes, and two pairs of boots. I hold one of the suits up against me. I can tell it’ll fit. I think these might be the clothes of Mercy’s husband, my great-grandfather.
Annalise says, “Do you think it’s OK for me to take something? Something different to wear and maybe something to sleep in? Some shoes as well?”
“No one else is going to use them.”
I wait outside while she tries things on. She joins me, smiling nervously, looking a bit like Van in a masculine pale gray suit.
“It’s nice to put clean things on. They aren’t musty or stale at all. Maybe you should try one of the suits?” I know she’s joking but I don’t want to wear my great-grandfather’s clothes.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
I shake my head and realize that I don’t feel good but I try to ignore it and say, “I’m glad you’re happy. You seem like you have a purpose.”
“Trying clothes on?”
“No, you know what I mean. The Alliance seems to have inspired you.”