Shadows Gray

Chapter Thirty



“So what happens now then, Dawes?” Israel demands. His arm is steady around my waist as we stare at Luke and his pistol. “Are you going to shoot us?”

“I haven’t made up my mind,” Luke responds, coldly. “You, definitely. Her, I’m still deciding.”

I am done trying to appeal to his sympathies and so I make no reply. I simply stare at him, my blood coursing through my veins for what is hopefully not the last time. I hear something then, a sort of rustle from the kitchen, from behind and off to the side of Luke, and something tells me not to react, not to turn my gaze towards it. I desperately want to avert my eyes and see if I am hearing things, but I steadfastly do not react. Therefore I am almost as shocked as Luke when a small bundle of something comes nearly flying out of the kitchen and collides with him. The pistol is knocked free and skitters across the floor and it’s the first thing I make a dash for. It is surprisingly heavy in my hands, heavy and amazingly cold considering it was grasped in Luke’s hands only seconds before.

Israel has torn off the bundle in moments and has Luke pinned up against the doorway. The bundle, it seems, is Lu. I embrace her so hard; I think I feel her ribs crack.

“Thank God,” I murmur in Chinese. “What are you doing here?”

“He came sneaking around the house last night,” Lu gestures towards Luke. “Asking for you, acting strange. I’d seen him before, hanging around, slinking around. He didn’t know I could understand English well enough so he was muttering to himself, all about death and revenge. I followed him back here to see where he came from. When I heard about your friend I knew in my guts he had something to do with it, so I came over real quick – especially since I didn’t know where you were and if you were safe. Saw you through the window and when the door was locked, I came in through the kitchen window.”

“You’re wonderful, Lu,” I smile, fondly.

“I know.”

“Is,” I reach for Israel’s shoulder. I see Luke’s furious eyes staring at me but I don’t look away. “Is, we have to go.”

“Not before he’s taken care of,” Israel replies, grimly, and savagely punches the wall near Luke’s face. Luke doesn’t flinch.

“There isn’t anything we can do to him. The police won’t be able to make heads nor tails of our story and I doubt pulling a gun on someone in your own house is breaking very many laws, not in this day and age. He’d just say we were breaking in. Let him go. He won’t follow us. He only cares about his precious Rose. Come on, we’ll find a bedroom to lock him in or a closet.” Fitting, I think, remembering my days locked in the abandoned house.

We find a closet quickly enough and a chair that can be wedged under the knob, effectively keeping him contained. Israel shoves him in with force while I keep the pistol trained on Luke.

“You’re nothing, Dawes,” Is says.

Luke spits in his face. The door is slammed, the chair is wedged, and the pistol is pocketed in my skirts. God forbid I need it in the future.

********************

The next day passes with no events to mark it; it is only the day that we mourn Emme and that grieving is the very essence of all we do. Dad has come up with enough money – whether through honest work or honest thievery we’ll never know and I don’t care – to pay for a burial and we are forced to plan it quickly. Normally, the people here would wait at least a few days to make sure the deceased really is dead and not in a coma but we don’t have the luxury of observing that tradition. And we all know Emme isn’t coming back.

Prue had arrived at Bea’s when we were with Luke and had gotten Emme’s body ready; then we laid her on the bed in her good pink dress. Joe has taken the news to her death like most small children do; he alternates between confusion and a clear understanding with a fair amount of normal activity in between. Bea is stoic and silent, while Dad’s eyes are red rimmed and puffy enough for the both of them. He seems to have stopped drinking these past couple of days, but I fear he is only saving it up for a real fall off the wagon eventually. Even Prue seems to have aged, if such a thing is possible for someone as old as the hills already, and we all seem older and wiser in ways that we wish we weren’t. I have not seen Luke or Rose at all and I do not do them the misplaced courtesy of wasting thoughts on them; my thoughts are full of Emme.

A letter to Inspector Andrews has been written and rewritten several times. Nothing we can say makes any sense. Emme’s death has caused little to no stir in a community where violence is the norm. It will take several more to grip the populace with fear, several more before they will be on their guard and lock their doors at night. No one knows what is coming and no one will believe us when we warn them. The letter will most likely lie on some inspector’s secretary’s desk somewhere, gathering dust, never heeded, and never taken seriously. If it’s read at all.

The day of Emme’s burial it snows. Big, fluffy balls of white that drift lazily to the ground and transform it from gray and brown puddles to picturesque accumulations of sparkling sugar. I think of the frosting on the shoe shaped cookie and it seems appropriate somehow. Emme would like frosting on the world the day we say goodbye to her.

The curtains, both at Bea’s and at Dr. Smythe’s have been drawn, the clocks stopped, and the mirrors covered with black crepe. Emme’s body has been carried out feet first, as custom dictates, so that her lonesome spirit will not look back and beckon anyone left in the house to follow her in death.

Lu has helped Bea and I with mourning clothing and the black dress is too short; my boots stick out from the bottom, but it’s the best we can do with short notice and little money. I find it apt that my fashion will be as disastrous as ever and if Emme’s spirit is there, I think it will laugh at me and the spectacle I make in my veil and yards and yards of ebony fabric.

The cemetery is silent and still, even more so by the soft blanket of snow falling from the sky. It turns our black clothing white and settles on my veil. In the middle of the dreadful preacher’s dreadful soliloquy, Joe turns his face up to the heavens and sticks out his tongue to catch the snowflakes and the mood is transformed from something dark and dreadful to something sweet and magical. Everyone, with the exception of the preacher, titters behind their hands and then laughs out loud; Dad with his chuckle I haven’t heard in ages, Bea’s soft giggle, Prue’s snort, Israel’s soft laughter by my side, and my own. I fling my veil back like a triumphant bride who is eager for her husband’s kiss and turn my face to the sky, letting the flakes fall on my eyelashes, my cheeks, my lips. Death will not have the victory, not today, not yet. We will remember Emme as she was; full of life and joy, the closest thing to a sister I have ever had, or will ever have.

Wherever Rose Gray is, she will not be redeemed. Not by me. Not by Luke, I fear. We will leave this place and vanish. There will be no records that we were ever here, that we ever existed, that we ever loved or lived or died. We will not be remembered, but we will never be forgotten either.

We will travel and we will live and we will love and someday when I am old and full of years I will tell my children the story of their mother and father and their legacy.

“Once upon a time,” I will say. “Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, I was born…”



The end.