Page 117 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
Her claws start to flex as I focus on the necklace. Her fear makes sense now. The stone isn’t just a trinket—it’s a cage holding pieces of her soul. The lines between her and that necklace blur until I don’t know where one ends and the other begins.
But the stone has to be the Memorium, and something bad has happened to it. Something has broken.
It feels like darkness incarnate.
“And you can just pull up that feeling, whenever you want? Give it to someone else?” Desdemona asks, and I glance up, meeting her gaze.
It’s a confusing sight at first. I swear I’d seen a million images of her in that necklace—but it was only feeling that I saw.
I take a breath, remembering what she asked.
Sharing emotion is the least of what I can do. But I don’t say that. Truthfully, I’m slightly in awe that she survived. I frown at the thought. I didn’t do enough.
I could’ve done so much worse.
But what if I don’t have to killher?What if the darkness lies in that necklace?
“Pretty much,” I answer.
Desdemona frowns. “Youfeelit?”
“I just did.”
Remorse. She feels remorse.
She feels remorse for me trying to kill her.
I quickly brush the thought aside. Maybe there’s a reason I failed.
“I’m sorry,” Desdemona croaks.
The strangest thing is that shemeansit. Her sorrow buds in my chest, yet I prefer it over her fear. It’s an easier emotion to swallow.
“I’m surprised you weren’t found out sooner,” I say, and I truly mean it. She speaks like someone from the septic. “No one here says sorry.”
Desdemona raises an eyebrow. “Well, I am.”
“She’s one of the firsts,”the boy says.“One of the firsts, and you tried to kill her.”
“Shut up.”
“You need me.”
“It’s fine,” I tell Desdemona. The boy is right, as he usually is. The guilt is already here. “I’ve felt worse.”
Desdemona’s mouth opens slightly, her eyebrows jumping up her forehead. “What could be worse than that?”
Ma flashes before my eyes, half of her body in the ground.
“The real thing,” I say my voice far—numb. I glance at Desdemona’s necklace once more, searching for any way to change the topic. “What stone do you wear?”
For a moment, Desdemona stares at me. Her eyes narrow, angry. As if all the progress I just made, all the remorse she felt, is being wiped away with every word that comes out of my mouth.
“It was my mom’s,” Desdemona says. It’s not a lie. Nor is it the whole truth. There’s something she’s not saying.
“Why do you wear it under your shirt?”
I feel her sorrow dissipate. So quickly, too.
