Page 12 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Uncle Bill was an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot.
This funeral was his revenge. This stupid church ceremony I had fought him on tooth and nail. Until my mother—withouteven glancing up from the email she had been furiously typing—had stepped in to compromise.
Uncle Bill got his church ceremony.
But Margaret would still be cremated.
The discussion of what would happen to her ashes had yet to take place.
My eyes drifted back to the photo above the coffin, drawn to the mischievous grin she wore, her full lips curved, her eyes crinkled at the edges. She looked older than I remembered, even in the picture, but she was so vibrant.
So alive.
Her gray-streaked hair was loose and wild, the way she always wore it.
Pain stuttered through my chest.
“Margaret was a loving mother, adored and remembered by her two children today, Bill and Georgia.” The priest gestured toward them, and my mother shifted almost imperceptibly, discomfort rolling off her in waves. Bill, of course, smiled solemnly.
I had to resist the urge to scoff at the priest’s words.
Adored by her children?
If anything, Margaret’s relationship with them had been more of a cold war than anything maternal.
"They just don’t get it, Dovey,"Margaret had murmured to me one day in the shop as I dusted the crystal displays."Not all minds are equipped with the understanding that there is more out there than what society feeds you. It skipped them, I’m afraid."
"What did?"I had asked tentatively, soaking in the wisdom in her voice, the somber glint in her eyes.
"The magic,"she had murmured sadly before her eyes brightened."Thankfully, the universe saw fit to rectify that with you."
“Margaret’s life was one of great service to her Lord and community…”
A small, disbelieving sound escaped me as I nearly gaped at the clueless man on the dais.
Ida’s lips warred with a smirk.
Service?
Margaret had read fortunes in the back of her dimly lit shop, communicated with the dead, flirted with anyone who had two legs, drank whiskey with her breakfast, and never gave a single fuck about what anyone thought of her.
I glanced at Uncle Bill, my lips thinning.
He sure as shit wrote this little spiel.
“May she rest in eternal peace.”
The final words echoed through the church, and something heavy settled in my chest as dreadful organ music began to play. The suited funeral directors moved up the aisle to collect her coffin, ready to take it to wherever she was being cremated.
I needed to find out what was happening with her ashes.
I fully intended to see her wishes through and scatter her ashes, but I highly doubted Uncle Bill would bother traveling to the West Coast like she had asked.
The wooden pews creaked as people got to their feet, and I watched with tear-filled eyes as the pine box was wheeled past, somber-faced men in suits guiding it forward. The shiny badges on their chests caught the dim light, the nameCrestwater Funeral Homestanding out in bold black print.
Margaret was leaving.
But not the way she had wanted to.
