Page 125 of Fallen Thorns
As I walked towards the cemetery and looked amongst the headstones, I took note of all the stone angels watching down over the fallen and I thought back to my mother’s words, and how the wings helped them to be there for us always. I wasn’t sure how true that was anymore, not after I watched one do what it had. Angels probably aren’t real, but their image came from somewhere.
Not one, but two stood before me in the forest that day, and when they spoke and acted as they did, I was no longer sure what to believe.
I do not consider myself a mother, but I lost two children that day.
We had not seenhim since, of course. Though the weight of Ben’s death hung heavy on us all, so we didn’t go looking. I blamed myself for everything. And I would not let anyone tell me otherwise. I started this twelve years ago and it may never end. Perhaps this was only the second beginning.
Mars stepped into stride beside me, head facing forward, dressed head to foot in a black suit, shiny brogues at their feet. “I brought roses,” they said, holding up a small bouquet of cherry red petals and thorns. “Fitting, I thought.”
I nodded, adjusting the black scarf covering my neck and folding my lips inwards, closing my eyes slightly to withhold my emotions.
When we reached the church, we were greeted by the priest and gently shown to our seats.
I had not set foot in a church, or any religious establishment, in decades. Had had no need to. It was not a place I saw myself welcome — not because of my otherness, but for the mere fact I did not believe in the power supposedly held within religious walls. But I felt it that day, in whatever way it chose to present itself to me. I believed it to be the power of love.
We sat ourselves and awaited the service; a frame stood to the side of the altar with a picture of a much younger Ben printed across it. One of him smiling at the camera: close up with his eyes squinting against the sun. A black bass guitar was propped up below it, a red rose woven between the four strings.
Ben’s mother and father sat beside each other in the front row, perhaps for the first time in a very long time. Katerina and David sat hand in hand, his mother’s lace-gloved hand pressing a pale handkerchief to her face. Sat beside them, taller than them both, with freshly dyed black hair, was Casper. I had seen very little of him or any of the band for that matter, since that day. Casper flew back to America for a few days to be with his family, Lawrence and Fran followed suit and left the city too. I don’t blame them for their distance, nor do I ever expect any of them to return to The Thorns. I had hurt them enough. They did not deserve it.
Casper sat with his back straight, his posture failing to falter. His older brother, Jesse, sat beside him. They must have flown back together; Jesse was always his closest sibling. I wished to speak with them, even for only for a second. I did not need Casper’s forgiveness, but I did need him to know my love for him. For them all. My Thorns.
I failed them all.
Mars squeezed my hand, sensing my drifting mind.
“Don’t think about it,” they whispered. Maybe they were right, but there was only so much guilt I could hold before I exploded.
They were lost in their own silent mourning. I knew they missed them both equally. They got to know Arlo more than any of us did, and I think they loved him, in a way. In fact, I knew they did. They would just never admit it, especially not now.
Mars had been as strong a friend as anyone could be, for both boys. Yet they did not cry today. Perhaps they had already mourned them alone, it was sometimes easier that way.
I knew how they always acted in front of me, I’ve always been aware of how they tried to impress me. I wished they understood how much I trusted them, and how strong I knew they were. That if anything happened to me, it would be Mars who I wished to take over The Thorns. It was Mars who I wanted to lead the future.
I smiled at them in reminiscence.
The murders had stopped.Perhaps that day showed us all, on both sides, that bloodshed would get us nowhere. Or perhaps they were lying dormant — you can never be rid of opposition. I knew that all too well now.
The day before the funeral,I met with Carmen and Rani for the first time in two weeks. They’d gone into hiding, all by my own unavoidable command. They were not angry, and demanded no explanations. They just held my hand as I held theirs and kissed their foreheads.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” Rani asked. She wasn’t talking about Ben.
I nodded, and the two girls nodded back in silent understanding.
For now, perhaps. He would not be gone forever though.
And I would await his return.
* * *
The Star
It beginsto snow on the morning they lower Ben’s coffin into the ground. The sky is grey and mournful for humanity’s loss.
It was a quiet ceremony, limited to only friends and family. The media reported he suffered from a short illness and passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones. No one deserved to know how he fell, bloody and afraid, into his lover’s arms. How in his last days, he lay cold and helpless, blinded and alone.
They all stand around his coffin; heads hung low. Casper and Ben’s parents are up front with their heads lowered to the coffin below them, hands full of final memories.
I spot Mars first, a handful of red roses gripped between their hands, ready to place before the dirt.
