Wallflowers and Fairy Tale Funerals

GRAY GALLIPHANT SAT down next to me on the bench, where we observed the jubilations from the sidelines. He opened his mouth, and for a moment I thought he was going to ask me to dance despite knowing full well that I did not dance, but then he closed his mouth and nodded to the music. Dancing on the graves of fallen orcs was hardly my first choice, no matter how lively the fiddles and drums played, but I simply did not dance. Not ever.

"Do you suppose my aunt is obsessed with death?" I asked, needing to strike up a conversation, and Gray being a kind of expert on ceremonies. 

"How do you mean?" His brow wrinkled.

"You’ve seen us at every funeral across the village this year."

"I thought maybe you were a fan of my work." He grinned.

I lifted my glass of nectar. "Ah, yes. Let us toast to the great Gray Galliphant of the Graystone Clan, Holder of the Graymore Key—Esquire—Hawthorn Creek’s newest, most valued, hardest-working village barrister and solicitor, officiator of funeral and marriage rites, host of the weekly tavern trivia tournament." 

We tapped our carved wooden mugs and drank. Gray waved his hand and muttered, "Thank you. Thank you."

When we finished laughing, he said, "Your aunt knows a lot of folk."

True. She had a connection to the deceased at every funeral we’d attended in the past year. Most recently being the orc Keritas, a member of her book club. 

"Seems like we’ve been attending funerals my whole life," I said. 

When I was six, we were walking the path through the woods when she told me to stop. She held a finger to her lips, and we stood in silence as a parade of tiny pixies dragged one of their own on a pallet of woven twigs. Grief-struck, they seemed not to notice us, though it was impossible to not notice them in their brightly coloured clothing and absurdly large hats. We waited until the long procession had disappeared from sight before resuming our walk. 

Four years later, my aunt took me up the mountain to witness a dragon funeral. I felt for sure we were going to fall off and die. Or be caught out for spying and die. The ice dragons laid their dead in an open weave basket and hung it from the side of a cliff. They sang mournful songs until the sky darkened and then left the basket for one year, well long enough for the carrion birds to pick the bones clean, before they pulled up the basket and buried the bones in their caves.

One summer we were working in the garden and my aunt grabbed me by the hand and dragged me away from harvesting chamomile so we could follow a stream of ants carrying their dead back to their hill. 

She was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know what. 

"Do you think it’s possible she’s obsessed with death because she lost my parents?" And her parents… and the rest of our village. 

I was three when the Greater Troll War ended, but not before the last battle rolled over our little hamlet. My aunt had taken me to the travelling goblin market at the next village over— Hawthorn Creek where we now resided. I didn’t remember a thing about the market or what happened to our small community, and my aunt refused to speak of it, but I knew we were the only survivors. 

When we moved to Hawthorn Creek, my aunt made friends with everyone, while I hid in the branches of trees, reading books, watching the villagers from afar. Hawthorn Creek was a bustling village and nothing like peaceful Penverdant. I’d wanted home. 

And then Gray entered our yard, climbed the tree, perched on a branch beside me, opened a fat textbook, and stayed there as long as I did. We’d been friends ever since, and only apart when he went away to do his legal training or perform his barrister and solicitor duties. 

"Perhaps she’s not obsessed with death at all. Perhaps she's obsessed with life," Gray said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Life?"

"Funerals are for the living, and it’s likely that funerals remind her of her own mortality. Death, the absence of life. Life, the absence of death." He shrugged a shoulder.

"Gray Galliphant the philosopher," I mocked. But I had to concede it was possible. The year of funerals was happening for a reason. I thought she was trying to send me a message, but what if it was merely my aunt wanting to experience life?

My aunt twirled, a stick among boulders, her flame-coloured hair swirling around her, fanning out like her bright purple skirt.

Still, it was kind of weird for her to want her life experience to include dancing on gravesites, wasn’t it?

"A year of funerals. It has to mean something."

"What if it means nothing?" Gray said. "Why don’t you just ask her?"

That wasn’t the way of my aunt. She loathed being asked questions. I’d tried to sidle up to the issue as I’d sidled, side-stepped and skirted issues before. But answers weren’t exactly enlightening and varied from the simple, "It’s our duty," to a little bit more informative, "As citizens of Hawthorn Creek we must attend ceremonies for the dead. It’s our right," and even the ironic, "Who doesn’t love a good funeral?" 

She did love the parties. But couldn’t she have just gone to the dance hall after the weekly willowball match like everyone else?

Gray leaned into me, pressing his shoulder into mine. 

"I think the real question, my dear Kit, is why do you attend these funerals with her?"

His question lanced right through the perfectly concocted shell around my emotions. I masked the intrusion with a smile. 

"Someone has to keep track of your many titles," I said, before hiding behind my cup. 

How could I tell him that if I didn’t watch her she might disappear? She was my sun, my moon, my steady rock. What on earth would I do without her?

As the warmth of his shoulder seeped into mine, his question began to take on another meaning, but whether from the lateness of the hour or from a little too much of what orcs passed off as nectar, insight remained as elusive as a cloud in fog.

The drums beat on. 

DAWN LIGHTENED THE sky and the revelry simmered to a somber set of songs between speeches and maudlin poetry about the recently departed. The fire had died down to a pile of embers. With the kegs empty, wooden bowls of porridge were handed out. 

The orcs held the all-night revelry over the grave of the freshly deceased so they didn’t spend their first night in the ground alone. As the sun’s first rays spread across the horizon, the orcs fell silent until the sun had fully risen. Then they gathered their empty kegs, their benches, their passed-out kin—both the children and the drunk who’d not had the fortitude to stay up all night— and went home. 

Gray, my aunt and I also headed home. 

"Your feet must be hanging on by a thread after all that dancing," I said. 

"You should try it sometime," she said. "It’s good for the soul."

I put my hand to my chest. "And abandon my wallflower post? I’ve spent my two decades cultivating my loner persona, my shrinking violet identity. The villagers wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if I started to engage."

"You mock, but only because you feel safe to do so," she said, and strode ahead of us, ending the conversation. 

I glanced at Gray, but he only shrugged. There was nothing wrong with my soul, and even if there were, dancing wouldn’t fix it, and mocking was as much of my personality as reclusion, but I had a feeling she was hinting at something deeper, more important than dancing and joking. If only she would come right out and say it. 

It was a wonder my aunt had so many friends when she was such an enigma. 

I WOKE TO THE scent of fresh pancakes hovering under my nose. My aunt climbed onto the bed next to me and dropped a heavy sack on my legs. 

"Ow! Hey!" I sat up. 

Light cracked between the curtain panels. I pushed sweaty strands of hair off my face. A plate with a stack of pancakes had been added to the towering pile of books on my nightstand. 

"Let’s stay in bed and read all day," she said. 

"Sounds like a plan—wait. Isn’t today the Willing-Axrow wedding?"

"Weddings are for fools in love," she said, digging through the bag and pulling out library books. "You’ll see more tears at weddings than at funerals, Kit, I’ve told you that."

In all the years I’d known my aunt, I’d not seen her once attend a wedding. Was there a hidden meaning in that? Or was my aunt only eccentric?

Later, when my aunt had fallen asleep, I’d joined the wedding procession as it passed by our place and followed the little girl’s trail of shredded flowers down to the riverbank where a rose-adorned archway waited for the happy couple to say their vows. Fairy lights twinkled in the trees. Sugary cakes waited on a long table draped in white cloth. 

I couldn’t see Gray anywhere. 

Odd. 

Officiating weddings was his thing. The elder barrister and solicitor for the village had been delighted to pass that chore onto Gray. But there he was, the elder, beginning the ceremonial speech. He had no personal connection to the couple that I knew of, so that wasn’t it. 

Where was Gray?

I placed the gift on the table with the other items wrapped in ribbons and headed back to town. 

He hadn’t mentioned a trip. And he’d seemed fine when I saw him yesterday picking the ripe plums from the tree in his front garden. 

The sun had set and night was coming on by the time I reached his house. I knocked on the door and peered through the window. All was quiet and dark within. 

I’d spent many nights reading in front of his fireplace, especially after his parents passed away. 

I knocked again. Louder. Perhaps he’d fallen ill and was napping. If that was the case, I’d be interrupting his rest, but he would get over it. 

"Oh, ‘e’s not there," a voice said behind me. 

The lamplighter moved from one of the posts at the end of Gray’s garden to the next. 

"Where is he?"

"Don’t know," the lamplighter said. "Saw him ‘eading out of town this morning."

"You’re certain?"

"’Twas the esquire ‘imself, the barrister and solicitor, ‘older of the Graymore Key—"

"Yes, all right," I said impatiently. This was what Gray didn’t understand; no one got the order of his titles right but me. 

The least he could have done was tell me where he going. Or that he was going at all. 

I trudged back home.

FOR THREE DAYS I watched his house as I weeded the gardens, watered the gardens and harvested from the gardens. And when I ran out of things to do in our gardens, I crossed the road and worked in Gray’s gardens. The borage was absolutely out of control. The squirrels lay out flat, drunk on fallen plums fermenting on the ground. 

Yesterday, I was returning from the market when I thought I saw my aunt talking to Gray on our front step, but by the time I reached our door, there was no sign of Gray and my aunt had locked herself in her sewing room.

"You’re always in the garden," my aunt said. "I don’t know how you can stand it."

It was the first time she’d spoken to me since the wedding, her disappointment evident. 

But I felt I belonged in the garden, fully at peace with churning the soil, pulling weeds, planting seeds and watching so much life spring out of tiny seeds. It was back-breaking work, but so satisfying. Had I grown up in Penverdant, gardening would have been my livelihood. I saw no reason it couldn’t be in Hawthorn Creek. 

Come to think of it, gardening would have been my aunt’s livelihood in Penverdant as well. It was the way of our people. But from the moment we’d arrived in Hawthorn Creek, she’d avoided the garden. She’d taken in work mending clothes and now she was the village seamstress. The garden was all mine. 

I opened my mouth to ask her about Gray.

"I want a fairy tale funeral, Kit," my aunt said. 

"What?" Her statement startled me and I nearly dropped the basket of tomatoes.  

"Everyone wants a fairy tale wedding. No one ever talks about having a fairy tale funeral."

"All right," I said, playing along. "A fairy tale funeral would consist of everyone wearing absurdly large hats, like a pixie funeral."

She rolled her eyes. "Yours might. My fairy tale funeral will start with an enormous parade, followed by hours and hours of dancing. Lively music. Nothing depressing. No speeches. No poetry." She pointed a finger at me. "I mean it, Kit. No speeches."

"Got it. No speeches."

"And everyone must attend."

"The whole village." I raised my eyebrows. 

"Every orc, pixie, and child. Everyone."

"Everyone…" I nodded slowly.

"No flowers. Leave the flowers for the fools in love. Tell everyone to bring smiles and laughter, instead."

"Not one flower," I repeated sadly, my gaze roaming over the rose garden. 

"A flower, once cut, immediately begins to die. I suppose that makes them worthy decorations for a funeral, but not for mine. Save the flowers for the living. Ring bells instead."

I risked it. "Why are we discussing your funeral? This is purely hypothetical, right?"

She grimaced and shuddered at the inquiry. "These are the funeral rites of our people. You should know."

"Oh. But this is what you said you want for your funeral. I thought—"

"Assumptions, Kit, are —"

I rolled my eyes. "—are dangerous for the soul."

"If you are observant—"

"Answers will be revealed," I finished. "But after a year of funerals and now planning a fairy tale funeral no answer has revealed itself!"

She gently lifted my chin. "Be observant," she said with kindness in her voice. "And live in the moment. Which reminds me, that barrister of yours has been notably absent from our kitchen table. You must have some idea of where he has gone."

The dark house across the road had worn a hole through my heart. 

"I don’t."

"I hope he hasn’t found someone who knows what he’s worth."

"If you mean something by that, I missed it." The bottom fell out of my stomach, and the panic I'd tried to keep suppressed for the past three days began to rise, yet again.

"I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And I’ve noticed your observation skills are lacking."

"What— How— How does he look at me? I mean, I’m not aware he was looking at me in any particular fashion." My face felt hot, and I wished for a cool breeze.

"Precisely. A mistake others your age will be sure not to repeat when they get close to him."

"We’re friends."

She sighed. "Young love is more often blind than revolutionary. Shame." She turned toward our house as if to leave, but then stopped and turned back. "Do not waste another drop of the precious time you have together."

"I don’t even know if he feels that way about me." If he did, maybe he would have told me where he was going and when he would return.

She clicked her tongue. "Observation skills, Kit."

She met my eyes and saw something there. Her expression and tone softened. "Once there was a young lad who stole my heart. Orrin. He went off to fight in the Greater Troll War. Our kind, with our diminutive stature, make excellent spies and couriers, easily overlooked by the enormous trolls. The entire time Orrin was gone, I wished I’d told him how I felt, so when he returned before the last battle, I did. He proposed. We were to be married. He was building us a house… His was the last body I buried."

I had no idea. No wonder my aunt never attended weddings.

That didn't explain her obsession with funerals, though, and I was left with a dark feeling in my gut.

And there was something else nagging at me from this conversation: all this time I’d been worried about my aunt disappearing when I wasn’t looking. I should have been watching Gray. 

A FEW DAYS LATER I was cleaning up the mess in the garden after a rabbit or two broke in and went to town on the cabbages, when I heard something. Tiny bells ringing in the distance, drawing closer. 

My aunt had set out early in the morning on a mission to find mushrooms in the forest. 

I suddenly had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. 

What if I wasn’t the only one who she’d told her fairy tale funeral plans to? What if something had happened?

I brushed my dirty hands on my apron and went to the garden gate. Down the road, as far as I could see in both directions, crowds of villagers passed me by with solemn expressions on their faces. All of them ringing bells. 

How did everyone in the village know what was going on here but me?

"Excuse me," I said. "Where are you going? What has happened?"

I tried again and again, but they made no response, except for one child who giggled and said, "It’s a parade," before her mother hushed her, as if it were a solemn, formal event. 

My skin crawled. My breath froze in my throat. Panic set in.

No speeches.

No. No, not my aunt. Not my only living relation. Not my sun, my moon, my steady rock.

What was I going to do?

As the last of the folk filed past and began to disappear down the road, I had to make a decision. To know or not to know. What if it means something?

What if it means nothing?

With panic coiled in my throat and heart thundering, I followed. 

THE PROCESSION MARCHED out of town, the chiming of the bells echoing through the valley. I recognized the route; it was one I had not taken since I was a child. It was not a path I’d wanted to repeat. 

The walk took most of the day to get there. The ruins came into view the moment I crested the hill. 

Exactly what happened that day of the last battle, we never knew. I’d once overheard my aunt telling others that it appeared an army of trolls had tried to outrun a barrage of boulders. 

"But surely the villagers heard them coming and tried to run," one woman remarked.

"They did," my aunt said. "Based on the imprints in the ground, the trolls were numerous and clustered tightly together. There was no escape."

They all fell silent. They’d felt the quakes that day, but hadn’t realized the trolls had breached the borders.

"But your people like to live half underground," a man said. 

The woman beside him slapped him on the arm. "And what home could withstand the weight of a troll, eh?"

The answer was none. 

The trolls were enormous creatures composed mostly of rock, the tallest standing as high as three houses, the shortest as high as three stories. They had left craters where they ran, reducing everything to rubble. From the crest of the hill, the damage didn’t seem real; child’s playthings scattered and trashed. 

But up close…

Memories flooded back from that day in the hot sun. I hadn’t wanted to remember—I shouldn’t have been able to. It all returned in a rush, every moment, watching my aunt bury the dead one by one. 

She’d needed soft soil to do it, so she used the vegetable gardens that had been carefully tended next to each home. She’d marked each grave with a name carved on a broken fence board. 

Our Penverdant had been a small hamlet for our small clan. No more than fifty homes. No fewer than two lived in each home with some families as many as six. 

It had taken days bury them all. 

I’d forgotten.

My skin tingled as I remembered sleeping on a mattress my aunt had pulled under the slope of a roof made from a stone wall partially fallen over. She wrapped me in blankets. I cried through the nights. 

The citizens of Hawthorn Creek crowded the ruined roads. The bells fallen silent. I moved through them, pushing my way to the place I’d once called home, to the place where I'd once lived with my mother and father, neither of whom I could remember.

There, in the garden, stood my aunt. And next to her stood Gray. 

"I don’t understand," I said. I was taking it all in, but it wasn’t making sense. 

"The citizens of Hawthorn Creek wish they had been here for you that day," Gray said. "Here, to help shoulder the tragedy, to bury the fallen, to share in your sorrow—"

"Careful—" my aunt warned. 

"Sounds like the beginning of a speech," I explained. 

Gray hid a smile. "Excuse me a moment," he said, and slipped away into the crowd. 

I turned to my aunt. "You said you were going mushroom hunting."

"Gray came to me with his plan and he wanted me to be first to see."

"See what—?" I started to ask. Then I observed. Gray had replaced the fence boards with proper gravestones. He’d cleared the roads and used the debris to fence each garden now tiny cemeteries. 

This was where he had been. 

Music began to play. Lively. Cheerful. People began to dance. 

Tears brimmed my aunt’s eyes. 

Gray had figured it out. Seen what I could not. My aunt wasn’t obsessed with death at all. She was, as he said, celebrating life, and in a way, making up for all these funerals that she wasn't able to give to our fallen people. 

Funerals were for the living. 

My aunt grabbed my hand. "Time is precious, Kit."

And there was the thing she'd been trying to tell me.

I hugged her— my sun, my moon, my steady rock— and then I went and found Gray. 

He was sitting on a bench, perfectly placed at the edge of the festivities, right where a wallflower ought to be. 

I didn't know what to say. Thank you seemed so completely unmatched to the enormity of the gift he'd given us. The right words needed to convey more than my appreciation. For the first time ever, words hardly seemed right at all.

How could I possibly convey what he meant to me?

Gray was a ribbon waving in the shifting breeze. A blue sky dotted with fluffy, white clouds. The smell of fresh bread. A gentle summer rain. A warm fire after a cold day in the snow.

When his eyes met mine, I knew exactly what I needed to say.

I smiled and said, "May I have this dance?"

END