Flowers in her hair the day he died (Raivh and SomethingEsoteric)

Nimble fingers tugged at the laces on the back of her corset, making sure it was a snug fit. The black fabric flowed gracefully down her elegant body. The small room was decorated with a few wooden chairs, a small table, a sleek, black vase with an arrangement of white calla lilies, white roses, and red roses. A closet door was open behind her, filled with outfits of her choosing—all black, of course. There was no better representative of death than the color black and herself. She stared into the mirror, studying her reflection. Straight brown hair fell past her shoulders and stopped between her shoulder blades. A pair of identical green eyes framed by black eyeliner stared back at her, moving as her eyes did.

Her lips were painted a shade darker than their natural color. Gently, she drew her lower lip into her mouth, scraped her teeth over the delicate flesh, and parted her lips upon releasing it. A sigh escaped. She tilted her head a fraction to one side and glanced at the clock on the wall, suddenly aware of its ticking hands. Time was such a human fascination, yet she was bound by it as well. She always knew when time was up.

Today, she would be visiting with the family of a young man who the small town said “died too early, too young.” Perhaps it was true; maybe he had died too early. His death, however, wasn't something even she could control. Death was a part of life, just as living was a part of death. She breathed deep. Her lungs struggled to fill against the restraint of the corset. To experience death was human, just as she, in this temporary form, was human. Time, of course, would never run out for her; she was eternal. After the body she was borrowing faded and withered, she would assume a new appearance on Earth.

“Mara?” The voice was muffled. It came from the other side of the door. “Sweetheart, the family has arrived. I need your help, please.”

That was her mother. At least, that was the woman who thought she was her mother. In reality, the woman's daughter had departed from the world before she'd even had a chance to see light for the first time. That woman's daughter had perished in the womb, which had presented a perfect opportunity for Mara. Even Mara's name was a lie. The woman's real daughter was named Cameron. Mara had met with Cameron briefly before escorting the soul into the afterlife. Cameron had but one request for Mara on that day: be kind to her human mother. The woman had suffered much grief in her lifetime, and the grief wasn't always her own.

“Yes, mother, I'll be right there,” Mara replied in her sweet, soft drawl. She tucked a stray hair behind an ear and stood up. With steady grace, she walked to the door, leaving behind a picture of the man who had fathered Cameron. There was an engraving on the frame reading, “God Bless Gabriel.” It was ironic for death to follow in the footsteps of an archangel.

Carefully, as quietly as she could, Mara turned the doorknob to her mother's office. She could hear voices inside. The voice currently speaking was her mother's, and the words that flowed from her lips were meant to console. Mara didn't look at the family at first. She knew their expressions would be overwhelmed with sorrow. It was something she was used to seeing. Instead, her gaze drifted aimlessly about the room. After several moments, she finally allowed herself to look at the faces sitting across from her mother.

One of them, a girl, looked to be around her age, and her face was familiar. Mara had seen her on the night of the young man's death. Mara swallowed. She'd been close to greeting this girl that night as well. So close, in fact, that Mara could still remember brushing against the girl as she approached her brother's soul.

“Wh-where’s my shoe? - … no, my foots all wet and cold. –I need my shoe. Mmgaaawh… it hurts though.” Grace beat herself up for those words; she beat herself up for all of it. When the paramedics arrived she was sprawled out in a patch of snow and flowers, a crowd of onlookers assembled to avert oncoming traffic and see the surreal beauty of the tragedy on the high way.

When most people thought of these sorts of accidents on the highway they imagined overturned lumber trucks or tankers spouting gouts of dark viscous liquids, black smoke and fire, utter chaos… the memories she had of that day were, and she hated to admit, they were all beautiful – even if horribly unsettling to the point those images of beauty had her waking in screams and chilled sweats. She remembered the cool air, not damp or heavy – refreshingly brisk, freshly fallen snow painting the world a pleasant fluffy white, a soft coddling breeze, a languid smile on her face and his. They’d had a fabulous night in the city, she’d gotten a kiss – he’d gotten an autograph – Grace didn’t know the band they’d gone to see, just that there were a lot of cute girls at the show with piercings and black makeup – it was a nice change from the judgemental stares and flannel that came across this town in spades.

Her ears had run for three long days after, her side still stung, her hip bruised and scraped down one side of her leg up to her ribs, also bruised upon impact, her eyes were swollen and dark, more than usual – scabs she could feel under her hair but couldn’t quite pick through long, choppy, ugly yellow brown and blonde strands. The first responders said she was ejected from the vehicle, one of those ironic instances where not wearing a seat belt might have saved a life but none of the investigators would agree to the sentiment.

Where black billowing smoke didn’t smear away the scene all that could really be seen was snow kicked up and so many little petals of a floral rainbow, like splotches of radiant paint upon a white canvas with memories of grey unsaturated by acetone… she hated how peaceful it all seemed in her deafened state.

“The EMS said you were so lost when they finally brought you back, it was touch and go for a second I bet – like that show on TV. –they said you told them you’d been drinking, y’know they found Phil’s rolling papers and… hrmph marijuana. You promised me you wouldn’t smoke marijuana anymore Grace – now Phil is…”

“Now Helen that’s enough,” bleary conversations in hospital wards, Grace wished she’d been in a worse state but she’d barely been hurt in some twist of fate – she, the apathetic, lazy young adult still behaving like a teenager, she was the one who’d barely got a scratch, her brother – a shining gold heart really going places in his life… well, it was taken away. Grace had been beside herself there, she wanted to be left alone, maybe acted like she was worse off than she really was in an attempt to drive the point home. She didn’t want to answer any more questions, she didn’t want to go over her statement, she didn’t want to tell her mom they had drank and they had got high and Phil shouldn’t have been driving and she just couldn’t forgive herself that in that moment of shock in the back of the ambulance all she could think about was how she’d lost her shoe and she was cold when her brother was crushed beneath the side of that damn delivery truck.

“… well at least there will be no argument of which shop caters to the flowers at the wake…” she remembered whispering bitterly into the hospital bed pillow, she remembered hearing her mom begin to answer in aghast then heard her dad take her wrist and walk her out of the room.

“Grace… we’re going to the funeral home.”

“Mmmngh… ‘kay.”

“Your brother would have wanted you to help.”

And how exactly would she have known that?

“… fifteen minutes.” Grace hummed from under her downy duvet sanctum, the only place she really felt solid the past two days. With a tired groan she hobbled across the cold floor, she was still sore all over, the proof of her ordeal still quite stark on her naturally tan and yet pale skin. She, like Phil, was a mutt of sorts, a strange combination of their also strangely bred parents. Her mother was of South African and European descent, her father Irish-Anglo-Saxon. Grace had her mother’s snub nose, her father’s blue eyes, her complexion on the fairer side of mulatto with a stippling of sunspots along the bridge of that flat swollen nose, eyes an unsettling sort of turquoise behind swollen bruised lids. Her lips turned to a pout in the mirror, pitted and still split in some places. “Fff…” As if looking upon her face wasn’t enough she almost had to ritualistically look upon every blemish the crash left her with, the broken nails on her slender fingers, the scrapes up her toned thighs and calves, the little scrape along her modest tummy and a scratch underneath her less than modest breasts, fading bruises strewn about just the same… it was all going away but the more they shrunk the darker and more unsightly they seemed to get – the doctor had joked he was sure she wouldn’t have a scar on her come a week or two, that was before he learned her brother was DoA, hardly seemed bright sides were appropriate after that.

She wasn’t exactly losing time, not in the frightening sort of I can’t remember how I got here way, but everything seemed to jump forward without her ever since, like her body was going through the motions but her mind was elsewhere, she wasn’t tuning out the world, she just felt numb to it, getting dressed was no exception, driving to the funeral home wasn’t either. She didn’t wear the same look of overwhelmed sorrow her mom and dad did, she wore a vacant look that found the window and nothing more, she didn’t wear black formal clothing like her mother and father either but rather jeans, a white tank top layered over a burgundy tank top and a ratty old grey zip-up hoody, hair a disheveled pony tail and a collection of hap-hazard clips to keep the choppy locks out of her face… she looked more like a public service announcement for how to detect a hung-over young adult, not exactly a grieving sister… everybody had their process though.

In a small town, everybody knew everybody – at least vicariously, everybody was at least vaguely familiar in the same way… Mara was no exception, -just like, chances were, Mara knew her – Grace the girl who hung out outside the coffee shop with other shit-head kids, smoked cigarettes and didn’t do what a girl her age outta.