* * *
They stood and waited their turn to say goodbye to the deceased and Itzy watched as her beloved aunt approached the coffin. Gwen’s expression was unreadable as she leaned over and kissed her dead brother’s cheek. Then she stood sombrely, her cheeks marked with the tracks of tears, and stepped away.
Next was the wife. Evelyn. As expected, she wore black, but she had taken it one step further: the length of her limbs were shrouded in mourning colour, and even her throat was covered. She looked like she was drowning in grief.
Yet she held herself with formidable composure. Perhaps that was where Osiris had learned it from. She was nothing like Myra. Or maybe she was like the old Myra, before she’d had her heart smashed into a million pieces and decided to use drink as a way of gluing them back together.
Evelyn didn’t kiss the body. She glanced at him, her hands stoically clasped in front of her. Then she walked on, like she couldn’t bring herself to touch the thing that had once shared her bed every night.
It was Osiris’ turn. He stood very still over the body. For a hideous moment, Itzy had the insane thought that he was about to bend down and bite the corpse. Except that was ridiculous. She was going to have to tell Devon to stop filling her head with the plotlines of all those trashy fantasy-horror novels she read.
Osiris surprised her by leaning over and dropping just the faintest kiss on his father’s forehead before moving on. For a moment, Itzy thought she saw his posture bend under the weight of some undefined emotion.
Then nothing stood between Itzy and her father’s corpse. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she knew Devon was there for her. It filled her with renewed strength and stirred her forward to the mud-coloured coffin - all the better to blend into his new surroundings.
Stephen lay as if in deep sleep. It was strange to think he would never wake up. Itzy’s mind was filled with the happier images of childhood. The time he took her kite flying in the park; he’d misjudged the wind and it wound up hurling their kites into a tree. Itzy had cried. Then Stephen had climbed the tree. The other parents gaped, but he didn’t care. He clambered up the branches and yanked the coloured fabric out, then hopped down onto the ground, crushing the grass with his weight. He brought the kite back to her and crouched down so they were at eye level. He stroked her cheek and said, ‘Don’t cry, Itzy. Daddy made it better.’
The times when she walked in on her parents cuddling on the sofa like a pair of teenagers. They would leap apart, some Freudian part of their brains telling them their child shouldn’t see them being affectionate, but Itzy had loved it. It was what had once reminded her that they loved each other, before she knew it wasn’t true. It was what she held onto when Stephen changed.
It didn’t just happen one day, or even gradually. It was like turning a light on and off. One moment, he was bouncing Itzy on his knee and clapping her hands together for her; the next, he was throwing her off, not caring when she cried out after hitting her head on the tiled floor of the kitchen. One moment, he was kissing her mother like his life depended on it; the next, he was flinging a kitchen knife in her direction and only missing her neck by inches.
Looking at her father now, it was hard to believe he’d ever been capable of such horror. He wore the face of Loving Stephen, the one who climbed into trees to rescue kites for daughters in distress. There wasn’t a trace of Hateful Stephen, who threw his family around like old dolls he’d outgrown.
That was what made it so hard. She wasn’t sure who she was saying goodbye to. This wasn’t Stephen. It was like a photograph; it couldn’t capture the whole person, but rather just one angle. People were the sum of their movements, gestures, expressions, voices, everything. And Stephen was the sum of his moods. This body lying before her - it wasn’t her father. She didn’t know where her father was.
A scream filled her chest and she slammed her fist into her mouth to stop it from erupting from her. Devon gripped her other hand and dragged her away from the coffin.
A long time after, the lid was brought down, and the casket was taken outside to be put away forever.
FIVE
It was Gwen who had arranged the funeral. If Itzy had been in the right frame of mind to think about this, she might have found it strange that Evelyn hadn’t been in charge. But she was too stunned to process the details.
Gwen insisted Itzy and Devon stay for the morbid buffet afterward. It wasn’t often she flew all the way from Canada to England and she wanted to see her niece for a few hours before she caught her flight home.
She probably wanted to see her nephew, too. That was a bitter pill for Itzy to swallow - that the one family member she felt such a close connection to wasn’t hers alone. She was Osiris’ aunt too.
The girls hovered in a corner, a few feet from the buffet table, neither of them with much of an appetite. Itzy stared vacantly around the room, her hand tightly clutching the bag slung over her shoulder.
‘Are you alright?’ Devon asked.
Itzy had no idea how to answer that. She tugged at the black dress she’d bought just for the occasion. She didn’t own any other dresses. Despite her hair, she’d never felt comfortable in anything too fitted, too feminine. She didn’t like drawing attention to herself. She preferred jeans with t-shirts or tank tops, nothing that clung too much to her slight figure.
Even this dress wasn’t particularly girlish. It fell to her knees and swept out gently at the waist. Its neckline was square and unrevealing. On Devon, it might have been sexy, but on Itzy, it was perfectly funereal.
‘I keep feeling like someone’s watching me,’ she admitted. The sensation had crept up on her while queuing to view the body, and it hadn’t let up since.
‘Which one?’ Devon countered.
Itzy turned and saw her point. Everyone was watching her. They tried to hide it behind drinks and empty conversation, but there it was. Itzy was as much a spectacle at this funeral as her father.
She felt someone touch her elbow. Instinct made her turn to look at the person, as if knowing who it was would change what had just happened. When she saw him, she was hit with a wave of surrealism. She recognised him, but couldn’t place where she might know him from. She had the vague notion that she might have dreamt about him - or someone like him - years ago.
He looked about her brother’s age - nineteen. He was nearly a foot taller than her five-foot-five and he had a broad chest to go with his height. His hair was pale blond and his eyes were a clear, glassy blue. He wore the remnants of a black suit. His jacket had been discarded elsewhere and his tie hung over a crisp white button-down shirt.
Most startling was that he seemed to have been looking for her.
‘Sorry,’ he began things. His eyes flitted briefly to Devon before settling on Itzy. ‘You’re Itzel Loveguard, aren’t you?’ When Itzy stared blankly at him, he said, ‘I’m Seth. Ambrose. I mean -’ He laughed disarmingly. ‘I’m Seth Ambrose.’
Itzy still didn’t know what to do with this information, so he went on, filling the awkward silence.
‘I noticed you across the church,’ he told her softly. He moved his hands a lot when he spoke, bending his arms and revealing the outline of hard muscles. His fingers were long and looked like they ought to have been holding something, a paintbrush perhaps. ‘Why didn’t you sit with the rest of the family?’ he asked.
Who was this person to ask her such a personal question? Itzy swallowed and pushed a lock of hair out of her face. She looked in the direction of Seth’s ear, unable to meet his eyes.
‘Um, I don’t think they’d have wanted me with them.’ She darted her eyes around the room, as if worried someone might have overheard her and been on their way over to scold her for speaking so honestly.
Seth shrugged at her. ‘That’s not your problem, though, right? He was your father. You should have been up front with your brother.’
‘No, really,’ Itzy said.
She could have sworn she felt the floor move beneath her feet. ‘That would not have gone down well.’
Seth looked at her curiously for what felt like a very long time, before saying, ‘You don’t know that.’
Devon seemed to sense Itzy’s discomfort and took over. ‘Did you know Stephen well?’
Seth shook his head. ‘I’m more a friend of the family.’ When he spoke again, his eyes were on Itzy. ‘I just found myself watching you and thinking it must be harder on you than anyone else here.’
Itzy lifted her head in surprise. ‘Why?’
He furrowed his brow, a look on his face that suggested he shouldn’t have to explain such a thing to her. He opened his mouth to say something, when another boy approached them, standing at Seth’s side. The blood rushed out of Itzy’s face and she said, ‘Osiris.’
He looked so much like Stephen, it was like staring at a ghost. But up close, she could see there was a lot of Evelyn in him, too. He’d grown and was now almost a foot taller than his half-sister. His black hair was overgrown, dashing into his dark eyes, which were mirrors of Itzy’s. He had that same sand-blasted complexion, too. But he had the advantage of being a boy, so resembling their father wasn’t such a strange thing.
He looked stricken. Like something had just happened to him, but he wasn’t sure if he should tell anyone. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, he smoothed his expression and took in the sight of his half-sister.
‘It’s Oz,’ he corrected her.
‘Oh. Right,’ Itzy uttered, unable to take her eyes off of him. What had that glimpse of emotion meant? And why, now, didn’t he look as troubled at seeing her as she did at seeing him?
Then she realised. She meant nothing to him. Of course it didn’t bother him, because it didn’t affect him at all.
But something had.
Oz didn’t seem very interested in family reunions and passed on from the group to the buffet table. He grabbed a plate and began filling it with food. Itzy felt something close to repulsion overcome her.
‘How can you eat?’ she snapped before she could stop herself.
Oz froze, his hands hovering over a bowl of salt and vinegar crisps. He angled his head so he could look at her - really look at her, as if he’d only just noticed she was worth studying. He dropped his hand to his side and walked back over to her. Then he said quietly, ‘Are you doubting my grief?’
Itzy’s mouth opened to say something, but she couldn’t think what, so she closed it again, feeling stupid and far too young to deal with everything that had suddenly become her life.
Oz licked his upper lip and held her eyes with his own. ‘Don’t you think if anyone here has a right to be upset about what happened, it’s me?’
Seth put one of his painters’ hands on Oz’s shoulder and said, ‘Oz.’
Oz shook him off and went on like he hadn’t heard him, his dark eyes finding his sister’s. ‘Your mother threw him out seven years ago. You weren’t even supposed to be his family. He already had a family - me.’ He hammered a whitely clenched fist against his chest to emphasise his last word.
Then it happened. Itzy was finally sick. Everything she had been carrying inside of her came up and poured out of her, all over her brother’s black trousers and shiny matching dress shoes. She heaved forward and fell to the ground, unable to control her own body.
‘Itzy!’ she heard Gwen cry from across the room before she hurried over to her niece.
Mum, Itzy called out in her head. Mum, I need you. You should be here. Why aren’t you? Why are you never there for me anymore?
It occurred to her that Oz’s mother had vanished, too. She hadn’t seen Evelyn since the service. The Loveguard children were two lone kids without guidance at a time like this. What did that mean?
Then she felt herself falling, tipping over onto the floor. The last thing she saw before everything went dark was a pair of grey eyes.
SIX
Gwen drove the girls home in a rental car. She dropped Devon off first, and then Itzy. When they pulled up outside the house, she turned off the ignition and sat there, not opening the doors.
‘Itz,’ she said. She twisted in the driver’s seat so she could see her. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
Itzy shrugged off the concern. ‘I’m fine now. I told you. I just needed to…get things out of my system, I guess.’
‘All over Oz,’ Gwen added with a slight grin. ‘I know that must have been hard for you. But you did it.’ She leaned over and squeezed Itzy’s hand. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
That was when Itzy finally cried. The tears spilled out like Iguazu Falls, unstoppable. Gwen unbuckled her seatbelt and moved closer to her. She took her in her arms and held her as she flooded the upholstery with her sorrow.
Gwen stroked her hair like Myra used to do when Itzy was very small. The thought of her mother made it worse, and she sobbed even harder.
It was over half an hour before Itzy recovered herself. It wasn’t so much that she felt better, but rather she had run out of energy. She was suddenly too exhausted to cry. She pulled herself up and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She licked her lips and tasted her own salt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Gwen’s brows knitted together. ‘Your trouble is you always feel guilty for something.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Itzy said again, but her mouth twitched so her aunt knew she was teasing.
‘Do you want me to walk you to the door?’ Gwen offered.
Itzy shook her head and sniffed. ‘No. I’m okay, really.’ She drew up her mouth in the shape of a smile that was almost convincing. She pushed the car door open and stepped out. She hunched down a little so she could see her aunt through the open door. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I love you, Itzy.’
‘I love you too.’
‘And I know I’m far away,’ Gwen said, ‘but at heart, I’m always with you.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll ring you when my flight gets in, if you like. It’ll be late, but….’
Itzy tried for another smile. ‘I’d like that. Thanks. Have a safe journey.’
She closed the car door and watched as her aunt drove away to her hotel.
Itzy let out a long sigh and walked up to her front door. It was an old mock-Tudor house, white crisscrossed with black. The lights were ouf, but her mother’s car was out front, a blue Hyundai on its last legs that would probably cost more to repair than replace.
Itzy fumbled in her bag for her house key. When she found it, she unlocked the white PVC door and heaved herself into the house, kicking off her painful black heels and not caring where they landed.
After the entranceway, the first room she hit was the kitchen. She was met with an alcoholic aroma that made her feel sick all over again. She moved quickly through the kitchen and turned a corner. She was about to mount the staircase when she heard her mother’s voice.
‘Did you say goodbye?’ It came out as a snarl, like she was angry.
Itzy turned around slowly. She nodded.
‘Did everyone cry over him? Did they make like he was some sort of saint? That’s what they always did. Myra, that can’t be true. He wouldn’t do that to you. He loves you.’ She let out a noise that might have been a laugh, but there was nothing humorous about it. She held a bottle in her hand and swigged it down.
‘Mum,’ Itzy said carefully, ‘you’re drunk. You need to go lie down and - and go to sleep.’
‘Sleep?’ Myra barked. ‘You think sleep will help me?’
‘I - I -’
‘I wish I’d killed him myself,’ Myra confessed. ‘He got off easy. Painlessly. It should have been me. I should have -’
The rest was cut off by Itzy’s hands. They had flown involuntarily to her ears, to block out her mother’s words. She couldn’t do this anymore. Some small part of her had always thought perhaps one day her father would change, would get
help, get better, and then they could be friends.
Maybe.
But now he was gone forever and she would never know what could have been. Her mother seemed past hope. Gwen would go home, thousands of miles away, and then what would she be left with?
It would just be her.
A frightening truth about being Stephen Loveguard’s daughter was that as she listened to her mother scream murderously about her dead ex-husband, Itzy felt her own mood slip. She was suddenly very sure that if she didn’t get out right then, she might do something she would later regret.
‘I - I have to go,’ she stammered.
She shoved her feet into a pair of trainers without thinking about it and stormed out of the house.
‘Where are you going?’ her mother shrieked after here. ‘Itzel! ITZEL!’
Even if she’d wanted to answer, she couldn’t have. She had no idea where she was headed. She was just running blindly down the street, trying to get far, far away from her mother before she could….
No.
No, she was not her father. They were just images, pictures in her mind, to trick her into thinking she could do it. But she couldn’t. Not really.
Except she had.
With Ash.
Mythos (The Descendants, #1) Page 6