She’d dragged the huge bag of discarded items down the stairs and left them in the hall, asking her dad to take them to the charity bin when he had a chance. Then she’d scoured the op shops in Smithfield on the days she spent there, buying black clothes to replace what she’d thrown away.
Her grandma also complained about her black bedroom, but Rhiannon loved that it so perfectly suited her mood. It was dark and gloomy, with black wallpaper, furnishings and bedding, and thick blood-red velvet curtains blocking out the light. It reflected her frame of mind and articulated what she could not – that she was drowning in gloom and doom and bleak, black depression. She didn’t even mind when her dad teased her about being the lonely goth, after a song she liked, because she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything.
But at the end of October, five weeks after Beth had died, Anne packed up and went home to her husband, worried that he needed her attention too, and convinced now that her son and grandchildren would survive their grief. Mike had been going to work every day, but that was more to escape the memories at home than because he was coping. Yet he thanked his mother and made a vow to his kids that they would be okay. Rhiannon doubted that very much, but thought it was nice that he believed it.
* * * * *
On the afternoon following Anne’s departure, Mike was sitting at the dining room table when Rhiannon got home. “How was school today?” he asked carefully.
Rhiannon shrugged. “Okay I guess.”
“Come and talk to me darling,” her dad said, indicating the chair opposite him.
“I’ve got homework,” she replied dismissively, and headed towards the stairs.
“Sit down Rhiannon,” he insisted, voice louder, and firmer. “It’s not a request.”
Startled out of her apathy for a moment, she peered at her father closely, for the first time in a long time. He was gaunter than she remembered, and his face now was stern.
“Okay,” she sighed, pulling out a chair and collapsing down into it. The air crackled with electricity, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest and tucked her hands into her armpits, just in case there were sparks, then waited impatiently for whatever her dad was going to say so she could go upstairs and hide in her room again.
“I know you haven’t been going to school,” he began, and she gasped. Horror crossed her face, and panic, and she suddenly felt a lot more uncomfortable.
“How do you know?” she demanded, face defiant, surly.
“Darling, Laura’s a friend, of course she was going to tell me. And even if she didn’t, one of the other teachers would have called me to ask about your long, unexplained absence. Not to mention the bus driver, who asked me if you were going to school in Smithfield now.”
She sighed theatrically, but stayed silent. What could she say to that? The funny thing was, she didn’t actually care any more. What was he going to do? Send her to her room? Ground her? She’d been pretty much grounded for the last month anyway, spending as much time as possible hiding in her room, avoiding people, places, even her family. She’d really like to be officially grounded, to never be able to leave the house.
“Besides, you might have fooled your grandmother with your daily excursions, but I’ve known for a while,” he said, and she stared at him, surprised.
“I decided to let you have some time, to see if that helped. I was hoping you would eventually feel strong enough and return of your own accord, but it’s been more than a month since your mum died,” he continued, and she could tell he was struggling to keep from crying. A pang of remorse swept through her. This was just what her dad needed while grieving his beloved wife – a troubled teenager causing problems.
“You may have checked out of our family Rhiannon, and I’m trying really hard to be patient about that, but you can’t abandon your schooling. Your mother would be so disappointed in you.”
“Well, she’s not here, is she?” she said spitefully. “She checked out of the family long before I ever did.”
Her father looked as shocked as if she’d slapped him, and for a split second she felt guilty. But the sensation passed.
“Rhiannon!”
“Fine, I’m sorry,” she snapped, and she did seem contrite, for a moment at least. But soon enough her expression slipped back to surly and defiant.
“There’s a week-long school holiday starting on Monday, so I guess you can have these last two days, then the week, but you have to go back when term starts,” he said, and his tone let her know that his decision was final. Part of her was impressed by his take-charge attitude, which she’d only ever seen before at the church with Patricia, yet she still wanted to rebel.
“Everything just seems so pointless,” she moaned, and this time when her mask of surliness dropped she just sounded sad. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any reason to do anything without her.”
“I know darling, believe me,” he said, voice low, and still devastated. “But this is for you. I don’t want you to throw away your chance of future happiness, of being able to pursue your dreams, because I let you give up on yourself.”
“What future happiness? What dreams?”
“It’s not always going to be quite this painful, I promise. We will learn to live with our loss, and we will create a new life together, a new future,” he replied, although she wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her, or himself.
“Besides, going back to work actually helped me – it gave me something to focus on, to take my mind off my grief.”
Rhiannon glared at him. “But you still cry yourself to sleep every night,” she said bluntly.
Her dad shrugged. “Yes I do, and who knows when that will end. But my days are a tiny bit easier when my mind is occupied, I promise. You have to let us in, let us help you. Reconnect with your friends and your family.”
The accusation put her on the defensive, even though she knew he was right, and she angrily stomped off upstairs.
* * * * *
And so she finally returned to school. Six weeks had passed since the death of her mum, yet the fog of anger and guilt that hovered like a red haze in front of her eyes, no matter what she was doing, hadn’t come close to dispersing.
She hated being back in the classroom, hated having to deal with teachers, with students, with fake-sympathetic eyes and talk that died down whenever she entered the room. She hated being behind in her classes, and unable to concentrate enough to catch up. It was a nightmare she walked through like a zombie, taking nothing in, giving nothing out, but somehow managing to fake her way through well enough that people thought she was okay.
It had been almost impossible to compose herself when she saw her two best friends for the first time, on that first day back. Debbie and Sue had shrieked when they saw her, and raced over to drag her up the steps and off to their first class, speaking over each other in their attempts to apologise.
“We’ve missed you so bad,” Debbie said, regret in her voice.
“And we’ve been thinking of you so much. I’m so sorry we were too scared to visit you. We just didn’t want to intrude, or annoy you with our presence,” Sue added, sounding as though she was on the verge of tears. “Can you forgive us?”
Rhiannon pasted an attempt at a smile on her face. “Of course,” she shrugged. Deep down she wasn’t sure she would be able to forgive them, but that was something to think about later. Today – and every day back in the hell that was school – she just had to somehow keep it together long enough to make it to home time without bursting into tears.
It was hard though, because the absence of her mother loomed over everything. Each time she bumped into the teacher who’d taken over Beth’s classes, or came face-to-face with the photos of her with the debate team or the netball squad in the gym, her heart broke.
People were pretty good about giving her a wide berth though, and letting her sulk through her days without too much pressure put on her. But she still couldn’t face their kind eyes or their well-meaning advice. She
didn’t want to learn how to cope, or hear another positive pep talk, or get another condescending prescription for how to heal. And she could sense how uncomfortable they all were around her, which made her feel awkward all over again. Worst of all were the cloyingly sympathetic “I know how you feel” moments. No they didn’t. How could anyone understand what she was feeling?
Each week she could feel the pressure building, feel the people around her losing patience with her, deciding that her time of mourning and all the “allowances” they’d been giving her should end soon. Was there an unwritten rule she hadn’t been informed of, about the acceptable length of mourning? An official day on which people automatically stopped dropping off dinners, or hugging you in sympathy? When they stopped being careful not to ask how you were, because they thought you must be fine by now, must be over the pain?
There was no way she was ready though, and she didn’t know if she ever would be. It still destroyed her to see the hurt in her little brother’s eyes when she fobbed him off again. To see the disappointment and fear in her father’s eyes. But even if she wanted to, she didn’t know how to claw her way out of this hole she was burying herself in.
When the two-month anniversary of her loss rolled around, she was still struggling to cope. Still struggling to get through the days, to not push everyone away. Loneliness surrounded her, and while she wouldn’t admit it, it hurt her deeply that even Debbie and Sue avoided her when they could, and were so obviously uncomfortable whenever they were around her. The few times they had tried to reach out to her, she’d been so grateful that she cried, which hadn’t helped matters.
It tortured her, that people had cared about them for a few weeks after Beth died, had brought them casseroles and flowers, and offered to shop for them, babysit Brodie, collect homework for her, clean their house even. But then the sympathy had dried up and the visits had stopped, and everyone went back to their normal lives, with their normal families, and seemed to forget their tragedy – and want them to forget it too. They acted as though she should be over it by now, moving on, happily accepting the new status quo and not needing any extra consideration. One of her classmates had actually told her that her sadness was “getting old”, and she should hurry up and get over it already. Gritting her teeth, she silently prayed for the term to end, so she could hole up in her room again, and spend her days avoiding everyone.
* * * * *
Weekends brought at least some respite, because she could hide away, pretending she had homework. But one Saturday morning she woke up with a great sense of foreboding. Frantically she racked her brain, then groaned when she remembered that her dad expected her to visit her mother’s grave with him that day.
She still hadn’t been able to face visiting her mum’s final resting place. She wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t denial, because she was very well aware that Beth was gone. Perhaps she was just a coward, without the courage to do what she knew needed to be done, for her own sake if nothing else.
Fortunately her dad was called in to work, which took the pressure off a bit, but finally she dragged herself out of the house and down the road leading out of town, towards the old cemetery. The last of the autumn leaves crunched under her feet, but she was immune to their beauty. All she saw was grey, despite the blue sky, vivid leaves and weak sunshine. All she felt was the chill of the coming frost, and the drabness of the grey headstones stretching out across the hill.
Nervously she opened the gate, and quickly stepped inside. It looked even more gothic than she remembered from the times she’d wandered through it in the past, back before she’d had a loved one there and wanted to avoid it at all costs. Ivy wound around the wrought iron fence, and along the base of some of the graves. Peering from under the big old oak tree, she took in the whole of the grassy space. At the back, where the ground sloped upwards, were the oldest memorials, and she headed there first, not yet ready to visit her mum.
One of the ancient headstones had fallen over and lay on its side now, the gaping hole in the earth where it had been making her feel sad, and a little freaked out. But other granite memorials and statues were beautiful, and filled her with a sense of longing and wonder.
Who were these people who had died so long ago? Did anyone still remember them? One of the graves had fresh flowers lying in the shadow of its tombstone, despite the person having died more than a hundred and fifty years ago. An ancestor, she supposed, but someone who would never have met the deceased person. How did it feel, to revere someone so far removed? Was it a family obligation, handed down through the generations? And had the other long-gone people in neighbouring graves been forgotten over time, or not long after they’d been buried here?
Some of the headstones were cracked, and most of them were too faded to read the inscriptions. But the ones that were still legible filled her with pain. Little Alice had died aged five, and her brother Johnny at eighteen. Henrietta had been just fifteen. Mother-of-three Agnes was taken from her family aged twenty-two. In contrast though, others had lived long existences, especially for their time, with at least three of the oldest graves being home to people who had survived until their late nineties.
The wording of their memorials also struck a chord deep within her. Some hadn’t died, they’d “fallen asleep”. Others had been “taken home”, one to “a far better place”, which made her sad. Had their life on earth been so much worse than the nothingness that faced them after death?
Many of the older graves featured round silver cylinders with holes in the top. A few had flowers wedged into them, but others remained empty and bare, filling her head with visions of air holes for the dead, which made no sense at all.
Shivering as a brisk wind lifted her long wavy hair from her neck, she breathed in the scent of herbs and wildflowers, and smiled when she recognised the sharpness of the rosemary and the sweetness of the lavender that grew wild throughout the space. She shivered too at the reality of all the deaths spread out before her. In the past, she would walk by the graveyard without giving it a single moment of contemplation, yet all that had changed now. She’d been avoiding it since her mum’s death, taking the long way to school so she didn’t have to see it, but it was time she faced her fears.
A gate behind the oldest graves caught her eye, distracting her, and she wandered over to it, intrigued. A small sign announced that it marked the entrance to the green burial site, where people could be buried without grave or tombstone, as a part of nature. Gazing over the small hill, she noticed the indentation of grave-sized dips in the grass, and realised that people were buried here, but in a non-permanent fashion – as time passed, they would literally return to the earth.
Something about it touched her deeply. There were herbs on a few of the mounds, and wildflowers on others, and earthen paths meandered beside the spaces then curved around and disappeared under a stand of trees. A few wooden benches were placed there too, with small brass plaques on them, and she thought it was a wonderful idea, to rest in peace in such tranquil surroundings, in a place where your loved ones could come to sit with you in tranquillity, remembering you with the sound of bird song and the scent of flowers.
She tried to imagine how many people were buried there, and whether it would become really popular over time. It was certainly practical, since cemeteries were filling up fast, but it was also a really beautiful idea. Idly she wondered if Rose had performed any ceremonies there, and whether it was what she would choose for herself. It seemed an incredibly pagan and priestessy kind of way to be laid to rest.
Curious, she read the information on the back of the sign. Any kind of service was allowed, be it religious or secular, and you could have an officiant run it, or do it yourself. But there were restrictions. The only coffin materials allowed were quickly biodegradable ones, such as softwood, cardboard or wicker, and there could be no hardwood, metal or manmade materials included. Small native wildflowers could be planted on the grave, and cut flowers could be left as long as they were cleared awa
y after they wilted.
The idea appealed to her, and she wondered if her nature-loving mum had known about it. Then again, graves were for those left behind, and there was a certain romance to having a place where you could “visit” your lost loved ones. The graves of people she didn’t even know had moved her deeply, and she was glad that her mum had one too. Which didn’t explain why she was still avoiding going to it.
Taking a deep breath to calm and steady herself, she turned back to the cemetery, and slowly made her way down the hill, noticing the change in tombstone styles, and the dates of birth and death of those in this newer section.
As the graves became more modern, the lettering got clearer, and the weathering less dramatic. And finally, her feet dragging, she found herself at her mother’s burial site. Grey stone outlined the rectangle of her plot, a small marble angel statue stood in one corner, and the black inscription stood out starkly against the pale grey headstone.
In loving memory of Beth Stark,
Adored mother, wife, friend and teacher.
Off to unpathed waters and undreamed shores,
and forever in our hearts.
Blessed be…
Tears welled as she read the engraved letters, and remembered Rose’s beautiful ceremony for Beth. The priestess’s kind words played over and over in her mind, bringing her a measure of comfort, and some of the tears that streaked down her face were happy, or at least grateful ones, for the knowledge that she had been so blessed to have such an amazing mother.
But the rest of her tears were sad, and angry, and she grimaced, then almost laughed, as she saw dark clouds form in the distance then race towards her. Carefully she tried to breathe calm back into her body, into her mind, to still the frantic racing of her heart and soothe the fury that seemed to be fuelling the storm clouds overhead.
Into the Storm: Into the Storm Trilogy Book One Page 18