Designed by Death

by Melody Rose

  And now she was gone.

  When I fought through the first wave of tears, I finally managed to ask Ansel what happened. I assumed it had been her disease that finally took over, but that didn’t make sense right away. My friend Darren was the best healer on campus and had been working with the blacksmithing teacher on managing her symptoms and even working on a cure for her. So then my brain instantly thought something had happened, an accident maybe? Like the fire in the forgery during my first year at the Academy.

  However, the reason Ansel eventually gave me never, ever crossed my mind.

  “They say it was suicide, Cheyenne,” Ansel said gently as if he knew the words would break me.

  Essentially, they did. Instead of crying, I launched into a rage that I’m not proud of. No one on campus knew Ruby better than me, not even her brother, and I knew as well as I knew my own name that Ruby would never take her life.

  Ever since I had arrived on campus, prepped for this funeral, I knew that I had to get to the bottom of what had actually happened because whatever bullshit reason they were offering just simply wasn’t true.

  My jaw began to ache as I realized I was clenching it. I tried my best to loosen the muscles, but the tension never subsided. My whole face was tense as I contorted it into a look of sheer contempt. Violet, my former roommate and best friend on campus, tried to get me to smile or at least look a little less severe but when I inadvertently growled at her, she took a step back and decided that today of all days, I was allowed to be upset in whatever way I saw fit.

  Violet and my other two friends, Darren and Benji, stood off to the side with Ansel. Darren and Violet huddled under an umbrella while Benji shared one with his boyfriend, Zach. Like Ansel and me, Benji and Zach had gotten together during last year’s love fest and were one of the few couples that stayed together after the whole ordeal ended.

  Suddenly my mind thought about Ruby and Alexandria, her lover who passed away before I ever had the chance to meet her. Ruby talked about Alexandria as her great love, the other half of her life. If anything, that was one prominent reason that I knew Ruby couldn’t have taken her own life. If she committed suicide, she wouldn’t get to reunite with Alexandria in the afterlife on the Elysian Fields.

  In Grecian lore, there were three levels to the Underworld ruled by the god of death, Hades: Tartarus, the Asphodel Meadows, and the Elysian Fields. The Elysian Fields was where all of the good mortals ended up, in a blissful afterlife for all eternity. The Asphodel Meadows was the sort of Purgatory of the Greek myths, where the mortals that were neither good nor bad ended up. Finally, Tartarus was the place of punishment.

  An ignoble suicide automatically landed someone in Tartarus, or the Asphodel Meadows if they were lucky. Ruby firmly believed that Alexandria had ended up in the Elysian Fields.

  “If for nothing else than for having to deal with me,” she used to joke.

  So if she ever had the hopes of being reunited with her love, then taking her own life was not an option for Ruby. Ever.

  I held onto this notion as Maurice, the Olympic Official who was the son of Hades, presided over the funeral. But I was only half-listening to him as he prayed to the gods and performed the ceremony of putting a coin under Ruby’s tongue so she could pay Charon and cross the river Styx. My eyes hardened on the General who stood with the eleven other Olympic Officials on the other end of the coffin, directly across from me and Jarred.

  After demanding more details from Ansel, he told me that the General had been the one to find her, which made me all the more suspicious.

  “He’s got something to do with this,” I said as I stomped around the apartment. “I just know it.”

  “Cheyenne,” Ansel said, his voice still low and gentle, like speaking to a crying toddler.

  I swiped the back of my hand across my nose and continued on, without acknowledging his comment. “He has always had it out for Ruby, been suspicious since the fire.”

  “No, Shy, he has it out for you,” Ansel corrected. I could sense that he was trying to talk some logic into me, but I wouldn’t have it. I was logical because there was no way that Ruby would have done this. “Don’t project that onto Ruby.”

  “Maybe he killed Ruby because of me,” I said with a lump in my throat.

  “Cheyenne!” Mom cut in this time. “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it?” I said as I whirled on her. My eyes were wide and wild, red and swollen from crying. I had bit my fingernails down to numbs in my anxiousness to understand what the hell was going on. “That man hates me. I’m still not sure why, but he would do anything to knock me down a peg.”

  “You seriously think he would commit murder?” Ansel gaped at me. “Come on, Shy, that doesn’t make any sense. He’s the General.”

  Even though Mom and Ansel spent the next twenty minutes talking me back down off the cliff, I still held true to my theory. Which is why I continued to shoot daggers at the General every chance I got during the funeral.

  However, the son of Zeus never once glanced my way. His eyes shifted to Jarred at my side or to the casket in front of us. I wanted to believe that he was purposely ignoring me, but another, smaller voice informed me that the General really just thought so little of me so as not to acknowledge me at my mentor’s funeral.

  I heard the creak of the mechanism before I saw the casket descend. It echoed out throughout the cemetery, bouncing off the other headstones. It was as a modern tradition to bury the dead, more American than Greek, especially since the Greeks were the first to burn their dead rather than bury them. However, I appreciated having some commemorative place to go to mourn Ruby. I knew I would be visiting her grave more often than was probably healthy, but I would have to go every day to remind myself that she was actually gone.

  There was a thunk as the casket hit the bottom of the grave. Two soldiers pressed a button on either side of the lowering device, snapping the straps and sending them whirling back into their containers, like measuring tape zipping back into place.

  Next to me, I felt a jab at my side. I looked over to see Jarred holding out a handful of mud to me. It was supposed to be dirt for us to throw into the grave, symbolic of her burial before they covered the whole thing. But as it was raining, our handfuls of dirt quickly turned to brown sludge.

  The cold penetrated my hands instantly, and I wanted the dirt out of my hands as soon as possible. I reached out my arm, holding my hand over the casket, and opened my fingers. The mud slipped down at a snail’s pace, coating my entire palm in its gross paste. I put the umbrella handle in the crook of my neck and used my other hand to slide it off. I knew I looked ridiculous as I tried to get the mess off my hand. The inevitable embarrassment didn’t help my confidence or my sour mood. Finally, the chuck of mud fell into the pit with an unceremonial thunk.

  Smartly, Jarred rolled his chunk into a ball and tossed it in with a gentle underhand throw. We both wiped our hands on our pants, not caring about messing up our uniforms. As we did this, Jarred caught my eye and offered me a small but understanding smile.

  I tried to return the gesture, but I couldn’t muster up the right emotion. Anger and grief still prevailed. I didn’t have room for comradery at the moment.

  Maurice interrupted with a few words in Greek, concluding the ceremony. “μπορεί η μνήμη της να είναι αιώνια” he said in a voice that echoed out over the rain.

  The rest of the onlookers repeated the phrase, but in English. “May her memory be eternal.”

  “May her memory be eternal,” I whispered the phrase under my breath, a second behind the others.

  Then, two Gi soldiers stepped forwards without any protection from the rain. They each stood on either side of the casket. Their arms were straight at their sides, palms flat and faced forward. The two of them eyed one another as if exchanging a silent conversation. As one, the soldiers moved their hands forward like there were slowly pushing a wall.

  There was a rumble beneath our feet and, unpr
epared for the lack of solidity, I stumbled and lost my footing. Jarred quickly reacted and reached out to straighten me. I jerked away from his grip, determined to stand without his help. As I did so, I got a glimpse of the casket.

  Slowly but surely, the dirt around the casket poured into the pit. It trickled in like a steady waterfall and filled up the grave. Before I knew it, there was no sight of Ruby’s casket. All of it was buried beneath our feet, never to be disturbed again.

  The finality of seeing the closed grave took all of the breath out of my lungs. Ruby was never really coming back. That was it. Her body would stay in the ground until it joined the rest of the earth. I would never get to speak to her again or see her prancing about the forge in her iconic overalls.

  The last step was the gravestone. Another Gi soldier, this time one with a rock specialty, squatted down in front of the blank headstone. Then they proceeded to punch the air. Water droplets flew off them like a shaking dog. But with each punch, a new letter appeared on the stone. When the Gi soldier was finished, a new inscription shone crisp and clean:

  Ruby Algon

  Daughter of Poseidon

  1955 - 2019

  My eyebrows shot up at the inscription. Before I knew what happened, I voiced my thoughts aloud. “That’s it?”

  Even the rain seemed to go quiet at my exclamation. It slowed to a light mist while the guests of the funeral stared at me with mixed expressions of horror, surprise, and caution. But I didn’t pay them any mind. Once my mouth opened, it couldn't seem to close again.

  “That’s all they’re going to say about her?” I balked as I used my umbrella to point at the headstone. “That she was a daughter of Poseidon.”

  “Cheyenne,” Jarred said with a warning tone.

  “She was so much more than that!” I said, not bothering to lower my voice. “What about something like ‘Beloved Teacher,’ ‘Lover of Horses,’ or ‘Partner to Alexandria’? Anything but that.” I sneered at the inscription in disgust.

  “That is how all of the headstones are written,” the General said, his voice measured as though he were reading from a history text.

  I whirled on him, my tongue ready to lash out. “Is that really how little you think of her? Or of us? That we’re only the product of our parents and no more? What a terrible existence.”

  “It is an honor to serve the gods,” the General snapped, his grey eyes growing stormy. “You would do well to remember that, child of Hephaestus.”

  “My name’s Cheyenne, and you know it,” I said without hesitation. I leaned forward, my irritation making me combative. Suddenly, I felt a hand strap across my body like a seat belt.

  The arm was connected to Ruby’s brother, who held me back but didn’t look at me. He kept his gaze trained on the General.

  “Forgive her, General,” Jarred said, his own tone monotonous. “She is grieving and knows not what she says.”

  The General took in a large breath through his nose, the air pinched to make a sharp, narrow sound. His bulky chest rose in time with his breath. It stayed inflated for a moment before the son of Zeus released it, with the same amount of gravitas.

  “Her grief is understandable,” the General conceded. “She is forgiven.”

  I didn’t like the fact that they were talking about me like I wasn’t even there. I opened my mouth to say so, but as though he could read my mind, Jarred pressed his arm harder into me, a clear warning. I smacked my lips shut and bit on the bottom one so as not to lash out again.

  Maurice coughed in an attempt to break the awkward tension. “We invite you to the cafeteria for the traditional makaria meal,” Maurice announced, opening his hands to the group. He gestured back towards the center part of campus, down the hill and away from the graveyard.

  The General spun on his heel and led the other Olympic Officials away from the burial site. Soon, other students followed. No one came over to me and Jarred. There would be time for their sympathies at the makaria meal, or the Meal of Mercy as it was known in English.

  Jarred didn’t release his hold on me until no one was left save for the two of us, Mac, Ansel, and my three friends. Mac didn’t approach us, however. He continued to stare down at the mound of dirt, wringing his wide-brimmed hat around and around in his grip. He paused only for a moment to wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Then the farmer turned on his heel and headed off in the opposite direction from the crowd.

  “Mac,” Violet called out. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to go and check on the animals,” Mac said as he gestured back towards the farmhouse with his thumb over his shoulder.

  “You’re not going to come to the makaria meal?” Violet said with a little disappointment in her voice. “I made all of Ruby’s favorites.”

  “Sorry, Vi, but I…” The words seemed to stick in Mac’s throat. He put a hand to his throat and gurgled a little before continuing. “It’s too hard right now.” Then the farmer looked up at Jared and me. “You two understand, don’t you?”

  Jarred nodded solemnly. “Please do what is best for you and the animals right now, Mac. They still need you.”

  Despite its wetness, Mac slapped his hat on his head and tipped it in Jarred’s direction, not saying anything more. We watched his hunched shoulders and slow frame move back towards the farm. It took until he disappeared over a hill for anyone to say anything.

  “We’ll see you down there, Cheyenne?” Benji said as he reached out his hand to touch me on the shoulder. Thinking better of it, he retracted his hand and gripped the handle of his umbrella tighter.

  I didn’t answer them, but Ansel guided my friends onward. He planted a kiss on my head before leading the group down the hill towards the main part of campus.

  “You don’t have to go to the makaria, you know?” Jarred said as though he were apologizing to me.

  “Really?” I said, not bothering to hide my relief.

  “Really,” Jarred confirmed. “It’s technically for the family, which you aren’t by blood. All of Poseidon’s children will do a processional as others offer their condolences.”

  “But not all of Poseidon’s children even knew who she was!” I exclaimed, my anger returning in full force. “She didn’t have a single one in the blacksmithing class last year.”

  “I know,” Jarred said as though the words pained him. “But it’s tradition.”

  I scoffed at his answer, my disgust on full display. As if my eye roll and my crossed arms didn’t give it away.

  The rain came to a full stop, though the sun still hid its face behind some gray clouds. I closed my umbrella and shook it out away from the burial mound, consequently turning my back away from Jarred.

  “I know you’re angry, but you cannot keep disrespecting the General like that,” Jarred said, his voice tight.

  “I’ll respect him when he respects me,” I growled in response.

  “That’s not how it works,” Jarred said, a new urgency taking over his tone. He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, spinning me around to face him. “He is your superior, and like it or not, you need to listen to what he says.”

  “And what? Be like the rest of you sheep?” I snarled, sticking my neck out aggressively.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that to me on the day of my sister’s funeral,” Jarred said as he held up a finger to stop me. “I’m trying to offer you a little advice, Cheyenne, because of how you helped Ruby and because of how much she cared for you. But you don’t have to take it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

  With that final statement, Jarred turned from me and began walking down the hill. I didn’t say anything and let him walk away. There was one moment when the son of Poseidon looked back over his shoulder towards the grave and released a somber sigh.

  At that moment, I saw a glimpse of the vulnerability he tried to show me sooner. I didn’t have relations with Jarred before this, but we were now connected because of Ruby. I shouldn’t take that bond for granted.
>
  But there was something else in his eyes. It was a question that I continued to ask myself with each heartbeat: Why, Ruby? Why?

  “Do you really think she did it?” I blurted out, my tongue not able to stay controlled for long.

  Jarred didn’t take his eyes off the grave for a moment. The shift from the mound of dirt to me was slow. His gaze burned into me, one of hatred and anger that I hadn’t seen before from the Olympic Official. I thought he was going to confirm my suspicions, validate my doubts.

  Instead, he turned away and walked down the hill, leaving me more confused than before.

  4

  It seemed as though the only safe space on campus was the forge. It was ironic because I would have thought that the forge would only remind me of my late mentor, but it was the only place I wanted to be during this time. I wanted to feel the cold of the metal beneath my fingers, feel it change from something dark and stiff to a hot, malleable substance.

  Everything felt out of control at that moment. If I could get to the forge, manipulate some pieces of metal, then maybe I could regain some semblance of control. Maybe I would feel better.

  I walked back to campus, but instead of heading to the cafeteria to be with the rest of the students and teachers, I veered south towards the forge. I could have avoided the main quad all together, but something about the emptiness of it appealed to me at that moment. It was a beautiful space in which I could be truly alone with my thoughts and my grief.

  I watched my feet along the twisted and winding cobblestone paths. My black boots clapped along, splashing up water in the puddles leftover from the rain. I alone made the only sound on campus. Not even the wind dared to make an appearance. The clouds hung low and overcast, putting the quad in a gray filter, almost like being in a black and white movie.