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𝐎𝐍𝐄 : 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇

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The police found Pandora Bask's body after a month of her rotting inside the barn. They only discovered her when an anonymous tip came in and gave a location and hung up. The barn where they discovered her was known for being a popular spot to dumb bodies, especially since the murders from the seventies and eighties plagued the town.

It was no surprise to find her. Since she'd been missing.

They found her with her throat slit, bruised and battered, clearly had fought for her own life towards the end. Her face was cleaned and the walls of the barn smelled like bleach. Whoever had been there last had scrubbed it clean.

Her hands were placed atop her stomach, her eyes closed, as if she were deep in sleep. Even her feet were crossed at the ankles, like whoever had been here had made sure to make her presentable, save for the swirling, dark, dried spread of blood that had once pooled underneath her as she lay choking on exactly what was supposed to keep her alive.

That was why her family agreed for a closed casket.

I gave myself a month to mourn before calling that tip in, before going back the night after finding her to clean and scrub and make her perfect. It was the least I could do, since she died for me, since whoever had killed her had done it to punish me.

To wear me down and ruin me.

Her funeral was set for today and as I sat there, in the back pews of the Clandestine Church, I couldn't let myself bubble with rage at the sight of Victor Macabre, dressed with that damned white collar and his fake smile, addressing the mourners. I couldn't avoid the Morticianers any longer. I had given them a month, given myself a month to sob and wallow and plot and plot and plot.

But I didn't come up with a thing besides bust in and kill and stab and slash until I was the only one left.

Pandora Bask's death had brought me to life. Well, it brought the anger inside me alive like a fire. It raged and raged and sent me down a spiral towards the unsettling black pit that had opened up in my gut.

It seemed, with all my anger and torment, it had kept the ghosts away.

I hadn't been inside the gray for a month, not since finding her. Not since that wind had shifted everything around us, not since that horrifying silence had settled on both my body and spirit. They must've sensed I have been weak, that I've been exhausted with what's happened, that I'm lost and alone.

John and Ace hadn't reached out since they went off together, with Conner still tucked inside Ace. They had run off and left me here to deal with the aftermath I hadn't expected. I didn't expect to find her body, I thought, at the time, I still had two days to work with.

But Crow, if he had killed her, seemed to have done it hours after snatching her up like some prize.

Archer Crow.

Demon, killer, ruggedly handsome, an annoying prick.

He had begged me that night not to go inside the barn, pleading with me to stay put until he got there. That knowledge, those few words he had cried were not the ones of whoever had killed her. Whoever had murdered her in the sickest way possible.

To me, it didn't seem like he was the killer, and perhaps, the master Conner had bragged about that same night might be.

The devil.

Or someone masquerading as one that seemed to have lured Conner and a few other Morticaners away from their fearsome leader. It seemed that someone was deliberately meddling in our lives and as much as I hated to admit it, it seemed that I would have to go to Crow for help some day or another.

But, for now, that was going to have to wait.

Pandora's casket was lined with flowers of all shades and types. From purples, to pinks, to the yellows I thought represented her the most. Yellow and happy and kind and curious. There were rows of photographs of and even some that included me that I had forgotten she had taken in our first initial days of friendship.

Without her parents watching, I had stolen one from one of the poster boards, slipping it into my purse with trembling hands. I wanted to remember her like this, forever, happy and so lost in her own bliss. So free and unknowing, she would never realize what was to come after meeting me. She and I both never thought our paths would lead us to this moment.

Of me sitting alone at her funeral.

Her funeral.

Millie Bask stood tall and proud next to her husband, not daring to show how fragile she was, how she had been cowering with me in the kitchen before the service. How we had held onto each other and let go of those fretful emotions that had been building and building up inside our chests and lungs and heads.

Her husband, Thomas Bask, spoke into the little microphone at the podium with a steady voice that cracked as he neared the end of his speech.

"My daughter was always such a bright and caring girl. Even as a child, I don't think she ever truly cried or had any fits, which," he laughed softly, looking to his wife as he said, "was lucky for us, since we had both been very expressive children growing up."

Millie smiled, reaching out to take her husband's arm.

"Our Pandora will always be remembered for her creativity and her strong relationships, for never giving up on people who needed her most." It seemed his eyes had found mine, searched for them actually. He held my stare and gave me a smile and a nod and I did the same back. "She was taken from us too early and we hope, with the police's help and the towns, we can finally have the answers we've been waiting for. She will always be with us, no matter the circumstances and no matter how far we all travel and pass from this moment on. Her spirit lives on within us and we are so thankful to have been her parents, to have her here," he patted his chest. "Thank you all for coming and celebrating her life with us and we hope you stay and continue to do so, there are refreshments in the kitchen along with sandwiches and cakes and muffins and Pandora's favorite homemade cookies."

Her parents gave the crowd a good look over, smiling softly and nodding in thanks before stepping down. They were met by a group of older people, their relations to one another unknown to me, as they gathered near the hallway and ushering people in the direction of the kitchen with the heavenly display of food.

I waited until most of the people had dispersed before getting up from my seat. I walked down the aisle, the sound of my heels making an eerie echo through the church as I neared her casket. It was a sleek dark wood, similar in the type my mother and Gretchen Cork had. I reached out once I had reached what held her body, pressing my palm flat against the wood.

"Please," I whispered, voice lowered so much that no one near could hear me. "Show yourself, Panda, please."

I waited. I waited for that gust of wind I had felt inside the barn, the power and energy that had settled with it but nothing came. No matter how hard I concentrated, straining to pull her essence forth like some dangerous calling. There wasn't even a flicker of movement in the air as my shoulders slumped and I murmured to her, "Ad astra."

(To the stars.)

I bowed my head, giving her a final farewell because after today she'd be gone. Buried deep within the earth of Rose Hill, where all bodies seemed to go these days. Lost in the dirt, long forgotten and missed, the spirits lost and aimless.

There was no home inside the gates of Rose Hill, especially for the dead that still walked.

Floated, more like it.

There were too many of them in that cemetery for me to send off, all at once at least. I simply liked to wait for them to come to me, but since I hadn't seen one lick of a ghost in the last month, not even Beatrice Moon who liked to frequently pop up, I didn't know what I expected here.

A voice behind me spoke up, low and guttural. "Ut semper nos liberi."

(May we always be free.)

When I turned, I half expected to find Crow or perhaps, with my luck, even Macabre. Instead, it was a little woman wearing a strange cloth hat, her hair a dark gray bundled around her shoulders.

"Surprised that I know your little ghostly promise words?" she cooed, tapping a small cane against the floor. "You're not the only one who speaks such heartwarming words at the sight of death, necromancer."

I opened my mouth, my brows furrowing at the use of my title and, now more than ever, my nickname some used just to mock and tease.

The woman waved her hand in front of my face, snapping her fingers twice. She frowned deeply. "Are you paying attention, girl? I'm not here just for fun, you know."

I gulped. "Then why are you here?" I lowered my voice and leaned closer as I hissed, "I'm at a funeral."

"Yes," the woman sighed. "I do see that, I'm not blind." She waved her hand again, motioning for me to follow her but I stood my ground as she said, "Now, come along, we have some things to discuss."

"I'm not leaving with you," I scoffed, planting my feet. I wasn't ready to leave, not yet.

The woman groaned, giving the room a good look around. "Fine, I guess we can do this here."

"Uh-do what?"

"Have our little talk."

"Okay, but talk about what? I don't even know you?"

She groaned again. "It's like you don't even know how to use your powers." She made a move as if to hit me with her cane but thought against it.

"And how do you know about me?" I asked before lowering my voice to add, "How do you know about what I can do?"

"Wrath told me," she said with a shrug.

"But...isn't Wrath dead?"

She nodded. "Yes?"

"Then...how?"

"God, you're dense." This time, she thumped her cane against the ground in annoyance. "I shouldn't be surprised, this is the first time you've seen me the past month."

"If you've been trying to see me for a month, then why not call?" I asked, waving my hand. "I have a phone, you know."

Irritants flashed in the woman's eyes as she sighed, "Do you even know what a necromancer can do? What your father couldn't master?"

I stayed silent, giving her my answer in the form of not a sound.

"Necromancers conjure the dead."

"I know that," I rushed out, getting a strange look from an older man who was leaving from the hallway. Perhaps there was something wrong with what I was wearing, or it was just the woman and her off putting physique.

"You know about the ghosts but what you don't know about is the dead."

"...the dead?"

"God, yes! Do you even listen?" She reached out and smacked me in the leg with her cane, hard enough to sting.

"Yes! Yes, I'm listening," I said with a hint of a laugh.

"Some necromancers could wield magic, black magic specifically," she explained with a casual wave of her hand. "But not all because it takes a certain type of concentration to be able to handle the darkness that can seep into a soul from that sort of manipulation." She stepped to the side to admire the casket like I had, reaching out nimble, wrinkled fingers to pet the petals of a drooping lily. A faint smile crossed her face, taking away the age ever so slightly. "Your father couldn't do it, he wasn't able to have that same flourish you have, the one you got from your mother."

"Wrath told you all this?" I asked, brows furrowing.

She nodded but paused. "It's easy to get information here, it all sort of just...just floats about." She turned back to face me, both hands returning to her cane as she ignored the flowers. "And what about the other gift they've been speaking about? Hmm? Mastered it yet?"

"Mastered what?"

"The true gift?"

"Um, what true gift?"

"When they said you were a senior in high school, I thought you'd be smarter than this, honestly," she groaned, a tight knit anger stretched across her face. "Did your father really not tell you anything?"

I crossed my arms. "Obviously not."

"It's a gift so rare that there hasn't been a necromancer in decades who was able to use it, who was born with the power."

"And that is?"

"Bringing back the dead."

A chill settled over the room, like a gust of wind having burst through as the candles to my side flickered and moved. A soft ringing began to fill my ears, like a silence too deafening. When I blinked, the world moved hazily, shifting and forming into something I thought I might've lost.

Something I might've finally been set free from.

The gray was cold, unforgiving. The woman before me, now floating an inch above the ground, grinned.

"Now you see clearly."

"Why-"

"Trauma can affect your gifts, I just needed to give you the final push," she said, moving around me freely. "You saw death, countless deaths right before your eyes. Your mind needs time to heal and it did, it shut you off from our world to allow you to cope."

"Okay, yeah, I get that but you just said I could maybe bring back the dead-"

She waved her hand at me. "We'll get to that."

"Not fast enough!" I laughed, shaking my head. I had forgotten how cold the gray could get, the air like ice. "Listen, from what I know so far about my 'powers' and from the journals I was left, which are my only piece of guidance, nothing has said I can bring the dead back. And what does that even mean? Bringing the dead back? Like, aren't I doing that now? With you?"

"I'm talking about the act of bringing a body back after death. To bring the spirit back with the corpse."

"And I'm just supposed to, what? Say a little spell and wiggle my fingers?"

"I'd start taking this seriously," she warned and my smile faltered. "This is no laughing matter."

I closed my mouth and forced a nod. I wanted to blame me for being at a funeral for my behavior, for wanting to ignore what she was saying and just laugh. I also wanted to say that I couldn't bring the dead back, not how she wanted, but truth be told, I didn't know. I hadn't even tried, and I didn't know where to begin. Made me only realize that I needed to continue reading my mother's journals, see if there was anything I hadn't read yet about the matter.

"It's a gift that necromancers for generations have been trying to master but only one," she said, holding up one finger, "can do it. There have been whispers here on the other side that you're the one, that you'll be able to perform the unperformable task."

"Why me?" I asked, genuine.

"You're a part of something far greater than what you've already known. There is an evil coming that will force you into a path you do not want but the one you must take."

My brows furrowed and I opened my mouth to ask what the hell she was talking about but she continued speaking, her words making the gray grow colder as goosebumps rose up against my arms.

"Be careful of who you trust, necromancer. The ones you trust the most will be the ones to hurt you the worst, they will only bring you pain."

"Who are you talking about-" I tried to rush out, speaking quickly to beat her but she was already fading. "Wait-come on, that can't be it-"

She was gone.

The gray blinking back into color and I stumbled backwards, bracing myself against the podium. There was a flashing pain throbbing against my skull, right behind my eyes. I brought a shaking hand up, rubbing my eyes as a way to try and release some pressure.

Bringing back the dead.

I couldn't be able to do it, I knew that I couldn't, at least I hoped so. I didn't want more responsibility thrusted upon my shoulders, I didn't need anything else to weigh me down. I had one job, one single mission, and that was to find whoever killed Pandora and stop them myself.

I wasn't ready to dive into the world of raising the dead, I wasn't about to start a zombie apocalypse. This wasn't Dawn of the Dead. This also wasn't Poltergeist or The Conjuring, and yet, ghosts were real and so were demons. So, in reality, how different could it be for me to force a soul back into a body after death?

Yeah...shouldn't be that hard at all.

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blaire is back babyyyyyyyy

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i'm going to try to update every monday but ill let u guys know at the end of these chapters if that changes!!