The chapel was small and smug.
Wednesday loathed smug architecture. It always presumed salvation.
The funeral was sparsely attended -- mercifully so. Delia Thornhart had been a difficult woman, which Wednesday admired, and a social climber, which she did not. The casket was lacquered cherrywood, far too warm a tone for someone who'd once threatened to disown Wednesday for declining a baby shower invitation. The baby shower invitation was colored in yellows, pinks and blues -- Wednesday considered that reason enough.
She stood at the back of the chapel in the last pew, arms folded, eyes forward. The air smelled of lilies and disappointment.
The priest spoke in halting, plastic tones -- reading from a eulogy someone had paid for by the syllable. "Loving. Generous. Adventurous." Wednesday knew for a fact that Delia had once set fire to a hot air balloon mid-ascent because the operator called her "ma'am."
Still, death deserved observation even if the life hadn't. Wednesday inclined her head slightly. Not in grief, but in acknowledgment. Delia had once told her, " We never know what we'll leave behind." Wednesday had replied, "Some of us leave teeth."
She watched the flame flicker on the altar. It bent unnaturally to the left, toward the shadowed corner near the organ.
Someone was standing there. Watching.
A woman. Still as marble. Dressed in black. A black veil to mask her face.
Wednesday didn't move.
The woman in the veil stood unnaturally still, as though posed there -- not attending, but haunting. Her hands were folded at her waist, gloved, motionless. The veil hid her features, but the posture was familiar. Too familiar.
For a split second, Wednesday thought: Genevieve.
But the figure was too tall. Shoulders too broad. And Genevieve would never veil her face -- only the truth.
Still, something about the angle of the head, the quiet boldness of watching without hiding the act...it echoed.
The priest droned on. Words like grace and faith and beloved stacked into a pile of noise that threatened collapse.
Wednesday's eyes never left the woman. But her gaze narrowed, just slightly. The figure did not move. When Wednesday blinked, she was gone.
Hallucination? Doubtful. Wednesday didn't hallucinate. She remembered too clearly for that.
The priest was closing the prayer. "...and may we remember Delia not for her flaws, but for the light she brought to those who--"
Wednesday turned and walked out.
Outside, the air was sharp and wet with early spring rot. A single crow barked from the cemetery's edge, as if announcing her departure with disapproval.
She paused at the black iron gate.
There, affixed to the rusted post with a black ribbon, was a folded card.
No envelope. No name. Just a small piece of ivory cardstock, stiff and clean.
She opened it with one gloved hand.
Inside, in neat, fine script:
"Some of us leave teeth." -- Yours in memory, G.
Wednesday smiled. Just slightly.
It had begun.