To be a mortician was a calling. And there was beauty after death, like a wilted rose, petals stiff and fragile. Timeless and enchanting. A casted spell and oldest tale. Stories frozen in time within the ruins.
Just like the stories Marietta had told of Weeping Hollow.
“Tell him I don’t deal with the families.” My awkwardness around grief made me seem insincere. It was terrible for business and best this way for both parties involved.
“Yea, yea. Yah have to work that out with Jonah,” Gramps replied.
At the back of the cluttered cabinet, I finally found a mug and pulled it off the shelf. “Thanks, Gramps.”
The old man shook his head and grunted, “Call me Benny. Everyone ‘round heyah calls me Benny.”
I smirked. “I’ll call you Benny when you stop calling me Moonshine.”
Gramps’ burly brows pinched together. “I’ll call yah whatevah the hell I wanna call yah.”
There was a hint of a smile in his words, an extra wrinkle beside his lips. Though I was still trying to figure and feel the man out, maybe he was happy to see me after all.
“I’ll talk to the funeral director. Now, tell me, what did the doctor say about your cough?” I poured my coffee into a mug that read, REAL WOMEN MARRY ASSHOLES. It must have been my late grandmother’s.
Gramps snatched the pencil off the table and leaned over the newspaper, filling in the black and white checkered boxes. My tailbone hit the counter, and I crossed my ankles, pulling the steaming hot coffee to my lips.
“Please tell me you saw a doctor …” I said, my authoritative tone spilling into the cup. He tapped the eraser over the wooden table a few times, avoiding the question as a child would. When he peeked over at me from the corner of his eye, I shrugged. “Fine. I’ll just call them myself.”
Gramps fell back against the wooden chair, pointing the tip of the pencil at me. “Yah have to know somethin’ ‘bout us, Moonshine. We do things differently heyah. We go ‘bout things our own way. This virus, it’s outta tha doc’s control. Theyas nothin’ they can do. Yah wanna piece of advice? Mind yah own. Just do yah”—he waved his wrinkly hand out in front of him—“mortician thing. You’ll stay busy with all tha death goin’ ‘round.”
“Mind my own?” I laughed. “You think you’re just gonna get me this job to keep me off your back? That I’m just gonna stand back and not help?”
Gramps dropped his elbow over the table and went back to his puzzle.
“Fine. I’ll take this coffee outside and enjoy the view.” I kicked off the counter and passed by him. “Oh, and I’m heading into town later. Try not to die while I’m gone.”
He grumbled under his whiney breath. “If yah go inta town, don’t take tha cah. Only stiff-necken snobs and hooligans drive a cah ‘round here. Theyas a scootah in the garage.”
I nodded, holding in a smile, and before leaving through the side door that led outside, I grabbed a wool blanket off the couch and wrapped it around me.
There wasn’t much of a backyard. I passed by a detached garage and walked the stone steps to the cliff's edge. The deep blue waters of the Atlantic stretched far and wide, fading into the sky. The salty sea mist brushed across my cheeks, and my eyes closed under the somber song of the sea, the air twirling in my hair as I took another sip of coffee.
Gramps was right. The coffee was shit.
When I opened my eyes again, down below, where the waves met the rocks, there was a guy. He was alone, wearing a black coat and a hood pulled over his head, staring out into the blackish-blue ocean under gray clouded skies. Content and at peace, he had one arm hanging off his bent knee, the other leg stretched out in front of him. He stared out into the horizon as if he was seeing something so much bigger than the sea, like he wanted to be a part of it.
Waves crashed against the rocks, and ivory foam fizzled at his feet when the water spilled over but never touched him. Nothing could touch him. I looked left then right, wondering if anyone else was out at this hour. The sun had just risen. But it was only us two, gazing out into the same vast ocean, under the same smeared sky, only a short distance between us.
He picked up a small stone from beside him, examined it between his fingers, then threw it far past the waves. I took a step closer at the top of the cliff when loose rocks rolled down the sharp drop behind him. The guy looked over his shoulder at me.
A black mask covered his face, only his eyes—the same color as the silvery skies—fell over me like snow on a cold wintry night. Light and gentle. A shiver swept across my skin. Neither one of us moved a muscle or spoke a word. He was looking at me as if I’d caught him in an intimate moment, like he was making love to the morning. Turning my eyes away would be the right thing to do, yet it felt impossible. I should’ve glanced away and given him the space he came out here for. Perhaps a normal girl would have.
But, instead, I called out to him. “What are you doing down there?”
The hand hanging off his bent knee lifted in the air. If he had replied, his words were washed away by the crashing waves. The mask stretching across his face prevented me from seeing his lips move, too. But his gaze never faltered. It held on.
My mouth went dry, and I tried to swallow.
“I’m Fallon. Fallon Morgan,” I shouted over the rock, hoping he could hear me, not the nerves leaking into my voice.
He hung his head for a moment before peering back up at me. Seconds passed as we shamelessly locked eyes, and my fingers drifted over my smiling lips. I wondered if he was smiling as well behind the mask. I needed to get closer.
My eyes followed along the edge of the rocky cliff, looking for a way down until I spotted one.
The blanket fell from around me. With one hand gripping the hot mug in my hand, my coffee seeping over the rim, I balanced the other on the sharp edges, heading down barefoot.
When I reached the same lower level as him, he watched me with raised brows under the shade of his hat as I teetered over the rocks. Nerves skipped up my spine to the back of my neck as he stood tall, rubbing a stone between two fingers. His body twitched as if he might bolt from the scene at any moment, but something was keeping him rooted in place.
I walked around him and stepped up on the higher side of the rock. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“And you took that as an invitation?” He turned, keeping his attention on me, watching my every move.
When my bare feet found balance, I looked up at him, and his cold eyes froze any warm thing left in me. The chill rushed from my head to the tips of my fingers, probably chilling my coffee too. His stare fixated on me, probably trying to figure out this strange girl who disrupted his peaceful morning.
“What’s your name?” I asked. His eyes flicked skyward then down as he faced the water again, shaking his head. “Okay …” I sipped from my coffee, and a wave came and splashed over the rock and onto my bare toes. The glacial temperatures pricked my skin like a thousand needles, but I didn’t jump back. My eyes steered to him, noticing the way his were distant, uninterested, locked on to the horizon of the black waters under the steel sky. “You always come out here in the morning?”
“Not always.” He bent down and picked up a handful of stones. They jumped in his palm, and one slid between his pointer finger and thumb.