Curtain Down

Chapter 28 - A Funeral Dressed in Black

Author's Note: Since I'm off school today with one horrible cold, I thought I'd take advantage and write this chapter. I hope you enjoy it and I'm glad I was able to get this up so soon :)

*****

Ryba and I paused once we could see the funeral closely, I scanned the faces in the crowd, trying to pick out Erik. It was beautiful really. Sad but beautiful. This was no pauper’s funeral. No. There were several carriages, expensive, of course. One of them with the coffin. Ah, the coffin. The black box with an open top, its handles gold, its lining satin. I didn’t dare go any closer for I didn’t wish to see the face of the poor girl. People wore black suits and black dresses. Black hats and black shoes. Most hats were removed by now and people held them in their hands, heads bowed. White lilies decorated the streets, were held in people’s hands and lay in the carriages.

I didn’t particularly want to linger any longer and was about to turn back when I caught sight of Erik in the crowd. Our gazes met and his eyes instantly widened and then his face became worried. Erik glanced about him, making sure nobody could see him slipping away out of the midst of it all. “Anna,” he hissed urgently when I was in ear shot. He didn’t look directly at me but carried on speaking anyway “the puppet...it’s gone.” A chill ran down my spine and my body froze up for a minute. Erik, seeing my expression, said “look, we’ll talk later. I have to go.” Then he disappeared back into the crowd but I couldn’t move a muscle.

“Anna.” Said Ryba, tugging my arm “Anna,” she hissed “we have to go...now!”  But still I didn’t move. I couldn’t. All I could think of were Erik’s words. The puppet...it was gone. What was I suppose to do now? “Anna!” Ryba’s voice jolted me from my thoughts and reality seeped back into be as I slowly came around. The shock didn’t leave me though, it just settled deeper inside my body. Turning into worry. Into fear.

“What am I going to do, Ryba?” I whispered.

“Right now? Get out of here. We aren’t meant to be here. Look, there’s two people over there staring at us. Let’s go.” Ryba began tugging at my arm again but I let my eyes drift over to where she’d pointed. A man and a woman, probably mourners, stood there staring at us. I shivered under their steely gaze and, for some reason, I couldn’t help but get the feeling they weren’t part of the funeral. Despite their black clothes, they didn’t look sad at all. Not a single sign of remorse present on their faces. I looked down at the man’s cane, silver topped, and back up at his face. For some strange reason, he was grinning. The woman leaned over to his and said something, her black floppy hat falling over her eyes. She smiled.

“Let’s go.” I said, turning away and following Ryba out of the crowd. As we got to the end of the street, I craned my neck and looked back at the man and woman.

They were gone.

*****

The man with the cane and his companion stood at the side of a road, watching a funeral procession go by.  “A little dreary, isn’t it? The people look so sad.” Said the lady.

“Of course they’re sad. They’ve just lost a loved one.”

“Love,” spat the woman “is only for fools and the weak.”

“Perhaps...” Said the man.

“What are you talking about? Not about to go soft on me on this job are you?”

“No,” said the man, softly, “of course not. Have you never loved anyone, Irina?”

“Just when I was a child. But that didn’t last long either. You learn fast in a world like this one. You have to, otherwise you become like these people.” He voice dropped “weak fools. Weak hearts and wasted tears.” Irina’s eyes scanned the crowed and spotted a pair of girls, looking a little more dishevelled than the other people. “Look at those two, Radu. They look a little scruffy to be here, don’t you think?”

Radu looked over at the two girls, stood looking at the funeral “perhaps they have a morbid curiosity like you.” He grinned as Irina frowned. 

Then, the woman smiled and said “or perhaps they’re sad fools like you, feeling sorry for the mourners and have come to pay their respects to someone they didn’t even know.” The girls turned away and Irina said “come, let us go. We must get on and find the gypsy and tell him what we know.”

“Quite. Time is a wasting.” Radu set off, Irina following behind him.

*****

It was evening and I stood waiting on a street corner, waiting for Erik to arrive. His footman had brought me a message with arrangements to meet in the old town square and I looked up at the clock, waiting for it to chime. 5 minutes. Why had I come so early? I shivered, wondering if it was going to snow again. Probably. I looked about me at the people walking past. Were they afraid? Were they worried? Did they think about the murders? The puppets? Some of them probably did...most of them probably did but others would be quite happily wrapped in their safety blanket of ignorance. It was people like those who would probably be next.

You always think bad things won’t happen to you. They can’t. Those things always happen in the papers. To other people. You never think...but then I thought about the girl Otto new. About his friend, Filip. About all the people who had been murdered...they were all people too. They all thought it wouldn’t be them. But it was. Why couldn’t it be me? What was stopping the puppets from killing me? After all, I nearly died the other night. They nearly had me.

That’s why I had to do something about it because, I’d seen it a long time ago, the police weren’t doing anything. They were sitting there, panicking, without any idea about what was happening. They were tracking their criminals, their so called mad man. But that wasn’t getting them anywhere. It wouldn’t

Because the police didn’t believe in magic or dancing puppets.

“Do I believe in magic?” I muttered to myself. The clock chimed and I looked up “do I believe in magic?”

*****

Author's Note: Well, I hope you enjoyed this and thank you for reading :) I really apprecaite the feedback and comments and all of that - it means a lot ^_^ Oh, and, if you ever feel this story is dragging on a little, let me know. Thank you, again :)