Beach Day

60: What Remains

"Do you know what it's like?" Priscilla asks, facing her niece now. "In the beyond?"

"I have no clue. Maybe I'll find out someday." She shrugs, feeling every muscle scream. She keeps her face as neutral as she can. "I'm content to leave it a mystery for now."

"I don't remember. Whatever happened between the sword severing my head and waking up where he hid me, I don't remember."

"Are you scared? You seem scared."

"I'm terrified."

Eternally seventeen— of course she is. Seventeen is a terrifying age to be when everyone is out to get to you. Eighteen is only marginally better.

"You don't have to be."

"I loved this world. I loved being alive."

"But you can't stay here."

"I know. It would be wrong of me. Sinful."

"There's no moral reason. Being undead is fine. I meant it more literally. We sent Despina Worth— she was killed by the Mop Wizard? We sent her to Graceland."

Priscilla shakes her head. "I've seen Graceland. I don't need to see more of it. But you need my bones."

"I do need your bones. I can't bury your bones if I don't have them." She pauses, opens her mouth to say something long and rambling.

Priscilla cuts her off with a raise of the hand. "Let it be tender."

"Oh, Aunt Priscilla. You know I can't do that."

Apparently she can, because Priscilla hugs her around the middle. Whole and tight— maybe this is part of what she has been looking for. A tender moment. Someone who won't reject her for the cosmic crime of being Tiff Sheridan. Someone who needed this as much as she did.

She opens her eyes. There's nobody there. There's just bones. What remains of Priscilla Cain tumbles to the ground around her.

She stands there, looks out over the carnage. This is the truth, then: everything has gone to absolute shit. She got into this to help some undead woman in the woods for no reason. She naively thought she could piece together the shards of a family she left broken— but the truth is that she isn't able to do that and she isn't the one who broke it in the first place. First things first: she needs to gather the bones. Then she has to stop the bleeding. Looking down at her grandfather, blood seeping through her hands, she knows two things: she doesn't want to salvage this relationship and she doesn't want to watch him die.

Goddammit.

"Kepler, hold this," she demands, thrusting the jacket full of bones at him. She searches through her bag for the last two reagent vials. One is for Kepler, in case of emergencies. it's correctly dosed and everything. Of course he's grateful when she uses it on him, with the understanding that she'll have to go in and get the bullet out later.

The other syringe has to be for her grandfather. It wouldn't be worth it to use it on herself, anyway. She flicks the needle, ignores Kepler's protests, and jabs it into her grandfather's side. His wound wouldn't heal like hers would, anyway. She doesn't want her bones to fuse incorrectly. It's easier this way.

She can't wait for this to be over. It isn't, yet, but it will be soon. She looks to Kepler, standing guard next to her. "Do you have the keys?"

He gives her some inscrutable rat expression. It's impossible to parse. The keys are on his collar anyway, jingling next to the wet and limp pink-blue-and-white ribbon on the drenched harness.

"Good. Give me the bones."

He shakes his head.

"Kep, come on. Give me my aunt's bones and the dead girl's jacket— Don't look at me like that. I understand it's ridiculous. Don't look at me like that."