Darkness in the World [SAMPLE]

Chapter 2 - Grace

        The only other funeral I'd been to was my grandmother's.

        It had been a one day affair, with people who knew Grandma Marie coming to view her remains the night before, then a service and interment in the morning, followed by lunch with family and close friends.

        In contrast, Grace Alfonso's wake was a week long. At least that’s what Brother Allan—the leader of the Deliverance Team that helped us two years ago—told Lana, Migs, Father Nimoy and myself when we arrived in the funeral parlor that Thursday afternoon.

        He was there with other members of their church group. They’d visited and prayed with the family for two days now, and they planned to attend the actual burial that weekend.

        As Brother Allan introduced Father Nimoy to the Alfonso family, I stayed between Lana and Migs and looked around.

        Grace’s casket was closed.

        A large framed picture of her was perched on an easel that stood just beside her casket, and all around me I could see and hear very similar questions in people’s minds: What happened? Why won’t the family let us see Grace? What really caused her death?

        “Are you alright, child?” Father Nimoy asked me, his hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him with a small smile. “Yes, Father. I can still handle it.”

        He’d asked me the same thing repeatedly on the phone when we’d planned this trip to attend Grace’s wake. He wanted to know if I felt strong enough for all the filtering I’d need to protect myself from all that grief... and if I felt ready enough for the possibility of encountering any energy Grace left behind.

        I knew, of course, that by myself I couldn’t really do it. But if Father Nimoy and Lana were going to be there to pray and have their bubble of protection around me, and if Migs was going to be there to catch any thoughts I couldn’t communicate verbally, then I knew things would be manageable.

        Besides, I had to do this.

        My dream felt more than a dream now, and if that was the case then it meant there was something Grace wanted to tell me, wanted to warn me about. And even though it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to look forward to, I knew I had to come here on the off chance that her energy was here.

        Maybe out here in the real world, her energy could give me the information she wanted me to know.

        Father Nimoy nodded and returned to talking with members of Grace’s family. Lana came up to me and squeezed my hand.

        “So how’s your summer so far?” she asked cheerily, but not too loudly.

        Her hair was up in a ponytail, and her usually fair skin had grown a bit more tan, looking wonderful against her plain white shirt. Lana had mentioned she’d been doing outreach missions with Father Nimoy and her group over the past week in the province, and it included doing a lot of storytelling with local kids under the shade of large trees.

        In fact they’d just returned to Manila that morning, which is why I had to hitch a ride with Migs so we could meet up with them here.

        I shrugged. “Stayed home a lot,” I whispered, as we sat together on vacant chairs two rows away from the casket. “Maybe it’d be another year before we go back to a beach again.”

        Lana smiled her pixie smile. She leaned towards me, and in an even lower whisper she said: “I heard you and Migs have been spending a lot of time together.”