Heritage of New Heaven

Chapter 32

Robert

When Elise sat Rose up I thought about saying something, but upon seeing the two girls look at each other I bit back the words. Understanding passed between their eyes, not eaxactly the same but both girls gave a slight nod to the other. A barely percaptable nod that made me wonder if either of them knew they were doing it.

Rose slowly started to look back at me so I busied myself at her ankle, keeping one eye on her.

Her eyes strayed past me and towards the house in the clearing not too far away. She looked at the windows set into the stones, and the lights inside them slowly getting brighter in the deepening darkness.

It was then that her eyes strayed over to the bodies lying in the grass, their arms outstretched towards the other, as if even in death they could not bare to be parted. It is only now that a single tear falls down Rose's cheek and dropps off her chin into Elise's swirling fog that is curling around Rose's torso as well.

She has done well to hold on for so long.

I go back to her ankle and finnish my job.

I know the girls are silently talking again so I fix the broken ligaments around her foot before standing up and walking towards the house. Surprisngly neither one of the girls move to follow, though if they wanted to Rose would be able to walk.

I continue through the trees and stop before I break the treeline, I tourn back; Rose nods her head slightly and Elise looks at me with an approving glance that almost says 'it will be better if you get it over with' .

I turn back and step over the last of the fallen leaves before its just grass. The thick feeling of death is everywhere, almost sufforcating my head.

I push through, the fog clouding y senses and stop infront of Rose's parents. She looks so much like her father, but she has her mothers hair and figure. Rose is about the same height as her Mum and not far off her Dad.

They both can't be much older than their late fourties, too young to die. But then, isn't everyone too young to die?

I push the thaught out of my mind and walk closer to the bodies. I'm not going to bring them back, things happen for a reason, and I don't think anything good will come from bringing them back when everything has changed since they last saw Rose.

I'm going to bury them so that we all can move on, Rose will find it the hardest. I feel her behind me; still hovering by the tree line, Elise not far behind.

I don't turn around, I just concentrate on cleaving a deep hole in the ground, then a second one beside it.

I feel, without looking, that Rose has started to move forward again, towards me.

She comes beside me and kneels down between her parents, unfazed by the blood and gore coating their temples and the grass. The rain has left pink striekes over their faces, around their unseeing eyes.

Rose closes those first. She doesn't bother to hide the silent tears running down her face. She leans down and kisses both of them on the forehead. Where her lips touch them a thin pool of water circles out and washes all the blood of their faces. She runs a thumb over her fathers cheek bone and looks once more at her mother before standing up and looking up to the sky as it cracks open again and starts raining again.

Elise comes silently behind me and stands on Rose's other side. Elise grabs the girl by the hand, squeeses slightly before reacing out a hand towards the bodies.

I can see what she is about to do and I go to stop her, but a plug of air lodges itself in my throught. I get the point. The plug disappears, but there is a lingering sensation, a reminder.

Elise looks back at Rose's parents and slowly lifts the father and inch off the ground. His arms move themselves across his chest. Elise moves him over the edge of the grave I have made and slowly lowers him in. there is barely a thud as she finaly reaches the bottom. Rose doesn't look down from the sky.

The girls conjoined hands are glowing slightly, Rose it giving Elise her power.

Elise moves to the mother, she starts the same process again. When she lays her down inside the grave, Rose looks down.

Their hands are bright in the dusk light. They don't let eachother go.

I go to lay the dirt ontop, but Elise's small voice breaks the silence;

'Today we lost two great people. I did not know them, Robert did nt know them, but Rose did. They were her parents and closest friends. Now she has no one, so, Rose is now a sister to me. We may not look alike, we may not even be from the same father, but we are from the same Hearth Mother. While Luna may be a god and have no DNA, she still gave us three things that are better; powers that can save eachother, a chance to start again, to choose our own family. But the most important thing she gave us, was hope for a better future'

And at that moment, the full moon rose over the tree line and bathed the who clearing in silver.