Free Graveminder by Melissa Marr Page B

do. Maylene had handled that, too, but Maylene was gone.
    Rebekkah wrapped her arms around Cissy in an embrace and—with her lips close to Cissy’s ear—whispered, “Shut your mouth, and sit your ass down. Now. ” Then she released Cissy, offered her an elbow, and added, at a normal volume this time, “Let me help you to your seat.”
    “No.” Cissy glared at the proffered arm.
    Rebekkah leaned in closer again. “Take my arm and let me help you to your seat in silence , or I’ll tie up Maylene’s estate until your daughters die bitter old bitches like you.”
    Cissy covered her mouth with a handkerchief. Her cheeks grew red as she looked around. To the rest of the mourners, it looked like she was embarrassed. Rebekkah knew better; she’d just poked a rattlesnake. And I’ll pay for it later. Just then, however, Cissy let herself be escorted to her seat. The expression on Liz’s face was one of relief, but neither twin looked directly at Rebekkah. Teresa took Cissy’s hand, and Liz wrapped her arm around her mother. They knew their roles in their mother’s melodramatic performances.
    Rebekkah returned to her own seat and bowed her head. Across the aisle, Cissy kept her silence, so the only sounds beyond the prayers of the priest and the minister were the sobs of mourners and the cries of crows. Rebekkah didn’t move, not when Father Ness stopped speaking, not when the casket was lowered into the earth, not until she felt a gentle touch at her wrist and heard, “Come on, Rebekkah.”
    Amity, one of the only people in Claysville Rebekkah kept in sort of contact with, gave her a sympathetic smile. People were standing and moving. Faces she knew and faces she had seen only in passing before turned toward her with expressions of support, of sympathy, and of some sort of hope that Rebekkah didn’t understand. She stared at them all uncomprehendingly.
    Amity repeated, “Let’s get you out of here.”
    “I need to stay here.” Rebekkah moistened suddenly dry lips. “I need to stay here alone.”
    Amity leaned closer and hugged her. “I’ll see you back at your grandmother’s house.”
    Rebekkah nodded, and Amity joined the crowd of people who were leaving. Semi-strangers and family, friends and others, they walked past the casket and dropped flowers and earth into the yawning hole. Lilies and roses rained down on Maylene’s casket.
    “Wasting all that beauty,” Maylene whispered as they dropped flowers on another casket. “Like corpses have any need of flowers.”
    She turned to Rebekkah with her serious look. “What do the dead need?”
    “Prayers, tea, and a little bit of whiskey,” then-seventeen-year-old Rebekkah answered. “They need nourishment.”
    “Memories. Love. Letting go,” Maylene added.
    Rebekkah waved away Father Ness and Reverend McLendon as they tried to stop and comfort her. They were used to Maylene’s eccentricities—and Rebekkah’s staying with Maylene while she lingered with the dead. They’d leave Rebekkah alone, too.
    Once everyone was gone, once the casket was covered, once it was just her and Maylene alone in the cemetery, Rebekkah opened her clutch and took out the rose-etched flask. She walked up to the grave and knelt down on the earth.
    “I’ve been carrying it since it arrived in the mail,” she told Maylene. “I did what the letter said.”
    It had seemed wrong to put Holy Water in with good whiskey, but Rebekkah did exactly as she’d been told. There were always plenty of bottles of Holy Water in Maylene’s pantry. Holy Water and heavenly whiskey. She opened the flask, took a sip, and then tilted it over the grave once. Tears streamed over her cheeks as she said, “She’s been well loved.”
    She took a second sip and then lifted the flask in a toast to the sky. “From my lips to your ears, you old bastard.” Then she tilted it over the grave a second time.
    “Sleep well, Maylene. Stay where I put you, you hear?” She took a third sip and then poured