Free Witch & Curse by Nancy Holder, Debbie Viguié Page B

As an E.R. doc, Barbara had knowledge of potent tranquilizers, and that was the only thing that got Holly through the ordeal of Tina’s burial. Today would be a stronger test.
    Now they stood on fresh grass beside her parents’graves at Our Lady of Sorrows Memorial Park, Barbara in the same black long-sleeved wool dress she had worn to her daughter’s funeral, Holly in the same black stretch skirt, boots, and black shirt. Most of the attendees wore black or navy. Elise’s and Daniel’s coworkers stood somberly behind the minister and the rows of chairs; their closer friends looked miserable on the gray folding chairs, eyes swollen with tears. There was her mom’s yoga coach; there, her father’s golf friends. Holly’s classmates and her pack of stable brats had shown, but all she could do at the church service and now at the grave sites was register their presence with unblinking eyes.
    Two matching mahogany caskets were poised above the opened rectangles, flowers heaped on them in equal amounts.
    My parents’ bodies are in there
, she thought, trying to block out the images that formed. Most vivid was the nightmarish face of her father as she’d awakened in the hospital. She shuddered, feeling sick to her stomach, wishing the service was over and never wanting it to end. Wanting to be suspended here in time, so she wouldn’t have to go on without them. Her mom. Her dad.
This is the part that’s the nightmare. I’ll wake up from this soon. I swear I will
.
    A thin-faced, wrinkled, old minister Holly didn’tknow going on about ashes and dust until she wanted to scream at him to shut up. Tears streamed down her face and she choked back a sob as Barbara gave her right hand a tight squeeze.
    Her newfound aunt stood on her left, and a man who had arrived late at the service and had been introduced to her simply as Michael stood beside Marie-Claire with his arm around her waist. Holly assumed he was her aunt’s husband, but no one had said so. He was very good-looking. His clothes were expensive. His loafers were like the ones her father had splurged on the last time they’d gone shopping in the city—over five hundred dollars a pair.
    How can I even notice such things when I’m burying my parents?
    The man craned his neck forward and looked at her. The heat rose to her face and she grew even more ashamed, as if he knew she’d been checking him out.
    â€œIt’ll be over soon,” Barbara murmured. She was weaving on her feet; Holly doubted she had slept or eaten since the plane had touched down at San Francisco International Airport two nights ago. Holly had heard footsteps each night, and since her aunt was bedded downstairs, it had to have been Barbara walking up and down the hallway, steadily, for hours.
    The minister raised a hand and intoned, “ ‘Yea,though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ ”
    As if on cue, a cloud trailed over the sun, and the sky above Holly and the others darkened. Heads looked up.
    It began to sprinkle.
    Soft murmurs spread throughout the crowd and the minister looked up, temporarily losing his place. Umbrellas
fwapped
open and people moved in close, some sharing with others, and one of the attorneys from Daddy’s office held his umbrella above the minister’s head, who said, “Thank you,” and pressed on.
    The sky darkened as black, smoky clouds rose into thunderheads; lightning crackled inside them, and the sky rolled like a kettledrum.
    It began to rain in earnest. A few people ducked bare heads apologetically at Holly and Barbara and began to leave. As Barbara accepted someone’s proffered umbrella and opened it, she muttered, “I should have thought of tents.”
    It was Holly’s turn to squeeze her hand. She didn’t feel the rain; she didn’t feel anything . . .
    . . . except the man beside her aunt, watching her more closely