Death's Lullaby

Wandering child of the earth

Do you know just how much you're worth?

You have walked this path since your birth

You were destined for more

There are those who'll tell you you're wrong

They will try to to silence your song

But right here is where you belong

So don't search anymore

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking

A masterpiece still in the making

The blue in an ocean of grey

You are right where you need to be

Poised to inspire and to succeed

You'll look back and you'll realize one day

In your eyes there is doubt

As you try to figure it out

But that's not what life is about

So have faith there's a way

Though the world may try to define you

It can't take the light that's inside you

So don't you dare try to hide

Let your fears fade away

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking

A masterpiece still in the making

The blue in an ocean of grey

You are right where you need to be

Poised to inspire and to succeed

You'll look back and you'll realize one day

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking

A masterpiece still in the making

The blue in an ocean of grey

You are right where you need to be

Poised to inspire and to succeed

Soon you'll finally find your own way

~ Adriana Figueroa, Wanderer's Lullaby

Caspian Valencia

Angeles was never this dark.

The City of Lights and Stars, they once called it.

Forget any other Province, any other country for that matter. They were all nothing compared to The City of Light and Stars, the place every aspiring artist, business leader, politician, doctor, or whatever, wished to thrive, and make a future and a name for themselves in such a large, competitive world. Though this was the same world, the same city, which just as easily devoured the weak and fair-hearted.

Brontë Persephone Oliver was strong, intelligent, beautiful, unique, and witty enough to hold her own in a battle with anyone—including myself. A righteous masterpiece of a woman, perfection with her fair share of flaws. I could make a proper guess that Lochlen had loved her, at least as much as one could in the short time that we had the honor of knowing her, though perhaps their infatuations for each other may have grown into love if even the appropriate circumstances and time.

Yet, Fate eventually caught up with Brontë Persephone Oliver of Tammins. Though there was another name for Fate, one that I could never die without finally knowing, and the almighty forbid that this 'Fate' was not someone of my own companionship.

"Your Highness, the funeral will begin in less than thirty minutes. The Queen sent me to remind you that you will be needed to take your place alongside the Royal family to give your condolences to the Oliver family."

"Thank you Bernard. I will come along soon," I told the servant.

I sighed into my mirror, hands clenching the sides of the desk to keep myself upright.

Condolences.

I scoffed. Those words would mean nothing.

The King and Queen couldn't have cared less for Brontë or her family. They just didn't want another Revolution on their hands. The situation was bad enough as it was. All of Illéa hated the Illéan Royal Family. The people wanted change in their government.

Brontë's murder and subsequent death definitely was not helping the Illéan rule.

The Illéan Royals wanted to drive the attention away from the Oliver family and their dead eldest daughter. They were looking for something else for Illéa to focus on.

Once the funeral was over and the condolences given to the Oliver family; they intended to make sure that the world would soon forget about Brontë. All of the Royal advertizing would focus on some upcoming event. Perhaps a party.

My birthday party.

It made perfect sense. My birthday was coming up in less than a month. It was a perfect time to start planning, sending out invitations, and display the wealth and flourishing power of the Illéan family. Making sure that Illéa got disillusioned by the colorful lights and brights. The death of Brontë Oliver becoming nothing but a faded memory.

But I could never let that happen.

Brontë deserved better.

Every person that the Royals ever hurt or killed deserved better.

She would not become a faded memory.

They would not become faded memories.

I wouldn't let that happen.

"Your Highness, the Queen requests your presence immediately."

"I'm coming, Bernard. Thank you for the reminder," I said tiredly. I was too exhausted from this entire week to be sarcastic or anywhere close to my usual teasing personality. Slinging my black coat jacket over my arm, I stood from the desk I was leaning over. I started walking out the door of the room I forced myself into, though I found that I couldn't feel my body anymore. I felt numb, empty, lost.

I could only wonder if Warren and Lochlen felt the same.

I saw Warren's face when we first discovered Brontë's body. He looked shocked at first. Then shock faded into disbelief, then sadness, then fear, then anger, then blankness. He hadn't recovered yet. He hadn't been his normal, egotistical self since the attack.

He changed. We all changed.

Lochlen never saw her mangled, blood-soaked corpse. The medics had covered her in a sheet and carried her out to an ambulance before he could see her lifeless blue eyes. He stayed confused and lost until he saw the injured Tessa, who was screaming at the top of her lugs for Brontë to come back. Lochlen fell into shock as well, not quite able to believe what happened in that maze. Next, a brief flash of anger. Then the grief set in.

None of us had reached the stage of acceptance. Reaching that stage would take a while.

The palace was silent. There was the occasional shuffling of a servant passing by with their head bowed and faces unreadable. No one wanted to talk about what happened.

The funeral was taking place outside. It was a beautiful day, perfect for a ceremony. The sky was a deep, bright blue that stretched for miles beyond the palace. The lake near the edge of the palace was sparkling off the bright light of the sun. Black chairs covered in black silk lined the sides of the gravel path where her coffin would be walked down to the funeral parlor in the palace. After the memoriam, her grave stone would be places in the gardens of the palace. The Oliver family would take their daughter's coffin home with them so they could do as they pleased with it.

"Caspian." Lochlen greeted simply. I nodded my head to him and followed him to where the rest of the Illéan family had gathered. They were all murmuring to each other, dressed in their fine garments of black and dark grey. "Warren is talking to Tessa," he whispered to me so his family couldn't hear. "The doctors say that she is healing from her bullet wound and is now able to walk normally, but she has refused to come out of her hospital room."

I looked at him confusedly. "And you think Warren is the best person to convince her to come out of her room?"

Lochlen shrugged. "He volunteered. Said he could talk some sense into her."

"Warren," I murmured under my breath. "Always full of surprises."

"Ah Caspian," the Queen said in her melodious voice, a relieved look on her tanned features. "Thank you for coming out this early into the funeral. We could really use your help."

"Yes?" I questioned, stepping forward.

She smiled happily at my answer, showing her perfect pearly white teeth. "It's about the Third Test. Because of Brontë Oliver's, uh, death, there weren't any official winners or losers of the test. And the public will be expecting a response soon, so we want to know your opinion on how we should handle the situation."

Typical.

The Illéans wanted to distract from Brontë's death by turning back to the original game.

"I think you would be better with consulting with Warren," I told her gruffly. "He was the one who was watching the cameras and could see the rankings of the Selected while they were in the maze."

"Perfect, I'll ask him when he gets back from the infirmary," Queen Mirabelle said gladly.

"No need," the voice of Warren Schreave called out. "I'm here now."

We all turned to see the man in question. He was wearing a classic black suit with a white undershirt and a black tie that was tucked behind his black blazer jacket. His dirty blond hair looked a bit ruffled but he looked as put together as normal. He had a forced, grave smile on his face and he bowed at the appearance of Queen Mirabelle stepping forward.

"Well?" She asked.

"I don't think there should be any winners, in a way of mourning Brontë's death," he said. "But will have 'losers' by simply excusing a few Selected from the competition that have not been handling Brontë's well and did poorly during the Third Test. With all the roar of Brontë's funeral and Caspian's upcoming birthday gala, it will be easy to quietly eliminate a few unnoticeable Selected."

Queen Mirabelle clapped her hands together. "Wonderful idea, Warren. I shall present the idea to the King after the funeral. Lochlen, with me please." She said as she put a hand on her son's back and walked him to the rows of chairs set up for the funeral parade. I turned back to Warren with an eyebrow raised.

"Well that was quite a plan," I told him suspiciously.

Warren looked down and shook his head, laughing bitterly. "I gave them their easy way out. That was all they wanted from me. I have my plans and they have theirs."

"What about Tessa? How is she doing?" I asked him, unable to stop the desperation that etched itself into my voice.

Warren shook his head again. "The doctors have no idea what's going through her head right now. She's half delirious and half in tears. She keeps calling out for Brontë or she just mumbles something about the supernatural."

I sighed and gritted my teeth.

"But that's only what the doctors say." He added quickly.

My head shot up. "What do you mean?"

A darker look formed on Warren face and he did a quick look around us to see if anyone was listening in on our conversation. "When I visited Tessa alone she acted really different. She seemed almost normal at points. But she looked scared most of the time. She kept talking about the guy who killed Brontë and attacked her. She said that he was going to come back and attack someone else again." Warren said in a volume just above a whisper. "She told me that she needed to talk to you privately."

I nodded dumbly, trying to process all the information I was just given. I couldn't lie and tell myself that this was only Tessa making stories up to deal with her traumatic experience; as much as I wanted to believe so. I saw her face after the attack and I reread the note she had in her hand over and over again a million times.

The first casualties of war are the innocent.

- R

R.

Who was the secret identity of this 'R' and what was his motive?

These were the questions that had been swamping my head ever since Brontë was murdered and Tessa was gravely injured. Maybe. Just maybe Tessa could hold a few of these answers.

"I'll visit her after the funeral and everything has quelled down," I told him, nodding my head in confirmation. Warren nodded his head once and tucked his hands into his black jacket pockets, moving to leave. "Wait," I called to him, a surge of painful feeling sprouting in my chest as I paused under his expectant light blue eyes. "Thank you," I breathed out, "For everything you've done to help. You—you are a better person that I realized, thank you."

Warren shook his head and let a hand swing out of one of his jacket pockets. "Hold your breath, Valencia. Don't put that much trust in me so soon."

The funeral was quite beautiful.

Everything was shrouded in gold and silk.

It was tradition. The mourners would wear black and grey as to represent death and sadness, while the family of the deceased would wear white and gold to represent celebrating the life of the dead.

All of the Oliver family attended. From the youngest William, who wasn't even two years old yet and would never get a chance to get to know his oldest sister, to the eldest Laurence, who was Brontë's father and had quiet tears streaming down his face during the whole funeral. Meredith, Brontë's mother, was holding his hand the entire time as the whole family held and comforted each other throughout the funeral service. The older siblings, Atalanta and Ophelia carried the two youngest Oliver's, Penelope and William, while the middle child Thisbe stood strongly by their sides. They all looked like Brontë, with the similar blonde hair and grey-blue eyes, and it was clear to see that they were all very close to each other.

Watching the Oliver family greve for Brontë brought pang of pain to my chest. I wanted to run up to them, get down on my knees, and apologize until my knuckles bleed and I exhausted myself to near death. They didn't deserve for their eldest daughter die, nor did Brontë deserve to be murdered in cold blood for her family to weep over.

To watch her float above them in a dark oak coffin, dressed in a gown of white lace and gold embroidery. Her pale blonde hair was laid in soft waves that framed her porcelain pale face, which made her appear ghostly ethereal. Her thin, pale arms rested over her stomach with clasped hands, covering up where the bullet wound once stained her bleeding body. Now she looked clean and peaceful, a gentle look settled nicely on her delicate features.

But all I could think of was her dying body. The dark red blood sprayed on the sides of the cold, grey steel walls of the deadly labyrinth. I couldn't get that picture out of my mind as I watched her gowned body float by during the funeral march. I wasn't the only one. Warren had something between a grimace and a hopeless look that appeared on his face during the funeral and it hadn't left his face since the funeral march started. Lochlen was quiet the whole time, not a cough, a tear, or a breath came from his stoney face. Somewhere under his façade of stone was a sense of anger. I saw it in his eyes. While he stood beside his father, mother, brothers, and younger sister, there was a fiery anger blazing in his soul. It was different to the usually calm and collected, if not nervous and timid, Illéan Prince.

There was a mix of pain, anger, and sadness in all of us.

We didn't call for this death. We didn't want it.

But someone killed Brontë Oliver and they would pay dearly for it.

The funeral was over. Everyone had left. Everything was quiet.

The Oliver family was still in the funeral parlor, talking with a priest about Brontë's proper funeral when they got back home to Tammins. I couldn't stay in the room with them. I wasn't able to look them in the eyes and tell them that I was sorry for their loss. I could barely face them during the entire funeral. I felt so ashamed watching them. I lost a girl who I had known for less than a month, and they lost a daughter that they had known and loved for her whole nineteen years of life.

I couldn't compare to their loss of family and I wanted to tell them so. But I was unable to summon the courage to tell them that. Not while they all stood together in their mourning garbs, with the same pale blonde hair and grey-blue eyes as Brontë. It was like looking into her own eyes and telling her bloody body that I would find her murderer and kill him with my own bare hands if that was what it took.

But I didn't. I left the room in silence.

I quietly made my way down to the lake at the edge of the gardens. It was a small beauty, hidden mostly by trees and brambles. But once you finished the trek to the lake, it was very much worth it. The lake was one of the few calm spots within the chaotic palace; other than the rooftop of the palace, which I could not bring myself to visit.

Once upon a time, I would visit the lake with my older brother Nixon. We would leave our constantly quarrelling mother and father behind to go skip stones over the water. At least I would try. Nixon was always better than me. He would try to show me how to stand and would help me attempt to throw the stone correctly, then laugh good naturedly after I failed over and over again. I was always horrible at skipping stones, and I probably still was just as bad as I was all those years ago. Still, Nixon would always help me. No matter what.

I could only wonder what he was doing now. The last I saw Nixon, he stormed out of the palace after our parents announced me as their heir. But he had time to recover and rekindle himself, at least that was what I wanted to think. He had sent me letter after Brontë's death, which I hadn't gotten around to opening. Perhaps I would open it tonight, I could use a distraction from the hell hole that was the palace. After years of watching our parents fight and argue right in front of our young eyes, we had gotten accustomed to a silent language of "please don't talk about this". So maybe he would offer some comforting words as my brother instead of my rival, and we would have something to talk about in person when he comes back to Angeles for my birthday. But I could long for that day all I wanted. It would not make the day arrive faster.

As I pushed the last bushes out of the way, I stepped into the sun and fresh air that surrounded the clear blue lake. I took a deep, relieved breath in and exhaled all my dysfunctional thoughts out onto the blue abyss. Stepping forwards, I recognized the sand under my shoes and a longing to feel the sand under my feet came upon me. Following this urge, I took off my black shoes and the white socks underneath them. Leaving my shoes and socks behind by the bushes I had come out of, stepping onto the small sandy beach and feeling the grindy sand in between my toes was another welcome relief.

It took me a moment to notice the small footprints in the sand.

Another moment to notice the young blonde girl that stood barefoot at the edge of the water, skipping stones.

"Hello?" I called out to the girl. At first I wondered if the girl was Gwen Schreave, but the youngest Schreave was taller and had darker blonde hair. This girl was shorter with lighter blonde hair. When her name hit me, I recoiled as the small blonde figure turned around.

"Lord Caspian!" Ophelia Oliver exclaimed, dropping the grey stone in her left hand. She had on a white tea dress with a puffy tulle skirt, lace bodice, and a satin fringe that was rolled up to her knees. A pair of simple white low heels were thrown down on the sand next to a pile of stones and pebbles. I tried to smile at the thirteen year old girl, though the results looked forced and painful. Ophelia saw my poorly attempted smile and a sorrowful look appeared on her youthful face. "Are you okay?" She asked, concerned. I opened my mouth to respond that I was fine, but no sound came out. Ophelia paused and looked at me again, with a questioning eye. "Did you know my sister?" She asked calmly, taking a step forward.

I gave her a considering look, not sure exactly how to respond to the younger sister of the deceased girl who I cared for. "Yes," I answered cautiously. "I went on a couple dates with her and we talked often."

"She was nice, wasn't she," Ophelia responded without missing a beat. "She would always take care of us since our mom and dad couldn't because they had to work to pay all our bills. Brontë and I would always sit and read together because I can't run around like Atalanta and Thisbe, but I liked it. We got to talk and share everything we were thinking about." She said, her eyes slightly glazed, showing that her mind was stuck in a memory of her older sister. Slowly, she lowered herself to sitting on the sand, grabbing one of the smooth stones. She looked back at me, pushing a lock of light blonde hair behind her ear. Once she spotted my slightly confused face she smiled slightly. "I have Sickle Cell Anemia," Ophelia told me honestly, a sad smile on her face. "It prevents me from doing a lot of physical activities. Sometimes I have trouble breathing, I get tired easily, and I get a lot of pains. Brontë would always help me deal with the pains and try to distract me from the sickness."

"I'm sorry," I told her softly, taking a seat on the sand next to her. "Can you get a cure?"

Ophelia shook her head and my heart dropped. "It's incurable, the doctors say I won't live to be forty," she said sadly, pulling her knees to her chest.

I moved my eyes from her to soft ripples of water on the lake. "I'm sorry," I said simply, repeating my previous words.

"Sometimes I feel sad about it, but whenever I think about what is going to happen I start praying. I want to be a saint," Ophelia said softly into her knees. "I want to help other people in the world, because the life I have now is my one chance to do something good and help others. Life is short and we should all do the best we can with the time we have on Earth."

"That makes you a very good person," I told her quietly. "Better than me probably."

Ophelia looked at me, though I looked straight ahead and didn't meet her eyes. "You can still be King," she said. "You can correct the wrongs of the people before you and you can make things better. And even if you don't become King, that shouldn't stop you from being a kind, good person."

I finally looked at her, a small smile on my lips. "Y'know, you sound very wise for a thirteen year old."

She smiled as well. "Brontë always said that I was wise beyond my years," she said proudly.

"You should be very proud of your sister," I said gently. "She may have died, but she died protecting another girl from getting hurt. She was a very good person. Selfless and kind. Just like you."

Ophelia smiled brightly at hearing my words and sat back on her arms, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. After a few minutes of peaceful quietness, she opened her eyes and reached for one of the stones by her side. I watched her as she grabbed a rubber band and strapped a thin rectangle to the stone. She turned towards me and offered the stone.

"Do you want to skip one?" She asked with a small smile on her porcelain features.

I looked down at the stone and had a sharp intake of breath once I saw what she had strapped to the smooth stone. It was a slightly faded polaroid picture that appeared to be of Brontë holding her baby brother William with a bright, happy smile on her face. The picture was slightly damp and had a few crackly red paint fingerprints stamped on the frame. On the bottom of the polaroid frame was a few names scrawled in little kid handwriting.

"What?" I asked her weakly, my throat dry and scratchy.

Ophelia placed the stone gently on the sand next to me. "It's a picture of Brontë and our baby brother William. It was taken a year ago, right before Brontë turned eighteen and William was only a few months old."

"What do you want me to do with it?" I asked her again, my voice still weak and scratchy.

She shrugged. "You skip it," she said simply. "You've skipped stones before, right?"

I shook my head slightly. "I used to come out to this lake with my brother Nixon when we were younger and we sometimes threw stones, but we stopped coming here after a while. It didn't matter. I wasn't ever that good at skipping stones. Horrible actually."

"Did your brother ever teach you how to do it correctly," she asked with her eyebrows knitted in confusion.

I shrugged loosely, picking at the sand under my fingernails. "He tried to teach me but I could never get it right. He would try to help me stand correctly or put his hand on mine while I threw the stone. Though I could never do it by myself."

"Stand up," Ophelia ordered. "I'll train you."

"Train me?" I asked, laughing lightly.

She gave me a pointed look and I complied with her order. I stood up with the polaroid-attached stone and looked at her. Ophelia grabbed one of the flat pebbles that she can collected and stepped up to the water. She moved slowly, and I knew she was implying that I watch her. I did so.

"Step one, get a skinny, flat, round rock that is about the size of your palm," she said, focused on the lake ahead. "Step two, place your index finger against the edge of the stone." Ophelia did so and showed me her finger placement pointedly. "Step three, face the water sideways, with your feet shoulder-width apart." She completed the action she described and I began to subtly copy her positioning. "Step four, bend your wrist all the way back and then snap it forward to flick the rock against the surface of the water." She gestured the move, not actually throwing the stone, and the action reminded me of cracking a whip. I copied her movements and looked at her for judgement. She nodded. "Good you're getting the hang of it. Now, step five, get your legs into it. At first you should just practice with your arm, but once you get good at throwing with your arm, you can work your legs into your throws. Using your legs will give you more momentum and you can skip farther." I nodded at her and copied her movements again. I felt my arm getting a little sloppy so I stopped and corrected myself. Ophelia nodded again. "That's your one problem, you don't follow through when you throw. You have to be fully confident in your throws if you want to get them correct. Make sure to whip your throwing arm all the way across your chest, finishing near the shoulder of your opposite arm." I took a deep breath and completed the action with my arm, trying the steady my legs at the same time. Ophelia smiled at me. "Good. You're doing really well! Now all you need is lots of practice, then you'll be really to throw the polaroid rocks!"

"Is that what they're called?" I asked while attempting to throw one of the actual rocks now. Ophelia nodded and began to skip a few of the plain stones as well, though she made far more success than me. All my stones quickly sunk to the bottom of the lake while Ophelia's always skipped somewhere between five to fourteen times.

"It's something that I made up," she said over the sounds of our stones splashing the water. "I liked to skip stones since it was always so peaceful and relaxing, especially since it doesn't take that much physical work. I would sometimes make Brontë come out with me and skip stones. She never liked anything remotely related to exercise. She would always say something like 'I don't really exercise...I take the stairs sometimes.'"

"She was always hilarious," I told Ophelia with a small grin.

She laughed in return and skipped another stone. "Anyway, I liked taking pictures and sometimes if I had a bad memory, I would tie one of my polaroids to a skipping stone and I would throw it as far as I could. It helped relieve stress and bad thoughts. Especially when I feel sad and depressed about my sickness, I remember that there are so many good things, good people, and good memories. And sometimes you have to sacrifice a couple good things to stop a couple bad ones. Like when Brontë sacrificed herself for her friend."

"Tessa," I said softly, "Brontë saved Tessa."

Ophelia smiled gently again, with a few glistening tears at the corner of her blue eyes that she wiped away with a deep breath. I smiled a little, thinking about Brontë and Ophelia's words. For once, I didn't feel angry about Brontë's death. Instead I felt sadness and a little pinch of hope at hearing Ophelia's words. She really was a better person than I was.

After hundreds of failed attempts at skipping the stones, most of which ended up with the stone plopping straight down into the water, I got one stone to skip twice. It wasn't much but Ophelia cheered loudly and it brought a large grin back to my face after a whole day of sadness and mourning. I had finally did what it took me years of practice to complete.

"You did it!" Ophelia cheered, tugging on my arm happily. She was so much shorter than me that I completely dwarfed her, but her bright spirit made up for her lack of height. "You finally did it."

"I guess I did," I remarked, a little dumbstruck. "I guess this means that I can finally catch up with Nixon if we ever come back here again."

"You should try skipping one of the polaroid stones now!" Ophelia said excitedly, handing me the stone with the picture of Brontë and William attached to it. I paused as I weighed the stone in my hand and looked down on the little blonde figure beneath me.

"Ophelia, I don't think that I really should be doing this," I told her timidly, trying to give her back the stone.

Now Ophelia looked the tiniest bit annoyed. "Why not?" She asked, confused. "You said that you knew her and cared for her."

Embarrassed, I looked away from her questioning blue eyes. "I did and I still do care for her, but don't you think that it would be wrong for me as the person who, well, was involved in Brontë's death to dedicate something as personal as this to her."

"But you didn't kill her," she insisted, grabbing my arm.

"You really don't understand." I tried to explain.

But Ophelia wasn't taking any of it. She shook her head and looked up at me. "If anyone other than her actual murderer was to blame for my sister's death it would be me. She entered the Selection because of me. Because the bills for my treatments were so expensive that our mom and dad had a lot of trouble paying them. If she was Selected then the money sent back home would help pay for care and treatment for me and all of our other siblings. And if she was eliminated she would have taken it as a failure on her part. Instead she died without ever living a real life because she spent all her time, every single minute of every single day, taking care of her younger siblings. She was forced to quit school after finishing eighth grade so she could take care of us and she worked just as hard as our parents without question everyday. And when she finally gets her break to go participate in the Selection, she ends up dead!"

At the point that Ophelia finished her monologue, she was in full tears. I moved to comfort the younger girl, who was shaking and had tears streaming down her red cheeks. I had to admit, I was not the best comforter. Even Warren was probably better at this than me. Still, I leaned down and let Ophelia let out shaken tears onto my suit jacket. I didn't mind the jacket getting ruined, I just wanted to find a way to make her feel better.

Slowly releasing myself from her grip, I gently grabbed the skipping stone with the polaroid picture of Brontë and William attached by a rubber band. Walking up to the edge of the water, knowing that Ophelia's red-rimmed eyes were watching me, I took a deep breath and readied myself for the throw. Pulling my arm back, I readied my strong stance and bowed my knees a bit, then flung my arm forward and let go of the stone with a snap. The stone went flying, low and far, until it hit the water lightly in a splash and skipped three more times before finally sinking to the bottom of the lake.

Turning back to the sniffling Ophelia, I had a small smile on my face. "Your turn?" I suggested to her.

She evoked a half-smile and reached for a stone, rubber band, and polaroid picture. She selected one of the youngest Oliver sister, Penelope. It showed the little blonde haired girl giggling happily with her hair up in pigtails. Ophelia tied the picture to the rock with a double knot of the rubber band and stepped up to the plate. She did that same movements as I had done earlier, except her's were cleaner and faster. The rock was flung far across the lake and landed with at least seven or eight skips. I grinned at the result and shouted a "good job" over the whipping wind that had come in due to the later time. Ophelia stared after her skipped stone with a mix of happy and sad emotions on her face. Eventually, she pushed herself to go get another stone and polaroid picture. She picked one at random and started down at it. I looked over her head to see that it was a picture of her and Brontë. Brontë was holding Ophelia in her arms and they were both grinning at the camera. There were many scribbles under and down on the polaroid, including what I recognized as Brontë's handwriting in a message for Ophelia.

Ophelia clutched the picture tightly and stared down at it with a few new tears forming at the corners of her eyes. I could tell that she was debating whether or not she should let go of the picture and all the good memories that came with it. I looked at her with a sympathetic look and cleared my throat, catching her attention.

"Y'know, Ophelia, I don't think that it would hurt to keep one picture. We still have to hold on to good memories somehow," I told the younger girl with a comforting smile. She considered my words of a few seconds before nodding shyly in agreement, putting the picture back down into the little box of pictures that had brought.

The rest of the evening didn't involve a whole lot of talking. Just skipping stones and watching Brontë grow up within an assortment of polaroid photographs. I learned about Sebastian Gellack, Brontë's best friend back home, who Ophelia promised would punch me directly in the face if he ever saw me in person. Apparently the whole Oliver family had been close to Sebastian, and the siblings would always insist that Brontë marry Sebastian someday. Which she might have done if she hadn't been Selected. Afterwards, Ophelia continued sharing about her life growing up and being a part of a family with a wide range of disabilities that took a great cost on their money situation. Even if they had money, taking care of six children was extremely hard, which meant that Laurence and Meredith Oliver had to constantly employ their oldest daughter to take care of her younger siblings.

There was so much to Brontë's life that I had never known. I was learning facts and tidbits about a life that was cut so short. It was saddening at times, funny at others. All the stories that Ophelia told reminded me that Brontë was human and once smiled, laughed, and played. She was more than a deceased figure.

She was Brontë Persephone Oliver and no one could take her memory away from the world.