It was beyond breathless, Merissa felt as if her chest might never expand to take a breath again. She closed her eyes tight and that helped the nausea - there was nothing to do about the pressure, the weight, sucking her inwards, the only sure thing her hand on the arm that grounded her to this abyss. Just as she felt she couldn't handle the squeezing sensation a moment longer, she felt it give, plopping her onto an undergrowth, submerged in shade from a cluster of trees, cover from the sun and curious eyes. She gasped in a lungful of air and clutched onto the arm to steady herself.
"Fucking hell," was her first complaint as bramble attempted to ensnare her hem, "You couldn't have chosen a better location?"
Joseph was equally annoyed, although his landing had been far more graceful, "I'll let you determine your way home then, if you think you could cross back over the border with the trace still on you. I'm sure father would be understanding."
Merissa gritted her teeth and turned from him, facing herself towards the blazing sunlight, though she made no move to exit the shelter, instead pulling out a cigarette to occupy her mouth. She knew she couldn't afford to antagonize her brother, not when he was her side-along ride back to the Manor. She lit the smoke between her teeth and squinted out beyond the grove. It was a perfect ordinary - and to her a completely alien - parking lot.
"I'll take from your silence you'd prefer to meet me here in an hour like we agreed," he huffed.
Joseph was alway easy to offend, or perhaps he just took offence from her after years of practice. So, she just nodded without moving her eyes from the growing number of cars arranging themselves in tidy lines. They didn't look expensive to her, but what did she know about Muggle contraptions? She blew out a mouthful of smoke.
"I still don't understand what you plan to gain from this experience," he continued to complain, watching her still process, "Is anyone you know even going to be here? I don't see why you should worry yourself about being in attendance. I don't see your obligation to be."
"She was in my house wasn't she? And as a prefect, I thought you would say I have a responsibility to the students."
"Not the dead ones," he muttered.
He still didn't understand, but she didn't mind. He wasn't the one she had most trouble convincing to this endeavour.
She shrugged, "Maybe this is what I need to stop feeling so shitty. I don't know. It's not really your concern. Like I said, the deal is this is the last time I'm asking you to cover my shit. I'd have asked Abraxas, but he isn't of age."
Joseph didn't seem placated by this statement, "I hope so. I've been having to avoid Walburga since I agreed to this. I know she wouldn't approve if I let it slip."
Merissa was finally able to find humor in this bleak scene, "Is that how you're rationalizing your aversion? Well, I hope it has been a good excuse. I don't imagine you'll have respites from her on your engagement trip."
She expected a spiteful reaction from him but he simply scowled, mopping his handkerchief across his brow as if the streamed sunlight was making him sweat, which it was not, "One hour."
With a pop he disapparated and she was left alone to make the least conspicuous exit she could into the lot, blazing with light. It was much sunnier here than it had been in Skye, but perhaps that could be attributed to the lack of sea mist rather than the journey so far South.
She passed the single row of cars, her black heels clicking against the steps as she came to the front door of the church and slid inside the sanctuary.
Myrtle Warren's funeral was a meager affair, the might of the old church it was held in only dwarfing the small congregation further. Small indeed, Merissa thought as she made her way to a pew near the back, hoping to attract little attention. It was a spacious and dark building that appeared as if it should have magnificent echoes, but did not. The walls seemed to suck up sound, hushing the soft voices of those who came to pay their respects. The church was just out of a small town near Bath, where Myrtle had apparently lived with her Muggle parents.
Her parents Merissa reminded herself fiercely. She was unwilling to let any of the guilt be relieved from her today by thinking of them as subhuman. That was exactly what Lestrange or Walburga or her father would do and today was about being better than that. Pushing her eyes upon the casket, she quickly located the girl's parents, speaking with the preacher just beside it. These people raised Myrtle at the very least, and Merissa had taken her life away from them.
She scanned through the thin crowd, finding quickly that she was the only student present. Hadn't Myrtle had friends at school? Somehow, that made it much worse.
Everyone had taken their seats in the cold wood pews long before the service seemed set to begin. Merissa told herself that it was natural that the family would want to get past this day as quickly as possible, but she couldn't help but notice that they seemed impatient to leave. Myrtle's mother was wearing an ill fitting black dress that looked like it had belonged to someone else before, as the stretches in it did not mold to the scant woman's body. She was shifting as if trying to sit on a spike. Her father, whom Myrtle had clearly gotten most of her features from, adjusted his thick lensed glasses frequently, though they did not seem in danger of sliding down his rather sizable nose.
Cursing herself, Merissa ripped her eyes off the clothing and examined their faces. Surely that would give her something to cry over. Today of all days, she wished to be herself the most miserable. It was the least she could do.
Myrtle's parents did little for this cause though, as they looked far from morose, but rather bored. Agitated, as if they were waiting for the rest of their lives to continue, rather than a part of their life had ended.
Merissa found herself growing more indignant than sad. Not only had Myrtle been an only child, but somehow out of their ordinary blood, she had been born a witch. Did these people have any idea how extraordinary that was? They were blessed with a magical child, even if she hadn't been the most talented, and still they seemed to have little remorse over her death.
However Merissa stopped herself again. She was starting to sound far too much like - but she couldn't even think his name. Not today.
Merissa recrossed her ankles, smoothing the skirt of the black dress she was wearing. She had laboriously researched Muggle customs for this event, only to find her standing funeral attire would be more than appropriate. In some customs, they weren't so different, and she reminded herself of that. Still, she felt removed from this company and she surely would have recognized a wizard in this crowd if there were any to be found. It seemed unlikely that anyone here other than her parents knew Myrtle was a witch. And that made it even worse.
The man in the white collar took the pulpit. His voice reminded Merissa of stale bread and moved slowly over the words as if he himself was not sure of their meanings. The monotone droned on and Merissa found her eyes wandering again. There couldn't be more than twenty people here and most appeared to be members of the congregation. Not a single person younger than forty was present.
Myrtle hadn't been popular in the wizarding world or the Muggle world either. Caught between the two, she had apparently not made a single friend or even acquaintance who thought it important enough to pay their respects. And that made it even worse.
As the service dragged on, Myrtle's parents grew more and more restless. Her gaunt-faced mother began tapping her foot impatiently. The sound was luckily caught by the thick walls, for if it hadn't been, Merissa wasn't sure if she would be able to restrain herself from lunging at them, agitated as she already was. Neither had shed a tear the whole service - in fact - she realized looking around - there wasn't a single tear to be seen in any of the eyes of the funeral goers. She touched her own cheek, furious at herself. Why couldn't she even muster a tear? What was wrong with her?
Merissa's eyes darted up when she saw a flash of white. A somewhat opaque figure was floating just above the pulpit watching the procession. Myrtle had arrived.
Merissa knew she shouldn't let this spook her - she had known the girl had come back as a ghost. The rumors had reached even her about the girl's reappearance.
Myrtle's figure drifted between the small elevated stage and the pews, belonging not on one side or the other, even in death. Behind her thick rimmed glasses, her eyes were puffy and a darker gray than the rest of her body, clear evidence of her sorrow. Now, someone was crying at her funeral at least. It didn't change the fact that the ghost could see how dry everyone else's eyes were. And that made it even worse.
The ghost settled on sobbing in the front row between her parents, who had left a gaping space between the two of them. Surely, they should have felt the chill from her presence, but they seemed set on feeling nothing. Their blank stares remained restless.
Eventually, the pastor stopped speaking and invited anyone up who wanted to share some memories about Myrtle. From the front row, Mrs. Warren visibly stiffened. This had not been part of the planned ceremony, evidently.
It was silent throughout the room, yet not a strained silence as if anyone was expected to go up, but instead a dull silence that spoke for itself. No one had anything to say. Myrtle raised her head, to gaze with swollen eyes around the church. She seemed the only one surprised by the lack of response. Merissa sunk into her seat, terrified for the ghost to see her. She had thought she wanted to comfort this girl, she had thought it her sole purpose when coming here, but now that she was, she realized that was a lie, as all of this was, to make herself - not Myrtle - feel better.
Merissa knew how this would have gone if she was a good, brave person. She would have marched up to the pulpit and declared that although she had not known Myrtle well, she had been inspired by her resilience and purity of spirit. She would have looked straight into Myrtles eyes and told her she was sorry, if not to tell her why, and somehow, that would have made things a little bit better.
But she did not feel good, or brave, or even decent - she was a coward, and never had she felt it so profoundly.
Coward for not saying a word about Myrtle, who although wroning her, did nothing compared to what she had paid for. Coward for helping Riddle unleash the creature. Coward for not stopping it when she could have. And coward, most of all because she let him get away with it. Justice would never be served to the Warrens (though it seemed only the daughter was interested in such) and it was all Merissa's fault.
"Coward," she whispered to herself as they raised the modest coffin once more, followed by the procession out the door and into a long black car. No one seemed to be going to the burial itself as the car sped away up the hill to the graveyard, leaving the congregation to scatter into the beautiful summer day, eager to get on with their lives.
Merissa found herself frozen to the top steps, unable to follow the others out into the afternoon. What was she supposed to do with her day now? With the rest of her life? How was she going to live with herself?
She flashed the face of her silver watch upwards desperately, but although the service had seemed to drag on, in reality it had been only a half-hour. Joseph wouldn't be here for quite some time.
Her stomach knotted at the idea and she glanced back inside the church at the drifting, sobbing ghost. She stepped out of the line of the door, pressing her back against the wall. Coming here today wasn't the magic cure for her conscience she had hoped it might be. She felt even more ragged for showing her face here, realizing now her self-serving intention.
A loud pop just to her right nearly caused Merissa to keel over. Maybe a broken heart was physical as well as metaphorical, as she felt far weaker than usual.
"Sorry," the wizard said, steading her from the spot he had just apparated from, "Oh good, you're not a Muggle either. Hello, Thorpe."
Charlus Potter was supporting her, golden-brown eyes drawn down in an expression she hardly recognized on his usually cheerful face. He was sad.
"Potter," she greeted, nodding curtly. This was not part of her plan. She had no idea she would see anyone she knew here, in fact she had quite counted on it. She restrained herself from touching her still dry cheeks self-consciously.
"What are you doing here?" she added. It seemed unlikely that the star Gryffindor chaser and previous prefect had been close friends with Myrtle Warren, who just a few months ago had been so unwilling to leave her dormitory that Merissa had not realized she was there, even when left alone in the Ravenclaw tower together for a full two weeks.
"I meant to make it to the service," he said, running a hand through his unruly hair sheepishly, "I even requested the day off, but St. Mungo's received a batch of beaten up kids - Grindelwald you know? They needed a brewer."
Of course. He was a saint, an angel that walked among them. She hadn't heard what job he had taken up in the month since Hogwarts, but she wasn't remotely surprised. Merissa would have liked to brush him off as having a hero complex, yet found herself deeply envious of his moral character. How easy it must be to sleep at night being Charlus Potter, whom she was sure had never so much as trodden on a beetle maliciously in his life.
"You must be so upset," he said, misunderstanding her stricken expression and wrapping an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. She was too shocked to respond or throw him off as she might have, "Going back to Hogwarts next year I'm sure will be awful."
And then, as if that hadn't been terrible enough to hear, "You're so good to come though. I didn't know Myrtle well, but I have to imagine she looked up to you."
Wrong Merissa thought desperately. She didn't deserve Myrtle's praise, or his or least of all to have anyone feel sorry for her. His words ripped at her deeper than any accusation ever could have.
"I am sure Hogwarts won't feel the same without her," her lips said, though her brain had certainly not authorized this sentence to be spoken.
Liar, liar, liar! She found herself screaming inwardly. No one would miss Myrtle except apparently Charlus. Merissa least of all would miss the girl who had plagued her last few months. She knew at home and back at Hogwarts she would relish in the absence of the abhorred reminder of what she did.
"I am going to go visit her grave, the plot is just over the hill," Charlus told her, "If you ever want someone to talk about Myrtle with. . ."
He trailed off, surveying her face with concern. She couldn't begin to picture what it might look like right now, but to her mild horror a strangled laugh came from her lips, "No. . . I'm sure I will be fine," her voice told him.
Liar the voice inside her head reminded her softly.
Charlus nodded and left her, still stuck on the top of the steps. Glancing back inside the chapel, she found Myrtle was sobbing dramatically over the pulpit. She had not noticed that Charlus Potter had arrived to pay his respects to her memory, and given the way she was going on, she probably never would.
Myrtle had missed the last act of kindness anyone was likely to show her, in this life or after. Her life had been meager enough in them, and here the last one was, slipping her by, and all Merissa could find herself doing was running down the steps and into the cover of the nearby shade trees where she illegally disapparated with a pop.
In a moment, back in Skye with the sea bluffs beneath her. The manor was a kilometer off but she had been remarkably accurate for a first try.
Merissa gasped in the freezing air of the ocean, grateful she had successfully not splinched herself in her rashness and apparated to this exact spot in the cliffs and not an inch further, as she would have been cast into the freezing waters.
Or was she ungrateful . . .
Leaning forward, she peered down the sheer cliff-face, shivering down to her very core. It was a steep descent into sharp rocks below. It would be quick, virtually painless. The waters had always called to her, the beguiling song of the sea. She took a step towards it, unable to resist its call. Her finger tips quivered either with magic or fear. The two were becoming too similar lately.
The water crashed against the basalte like a bomb, the spray reaching up to mist her in ocean water, even a hundred meters above. She took another step.
She sucked in a deep breath like divers did before a stunt to use it, only to fall to her knees, sobbing. The dark rock cut into her skin, and she was grateful, because Myrtle Warren should not be the only one in pain today. She knew she was guilty in every sense of the word, but also that the world would not punish her the way it had punished Myrtle. And that made it all the worse.
To be continued! Part two will be posting as a new story soon so keep an eye open. Until then! xx
