November 11, 1948

"Dies iræ! Dies illa

Solvet sæclum in favilla:

Teste David cum Sibylla…"

The stone church had little in the way of heat and though it was only early November, Ellie's fingers were beginning to lose feeling. She brought them to her mouth and blew into her cupped hands, trying to gain some warmth. Her father, under the assumption she was crying, patted her knee awkwardly and blew his nose. She allowed him to think he was comforting her. It was her mother's funeral and the least she could do was be kind to her father.

She folded her hands in her lap, clenching them tightly together and stared at them instead of paying attention to the priest delivering mass. She supposed she should be more upset, but the truth was, Ellie wasn't sure how she felt. It was as if all emotion had left her the night her mother died. She hadn't cried or yelled or thrown anything. She simply felt hazy—dislocated from everything else.

She pulled at her collar for the umpteenth time. Her neck was red from where the itchy lining has been rubbing. It was a quick find—something at the local salvage shop. The cut was a little out of style—something from before the war. Smelled a bit like mothballs.

William Avery Chaplin Jr. had always been a quiet man. He was a thinker, a modestly successful writer and his militaristic father's biggest disappointment. William Jr. had never quite grasped the ability to make himself heard. He was, in his father's words, "Too soft."

Ellie had always seen her father as stiff. He had never been particularly close with his daughter as he left most of the parenting to his wife, Rosemary, while he fostered his writing career.

Her mother had always been Mother; never Mum or Ma, and certainly not Mummy. Proper until her last days she refused, even on her death bed, to be caught with her hair down or her lips un-rouged.

And now she was gone. And the only thing Ellie could focus on was the scratchy lace neck of her dress.

Ellie could see her mother lying in her coffin as if she were simply sleeping. It unsettled her, so she looked back down at her hands. The priest was speaking now, saying something about the souls of the virtuous being in the hands of God. Ellie started imagining her own funeral. She hoped it would be warmer. And that there would be fine poetry read instead of dry readings from the Bible. But most of all she hoped there would be more people at her funeral than there were at her mother's. Ellie was there and of course her father, but other than that there were few who had come to mourn her mother's life. The pews were mostly empty. The little family they had that still survived chose not to attend a Catholic Mass.

Suddenly everyone was standing. Ellie quickly stood, tripping over her own feet. Her father caught her underneath her arm. "Eleanor." He chided quietly.

She huffed, pulling her arm away and followed him to the front of the church to say one last goodbye to her mother. Her stomach flipped uneasily as she approached the coffin, her eyes darting around the sanctuary for any place to rest except her mother's face. She ran her fingers shakily along the edge of the mahogany casket.

Her father cleared his throat. "May you rest in peace, Rosemary."

Ellie rolled her eyes at the impersonal farewell but could only muster a quiet, "Goodbye, mother," herself. She squared her shoulders and looked down at the woman in front of her. Quiet, pallid and grim, Ellie was glad her mother couldn't stare back. Her lips were painted with her favorite color of lipstick, cheeks artificially blushed and hair perfected and smooth.

Ellie shivered. Her father put a hand on her shoulder hesitantly. She stiffened under his touch. Ellie knew he was trying to be affectionate, but it just wasn't natural for the Chaplin family to be anything other than coolly distant. Ellie sometimes wondered what it would have been like growing up with hugs and kisses—how she might be different, but it was of no consequence. She was who she was and it was unlikely to change.

Ellie knew her father had loved her mother in his odd own way. And her mother had loved him. She supposed she wouldn't be there if that weren't true. She stole a glance at her father's face. He was ashen and his blue eyes were watery. She assumed he had been trying not to cry in front of her.

The priest motioned to the attendants and they moved forward to close the lid of the casket. Ellie took one more look at her mother's face as the mahogany slowly came down with finality.

Distractedly, the Chaplins collected their coats from the pews and made their way to the burial ground adjacent to the church. It was her mother's church. Her father was protestant.

It was a drizzly day, not raining hard enough to soak through their jackets, but enough to make umbrellas necessary. They gathered with the small party of mourners from the church in front of the plot. It gaped open like the maw of a monster. Ellie felt if she got too close she might fall in and be consumed. Dirt fell in at the sides, silently crumbling into darkness.

The pall bearers brought the coffin down the front stairs of the church and to the side of the chasm. The priest spoke more, but Ellie couldn't focus. Her father shook silently beside her as men began lowering her mother's coffin into the grave. When the first handful of dirt fell on it the coffin it was audible, the dirt being weighed down by the moisture. Ellie felt it in her heart. A tear slipped down her own cheek as she finally felt her world crash down around her.

The Chaplin's car was the first to leave the church yard leading those of the mourning party who wanted to gather for a luncheon back to the house. Martha, the housekeeper that Ellie's father had employed as soon as her mother had gotten ill, had prepared a small meal.

The car was silent. Ellie picked at the neck of her dress. Trees passed by the window in a fuzzy blur. Finally, she couldn't stand it, "Father I'm sorry."

"For what, Eleanor?" Her father's voice was gruff.

"About mother. I'm sorry. I know how hard this must be for you." Her voice cracked and she rubbed her eyes feeling tears start to pool again.

Her father coughed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shake his head. "None of that, now."

She folded her hands in her lap. "Yes father."

They traveled the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived home, Martha met them at the door. She patted Ellie on the back as she made her way inside ahead of her father to make a cup of tea.

The gathering was smaller than the funeral at the church. There were less than ten people which Ellie supposed was good because she hoped they'd leave soon. Some of them came up to her and tried to make small talk about what a wonderful woman her mother had been. Ellie tried to reconcile their accounts with the actual woman but came up lacking.

It wasn't that she hadn't loved her mother. Surely she must have—but it was largely unsaid. Her mother was strict, unrelenting, and sometimes cruel even when she didn't mean to be. She was vain and obsessed with keeping up appearances which caused her to knock heads with Ellie quiet often. They weren't rich, but they weren't destitute either. The war had caused her father's book sales to decline so they had to rely on her mother for much of their income. She had gone from being a homemaker to a factory worker in the blink of an eye due to government demand. Still she wore victory rolls and lipstick to make parts for tanks. She didn't want the neighbors to know where she was going even though most of the country was somehow involved in wartime work. Ellie just couldn't understand the need to be anything you weren't.

"Ellie?"

She looked up at the sound of her name. Martha was standing in front of her with an empty sandwich plate.

"Yes?"

"Are you ok, dear? You were staring."

Ellie took a deep breath. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking. Can I help you?"

"Oh no, dear. You stay right where you are. Can I get you anything?" Martha's kind brown eyes crinkled in a sympathetic smile.

Ellie looked down at her cold cup of tea and sighed. "Could I have a new cup of tea?"

The housekeeper nodded. "Give it here." She tucked the sandwich plate under her arm to take the tea cup. She pursed her lips seeing that Ellie hadn't even taken a sip. "Cream and two sugars, right, dear?"

"Yes, please. Thank you, Martha."

"I'll be back in just a moment." Martha said as she hurried off to make tea.

Ellie felt guilty asking Martha to make her a cup of tea. She was perfectly able to make it herself, but she didn't have the energy. Ellie had never gotten quite used to Martha, either. She was mainly hired to help her father around the house once her mother had taken sick. Her mother was in charge of all household duties including cooking and cleaning and with Ellie away at school the house had fallen in to complete disarray. Ellie suspected now that her mother was dead Martha would be staying on fulltime.

The guests began to filter out. Martha returned with a cup of tea that Ellie also failed to drink. Finally it was just Ellie, her father and Martha. Ellie had tried helping Martha clean up but she insisted Ellie needed to rest. Ellie had just grabbed the banister to go up to her room when her father called her name. "Eleanor."

She sighed and backed off of the first step of the stairs, returning to the living room. "Yes father?"

Her father was seated in his plush red armchair. He looked awkward devoid of any papers or books to occupy his hands. Instead they were folded across his lap. Regarding her from where he sat he let out a sigh. "Eleanor I spoke with your headmistress."

"Why?"

He ignored her question. "We both think it's best if you remained home for the rest of the semester."

Ellie's head spun. "What? Why? I'll miss final exams!"

"I've been assured that you will not be penalized." He said as though that fixed everything.

"But my friends…It's my last year…" She mumbled. "I want to go back."

"You're needed here. Martha could use some help. And I'm sure you could use the time to…process." To mourn, father? To grieve? Ellie thought bitterly.

The prospect of helping Martha and wallowing in her grief for two months was no more appealing to Ellie than bathing in mud. She had a small but close group of friends at her boarding school and not seeing them until after the winter holidays pained her. It was only the beginning of November she wouldn't see them again until the second week of January after the New Year if her father kept her home. "I want to go back," She repeated. She needed her friends.

"It's not up for debate Eleanor." Her father wouldn't look at her.

The tears came, taking her by surprise. "I hate you." She said quietly, shocking herself. Immediately she felt guilty, but instead of apologizing she ran out of the room, through the kitchen and out the back door— startling Martha who called after her. The tears continued to stream down her face, and she refused to turn back even after realizing she hadn't grabbed her winter coat.

How could he do this to her? Her quiet father, who barely had an opinion of his own, forbidding her to go back to the one place she felt truly happy. She couldn't stay in that tomb of a house for one moment longer than she needed to. She'd fight tooth and nail to return to school before the term was up.

She didn't hate her father. Did she?

Her feet carried her to the small wooded creek behind her house. It was a place that she regularly came to think when she was home, lined with a low stone wall that was perfect for perching on. She fell against the wall, sobbing. The cold stones bit into her cheek.

Eventually the tears slowed. She pushed herself to a standing position and threw her leg over the little wall, taking a seat. She shivered violently. Her face felt red and puffy and her eyes were sensitive to the touch. She longed to dip her face in the water, but she knew it would be near freezing. Still, as she looked to the tiny babbling creek, she thought she saw a flash of something gold.

Had someone dropped something?

She dropped to her knees beside the water, inspecting it closely. It wasn't very deep, maybe a foot at most. She saw another flash, almost like the reflection off of a mirror. Cautiously she reached down towards where she thought she saw it. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for impact, and plunged her hand in. But instead of meeting the sandy bottom, she met nothing. Odd, she thought, but before she could glance down, something warm grabbed her hand.

Ellie had just enough time to let the air in her lungs go, before she was pulled in.

Again, expecting to meet silt and meeting nothing at all, Ellie began panicking. She was completely submerged in water now, unable to see sky or sand. She tried to wrest her hand from whatever had her, but she couldn't. She kicked out her legs and twisted and pulled but whatever it was, it was determined.

Then, suddenly, it let go.

Ellie immediately began kicking her legs, trying to swim the way she had seen the neighborhood boys do it, hoping to reach air soon, as she was entirely out. Her shoes were weighing her down and she tried to kick them off, but she was losing vigor. She couldn't hold back the reflex to breathe any longer.

Water filled her lungs and her head felt like it would explode. She had never been so terrified in her life. She was sure she was dying. She waited for her life to flash before her eyes like she had read in a book once. She hoped it would be the good things, like the late night snacks she and her classmates snuck into their dorm.

No such thing happened. As Ellie prepared to take another watery breath, her face broke the surface. She coughed a sputtered trying to rid her lungs of water. She had just enough time to take a greedy breath before the current pulled her under again and farther down what she now knew was a river.

For what seemed like an eternity she was pulled by some unnatural force, occasionally granted gasps of air before she was pulled back into the depths of the tumultuous river.

Gradually, the current slowed and she gently bumped up against something solid. She floated for a moment and slowly tried to stand up.

Oh, thank God! There was ground! Ellie eagerly tried to push herself to the surface. It took her a few tries to stand up straight for every time she reached air she would start to cough and gasp, retching water she was unfortunate enough to have breathed in. Finally, shakily standing, she tried to flex her numb fingers— nothing. Feeling herself drift away from consciousness, she stumbled to shore as quickly as her body allowed, collapsing, exhausted, freezing, and violently ill on the sandy ground, her legs still laying in the water. She threw up water and bile several times before falling onto her side.

Ellie was lying on the shore of a large river in a forest. She knew it wasn't her forest though. This one was lusher, thicker, and much greener. Is it even possible for a forest to be greener than another? Ellie mused.

She blinked a few times, feeling sharp needles of pain prick every piece of her. Everything felt numb and sore at the same time. She couldn't form a full thought and she was so, so, very tired.

Ellie closed her eyes one last time as a blanket of warmth washed over her.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reviewing! Hopefully I haven't let anyone down. (And I'm looking out for my commas.)

I'd also like to shout-out to my editor/beta reader/best friend for giving me detailed notes and wonderful suggestions.