Which Way is W.i.t.c.h.?
By: A J
Disclaimer: I do not own W.i.t.c.h. or Amber. I'm merely a Fan of both expressing my appreciation through this original piece of fiction, with no monetary gain sought.
Chapter 7
Scenes from a Funeral, Part 1
The people of Fadden Hills arrived en masse just before the service started. Randall Vandom, known in other realms as King Random of Amber, stood by the door, saying polite "Hello,"s and shaking hands. All the while he was on the lookout for his one truly-awaited guest to show up. His son, her father, was gone from this shadow. It stung, knowing there was nothing he could do for Tony these many years. But the boy had taken his decidedly non-magical life and made it into something of worth to himself, after all. Too bad he'd seemed to take after his own grandfather, the late King Oberon. Two beautiful wives, a child by each of them, and then a sudden death in his prime.
At last, he saw Martin, moving up the driveway before the funeral home in Flora's Mercedes. The Prince braked too hard, drifting the rear tires a bit as he pulled into the parking spot just passed the steps.
'Better hope Flora didn't hear that, boyo,' Random thought as the rubber chirped. His sister still hadn't forgiven himself and Corwin for what had happened to her last car from Earth. That had been a Mercedes too, Random remembered with a smirk. 'Speak of the devil,' he thought, as his erstwhile brother came over to stand by him.
"Heck of a turnout," Corwin said as he stopped at the other side of the doorway. "Makes me wonder how well-attended my funeral was." Random Chuckled. The family, thinking him dead several centuries ago, had held a casketless funeral for his elder brother. The tomb still stood on the slope of Mount Kolvir, gathering moss, bird's nests, and the occasional broken bottle whenever Corwin got moody and went up there to get drunk.
"Not nearly this many people liked you," he told Corwin as Martin ascended the steps … alone. "So, Martin … where's my granddaughter?" His older – his only son – flinched.
"Dad, you remember the girl he married? The one I introduced him to? Susan the obstinate, who you swore could give an out-stubborning to Aunt Fiona? She insisted on bringing her own car," Martin said, as he pointed out the dark green Accord pulling into the lot. "Wilhelmina rode with her."
"Wilhelmina, "Corwin repeated with an air of disinterest, but Random knew his brother was trying to take a measure of the girl he'd conversed with by Trump briefly last night from her name alone, sight-unseen. "How did she take his death?"
"She's fifteen; how do you think? She cried all over her boyfriend; she called all her girlfriends; she ate Chinese. Were you expecting her to come hellriding up here to smash the other driver to smithereens?" He shook his head. "She's not one of you … one of us. Chance could take her."
"Chance could take Dworkin," Random bit out, "which is why she's getting the special tutoring she is, until her powers are under control. And you never know, son. Will might surprise you." He smiled, remembering how easily she had adjusted to using the Trumps last night. "I hope Vialle makes it in time; she never got to meet Tony, but when I told her about him, Susan, Will and Serena, she was anxious for us to bring them out to Amber. I'm sorry I put it off this much too long."
"Nothing the rest of us aren't guilty of," Corwin said good-naturedly. "Time to suck it up, and make the best of the rest of the situation."
"Is that how you dealt with being Dara's prisoner for a dozen years?" Random asked. "Just 'sucking it up'?"
"Hardly," Corwin countered. "I broke things," he finished in a whisper, as Susan and Will came up the steps.
"Well, Susan, I see you declined Martin's offered chaufferage," Random began, smiling fondly at the beautiful, dark-haired, strong-willed girl ('Woman,' he reminded himself,) who'd taken his younger son's heart. He tried to reconcile her Mediterranean looks with the titian tomboy next to her. "This must be Will," he beamed, holding both hands out to her. Will took them tentatively, but as soon as they made contact, he projected as much acceptance and reassurance as he could muster, with the circumstances.
"You must be Randall. Hello, grandfather," she replied. She took another step up, and he found she'd inherited his height, or lack thereof, the poor girl. It had to be in the genes somewhere Random mused, since Fiona, Llewella, Caine, and now Chance were all barely taller than five feet as well. He and Will embraced, and had to separate almost immediately from a strong static shock. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, and he realized it must be a common problem for her. "I don't wear wool often, and that's why." She turned and gave her mother a well-meaning glare, which Susan rolled her eyes at.
"Hello again, Mister Vandom," Sue said, stepping into his embrace next. Her embarrassed grin was so like her daughter's when they parted, Corwin laughed. "Well, okay … Randall," she corrected herself, "But I just never got in the practice of thinking of you as 'Dad'," she continued, making air-quotes. Random chuckled.
"As soon as I met you, I knew one of my boys would marry you, Sue. I've always thought of you as a daughter." He turned back to Will. "Now, what's this I hear about a boyfriend, young lady? I hope he's worth your attention." Will blushed until her cheeks matched her hair.
"You'll get to see for yourself, Grandpa. He and my friends are coming out for the funeral, right after school."
"So how come you're not still in class?" he teased mildly.
"Oh, I kept her out," Susan said. "We have more than the funeral to deal with, after all. In fact …" She dug her phone out of her purse. "I got a call this morning from a lawyer, with condolences, and he said to stop by after the service. Searching through her call log, she found the name she was looking for. "Martin, did Tony ever mention a Bill Roth?"
"He wouldn't have," Random came to his stymied son's rescue. "Bill's the family's attorney. You won't have to call him back though; he's here." He turned to look, and Corwin pointed. Bill was standing by their blonde sister Flora, nursing a Scotch & soda from the wet bar. The brothers both shook their heads. Bill didn't do funerals well; he hadn't since the death of his wife back in the eighties. Random swore, Susan gasped, and Will and Corwin both chuckled. "Martin, see if you can air him out before he embarrasses himself. The last thing we need are drunk lawyer jokes from Droppa." Martin jogged off dutifully.
"So who are you?" Susan asked Corwin.
"My older brother Carl," Random answered first. The older Amberite let it go; it was Random's son's funeral, after all. "Well, half-brother. Carl Corey, meet Susan Vandom." They shook hands.
"Susan Reynolds," she corrected. Random sputtered. "Oh, you of all people should know better. He's your son," she told him. Then she added, a beaming smile directed at her daughter, "Besides, I'd like to think I got the better part of the bargain."
"I'd have to agree," Corwin said, taking Will's hand next. Instead of shaking it however, he raised it to his lips and kissed the back. "Enchante, mademoiselle," he said smoothly, getting a giggle from her.
"Corwin ..!" Random admonished, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I thought your name was Carl?" Will asked.
"It is. He's a member of the S C A," Random blurted. 'Cover … cover …' he thought, glancing around nervously. He may be the king in the one true world, but here on Earth he was just an ordinary guy trying to attend his son's funeral with his notorious brother in tow. "I call him by his character name when he ticks me off. Like now. Right, Lord Corwin?" Corwin put his hands over his heart in mock mortification, and Will giggled again. Susan rolled her eyes.
"If you three are quite done …" She went past the unrepentant brothers and inside. She paused to let her eyes adjust, then looked around at all the people crowded into the funeral home. "Whoa, everybody's here …"
"Suze? Suzie!" a high-pitched voice called from her left, just before she was engulfed in a short pair of fleshy arms and assaulted with an engorged baby-bump.
"Aimee, hi!" Susan said, returning the embrace. "Wow, you look like you're ready to pop."
"I know, right?" the shorter woman replied as the two women separated. Then they both laughed. Aimee had worn exactly the same top as Susan. "Heh, you can take the girl out of Fadden Hills …"
"But you can't take the Hills out of the girl!" the two said together, then laughed again.
""Is this a funeral or a reunion?" asked a tall woman from the other side of the doorway.
"Jane?" Sue asked as the speaker stepped to Aimee's right side.
"Who else would crash your ex' funeral?" Jane Payton swept her light brown hair back in a move that reminded Susan of her daughter's friend Cornelia. "So where's Will? Stephanie insisted she got out of classes early to come along and 'comfort her cousin'."
"She was right behind me, talking to Tony's father Randall," Sue started, looking back toward the door. She spotted her daughter's distinctive mop of red hair hanging over the shoulder of another girl, one with dark blonde hair. "Looks like they found each other Jane," she said with a grin, pointing.
Aimee sighed, eyeing the two girls. "Poor Clarissa; she's got such a problem with her dyslexia still, I had to leave her in classes 'til the end of the day. They're supposed to have a test in English this afternoon ... I told her to just do her best." The pregnant woman sighed again, one hand on her lower back. "Well, I'm for finding extra seating … for all three of me. I'll see you after the service, if they don't have to rush me out to deliver in the meantime, Suze."
Susan and Jane gave Aimee a hug each –not too tight, just in case – and wished their old sorority sister a gentle (and mortuary-friendly!) delivery.
Aimee waddled off, and Jane turned long enough to pull her husband away from his circle of cronies. "Richard, come on, you can harangue Chalmers tomorrow at work all you want. Today's for Sue and Tony."
"Don't you mean Serena and Tony?" Richard countered drolly, turning their way. "Oh, Susan! Hello …" he continued in his Boston drawl. "Not the widow I expected to be consoling …" he said, bypassing her outstretched hand and pulling her into a too-tight, too friendly hug. Jane glared daggwers at the back of his head as they parted. Susan flushed and sidestepped so his hand would slide the rest of the way off her behind.
"Hello … Richard," she muttered. "So … how have you three been?" Sue directed to both of them, nodding at Stephanie as well.
"Oh, you know Fadden Hills," Richard said with a shrug. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
"With a couple notable exceptions," Jane countered, looking after Aimee, then back to Sue. Their daughters both joined them then, and Susan wrapped an arm around her teary-eyed girl.
"Hey, I thought you came here to cheer her up?" she teased Jane's blonde daughter.
"She did, Mom," Will managed. "She got me crying laughing …" The parents all looked quizzically at Stephanie.
"Oh, I was just telling her how we almost got Angelo to join the swim team," Stephanie giggled. "He took one look at the school Speedo, and ran for it."
"Shattering dreams you and Clarissa have been harboring all year too, no doubt," Will added, laughing again. "You'll just have to drool over him at the track meets."
"Hey, like you're any better," Steph replied. "Always bragging about your dark angel of a band-boy-toy in your e-mails …"
"Ixnay," Will coughed, rolling her eyes in her mother's direction.
"Like there's any doubt about how you and Matt feel about each other, honey," Sue chuckled, gently squeezing her almost-grown baby sympathetically.
"So … Matt's his name, eh?" Random interjected from behind them. Susan and Will turned, to find him grinning good-naturedly at them both.
"Yeah, grandpa Randall," Will muttered, eyes downcast. She couldn't really hide her own grin though.
Someone cleared his throat behind Jane and Richard. "Ladies and gentlemen," the older man said as all turned his way. "I'm Mister Jase Cambourne, your host. Viewing is in the Amber Room, to your left," he continued with a wave of his arm to indicate the door in question. The owner of the Cambourne Mortuary, who looked like Patrick Stewart with Professor Severus Snape's hooked nose, then led the way in.
Will balked at the door. "Mom ..? I … don't think I can do this …" Susan drew her aside, so they weren't blocking the ingress of the others.
"Oh, honey, believe me, I know just how you feel …" Susan uttered into her daughter's hair. Will was sharply reminded that a younger Sue Reynolds had lost her father when she was Will's age. An uncommon but unfortunate occurrence during the first Gulf conflict, it had left Sue raised to become just like her own independent mother Kathleen Reynolds.
"Man this sucks," Will sighed. "Is it us?"
"What? Why would you ask that?"
"Well, I mean … Grandma Kate lost her dad to Vietnam, then grandpa Carlos died when you were a kid … now Dad's gone … Did somebody curse the Reynolds women?"
Sue did her best not to laugh at the idea. "No, honey, I hardly think so. I think it's just … the law of averages. Grandpa Marco and my dad were both in the Army, so … high-risk job, right? And your dad … well, honey, those safety films in driver's ed don't lie, you know …"
"Let me guess," a voice said from over her shoulder. "'Blood on the Highway'? Or, 'The Train Always Wins'?" Will gasped, and Susan spun, all set to slap senseless the insensitive arse who'd say something like that at a funeral from an auto accident. The face she nearly clobbered drew her up short in shock. Him she'd hardly expected to see here. "Whoa! Sorry, Suze! Didn't know you took car safety that seriously!" the young auburn-haired man responded, catching her slowing hand inches from contact.
"Luke ..!" Sue sputtered. "Oh … you ..!" She gave a couple unsuccessful tugs to free her arm, then just slapped him with her other hand. He staggered back, an almost-comical hurt look crossing his features. Then he straightened up, tugged his shirt collar stiffly, and nodded her way.
"Okay, ya got me, Suze … I probably deserved that one."
"Go, Mom," Will uttered. "What'd he do?"
"HE," Susan fumed, "was almost your father … until common sense slapped me one, 'bout like that."
Will looked askance at the man before them, with his wild red-blonde hair and a salesman's smile, which he directed winningly her way. Will smirked back. She'd known passlings; this guy had nothing on Blunk.
"Ah, come on, how was I to blame for your lack of good judgment back in college?" Luke asked innocently.
"My ..? You were two-timing me with that she-8!+#, Carol!" Sue fired out. "Then you dropped both of us like hot rocks, to go out with my newest roommate, Gail! And then you two transferred to Berkeley, and we never heard from either of you again!"
"I blame my post-teenage hormones," Luke oozed, still smiling. Will was reminded now of her friend Irma, whenever the Water Guardian turned on the charm to talk her way out of trouble. "Would it help if I told you Gail broke my heart a week before the National Meet in senior year?"
"Maybe … She break anything else while she was at it?" Susan fumed.
"Er, my brand-new Ray bans?"
"Well, I was hoping to hear of grievous personal injury, but I guess three-hundred-dollar sunglasses come close." Will giggled at her mother's dismissive tone.
"Who is this charming young lady?" Luke asked, leaning a bit to see around Sue better.
"My daughter Will," Susan said simply. "Tony was her father."
"Holy …you? And Tony Vandom?" Luke looked from Will to Susan and back twice, then gave a weird shudder. "And here I thought my choices in college were bad …"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Will seethed, her hair crackling faintly with quintessence static. Luke backed up another step unconsciously, only to bump into the quartet coming in behind him.
"Luke? What's the hold-up?" the dark-haired woman now on his left asked.
"Nayda … nothing, nothing …" Luke began, nonplussed by the brief burst of electrical mayhem he could have sworn he'd seen in young Will Vandom's eyes.
Will was just as distracted from their imminent confrontation by the four other people. Three women and a young bearded man (who looked sort of like the man on one of the two snake-backed cards from her new Tarot deck, and a LOT like her newly-met great uncle Carl,) now stood behind Luke. Nayda of the dark hair gave her mother's college frienemy an elbow in the ribs with a muttered "Sure." The tall auburn-haired woman on her right had an intricately jeweled headband, and when she turned to look at Will and Susan, the girl saw that it was part of an elaborate patch for the woman's right eye.
Will was just turning guiltily away, absolutely sure she'd been staring, when the Heart of Candracar under her blouse gave an irritable buzz against her breastbone. 'Oh, what now?' she was starting to wonder, when Randall and Martin Vandom came back out, looking for her and her mother.
"There you are! We were beginning to think you'd two had skipped out on us …" Martin started saying to Susan, when he saw the five people they were standing in front of. "…Oh."
"Yeah," Susan snorted. She couldn't help noticing the almost unconscious way Luke and Nayda's hands twined together, even as they and all their companions turned to look at Randall. Or, almost all …
Random stepped over to the new group, taking the hands of the slight woman standing to the right of the rest of them. While all the others' eyes were on him, her gaze seemed to float somewhere over Martin's shoulder. This didn't stop her face from lighting up at his touch, and she leaned up just right to kiss him. "There you are!" she sighed when they parted finally for air.
"I was afraid you wouldn't make it to … Fadden Hills," Random replied.
"Merle arrived just in time to escort me … and Coral, of course," she told him with a smile, giving a nod to her left. The bearded man gave a rueful grin and a nod of acknowledgment of his own. His arm was linked with the tallest woman.
"Mom, she's …" Will started.
"I know," Susan replied, wondering herself. This wasn't Tony's mother; old Missus Tricia Vandom had passed away after Will was born, of diabetic complications too numerous to name. Was this Martin's mother, perhaps? Even as she pondered, Randall was escorting the blind woman forward with all the deference one would show a queen.
"Will, Susan, I'd like you to meet my wife, Vialle." He let go of her hands, so she could extend one in greeting. "Dear, this is Tony's first wife, Sue," he said as he gently guided their hands together. Susan gave him an admiring smile for his total lack of awkwardness or condescension in the act. Vialle herself was taking concentrated hold of Susan, letting her other senses tell her of the woman who'd married her beloved's younger son.
"So nice to meet you," both women said at the same time. The adults around them chuckled, while Will, still trying to figure out what the Heart had been trying to tell her, just grinned distractedly.
"This is their daughter, Wilhelmina," Random continued the introduction, after Vialle had released Susan's hand. A gentle touch of his hand to his wife's back let her know which way to turn.
Vialle hadn't the heart to tell him it wasn't needed. Will shone like a beacon to her otherwise-sightless eyes. Some other sense told her exactly where to extend her hand, and as soon as the younger woman ('So much younger, too young for such pain!' she caught herself thinking,) made tentative contact, Vialle pulled her gently in to a long, heartfelt embrace. "Will, darling Wilhelmina, all will be better now," she murmured into her newly-met granddaughter's hair.
"Uh, if you say so, grandma Vee," Will said self-consciously against her. She grinned at the others around them sheepishly.
"Dear," Random said finally, when Vialle showed no signs of releasing Will. "The viewing's just in the next room." The rest chuckled as she finally relented, and she and Will stepped apart.
"If you say so, Mister Vandom," the Queen of Amber said with a faint smile. She took his arm, and he motioned for the others to precede them. As they fell in at the last, Vialle gave him a nudge. "Grandma Vee … I think I like it," she smiled.
W.i.t.c.h.
Author's note: Sorry for the lengthy delay for this chapter, folks. Trouble with Real Life kept impinging in my scant writing time. So here's chapter seven, just in time for the holiday, and I'm not going to move it to the Crossover section after all, so everyone can relax. I might put up some companion pieces there, for the Chronicles of Amber readers I've managed to attract, but when remains to be seen. I'd like to thank Lexvan, who's graciously permitted me to borrow his O.C. Angelo for a cameo appearance in this and the next few Fadden Hills chapters. (As promised, NO SPEEDO! ;D ) And as always, thank you, my many readers (and especially the reviewers) for making this one of my most-read stories so far. Catch ya on the flipside, so don't get caught in the downslide, A J.