July 1980

She was cold; overcome with a dreadful, sickly pallor. He looked down at her peaceful, sleeping face; oh, how angelic she looked as she slept. He had seen it every morning and every night for twenty-six years. She was ageless, with not a wrinkle to mar her smooth, fair skin, and barely enough grays to turn her golden blonde hair to the color of a stormy, cloudy sky. She lay there, still and soundly.

"Good morning, doll," Jimmy had said, rolling on his side like he always did so he could be greeted by his sleeping wife. There was no answer.

"Britta?"

He put a hand to her sleeping face; she felt frigid like the cold winters of her northern homeland. The pallor that had taken over her fair complexion was disturbingly unhealthy; yet, even so, her lips were healthy as though she were only sleeping. He tried to gently shake her awake; no movement. He began to suspect something was terribly wrong, and when he put his fused fingers up to her neck to feel for a pulse, there was none—he could not believe it.

"Britta, wake up," he said worriedly, continuing to shake her lifeless body. "Please! Please!"

He felt tears roll down his face, his heart breaking in a million pieces as he put a hand over her chest to feel no heartbeat, or the rising and falling that resembled breathing. He was in denial; she can't be dead. Not this soon, he thought. He got out of bed, pulling the covers back as he rushed to his wife's side of the bed, taking the covers off her body as he took her arm and dragged her—she had fallen to the floor, causing some livid bruising in her pale, corpse-like skin. She was weightless as the sound of a thud and sliding took up the area upstairs.

"DON'T DIE ON ME!" Jimmy shouted frantically, tears coming down his face as he dragged his wife's body down the hallway to the bathroom. "DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, BRITTA!"

He took Britta's inert corpse toward the bathtub, and just when he stepped in, pajamas and all, he sat her body down in front' of him, the stench of decaying matter coming to existence as Jimmy turned on the showerhead, allowing clear, icy cold droplets of water to fall mostly on Britta with the hopes of waking her up. He held her pallid, adipose hand; what was one small, beautiful, white and delicate was now stiff, yellowing at the nails, livid, and pale beyond measure. He screamed, sobbing as the water came down on him and the body of his wife. The bathroom door, open wide for the children to see, was first attended to by Jules, who looked at the morbid scene in shock.

"Dear Lord!" he exclaimed. His father continued to scream and sob, and water continued to sprinkle out of the showerhead.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Toby, seeing his pallid, dead mother in the tub with his father. "I'm callin' the cops!"

"Dad! Why are you—AHH!" Christopher exclaimed, seeing Toby run downstairs to dial the emergency number. "Is that Mamma!? What the fuck happened?!"

"Britta…my…my Britta…my sweet…" Jimmy muttered under his breath, crying into her golden-turned-ashen hair.

"Dad! Answer me!" Christopher said.

All Jimmy did was cry, wail, sob, and scream aside from muttering to himself and in the ear of Britta's corpse. When an ambulance finally came, along with the police, they were directed by a frightened Toby to the upstairs area, and once they entered the bathroom, they heard Jimmy screaming blood murder. A police officer tried to confiscate Britta's corpse and lay her on a specially-prepared plastic sheet so that she could easily be transferred to a body bag; Jimmy resisted.

"Don't take my wife! She did nothing wrong!" he shrieked.

"Sir, we need to. She's gone now," the officer said, trying to be cordial but assertive.

"No, she ain't gone! It's too soon! She wouldn't leave without me," Jimmy sobbed, his eyes beet red and covered with salty tears. The officer reached toward the faucet and turned off the showerhead, hearing the man's frantic sobbing as he tried to ease Britta's body out of his arms.

"Please, sir. She needs to come with us," the officer said, his latex-covered hands taking the livid corpse away from Jimmy as the man stared frantically. He watched as her body was laid on the plastic sheet, and a paramedic on the scene checked her vitals with a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, and the second officer prepared a body bag.

"She's dead."

Her cause of death was unknown; the family believed she died in her sleep. After babbling to himself in front of a cop who had come to the scene, he was taken to the mental ward of the hospital for four days where he received necessary treatment. Meanwhile, another disturbing scene became apparent to the Darling brothers as they witnessed Elina, who had taken her horse Dagmar on an early morning ride, walking toward the house engulfed in flames. She was burning! Her entire body covered in enough flames to scorch and char a normal person alive! Yet she walked as though she weren't on fire at all, and not one bit of her flawless, unfathomably gorgeous self was marred by the flames. More disturbing, the flames changed from a normal color to every color on the spectrum— its normal color to bright red, bright red to yellow, yellow to lime green, lime green to teal, teal to blue, blue to indigo, indigo to violet, violet to fuchsia, fuchsia to pink, and pink back to red. The cycle seemed endless, and as Christopher, Toby and Jules stared out the dining room window, they were horrified at the eerie sight. It was the light of day; Jules could see she had been weeping.

The funeral was held when Jimmy came out of psychiatric care in the hospital, and he had a hard time making arrangements because a burial service had cost so much and they didn't have money for one especially since Dell died just months before. He wanted to honor his wife in the best way he could, even though he was too depressed to even think about funeral expenses. Luckily, his three sons lent a hand in choosing her coffin, getting floral arrangements, and their church pastor to perform a service in her memory. Jimmy ordered for the casket to be closed—he did not want to see some superficial, made-up-to-look-like-Britta version of his wife.

Half of Barnwell, who had known the Darling family, had come to pay their respects and mourn over their great loss. Adam and Audrey even came down from New York to attend to funeral, while Paul and Eve did the same—not a dry eye was seen among the mourners. Bette cried so hard her eyes turned red, and even Dot shed a few tears to express her sorrow. As for Adam, even though his mother had given him problems about his behavior regarding his gender over the years, he still couldn't help but shed a few tears—Audrey was there to pat his back and be there for him, per usual. Toby, who rarely ever cried since he was a child taking his tantrums, did so during his mother's funeral. Jules was practically sobbing, and Christopher shed tears as well with his girlfriend Leanne consoling him. Elina, who was sitting next to her silently despondent father, bawled her eyes out and had gone through a lot of tissues just wiping her eyes. Jimmy was silent, yet one could see the look in his eyes and tell that he was not alright at all, sitting there as the pastor conducted the funeral service:

"Ladies and gentleman," he began in a solemn voice. "We are gathered here today to remember and honor the life of Britta Elisabeth Darling. During her time with us, she was a beloved community member and a devoted member of our church congregation." Everyone kept sobbing, wiping their eyes as he continued with the memorial.

"She was born on June 3, 1935 on the island of Gotland in Sweden. She is preceded in death by her parents, Hans Nordlund and Frida Magnusdotter-Nordlund."

The services continued, and as a few hymns were sung and prayers were said to commemorate Britta's life with them on earth, people continued to sob and weep with grief of their loss. Even the citizens of Barnwell who had known her in passing couldn't help but be moved by the service. Mr. Loring, who had made it to the funeral service with his son David, had also shed a tear or two out of sympathy for Jimmy—that poor man, he thought, I know exactly what it's like to lose a wife. He had been sitting in front of Dot and Bette, and he gazed back at Jimmy's solemn, joyless expression. He can't even function. I can't help but feel bad.

The funeral ended with Britta's coffin being carried to the cemetery, which was not far from the church, so the procession could go by foot. Everyone wore black, and people who drove by gave their horns a honk out of respect for their loss. It had begun to rain heavily, and even thunder and lightning was occurring; it was quite loud and very intimidating—Mr. Loring and his son went to stand closer to the Darlings with the older gentleman consoling Bette's head on his shoulder and his son standing by Elina. She glanced up at him, the brim of her black hat framing her fiery, sad eyes as he looked down at her sadly. He was holding an umbrella, and welcomed her underneath it as he put his arm around her shoulder—Jimmy had not protested, mainly because he was too sad to even give a damn let alone notice.

Britta's death had been the one event in the lives of the Darling family to change everything drastically—but at least she's with Ma, Jimmy thought sadly. He missed his mother, as well; she had her own shortcoming, which was having a beard. She had been the one to raise him, even if it was in a carnie setting. The day she died was disastrous for the family—his wife had suffered her third miscarriage in a row, even though she went on to have another one a few years later. Everyone was just depressed; yet as Jimmy looked over where his wife used to sleep, he sighed solemnly and moved to the center of the bed. He lay on his side, burying his face in her pillow and sobbing. He could still smell her sweet, golden hair, remembering how it fanned out around her head as she slept. Lavender, he thought. His heartstrings were torn to shreds—there was no fixing him now.

Hello, hello! Keri, here! I'm sorry for making you guys all sad and depressed; after all, death is a part of life. Also, sorry about the Murder House reference in the beginning—if you look closely, Jimmy's hospital stay is closely related to Asylum, and Elina's hat at the funeral looks like Taissa's from Coven! Surprise!

Leave Reviews and Favorite, if you'd like. Thanks for reading!