A storm growled eagerly on the horizon as she passed through
the iron gates. The wind could have been the voices of the dead, and she puled
her coat tighter around her. Headstones wove in drunken lines, leading
inexorably towards the one person she’d sworn she’d never see again. The storm
reached the bounds of its patience and broke, fat drops pelting down like
bullets. The vibrant red of her mother’s dress ahead seemed even more garishly
out of place.
The storm changed the tone of the wind: now, instead of
haunting, it sounded angry—or perhaps merely irritated, she amended, listening
as it rattled the trees impatiently. She dragged her fingers along the cracked
ridge of a headstone, noticing the reddish flecks of hematite embedded in the
gunmetal grey. Red had always been her mother’s favourite colour; she hadn’t
worn it in twenty years. The red-lipped smile on her mother’s face was equally
rare.
“Hello, dear,” her mother called over the storm. “Don’t worry.
The police don’t suspect a thing.”
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