Elizabeth
Author's note: The following story will deal with difficult topics such as depression and suicide. I did not choose to explore these topics on a whim. It is my hope to provide readers who also have similar experiences with catharsis, not shock value.
***
Bedwyr the Brave surveyed the carnage around him. McGann the bard had been the first to fall under the cyclops' club, though he only had his own hubris and lust to blame. The twin rangers, Ganamede and Elauthin had been the next to fall, leaving only Bedwyr and his cleric wife Malgid standing.
Bedywr crouched down over the fallen Ganamede, lay hands on him, and began to pray. A holy light shone forth though his gauntlets, sealing the bleeding wounds on the elf's head and allowing him to regain consciousness. He glanced up to see his wife doing the same for McGann.
"That's it, that's my last healing spell," Bedwyr warned the group.
The cyclops set its eye on Malgid. Somewhere in its brutish brain rattled the idea that if it took out the healers, then the rest of the party would stop getting up as it knocked them down. It strode over to her and raised its club. Bedwyr screamed, but he could only watch helplessly as his dragonborn bride crumpled under the blow...
"The cyclops raises his club and..." Gerry tossed the die into the middle of the table for all to see. There was a collective gasp as the polyhedron landed on a 20.
"Son of a bitch," said Fenton.
Patience just growled.
All eyes turned sympathetically towards Elizabeth, who just slumped in her seat and sighed. "How much damage?" she asked.
Behind the dungeon master's divider, Sammy heard more rattling than he wanted to as Gerry dropped what seemed like a fistful of dice. The silence that ensued caused Sammy's gut to twist.
"How much?" Elizabeth demanded.
"See, this is why I don't like to have our sessions this close to the full moon," Gerry complained. "Everyone's more reckless and moody than usual."
"Well, tonight was the only night this whole month that everyone was free," Liam groused.
"How. Much?" Elizabeth repeated.
"How many hit points did you have left?"
"Twenty-four," Elizabeth answered.
"That's... ugh. Fifty points of damage. I'm gonna have you strike out a death save for that one."
"It's fine," she mumbled, scratching a notch on her sheet. That done, she glared at her uncle. "This is what happens when you try to seduce a cyclops."
Odysseus, aka McGann, just shrugged. "How was I supposed to know the cyclops was a lesbian?"
"No, this is what you all get for taking on something you guys clearly weren't ready for," Gerry said, pointing an accusatory finger at everyone around the table. "I tried to steer you clear of the cyclops' cave. I had every single NPC warn you that it was too powerful for you. There was no pressing need to pick a fight with it now and not wait til you guys leveled up. You're all only at level three!"
"I feel the need to point out that Bedwyr insisted we wait," Sammy said, then gestured at Odysseus, Patience, and Fenton. "But no, you guys insisted you had a plan. With all due respect, Odysseus, seduction is not a plan."
Night Sky peeked her head in. "Didn't you learn that lesson in Russia, husband of mine?"
"Oy!" Odysseus snapped, and pointed his finger at his wife. "Mind your own business, woman!"
"Whatever. I'm dead, it's fine." Elizabeth suddenly stood up. "I'm sorry guys, I just can't get into the campaign this time. Good luck with the cyclops. Feel free to give my slot to someone else. Maybe Clara."
Clara, who had been sitting on a couch on the other side of the meeting room, looked up from her magazine. "Eh, no thanks," she said. "It's more fun watching you all bicker from the outside."
"Sis!" Sammy called out, jumping away from the table and following her out of the meeting room. He grabbed her hands and held them in his own. "You sure you don't want me to bring Malgid back? Playing Bedwyr without his wife just won't be as fun."
Elizabeth just gave him a half-hearted smile. "Paladins don't go for necromancy. I'm sorry Samson. But I'm just not enjoying myself right now. Maybe next campaign, but I need a break for a while, okay?"
Even though he was humanside, a canine whimper broke free from his throat. Elizabeth had been taking a lot of "breaks" lately. This was one of the few shared activities they had left, and now they were losing that too. But he didn't want to say anything and guilt her into doing something just to appease him.
"A- a'right," he said, before pulling her into a hug.
"Sam! It's your turn again!" Gerry called.
"I'll be right there!" Sammy said, before reluctantly leaving Elizabeth to rejoin the battle.
***
Elizabeth had been spending more and more time in bed lately. She had even slept through most of her 30th birthday a week ago. Sammy regularly ventured into the dark room to clean up the dirty dishes and occasionally scoop spilled pills back into their bottles. And, sometimes, when he’d hear her crying, he’d crawl into bed with her and hold her until she settled down. He wished he could save her from the demons in her head. It tore him up to see his Big Sister like this. But all he could do was remind her how much her family loved her.
And sometimes, that was enough.
A werewolf's healing was a miraculous thing, but it could not solve every problem. A biochemical imbalance was just as hard to course-correct for a werewolf as it was for a human, perhaps more so if the body built up a resistance to the pills intended to help. Elizabeth had been fighting clinical depression for years, even longer than Sammy had known her, and she had tried just about every drug out there. Sometimes they worked, but only for a finite amount of time. Elizabeth had accumulated quite the collection of orange bottles.
It had become a part of Sammy's routine to check on her before his morning chores. He hated seeing her in such a state, but he hated not seeing her even more. But this time, upon opening the door to her room, he froze at the sight of the curtains drawn and Elizabeth sitting up in her bed, using her sheets for modesty. Backlit by the rising sun, she looked radiant. She had cut away her hair long ago.
“Morning, Samson,” she said with a peaceful smile on her face.
“Hey, you’re up!” he said, though that was perhaps not the best response. He bounded onto the bed and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Mornin’.”
She reached out and, despite the fact that he was humanside, briefly scratched him behind his ear. "My, my. Jumping into bed with a naked woman. What would your girlfriend think of that?"
Sammy flopped down and looked up at her. "Aw, Clara trusts me. Either that or she doesn't care. I'm still not sure which."
"I'm sure it's trust," Elizabeth said, and then looked out the window. “I feel like going for a run today. You wanna join me?”
“Sure!” he said, and then rose onto his knees, conveniently out of reach. “But maybe you should shower first…”
Turned out, he was not out of range from having a pillow lobbed at him. He giggled, and then she laughed. It was like hearing a favorite song again for the first time in months.
***
Of course, Night Sky had immediately exempted him from his chores for Elizabeth ’s sake. The pack always rallied when someone was sick, and if Elizabeth wanted some fresh air, they would get her outside as quickly as possible before she could change her mind.
They stored their clothes in a backpack and shifted at the woodlands’ border. Elizabeth donned the backpack since it was too small to stretch over Sammy’s shoulders, and off they went, loping through familiar in-roads worn by their many forebears until the trails diminished and the woods thickened. They ran, they gallivanted, they hunted. Well, Sammy hunted, catching four rabbits (a new personal record) and giving two to Elizabeth. She even managed to catch one of her own, though the process left her panting for breath and after she gulped it down, the two decided it was time for a swim. As they took off, Elizabeth nipped at his tail and took off down a divergent path. He stuck his arm out to hook onto a modest pine and used his momentum to twist himself around it, saving himself the trouble of a sharp turn so he could resume the chase. Soon she was in his sights, but she launched herself onto a fir and rebounded, reversing her trajectory and gracefully flying over him.
“No fair!” he shouted as he skidded to a halt, twisted around, and went after her again. But she was nowhere to be seen. Sight, however, was one thing to a werewolf--smell was another. He followed her trace towards a thicker pine several yards away, but by the time he realized she had climbed it, it was too late. The branches above lurched and suddenly she was straddling him, grabbing fistfuls of his mane and riding him bareback. He roared and tried to buck her off, but her grip was tight.
It was then that he noticed the smell of water. The river was nearby. Grinning wickedly, he took off towards the smell of running water. By the time she realized what he was doing, it was too late. He lurched into a two-legged run, grabbing hold of her so she couldn’t jump off, and launched them both into the water.
She spat a stream of water at him when they resurfaced. “You brat! Good job, now you got our clothes wet!”
“Relax,” he said. “It’s a waterproof bag.”
They swam, they splashed, they came close to drowning one another more than once. Their ideas of fun in the water would have given a professional lifeguard a spontaneous peptic ulcer.
It was almost noon by the time two soaking-wet werewolves emerged from the river and retreated into the shade of a large tree. Only the barest hints of fall were starting to stake their claim on the land. The stubbornest insects still buzzed in the trees, birds cried in the airs above them. The grass still held a lush green color, only showing a wisp of yellow here and there like white in a middle-aged man’s hair. But the oppressive heat had lessened, so Phoenix went humanside, releasing a small torrent of water underneath him as the fur retaining it receded into his body. Elizabeth followed suit, laying her head down on his belly.
“I needed this,” she said.
“So did I,” he said, in a show of solidarity. He fought back the urge to ask her how she felt. Sammy tried not to let her think about her depression, but help her think about anything but that. Things had gotten worse for her since she had lost her job at the hospital. A few too many sick days, a few too many minor mistakes. Once she was strong enough again, she would probably move back to her parents’ and look for work in Louisiana. He knew their days together would soon come to an end. Which was why he was determined to make the most of them now.
“Heard from your parents lately?” he asked, eventually. Keep the conversation flowing, don’t let her sink back, but don’t push her too far…
“Yeah. Nothin’ much going on there. My brother’s having another kid.”
The way she said it, it was a good thing only on the most obvious level.
“Hey, you’re gonna make a great mom someday. I’ve given you a lot of practice.”
She smiled at that, and then rolled over to look at him. He could see conflict in her eyes. And fear. But those demons were no strangers to either of them. “Hey, bro? Can you promise me something?”
“Anything,” he said quietly.
“Samson, you are the most loving, caring person I know. Some days I look at my life and I realize just how easy I’ve had it, and then I feel guilty and weak for not being able to bear it.”
“You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t feel that way,” he said, reaching up to touch her cheek.
“I know. I shouldn’t. On an intellectual level, I know this. But knowing something and understanding it are two different things, and with depression, the gulf between them is even wider. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty, but the guilt is there anyway. It compounds itself.”
She screwed her eyes shut.
“You’ve been through so much worse than me, and you remain strong. All the people you’ve lost, and you still love. If… if anything ever happens to me, if I can’t have a legacy of my own… do something loving, something wonderful, and do it in my name.”
Sammy released a shuddering breath and sat up. He furiously wiped away the moisture beading up in his eyes. He couldn’t stand this any longer. “I don’t like to hear you talking this way,” he admitted.
“I know. I’m sorry. But just in case… promise me?”
“Of course I promise,” he said. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.”
“And neither would I,” she said. And she smiled. “I love you, bro.”
Sammy whimpered. “I love you too, Big Sis. Wanna… wanna go for another swim?”
They wound up staying out until late afternoon. Elizabeth didn’t seem to want the day to end. And who could blame her? It was a beautiful day, one Sammy thought he would always remember fondly.
***
Clara was out late, and Sammy was fine with it. No, really. He was. It was... nice that she was making friends at her job. He knew it was wrong to be brooding in bed feeling sorry for himself. But tonight was supposed to be their weekly dinner together. Dining on the roof, away from the rest of the pack had become a tradition in the last year. He had even made her an apple cobbler from a box mix, her favorite dessert. Night Sky treated box mixes like they were an affront to her sensibilities, but Clara insisted she liked them better than the home made stuff. And then at the last minute, she had texted him to say she was going out with her girlfriends.
So, he had eaten alone on the roof, a miserable prospect, but preferable over the sympathetic looks he got from the pack whenever Clara canceled dinner night. He didn't begrudge her a life of his own, but sudden cancellations like these made it seem like his feelings didn't matter. Did he even have a right to complain? Would it make him sound too needy? It was so hard to know where the boundaries lay, especially in an ever-evolving thing like a relationship.
Stop pouting, he told himself. It had been a good day up until dinner, and he shouldn't let this spoil it.
It was close to midnight when he heard her car grind over the dirt road and come to a rest in her spot. Sammy stayed in bed. Her car door opened and shut, and he lurched a little, but still he stayed put, choosing instead to focus on the light, steady snores coming from Liam. Sometimes, that was just hypnotic enough to help him doze off, but...
"Well, look what the cat finally dragged in," came a husky, familiar voice.
"I beg your pardon?" Clara sounded confused.
"I wish you could have been here to see the look on Sammy's face when he got your text. Of course, that's the whole point, isn't it? You weren't here."
"Excuse me, what business is it of yours? Sammy said he didn't mind."
"Sammy's so desperate to keep you that you could spit on him and he would thank you. But he's my brother. That makes it my business."
Sammy leapt out of his bed and was out the room while his sheets were still floating in the air. He descended the stairs four steps at a time, nearly slipping and breaking his neck in the process, but emerging into the living room to find his sister and girlfriend in what could only be described as a stand-off. Elizabeth was wolfside and bare-fanged, but that did not stop Clara from growling right back at her. Light from the porch flashed across Elizabeth's eyes in a dangerous red-orange glint.
It took him a moment to muster the courage to push himself between them. "What's goin' on here?" felt like the right thing to say, even though he knew full well what was going on here, and they had to know he knew what was going on here too.
"I don't appreciate your 'sister' getting involved in our relationship, Sam," Clara said flatly, in a tone that suggested this was somehow his fault.
That made Sammy's head whip around towards her. Here he was, trying to be a supportive boyfriend, and somehow he still wound up being the bad guy.
"I didn't ask her to do this," he snapped. "But since we're on the topic, I'm glad you got friends and you're out havin' fun... but do you have to do it on the night we promised to spend together?"
"We're together most nights!"
"Yeah, but tonight's supposed to be special!"
Clara sighed with exasperation. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you, okay?"
"You don't have to..." he started to say, only to hear Elizabeth snort behind him. He sighed. "We'll talk about it in the morning, 'kay?"
"Okay. Goodnight, Sam."
"G'night, Clara."
He and Elizabeth watched her ascend up the stairs, before Sammy turned on her. "And you," he whispered.
"What?" her tone was sharper than he had heard in a long time, inviting challenge. She was so sure she was in the right.
Sammy reached up and grasped her canine face in both his hands, drawing it up to him. "I appreciate what you were tryin' to do. But some... problems I gotta handle myself. You'll always be my Big Sister, but I'm an adult now, okay?"
He saw the rage melt away from her eyes, and the old weariness he had grown too accustomed to returned. 'Y-yeah, you're an adult. I forget that sometimes."
"That doesn't mean I won't even stop lookin' up to you," he said quickly. He pulled his hands free so he could wrap an arm around her. "C'mon, Sis. Let's go to bed."
"Bed sounds good," she mumbled, nuzzling into his neck before allowing him to usher her up the stairs.
***
Her door was locked the next morning. She had never locked him out. By noon, Sammy was starting to worry. And something smelled… wrong. Very wrong. When a stench, oily and wrong, started oozing through the door, Sammy’s knocks turned into pounding.
“Elizabeth? Please let me in!” he begged, not for the first time.
Suddenly a hand was on his chest, gently pushing him aside. Odysseus, and Night Sky had materialized out of nowhere. He felt Night Sky’s hand on his arm, subtly holding him back as Odysseus broke the door in with his shoulder. Once, twice, it did not give. Why didn’t he just order her to let them in?
Sammy’s heart was pounding. He knew there was a problem, but the Alpha’s urgency sparked a flame of panic in his gut. On the third shove, something cracked, and the door swung open. A waft of that stink assaulted his nose, and curiosity and a need to make sure his sister was safe propelled him into the room, tearing away from Night Sky’s grasp.
It was dark. Only some light filtered through the curtains, but the puddle of drying blood on the bathroom floor would forever glow vivid red whenever Sammy revisited this moment. Fear overcoming his sense of protocol, Sammy pushed past his Alpha, venturing towards the bathroom. In the middle of the puddle, surrounded by brown dried blood, was a silver blade. Sammy screamed.
In the tub lay Elizabeth's body.
And screamed.
Her naked, lifeless body.
“No…” Night Sky said, quietly.
“Hatchet!” Odysseus bellowed, voice crackling like static electricity. “Help me get her down! Ruth, get him out of here.”
“No, no no no… Elizabeth…!”
Firm arms wrapped around him and started dragging him from the room. He resisted, wanting his Sister, not fully registering that she was gone. But his strength left him, and Ruth got him past the door and into the hall before he collapsed, dragging her down with him. He burst into tears, and felt Night Sky crumple up beside him, wracked with sobs of her own.
***
Sammy sat at the dining table and stared off into a void. His eyes were open, but he didn’t care what he saw. The adults talking right outside the kitchen might as well have been distant mumbles for all his brain registered. He didn’t even flinch when Hatchet walked in, piercing his solitude, and pulled out a coke from the fridge, two glasses from the pantry, and a bottle of rum.
He sat down next to Sammy, poured one of the glasses halfway with the soda, and topped it off with rum. His own glass had no soda.
Sammy stared at the drink pushed in front of him. “I’m not 21.”
“Neither was I, the first time I saw a dead friend’s body,” Hatchet said. “If I was gonna try to get you drunk, I’d give you some of my moonshine. This’ll just get you buzzed for a minute or two.”
Sammy continued staring at the drink, then glanced at the man to his left. The day he and Odysseus had led the raid on the laboratory that had been torturing him had been a pivotal moment in Sammy’s life, but in the biography of Hatchet’s life, if one was ever written, it probably wouldn’t even make a footnote. He remembered his first months in Argo, completely intimidated by the living legend, and that was before he even understood the scope of Hatchet’s accomplishments. There had been more times than Sammy cared to think about when he and Hatchet had encountered non-pack werewolves who looked at Hatchet with awe and terror. But there had been other times--usually bolder, cockier wolves--had bought Hatchet drinks, out of respect or even a desire to meet their hero. And here he sat by Sammy’s side, attempting to comfort his grieving in his own Hatchet-y way. He lifted the glass to his lips and chugged half of it down, ignoring the fizzle in the roof of his mouth and the subsequent punch of heat that shot up his core.
“Thassaboy,” Hatchet said, topping him off. “Now, I don’t want you thinking drinking will solve your problems. But I’ve been in your shoes. You saw things you shouldn’t have seen. You’ve got a mountain of grief on your shoulders. This will at least push some of it in the back of your mind, so you can process some of it now and the rest later.”
Sammy had never had booze before, at least not outside of Night Sky’s medicinal applications. He had to focus to process Hatchet’s words, and even then, he questioned the logic of Hatchet's wisdom. “I just… keep thinking about how I’ll never get to h-hu-hu…” He was reeling, losing his breath. He shut his eyes and focused, wanting to at least finish the sentence before the message of it overwhelmed him again. “H-hug her again.”
His palms shot up to his eyes as his body wracked with a new set of sobs, silent this time. No more hugs, no more runs, no more breakfasts together…
“Elizabeth and I weren’t close,” Hatchet suddenly said. “We didn’t have anything in common, we just cohabitated. But she was pack. And a good nurse, and I respected the hell out of her.”
Hatchet took another swig and said nothing else, even as Sammy stared, expecting more. He didn’t pat Sammy on the back or offer him any words of wisdom. He was from an older generation that didn’t believe in those things. He just drank with him. This was how the old soldier grieved, and Sammy realized that out of all the members of the pack, Hatchet had chosen to grieve with him.
“To the family we’ve lost,” he said, lifting his glass.
Sammy managed to mumble out the same, and the two drank on.
***
The pack had a grave dug at the base of a pine by evening. They all took turns, but Sammy wound up digging most of it. He might have dug it all himself had Odysseus not insisted he take breaks. He couldn’t bring himself near her body, which had been wrapped in a shroud in the safehouse in the woods.
Night Sky wired money for an overnight flight to her brother in Louisiana, and Elizabeth’s parents and brother and his family arrived by morning. Sammy sat in the living room corner, filthy and smelling of earth and sweat, alone with his own grief, watching the extended family pour in and fall into each other's arms, grieving together. He had seen pictures of them all before, but had never met any of Elizabeth’s family in person. Her brother had a four-year-old son in tow, and his wife barely looked pregnant.
They were a beautiful family--lower-middle-class, not part of any pack beyond each other. They had sent Elizabeth here as a teenage girl, thinking the wide open spaces and the greater socialization would do her some good. And it had, for a while.
“You mus' be Phoenix,” a deep voice with a slight Cajun rhythm broke through his thoughts. He looked up to see a black man who was almost as tall as he, with a bald head and a salt-and-pepper beard. He had his hand extended outwards, palm tilted slightly upwards.
Sammy shook it. “Yessir,” he said.
“My Nightingale spoke of you often. I just want to say thank you for everything you did for my baby girl.”
He cast his eyes down. “She did far more for me than I ever did for her.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, son. You… you lit'rally gave her a reason to keep going on some of her darkest days. That's what she tol' me once in a letter.”
Sammy’s eyes shot back up, into the grief-stricken gaze of a man displaying more gratitude than he could comprehend.
“I wish I could have done more.”
“We a' do, son. We… a' do. But there was a reason she wanted to spend her last day on this earth with you. You made that day a happy one, and you will always have my gratitude for that. If you ever come to N' Orleans, you'll always have friends 'mongst the Rougarou.”
The door opened again, and in poured Madison and her mother, who bowed her head to Odysseus in the respectful obeisance of an alpha in another's territory. "I thought Mady should be here for this," she told her brother.
"Reilly told me you were coming when she called to express her condolences," Odysseus said. He embraced his sister. "Those are two fine girls you have raised."
Madison was already honing in on Sammy, crawling onto his lap and wrapping her arms around him without a word.
"Thank you for comin'," he mumbled into Madison's shoulder. Sammy melted into his Little Sister's embrace, even as her warmth reminded him that he would never again enjoy the warmth of his Big Sister, and his grief rose up in moans.
How could Elizabeth leave him like this? He still needed her, so much.
Maybe that was the problem, dark, voiceless words rose up from an unknown corner of his mind. Maybe you needed her too much and she couldn't take it any more.
No... no... that wasn't right. He told himself that wasn't right, but still the idea wouldn't leave him...
***
Sammy had his arms wrapped around Night Sky when Hatchet pulled up with the pickup, got out, and joined the rest of the assembly. Night Sky’s fur displayed trails where tears streamed down. It was an unsettling sight, but he was afraid to leave her alone. He knew it was irrational, that she was not sick like Elizabeth had been, and she had her family around her. But still he grew anxious when she was out of sight.
He had already failed his sister. He could not fail the closest thing he had to a mother.
Once they were all wolfside, Odysseus, Hatchet, and Elizabeth’s father picked the shrouded figure out of the pickup’s bed, and solemnly carried her towards the hole Sammy had dug. For a moment, he thought he was going to vomit. The ambience of sobs grew louder as they lowered her into the ground.
Once the body was lain, they stepped back. Odysseus, as alpha, was expected to speak.
His quiet, composed voice parted the waters of misery. “It has always struck me as one of the great paradoxes of life that those who suffer are the most driven to brighten the lives of others. Perhaps to distract themselves from their own pain, or perhaps to spare others the misery they themselves experience.
“Whatever her motivations, there was no doubt that Nightingale took her darkness and became a light to everyone around her. She took great pride in her work as a nurse. There are people out there alive today because of her. And people here who can say the same.” He looked up, meeting Sammy’s eyes. Sammy gave the Alpha a thankful nod.
He felt all eyes suddenly on him. His turn.
“I… I…”
He looked down into the ground. Saw her smiling face whenever he blinked.
“I can’t...” He lowered his head. “I don’t have the words to do her justice. What I got to say to her, I got to say in private.”
“It’s all right,” Night Sky said, gently freeing herself from his grip. She took a slight step forward, took a deep breath, and summoned her composure. “I remember the day my niece first came here to live with us,” she said. “She was so happy to be here, so full of brightness. Argo felt like it had gained a piece we didn’t even know was missing.”
She paused, and took in a ragged breath. “Rather than wishing we had more time with her--and I know we all do--let’s be thankful for the time we had.”
“We’re all fortunate to have had her in our lives,” Liam agreed, coming up to hug his mother. “When you think about how we might not have, we’re lucky indeed.”
Elizabeth’s parents spoke next, then Hatchet basically repeated what he’d said to Sammy. Gerry had a few nice words to say, but by then the words were blurring together.
At some point, Clara had wrapped her hand around his. He wasn't sure when she had approached, but as he bobbed up out of the waters of his grief, he squeezed her hand with all the desperation of a drowning man.
He had so many questions, all of them starting with “Why?”
The Alpha’s voice summoned him back to the present. “And so her remains will become one with the land that has given succor to our forerunners. She will be one with them now, as we will be one with her in our due times.”
With two hands, he scooped up some earth, and poured it with symbolic slowness onto Elizabeth’s remains. Then Night Sky took Sammy’s hands, guiding him to help. He, the alpha couple, and Elizabeth’s immediate family shared the unfortunate honor of burying her.
Soon, his mind tuned out again. He didn’t want to be here, doing this. He didn’t want to have to do it, so his mind went someplace else as they piled dirt on top of what was left of his Big Sister. He thought about their last day together. If only they could be running together right now, instead of this. He wondered if there had been subtle clues, if he could have caught this if he had known to look for it, if he could have talked her out of it.
He didn’t even realize they had switched to the stones to cover the top of her grave until suddenly there were no more, and he was standing beside a large pile at his feet. He blinked, like waking up from a dream. A bad dream. Or rather the opposite of waking up, because this was the unpleasant reality, and the completed grave added a sense of finality to it.
He couldn’t help what he did next. Tilting his head back, he let forth a low, mournful howl. Night Sky’s voice joined him, then Liam, stuck as he was in human shape, cupped his hands around his mouth and bared his soul in a long, low moan. Soon the rest of the pack added their notes to a werewolves’ dirge.
***
He couldn’t go back into the house. But then, neither could half the pack. A few visited inside, having gained some catharsis from the funeral, but for Sammy it was not that easy. He sat behind the barn, once again drowning in retrospection.
He smelled her and a plate of cold chicken coming before she rounded the corner. Night Sky lowered herself beside him and pushed the plate onto his lap.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
He shrugged. “How are you?”
Slowly, she answered. “Not so good. When we brought her out here, she became my responsibility. I know my brother doesn’t blame me, but I can barely look him in the eyes right now.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” he said. “You tried your best. We all tried our best.”
Night Sky leaned in and planted a kiss on his muzzle. “Good words. I just wish you believed them yourself.”
He should have been taken aback, but by this point he was accustomed to Night Sky seeing through to the core of him. Sammy knew he was not a complex creature.
“I’m glad you were with her, at the end," Night Sky said suddenly. "Not the point where she lost… her battle. But her last, happy hours, when she was truly herself… she wanted to spend them with you. Out of all the people here, she chose you. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget how special you were to her. How special you are to all of us, hon. Promise me.”
Sammy opened his mouth, but her final words poured over his wounds like salt. “I… she made me promise her something,” he said. He shut his eyes and lowered his head. “I don’t have it in me to commit to more promises.”
“What did she make you promise?”
It was so clear in his memory, the love and fear in her voice when she asked it. “That someday I would do something good in her honor,” he said.
A whine escaped Night Sky’s muzzle, and he felt her hand upon his knee. “She left her legacy in good hands.”
She planted another kiss on his cheek, and then left Sammy to fill the silence with his own thoughts as he gnawed on a piece of chicken.
Elizabeth’s legacy. He hadn’t even thought of it that way, but that’s what it was. She had loved him enough to entrust him with something that important.
But not enough to stick around for, the words spewed up from the void again. They were dark, and ugly, but impossible to ignore.
Sammy stopped chewing and set his plate down. He shut his eyes and balled his fists, fighting it, fighting the ugliness…
Your last day was your chance to convince her to keep living. You had your chance, and you blew it! said the same blackness. Look at you. You weren’t worth it. You’re not worth someone’s life. She owed you nothing.
On shaking legs, Sammy stood, and headed to the house to put on some clothes. He needed to get out of there.
***
Cedar City, like all small towns in America, had enough churches to fit the entire population three times over, but it was a smaller non-denominational assembly near the edge of town that Sammy had been going to since he was seventeen. It was a single-story building that might have once been a rather large household before having the interior renovated for its current purpose. The main room contained only three rows of pews, the rest of the space being filled with folding chairs when needed. The walls and ceiling were a modest eggshell color, and the well-worn carpet looked like it had, at some point, been turquoise. He sat in the third row, working his way through Lamentations. This close to noon, the sunlight didn’t fully illuminate either of the stained-glass windows on either side of the room. But it was peaceful here, and Sammy felt like he could seal himself away from his woes for a little while. At least, long enough to recharge his batteries.
He heard the main door open and shut long enough to admit someone. “Sam Phoenix?” a familiar, warm voice stirred the air throughout the room. David Kwan was a large, bearded man who lived with his wife and daughter in a trailer behind the church. He was not conventionally attractive, but he had a smile so brilliant, it could guide an airplane to its port on a stormy night. He also had a voice that could project; it was a fond joke amongst his congregation that the man had gotten himself ordained just because he had the volume for it.
“Hey, Pastor Kwan,” he said, looking up. “Hope it’s all right for me to be in here.”
Kwan eased himself into the second row pew in front of Sammy. In a much more conservative volume, he said, “Of course it is. Is everything all right? I’ve never known you to come to church on a Wednesday.”
Sammy sighed and looked up, meeting the man’s gentle brown eyes. His eyebrows raised behind his spectacles, clearly making out the torment as he said next, “Wow, that bad huh?”
“It’s… uhm…” Sammy shut his Bible. It was a small town, word was going to get out anyway. “Did you know Elizabeth Brooks?”
“Nurse Lizzie? Of course. My wife works P.T. at the hospital. Loved her to bits.” He paused. “Oh, no. What happened?”
Sammy had wondered when this question would come. In a town as small as this, secrets were hard to keep. It was one thing to cover up their secret lives as werewolves… it was another to explain away the sudden absence of someone from their ranch. On the drive in to town, he had pondered what to say, anticipating questions and practicing answers in his head.
Even so, when put upon the spot, he struggled for the right euphemism. “She… took her own life.”
Kwan gasped, and Sammy added, “In Louisiana, visiting her family. We just got back in from her funeral.” He didn’t like lying, especially not to a pastor, but Odysseus had insisted yesterday. A false death certificate had already been fabricated and filed into the system by the Order. People in Cedar City would wonder why the sheriff or the town coroner hadn’t been notified.
“Oh, Samson. I’m so sorry. Would you please extend my condolences to your family?”
Sammy nodded.
“I’m here to talk if you want. Or would you prefer to be alone?”
Sammy considered the offer carefully. Back home, there were others of his kind who shared in his grief. But they were also wrapped up in it themselves, one way or another. Mutual experience was not the same as shared experience. What Sammy needed was comfort, and he couldn’t impose himself on any of them to make himself feel better… if that was even possible right now.
“Maybe… maybe you can help me, then,” Sammy said, lowering his gaze down to the book in his lap. “I’ve always had hope I’ll get to see my family someday. In heaven. But Elizabeth… I invited her to come with me to church a few times. She said she was happy I had something for faith, but it wasn’t for her. And now… and now…” He took a deep breath and choked down the resurging emotions. “Now I think I’ll never see her again.”
He felt a hand touch his shoulder and looked up.
“Your love for her does you credit,” Kwan said. “But the love that humans are capable of, when compared to God’s love, is like moonlight compared to the sun. Our Father in Heaven loved her too, and no doubt He grieves for her as well because she never answered His call.”
Sammy nodded slightly as he listened. “She… was… a good person. One of the best I ever knew,” he declared. “I just…”
He was struggling. The ideas were half-formed in his mind, not translating well to spoken word. Even though he had gotten better since being rescued, his years having no one to talk to had stunted his ability to express himself. “I… don’t like the idea that she doesn’t get to go to heaven.”
“I know. I’ve lost people I’ve loved too. We all have. But you did everything you could for her, I’m sure. But she struggled with her inner demons for so long--and I mean that metaphorically, though perhaps at the end it was literal ones who were whispering such heinous thoughts into her ear. At least, take comfort in knowing she no longer has to fight. She may not be in heaven, but at least she’s at peace.”
Kwan’s ministry rejected the concept of hell. He preached that Heaven was to be in God’s presence, and to be cast away from Him was to be rendered null and void, not some endless torment.
Peace. Was that what Elizabeth had now? Maybe. But what about him? Was he being selfish for wanting her back? No, no...because if he had the power to wish her back, then he would have the power to heal her mind. It wasn’t her fault that the chemicals in her brain had gotten all screwed up, but she had borne it bravely for as long as she could, until it had eaten away almost all that was good in her and left her without hope.
He didn’t think she was a coward or love her any less because of what she had done. He couldn't imagine what kind of battlefield her psyche had been.
But she had her peace. And he had his own struggles. As much as Sammy had been through… he had to keep going. And not just for himself, but for Elizabeth too. He still had a promise to keep.
“Thank you, Pastor Kwan,” he said. “Would it be all right if I stayed here late?”
“Our doors are always open, Sam,” he said, standing up. “You’ll be in my prayers. And if you need anything, you can always give me a call. Any time.”
“Thank you.”
***
Sammy didn’t get home til almost midnight, and even then he didn’t go back into the house. He shifted and ran through the forest, eventually settling down into a niche to sleep when exhaustion overtook him. He dreamed of Elizabeth. When he returned to the ranch the next morning, all was quiet. Sammy glanced up to the second story window with drawn curtains. It had been years since he had climbed up to go in through there. And as much as he wanted to, to feel some connection to his lost sister, there was no one inside to unlock the window and let him in. Slumping, he went back to his truck and used the door as a screen for privacy as he went humanside again and put back on the clothes he had left in the front seat.
Night Sky and her brother’s family were seated around the living room when he entered. She stood up and wrapped her arms around him, and he hugged her back, pushing his nose into her hair to inhale her scent, and the traces of their packmates’ scents within. The scent of family.
“Are you okay, baby?” she asked.
“Are you?”
She shuddered. “No. But I will be.”
“So will I. Eventually.”
She let him go and gave him a gentle nudge towards the stairs. “Go clean up. My brother’s taking the family out to a late breakfast. That includes you.”
He nodded, and climbed up to the second story, slowing as he passed by the closed door to Elizabeth’s room on the way to his own. He could still smell her blood, drying and rotting.
He shook his head and pushed himself forward. Peace. She had found her peace. But he would have to look harder to find his own.
This story is dedicated to anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide, and to anyone contemplating that irreversible mistake. There are people who would miss you when you're gone. Please, I beg you, don't do that to yourself, or them.