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‘Do we die?’
Despite being at a funeral, Father hadn’t expected the question. He looked down at Zee in surprise, regarding her seriously, ‘Not now.’
‘But-‘
‘Later.’ He put an arm around her shoulder and led them into the house. The air was thick inside, warmed by the many people gathered together in solid, unmoving clumps and the smell of the oil lamps alongside the humid weight of the air made Zee feel sick.
There was a person in the front hallway as soon as they stepped across the threshold, a man with a large moustache hiding a face that hardly moved when he saw them, ‘Ah, Lord Kirkland. I’m glad you and your daughter could make it.’
Father took off his hat and held it to his chest, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Sir. It is a shame.’
The man’s eyes watered, lips pressing together tightly before he spoke again, ‘Yes. A shame.’
A slight movement of Father’s weight shifted his hip against Zee’s side and she bobbed a quick curtsey. She knew that Father would probably want her to say something, the deceased in question was her friend, after all, but she couldn’t unstick the words where the sentiment was caught in her throat, gummed up by something unnameable.
Greetings over, Father placed a hand back on Zee’s shoulder and pushed her forwards and into the main parlour, mirrors and windows covered completely and large grandfather clock stopped- old superstitions that Father eyed with approval. There were family there that Zee knew, her friend’s grandmother and brothers red-eyed and pale faced surrounded by a sea of adults Zee couldn’t give names to. Father didn’t look like he knew anyone amongst them either, only gave the brothers a small nod in greeting before continuing to herd Zee upstairs to the bedroom.
Her friend was laid out in her bed, her mother by her side. She looked as though she were asleep, hair freshly washed and combed and spread neatly about the pillow. Face relaxed, arms folded gently across her middle. But it looked too perfect, too controlled and cool and there was no colour to her face at all.
Zee had never seen a dead person before. She’d heard about them many times; Father became loud when he drank, tongue loose and emotional, and she’d heard from her favourite eavesdropping spot on the stairs all sorts of things that she thought she shouldn’t at her age, were she human. How Father had cut down mortal men in their prime and about all of the terrible things he’d done to their own kind: swords, spikes and fire as proud extensions of himself. She knew too that when humans died, they stopped, like an unwound clock, and went cold and stiff to the touch. She’d seen it herself when her cat had died the other year and imagined that death to humans would feel somewhat similar but now, confronted with the real thing, she realised how different it all was. Death had been removed before now, elsewhere like one of Father’s faerie stories and this was…
This was more. This was an absence, a nothing when once there was brilliant something- the soul bearing the weight of a life swallowed into a vacuum.
Zee stopped dead in the threshold of the room.
‘Alex?’ Father tried to move her, ‘Come on, don’t dawdle.’
She couldn’t, her legs felt like stone.
She shook her head and he gave a single tut, bending down to whisper in her ear, ‘She can’t hurt you, there’s no reason to be scared.’
‘I don’t want to see her,’ Zee whispered, eyes fixed beyond his shoulder to the room beyond, ‘I don’t want to.’ She wanted to remember her friend alive, playing with her in the gardens whilst Father spoke business and plotted numbers with the other men. Traders, merchants, suppliers- a collection of them whom Father knew and personally kept up with, dropping Zee off and prodding her to interact with whatever children were in the house. It was important for her, he’d said, to get to know her people. Learn to be around them, learn to love them.
Well, she’d done that. Look where that had got her. Consumption.
‘You must.’ Father was firm but Zee was equally set against the idea now, determined not to go.
‘Why? I don’t want to and I won’t.’ Her hands shook and she pressed them against her sides, unwanted tears spilling down her cheeks.
Before she had a chance to think about what she’d say next, stomach too busy roiling with dread, Father had picked her up and she automatically wound her legs around his stomach to be carried quickly past all of the people and outside again. She caught whispers as they passed, small clucks of sympathy that made Zee bury her face in Father’s shoulder and want to disappear entirely.
Once she’d started crying it was hard to stop and by the time they were away from prying ears and eyes back in the safety of their carriage, she was sobbing hard enough for Father to keep her in his arms and murmur gentle nothings into her ear.
‘It is important that you see her,’ Father said once she’d calmed down enough that only small hiccoughs remained.
Zee sniffed and wound her fingers in the buttons of Father’s shirt, ‘Why?’
‘Because she was yours,’ Father rubbed a hand down her back, calloused skin catching in the fine silk of her new black dress.
‘But I don’t want to see her like that, dead and cold.’ Zee pressed her lips together angrily, willing herself to stop being such a baby.
‘Do you think she wanted to be dead?’ Father did not wait for an answer, ‘Do you think she would have wanted to be seen by you like that?’
Zee’s eyes watered afresh, ‘No.’
‘And it does not change things.’ Father’s voice was soft, ‘She is still dead. The kindest thing you can do for her now is to acknowledge that. Acknowledge the loss and remember it.’
‘But I want to remember her alive.’
‘Humans do not stay alive. They do not stay young, or healthy. They change and they age and they sicken. You need to see all parts of them to understand them properly.’
‘But I know they die,’ Zee said, frustrated, ‘and I see them old.’
Father did not answer for a moment, ‘If we are lucky, we will live for many human lifetimes.’ He drew a pattern of something into her back with his thumb, tingling, soothing motions that made Zee want to shut her eyes and fall asleep, ‘They give us life and in return, we remember them. It is a disservice to only remember the parts you find pleasing.’
His hand stilled, warm and solid in the centre of her back, ‘That you do not wish to see death does not stop it from happening. It is part of them. Humans honour us with their lives and, in return, we must honour them by remembering them truthfully. All parts.’ He nudged his shoulder for her to pull away and look at him properly, ‘Does that make sense?’
‘No.’ Yes, ‘It doesn’t,’ It did.
‘You are going to go in anyway,’ Father pulled out his handkerchief from his jacket and wiped her cheeks dry, ‘You will not always get the chance to say goodbye. This is something to be grateful for.’
‘Will you die?’
‘Yes.’ Father didn’t hesitate, ‘I will.’
‘And me?’
‘Yes.’
‘But not like that?’
The slightest change in the small lines around Father’s eyes, ‘Not so young. That I can promise.’