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“There’s a space for you,” the kind lady ushers Ralph, batting him towards the carved wooden benches placed in rows, all faced toward the back of the church. Orderly, with purpose.
The space, she names, is the only place left—the final bench at the back, an area where they’ve gathered the kids on the other last few rows solemnly, the final one vacant save for one occupant. It seems the others, the littluns, rather, have squeezed themselves together purposefully. Almost afraid, they appear.
Ralph walks down the narrow path—it feels more like staggering—and throws the boy, alone, a glance.
Pink on freckled cheeks—no bleeding red in sight. Dull eyes, pressed clothes.
This is Jack Merridew, Ralph recognises, just as he sits down, stiff. A child of the choir. Of God.
(The last they’d seen of each other had been on a dock—in a city Ralph did not recognise.
“Here,” Jack had said, broken glasses placed gently into Ralph’s. The press, or moreso their cameras, pushed them closer together, eager to understand.
They never could.
Ralph could not look away from their joined hands. “I don’t want it.”
“Take it anyway,” Jack pressed, sounding a little delirious. Ralph knew he sounded just the same. “I never knew him.”
Ralph had, in the end, eyes trained on Jack’s face, mapping constellations across his cheeks, an officer committing an offender’s image to memory.
And the cameras never stopped clicking.)
Meeting Jack’s gaze now, after weeks of only ever seeing it in the darkness that swims behind his eyelids, is painful. Ralph resorts to not doing it all, even as he settles beside the boy, the heat of the church sweltering beneath his suit.
“Why do you walk like that?”
Ralph, with his God cursed self-control, turns.
Jack is observing him, eyes pinched curiously, like a fox considering prey. “Why do you walk like that?” He repeats, an undeserved smile pulling at the edges of his lips, an expression sheepish and something human. Something he is absolutely not.
“Like what?”
“Why do you walk so mysteriously?” is Jack’s rephrasing, and he’s smirking, now.
Ralph swallows, throat dry. He glances away, catching one of the other boys’ eyes. Guilt, he sees. It is always guilt.
Suddenly, he’s being nudged softly in the side.
“They done your hair,” Jack switches subjects. The rest of the church is quiet, except for the harrowing press with their flashing cameras and screaming pens who crowd themselves a few paces away. They want to find the boy’s parents, probably. Unfortunately, they aren’t succeeding all that well.
“And yours.” Ralph manages to respond, surprising himself at how steady his tone is—a sort of clarity he’s heard before.
Their staring contest is quickly broken, and even as he trains his sight on the crucifix across the hall, Ralph’s heart thrums dangerously. Even more so knowing just who it is sat beside him, the smell of salt always familiar and the taste of the boar laying gently on his tongue.
“I don’t know how I’d never seen you before,” Jack mutters, probably meant for only himself, and hence goes a bit red when Ralph again turns to him, irritated.
“What?” Ralph asks, voice cutting. A spear, quick at the ribs.
“Before the evacuation,” Jack clarifies, talking like this is normal. Like he doesn’t know how badly Raph wants him dead. “At school. I’d never seen you in my life. And you only knew Piggy—“
“I didn’t,” Ralph interrupts. A knife, twisting. “I didn’t know him at all. I didn’t know any of you.”
Jack considers this. “How come you didn’t go with your class?”
“What?”
“The planes,” Jack says patiently. God, when’d he learn to do that? “I thought everyone went with their classes.”
Ralph hardly remembers. He blinks, and all he sees is burning hair, painted faces, schoolboys, hardly boys and hardly human.
His eyesight swims, finding Jack. Freckled cheeks, glowing eyes. He is almost unfamiliar.
“I was—“ Ralph pauses. Drums his fingers across his knee, the crucifix mocking him. “I was meant to go with my Dad. He didn’t show up, though, so they—”
“He dead or somethin’?” Jack chirps casually, plucking a hymn booklet from the slot in front of them.
Ralph settles further into the hard, wooden bench, shoulders unbelievably tense. Jesus. “He’s not dead. I told you, he works for the navy.”
“What, and you was gonna work with him?”
“Probably.” It comes out more like a question—to be honest, Ralph has no idea.
Jack lets out a laugh, something weirdly sweet, and Ralph tries not to cringe. “What?” Jack says, disbelieving, pages flickering, the edges dancing between calloused fingers. “You were twelve.”
“Fourteen, now.” Ralph is still talking. Why is he still talking?
“Since when?”
“July 19th,” says Ralph. It’s a lie.
Jack glances up at him curiously, tilting his head. He knows. “I’ll keep that in mind, then.”
“Please don’t,” Ralph mutters, and his discomfort burns. The adults are carrying something—curtained by a white cloth—outside, the tap of polished shoes creating music in the otherwise vapid atmosphere.
“Have you noticed?” Jack has shuffled closer, now, and Ralph’s eyes briefly dart over to the cameras. They are watching, not as interested as before. “There’s, like, three of ‘em missing.”
Ralph’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t let his gaze move over. Not again. “What? Those men?”
This must amuse Jack or something, because there’s a soft snort, and Ralph has heard that sound before. Before the paint, and before any Beast. “No, dimbo,” Ralph can hear the grin in Jack’s voice, and looks around to see him nodding his head at the kids in front of them, “them. Bill ain’t here. And Percival, and Tommy. Did you hear what happened to Bill?”
It strikes Ralph painfully to realise he hardly recognises the names. “No.”
“Cos’ you’ve been avoiding it all.”
“I haven’t.”
Jack watches him. “Well, I guess you’re here now. But you never liked Simon.”
“I did.”
“You’re here because you feel guilty.”
It’s less of an accusation, and more of an observation. Ralph focuses on his lap, nails digging graves into his palm. “Don’t you feel the same?”
“Yes,” comes Jack’s murmured reply. A lie, then. He straightens up, and smiles again; Ralph sees the effort it takes. “Anyway, Bill threw himself into the river. An idiot, if you ask me.”
Ralph must make some sort of expression, because Jack’s casual spirit quickly grows exasperated. “You ain’t gettin’ ideas, are you? Killing yourself is a sin.”
Aren’t they all going to Hell anyway?
“Don’t be stupid like Bill, Ralph. If you just wanna make justice—or, uh, whatever your political arse is into, living is way harder. Suicide is you bein’ selfish.”
And what about us killing others?
Ralph says nothing of it. “Why aren’t you sat with them?”
Jack doesn’t react to the blatant deterrent. “Who?”
Your— “The choir.”
This prompts a full head tilt, like a puppy. A strangleable puppy. “We aren’t friends.”
“Don’t you talk to Roger?”
Jack looks even more bewildered. Caught off guard. He’s never done that before, has he? “No.”
“What?” Ralph’s eyes trail over to the cameras. Click, on and off. The Jack they’re looking at right now—the one Ralph is looking at—was he ever even on the island? “I thought—“
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack shakes his head, tugging at his collar. Ralph is staring, hardly realising it. Unfamiliar, this is all unfamiliar. “I mean— we did talk. After…you know. He wants to join the military before college. Or wanted to. I don’t know.”
“But he ditched you?” Everything is coming naturally—Ralph wills it to stop. Wills his mouth to shut the fuck up.
Wincing, Jack makes a so-so gesture with his hands. “I wouldn’t say… ditched , like— well, I reckon he’s just scared.”
Ralph scoffs. “Of you?”
Jack eyes him amusedly. “Don’t act like you aren’t.”
“It’s Roger.” Roger, who’d discovered how it felt to assist death’s hand. Roger, who’d liked it enough to do it all over again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ralph splutters, and his heart is beginning to creep back into a state of grief, but something keeps him rooted. Or distant, rather, depending on how you look at it. “He’s just as— no, actually, he’s worse than you. I think I hate him more than I hate you, and that says a lot.”
At this, Jack grins, like there’s something there to be proud of. “Yeah, but you’re only saying that cos’ you didn’t know him at all.”
“What, like that changes anything?”
“You knew me. You liked me.” Jack’s eyes are bright, and Ralph’s face warms despite himself. “That’s why you’re sat here, talking like nothing happened.”
“That’s not—“
“It is.”
Ralph stares, while the priest calls for the gathering’s attention. And he turns away, hiding in his silence.
The sermon is over. Regrettably, Ralph cared honestly for none of it.
In the open air, the small monument is revealed, the heat harsh on their backs and the cameras a constant presence.
The children take turns approaching the front, murmured apologies directed moreso at God than the boy they’d all killed whispered in the silence like a secret.
And then Ralph steps up to the statue.
It’s a simple thing, really. A small angel of stone, unpainted, poorly made. The cracks provident. Hands cupped, a photograph placed in its palms, a crown of flowers placed over its head. Simon would approve of it, Ralph thinks. Imperfection and beauty coexisting as one.
Letting his eyes wander over to the picture—of Simon beaming, hanging from his arms on the branch of a tree the same way he did on the island—Ralph feels a void. He is blank. A slate. He is thought and he is nothing.
And he is born anew.
“I hope you’re savin’ me a spot up there,” Ralph murmurs. The responding silence blares like the siren of a battlecruiser in his ears. “I miss you.”
He hesitates, now. Reaches a hand, slow, into his pocket, fingers grasping onto a pair of broken spectacles. They’re placed gently into the hands of the angel, destruction amidst the new blooming of freshly placed flowers.
“Give ‘em to Piggy for me, will you?”
This isn’t even a grave.
“I think I might be a while.”