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The girl in the casket in front of him was nothing except familiar.
Her golden hair brighter than his fell flat against the back of the box, straight and graceful. Eyes firmly shut where her brown ones should be. Little freckles scattered across her face.
The simple red dress she loved was carefully arranged on her limp body. Her favourite scuffed Mary Janes put on her feet.
But her face was too pale. Where her smile should have been, a soft frown tugged her lips. Her limbs were too skinny to hold themselves up, though the flowers the body held across her chest lay there, fresh and bright. A depressing comparison to the rest of the scene.
The girl in the casket was Serapter’s sister.
Serapter had cried that morning.
Tears soaked his face, his sleeves and the handkerchief that his mom had given him the day she died. He learned later that it had been one of hers, one of her favourite ones that she’d refused to use because it was too pretty. The sunflowers embroidered on the side of the cloth made more sense then. He cried more after that.
His dad had looked at him with mournful eyes, given him a hug, and then silently helped him get dressed.
Now Serapter stood in front of the casket in a suit at least one size too big for him. The cuffs of his sleeves almost covered his palms and fingers. He’d already tripped over his too-long trousers too.
It all felt wrong.
The little sunflower pinned to the lapel of the suit. Her favourite flower, because it always faced the sun, the bright side.
Serapter felt his eyes water again. His hands were clenched in front of him to hide their tremble. A strong hand came down upon his shoulder and squeezed.
His father stood behind him, eyes also filled with tears, and slowly steered Serapter away from the scene.
He'd sat through the funeral, listened to the speeches. He gave his own too, a short, shaky paragraph. By the end of his few short sentences, he was crying again, and this made everyone else's eyes water too. The adults couldn't bear to see the young boy cry over something not even they could deal with either.
Now, people came up to the casket, the crude wooden box they put her in, and walked away silently. Soon they would dig her into the ground and he would never see her again.
She would be a name on a headstone, a flower in a vase, a picture on the counter.
Serapter’s father squeezed his shoulder again.
“It will be okay, son. She's not in pain anymore. We shouldn't be either.”
Serapter just nodded.
This time it was different.
The body in the casket was not full, was not whole. Some limbs looked unnatural, as if they had been replaced. It was pale, way too pale. Paler than the body that Serapter had seen before. A look of pain barely graced the otherwise expressionless face.
Stitches wounds made it look like Frankenstein’s monster.
The most plain blue dress adorned the body, draped over awkward limbs. A small bouquet of flowers rested on its chest.
Unlike his sister, Mysticat didn't have to die. She wasn't in pain before, death was not a mercy for her. It was not a relief, nor was it a way out.
No, this death was a murder. It was cruel. She didn't have to die at all. She was healthy and alive, kind and hardworking.
Serapter didn't know her very personally. She was a nice person, had a good smile and a lovely personality. Many of the staff were upset. Serapter was too.
There was no lead up to her death. No lingering visits in the hospital, no shaky hands or stuttering footsteps. No whispered words behind doors that he wasn't supposed to hear.
One moment she was there, and the next, she was a mangled corpse on the ground.
When it came time for Serapter to see the body, he was surprised at how intact her body looked, but he knew it wasn't really.
Yet the image of her corpse still burned in his mind. Mangled and bruised on the base of the stairs. Her arms and legs twisted at unnatural angles.
His turn was over, and he wandered off to join Ivory. No tears came. He wasn't sad anymore. It wouldn't bring her back. Just furious. And scared.
If it had happened to her, it could happen to anyone in the Whitepine estate.
At least it was a pretty place she was buried in, the middle of the forest. A place all to herself, unlike the crowded graveyard that his sister was buried in, a name amongst hundreds of others.
Serapter wondered if that was the reason, or if his boss was once again cutting costs by not burying her in a graveyard. Was it cheaper to be buried here?
The butler sighed, and finally sat down beside Ivory. She stared at the grass, fingers lightly brushing the stalks.
Most of the maids were wearing the same black dress, as was Serapter wearing the same cheap suit as the other butlers. Ivory’s dress was slightly different. It was longer, cuffs that covered past her wrists. She kept fiddling with the fabric on the skirt.
The two sat on the grass for a while, though a chair was soon offered to Serapter. They watched as a few butlers and Mr.Pyroscythe dug the casket into the ground.
Only then did Serapter realise that he also wore a sunflower on his lapel. The butler carefully unpinned the sunflower from his suit.
“What does it mean?” Ivory asked. Serpater’s head snapped over to where she was sitting. The sudden speaking startled him, but he turned back to the petals of the flower pin.
“It was my sister’s favourite flower. Because they always faced towards the sun,” he answered. “The bright side.”
Ivory stared at the yellow flower pin in his hands. “Oh.”
“Not sure what the bright side of this is,” Serapter started. “But I do hope it’s that whoever did this to her will be caught and brought to justice. It makes me sick to think that they might still be around.”
Ivory hummed.
Div joined them soon after, and the three sat and watched the casket be put into darkness, a yellow flower planted atop the grave.