Incandescence

40: Full Circle

"My brother was the world's biggest dork."

Liv is answered by a chorus of soft laughs from those seated in the church pews before her. Just like last time. Only, unlike before, she's able to join in.

The grand hall is as packed as a shopping centre the week before Christmas, with everyone from teenagers to grandmothers present to honour the life of Mason Deveaux. Compared to last time, the turnout seems to have increased tenfold. I'm willing to bet most of the extra numbers only showed up to hear Liv's legendary speech.

Beside me Lena chuckles, and I catch our mother shoot her a smile for no reason other than she's glad she's sitting beside her. She does that a lot lately. Whenever she thinks we're not watching, I'll see her eyeing us both up from across the room with this relieved look in her eyes, like she knows how close she came to losing us and never wants to be put in that position again. I never tell her I notice, but I think she knows. Sometimes I think she wants me to see.

On my other side is Peter, with his mother wedged between him and another of the Deveauxs' friends, and across the hall, sitting in one of the very back pews, is Alice. She's studying her manicured nails, feinting indifference, but I know how she felt about the boy we're all here for. And I know she secretly cares more than she'll ever let on.

Several people shot her a look of surprise when she showed up at the church this morning, like they expected her to be at home, dressing in black and making up death potions. Diana Crowley's body was never recovered from the wreckage of the hockey stadium. The cops are on the search for the convict, a cell downtown cleared out with her name on it, but it seems some people won't be content until her whole family suffers. If you'd spoken to me a month ago, I would've without a doubt agreed. But now I know Malice is as fake as the leather in her mother's handbag.

And her alter ego, Alice, isn't half bad.

"April, c'mon," Lena whispers, nudging me with her elbow. I glance up and realise everyone – Mom, Peter, even Liv's parents in the row in front – is looking at me. Showtime. Murmuring my apologies, I climb over the legs of the crowd and make my way up to the lectern, passing Liv on the way. She keeps her eyes focused straight ahead, but mouths "Good luck" as she passes me.

I smile, whispering, "You did great," and her face turns almost as bright as her newly dyed orange bob. She sits down, shooting me a huge thumbs up. At first I wasn't going to go through with this, but pressure from the people who genuinely matter took its toll and I finally agreed. Reaching the altar, I jog up the green carpeted step and adjust the microphone on the lectern to my height. Then, after smoothing out my own speech, I begin.

"Some people knew Mason as the young prodigy who was probably gonna break a coupla world records in his lifetime. Others saw him as the shining hockey star everyone in Hopewood aspired to be as good as. Maybe you knew him as the boy who once helped you carry your groceries to your front door, or the kid on the bus who gave up his seat for you. But to me, Mason was and always will be my silly best friend. . ."

It becomes harder and harder to talk about my friend Mason without mixing him up with my enemy Mason as I go on, but I persevere regardless, knowing he deserves this, at least. I suspect most of the crowd isn't paying attention to the words I speak anyway. Rather, they're struggling to contemplate how a seventeen-year-old straight-B student managed to solve a mystery which evaded the district's top detectives.

Everyone knows I was there now. Me, April Sinclair, queen of mediocrity. Daughter of wanted criminal Diana Crowley, Alice Crowley. And history teacher James Skye, who, from what I've heard, has quit his job and passed all his classes over to remaining staff. Daniel's found a rock to hide under while the drama fades, and Cassandra and the others' deaths have been chalked down to the 'earthquake,' which miraculously only affected the town cemetery and hockey stadium. The case of the ripped-open graves remains suspicious to all the superstitious folk, but we've managed to sum that up in our faulty tale too.