My father owns a small graveyard that was about the size of two house lots. What made him buy the lot was because he had always been fascinated with fantasy worlds; elven, dwarven, fairy, you name 'em. He's just cool like that. He saw two great oaks growing strong in the lot and just out of the blue thought about fairies; he was really an eccentric aside from being cool. So now, he made it his goal to create a fairy world from the lot, in memory of the unseen, the creatures from the figment of someone's imagination. It actually took him about a decade before the graveyard was open for burials, we weren't that rich either but since I was an only child and both my parents are working for quite an average amount of pay, we get by just fine and so my father was able to do all those crazy things I just said. Honesly, half the time I just thought he was tripping acid, but he was dead serious about his fantasy worlds. I'm not saying he's a lunatic though, he's quite normal if he needed to, but he prefers fantasies which I was lucky enough to be a part of growing up and inherited from him an interest in fantasy.
The graveyard was fenced in by a small hedge and tall iron fences with vines creeping on them. The gate was iron as well but it was in the shape of an arching twisted tree. The pathway was bricked and painted in yellow and the grassy area surrounding it were tall but not the unhealthy kind. Flower bushes were all around as well and sometimes you find a gravestone hidden inside them. The graves were mostly for dead fictional characters but my father has limited them to one character per fantasy world though since one time he had to face a lot of petition to have a burial for a lot of the characters in Harry Potter when the last movie was shown a few years back. The graves were rental; the minimum length is a week, there is no maximum limit and anyone could extend a grave's duration. The longest so far was for Sherlock Holmes, he had a grave for two years until the show came back.
The dedication of fans was truly remarkable, I mean, my dad owns a graveyard for fictional characters for crying out loud! I am qute the fanboy as well, but was probably a toned down version of my father. Because of that, I worked at the graveyard during the summer and sometimes in school season too if I was free. Working there was something I really looked forward to, I mean, who wouldn't? You walk through a fantasy world where you can visit the graves of your favourite characters, the latter is quite bittersweet though.
Today was something different though.
I waited by the gate for our new customer. I knew him from grade school but he moved to another place not far from here back in high school. He was the only kid back then to like fantasy aside from me; we played a lot together, but we never became best friends.
He came by the other day to inquire about our prices, my father remembered him too so he gave him a discount. Father told him that his first payment no matter how much it was would get him twice for what his dollar would originally get hi; our prices was a dollar per day and he handed my father a hundred so he got two hundred days for the grave. I wondered which character would he pay that much money for, he seemed quite somber when he was writing in our record book. He wrote the name "Lindsay Huntley" down and in our request form he said he wanted it to be around a fairy ring. That name didn't sound much like a fairy's name; so I thought maybe it was one of those modernized fantasy like the DC comic, Fables? After all that he went on his way and carried his gloomy aura with him; I fel relieved, I was sweating as I watched his every move, my father felt his aura too.
"The elf has a mighty grief," my father joked. I agree with him though; that character must have meant a lot for him.
When I went home that day, I was curious about who Lindsay Huntley was. When we were kids I remembered him introducing me to a lot of different fantasy worlds and they were all great so I know he has a knack to know a good fantasy when he sees one. Lindsay Huntley must have been a great character, so I searched for the name online to find out where she came from. The results didn't give me any name of a book or a game, all of them were from news websites. "Plane On The Way To Florida Crashes" was the first result, I didn't feel good about reading that. My heart started beating loudly as I hovered the cursor over the link; I was wondering whether I should click it or not, but my heart was beating too loudly to think so I ended up clicking it.
Needless to say, the name Lindsay Huntley was in the list of fatalities; she was just eighteen like me and was originally from a place called Kensington in England. I went back to the search results and at the bottom I saw a Tumblr account, it wasn't hers though it was a friend of hers in which she was talking about her moments with her; I guess that's how he knew of her too. I told my father about it and it touched his heart. The next day he worked on Lindsay Huntley's burial ground; he worked on the fairy circle, although the mushrooms were just wooden replicas. He also got a teapot and redecorated it to look like a fairy's house. He glued it to a wooden base, put some stints underneath, and hammered it to the trunk of the oak tree. The final touch was the small gravestone that was placed just underneath the house. It was beautiful, I couldn't wait for him to see it tomorrow and what he has to say about Lindsay; he must have a lot of great stories about her.
I checked my watch, he said he would be here before sunset and the sun was almost setting. Then in the distance, I saw his car making itself more visible as it approached us. When he parked right in front of me, he wasn't alone in the car. There were five more people in there, all dressed up either as an elf or a fairy. He was dressed up too, as an elf of course. Two of them got out of the car first and then he followed as he opened the trunk for the two fairies since their wings were stored in there. They were one of those strapless wings that work instead by hooking it to the dress.
The rest of them got out and lined up in threes facing each other with a pathway in between, one of the fairies smiled at me and grabbed me to fall in line with them; I was in the line in the left of the gate and the one nearest t too, I just wish I was in costume as well. He then picked up a glass jar filled with glitter that was sitting on his car's dashboard. Closing the car door behind him, he walked through the path that we made and entered through the gate. We left the line one by one to form a single new line as we followed him, this was the coolest burial that I've been in, it's just sad that it was for an actual person. My father was waiting by the plot, I can't wait to see him geek out when they see them.
My father did, he forgot to be sad when he saw them in costumes but he fought the urge to smile, at least until after the burial. My father handed him a trowel to dig inside the fairy circle, when it was deep enough he placed the jar inside. Everyone gave a short speech and they were all in character; as it turns out Lindsay, well Yrana, was the fairies' sister and was a companion to Falandril, my classmate. They were all in character as they spoke, and then Falandril closed his eulogy with, "Your master may be gone, but Yrana, you will live on." Tears rolled down Yrana's sisters as Falandril filled up the hole, but the elves, all strong and mighty didn't shed a single one; although I could see they were struggling not to.
After that everyone can talk out of character now, my father invited them inside for some snacks. Falandril stayed for a little while, sitting in front of the fairy circle. I sat down beside him and decided to talk to him.
"Can you tell me anything about her? Lindsay, I mean, not Yrana," I asked. I thought he'd wave me off, but he didn't,
"We met online, as most friendships start these days," he started. "We ran a roleplay account on Tumblr, she was Yrana I was Falandril. Her friends were friends with my friends just as Yrana's sisters were companions of my fellow elves, but we didn't know each other in and out of character. It was a wild goose chase before Yrana became Falandril's companion, Lindsay had a lot of fun with that since she'd tease me about it as I grew impatient, she laughed at that too,
His eyes were watery, but he was still smiling. He used his hand to wipe away the incoming tears and continued with his story.
"She became my girlfriend online soon after; most people say online relationships weren't as real as real life relationships but fuck them, those friends I brought along today were the best friends I could ever have and she was the best girlfriend I will ever get," his voice cracked and this time he didn't fight the tears. He took a deep breath before continuing,
"Last year my friends met her at a convention you know? It was in England and I'm not that rich so I couldn't fly there. I never even got to meet her in person."
"Could you leave me for a moment?" he asked, and of course I obliged. As I walked off, I could hear him finally letting all his feelings out.
