Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 3 - It's a girl!

Chapter 3

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Stephanie is twelve years old

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For her twelfth birthday, Stephanie wanted to see her friends and she was refused. So, she asked her friends, through Gordon, to see her. Gordon refused, and they had had an argument. It seemed so petty now, to have had such a silly argument when she now knew that he just wanted to make sure she had every chance to do everything and anything in the world, but it had hurt that she couldn't at least see them over lunch or go on walks with them.

At Gordon's funeral, she had wept her eyes out, the only one crying. She had overheard the rest of her family in the parlour of their home, Gordon and Stephanie's home, chatting ideally about who got the fortune, who got the house, who got the kid. She had screamed at them and then had to sit in the car with them looking ashamed of themselves going to the burial site. They tried to comfort her, but the damage was done. Honestly, she was more upset about the argument they'd had weeks ago and apologised for, and of her relatives, than she was that she was at the funeral of the last person that cared solely for her being her.

The rest of her was numb. It had happened again. It was hard to not look at things with irony and with cynicism when this was the third parents figure that had died.

She had seen her six friends in the corner, all in black suits and looks of genuine upset on their faces but hadn't dared go up to them. Gordon hadn't wanted that. She fiddled with the priceless emerald necklace Wolf, who was really Dexter, had sent her after she had won a dance competition a few months ago.

The wake was a little easier as the coffin was out of sight and it felt a little more final. She had been told by her Grandma, who had picked her up from the police station after Stephanie had called them to report Gordon being dead in his study and thus taken her in temporarily since she was a minor, that the funeral was being taken care of by Gordon's friends. The 'Reading of the Will' was partway through the wake, though only a few of them were leaving.

Stephanie was led by her Grandma out of the wake after a wonderful meal at a fancy restaurant, Gordon's favourite – she'd ordered his favourite, no one else had that she had seen – and into a small back room where a short man with massive pores all over his face stood with a hunch back and awkward smile. She looked at her Grandma over her shoulder and the woman shrank away a little.

She's been very harsh and vocal about Gordon earlier. Stephanie, Ireland had found, was a much louder shouter than her. She didn't want to see her again after today.

She sat it one of the chairs, purposefully not looking at the others in the room. The door was closed. She took a deep final breath. This was it. Then it was over, and she could go back to her life. She was a fighter. She could do this.

She looked at the man squarely, who avoided her steely gaze, and went for the least harmful participant, Beryl.

Times were rough for this little man.

"Can we start now?" Beryl quipped. "I want to get back home soon."

"Yeah, we have things to do today," Fergus frowned at him.

Stephanie glared at them and bit her tongue.

"Erm, yes, that is everyone after all. Firstly, allow me to offer my deepest condolences to you, his friends and family. I understand this is a–"