Writer Games: The Final Twist & A Night in Wattpad Manor & Faction Wattpad

The Funeral: Freya Griffith

"Life is a unique thing.   Full of pain, full of sorrow, but also full of joy and full of love.   No matter how many struggles we face, or how many sorrows we see, life  will go on.  Life will always go on.  My sister knew this better than  anyone.  We lost our sister when she was fifteen and I seventeen.  But  life went on, and the next year she became the president.  Nearly twenty  years later, we lost both of our parents in an unfortunate accident.   Life was difficult then, but life went on.  Now, my sister has passed  into the world beyond as well.  My time on this earth is limited.  But  life will go on.  Life always goes on."

            Sawyer  Griffith steps back into the crowd.  A polite applause spatters out at  his speech, before simmering back into silence.  I smile at his words.

            Fiona  Griffith steps up to speak next.  "My mother was a...complicated woman.   For my whole life, she always knew what she wanted, both for herself  and the ones she cared about.  She wanted me to stay with her in Amity,  but when I transferred to Erudite she understood.  For that I'll always  be grateful." I applaud quietly along with the rest, but of course my  claps are unheard.

            Crystal  Griffith speaks.  "Grandmama and I fought a lot.  Fought a lot by Amity  standards, anyway.  But somehow, our fights almost always ended in  laughter."

            Ronan rises to speak next.  From years of knowing him, I know what words he will ultimately say before he says them.

            "I was  married to Freya for more than fifty years," he begins.  He starts to  talk about our life together in that time.  Finally he says what I have  been expecting him to.  "We raised three children together.  But the  thing is, what we've never told anyone- we are not their parents.  Not  biologically, anyway."

            Gasps ripple  throughout the crowd like a cloud in the wind.  Their shock amuses me  to a degree; I might even call their reactions comical.

            Once his  audience has a chance to recover from his shocking statement, Ronan  explains.  "You see, we were ready to start a family.  But then Freya  found out from the doctors that she was incapable of conceiving and  carrying a child.  But we still wanted a family."

            The crowd is  silent now.  "What many people are not aware of is that the factionless  population is not entirely made up of those sixteen and older.  The  factionless, on occasion, have children of their own.    And over the  years, Freya found three pregnant factionless woman willing to entrust  their child in our care after their birth."

            The gasps,  the words, the outrage is more extreme to the listeners than before.  I  suppose I cannot blaming them for being shocked.  The average faction  member, with the exception of Abnegation, has limited to no contact with  the factionless.  The revelation that their former leader took in  factionless children and raised them as their own is likely as shocking  to them as it would be if I suddenly walked out of my coffin.

            Ronan steps back.  There is a long silence.  I assume everyone is awaiting Ronan to continue, but he never does.

            I feel my  spirit lightened to a degree.  One less secret.  There is however one  more secret tethering me to this world, one I only told my firstborn  daughter and my brother.  I know, whether by instinct or even destiny,  that I cannot move on to my next step in my existence until that secret  is in the air.

            Others  speak.  Colleagues of mine over the years, the representatives of the  other factions, members of my initiation class.

            When she  comes up to speak, there is a shift in the mourners.  She was always  said to look the most like me- now they are wondering if that is true.  I  am certain they will all realize soon, if they have not already, that  the way in which my daughter resembles myself is not genetic.  It is in  the way she holds herself and behaves, and in the glimmer in her eye.

            "My mother  was a wonderful woman.  I always admired her, for both things she did in  my lifetime and things she did in the past."  My daughter takes a  breath.  I know her enough to know she will say what I need her to say  for myself to move on.

            "When I was  sixteen years old, I was nervous for my aptitude test.  I worried I  would not show aptitude for Amity, the faction I intended to spend the  rest of my life with.  I confided my fears in my mother and she told me,  she told me," Her voice shakes with the gravity of what she is about to  say.  "She didn't get Amity."

            I turn away  from the funeral and start to walk.  I have seen what I need, and what  has needed to be done has been done. Fia appears at my side.

            "Ready to go?" She asks.

            I consider.   My living family is getting by.  My dead family is waiting for me.  I  have lived a long life.  And finally, my deepest secret is out in the  open.

            "Yes," I say, "I am ready to move on."