Midmorning

EPILOGUE

She's asleep.

             That's what Ivchenko keeps telling me. 'She's asleep, Riddle. You're being too pessimistic.'

             Even though she's scolding me, she's crying in my arms, protesting with feeble, soft-fisted smashes to my chest. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. I want to stitch her mouth shut. Luckily, her whines eventually die away like a machine's choking gears, but I'm holding her. She smells of paint thinner and a bottle of perfume she's kept cold since she was twelve, but I'm holding her. It's taking my will's every ounce to not push her away.

             'She'll be awake soon,' Ivchenko says again. 'I can see it now. She's just sleeping. She would never leave without me.'

             It's not like I can blame her. Not entirely. Anybody would say Briar looks peaceful. She's poetry in a face. Her lids unfold over her eyes like broken shutters, and it looks like a sigh has prised her mouth open. If you stare hard enough, it looks like she's breathing.

             She didn't die like that. I had to pull the shutters down for her. I had to draw her mouth shut, but the wind seized it again. I had to scrub the tears and saliva from her skin. Otherwise, it looked like a struggle. It wasn't. She'd given in. I loved hurting her. I love hurting girls. Mudbloods. Whores. With words, with hands. Even more so when they thank me for doing it. Briar sounded grateful, too. When her final sob cut out of her, it was like she realised how good it really was. I wanted to scratch the sound into the walls of my skull. Playing God is a sedative.

             It takes place in a church, like most things do. It's 1945, so God is the only hope you have if you aren't Nietzsche or Freud. According to Briar, her mother is God-fearing, although I don't think she meant it in the conventional sense. Rose just dreads what God will do to her for all her sins, not that she ever made an attempt to repent. The woman is a filthy hypocrite, like all cowards are. In turn, her daughter was taken from her.

             She doesn't even know her daughter is dead. Briar would've hated her knowing. Quel dommage.

             The funeral is designed to be sacred. The walls are hollow and the floor is hard stone. The coffin is a repulsive muddy brown. Her hair was the same colour. I have one of her drawings—I have others too, all kept like trophies—in one palm, pressed against each crease in my skin, and I stare at it every now and again to prove to myself it's real. A snake, a skull. It writhes on the page. None of it feels sacred. Holy things feel too clean, like how bar soap stiffens flesh.

             In the long run, it's better to be sinful. But only if you don't feel guilt. Guilt is poison. It corrupts thought like brain damage. In a way, that's exactly what it is. It made Briar especially easy to ruin.

             'Did you read the note?' Malfoy says outside. He came for the same reason as everybody else—curiosity, guilt. Nobody attended because they liked Briar. It was like she was discarded newsprint, not a person.

             'Of course not,' I tell him, but I had. I'd recited its entirety in my head all throughout Wren's eulogy.

             Once I was reading a book and the word midmorning was there. I was seven so I asked maman about it and she told me that midmorning wasn't dawn or beating sunlight or dead sunsets. I asked her what she meant by that and she said midmorning had its own separate window, a space gathered for itself. Between these walls of nine and eleven was where the bell tolled tenfold. It was where birds reached their real belts of song and where grass warmed in your palms and the sea was cool but not biting. But only then is life worthy. The other hours are quite pointless. Even winter ruins the cycle. Tu piges? No, I said. And she told me I just hadn't found my midmorning yet.

             I don't think I ever will. That's why I'm giving in. But this is still so hard. I don't know what I'm thinking but maybe I'm scared to die but I'm finally going to do it and no one can pull me back from the water any more. Some part of me wants them to send me off into the lake or scatter me across hills because a grave will always be a reminder I'm stuck. But I'll be dead so I guess it doesn't matter. Do whatever you want.

             Also. Wren. Thank you for packing my things for me. I'm finally going home.

             Briar

             Her handwriting hadn't changed, even with an uninjured hand. Ink blotted everywhere. Destructive thoughts. T's crossed low. Low self-esteem. It was obvious she'd written it as an afterthought, just before she left to see me.

             'Well, I read it,' Malfoy says. 'It's awful.'

             He either means it's tragic or comical. 'I can only imagine.'

             He wants to ask if it was me, just to make sure. I nearly dare him. It's not like I'd ever hurt someone at a funeral.

             I do, however, burn that drawing into their arms weeks after. A snake, a skull. They all know where it's from. Hornby taunts that I've gone soft. I smile and tell her it's a souvenir before keeping the wand there, the spell cutting so far into her arm it nearly spits out the other side. She shuts up after that. I told you I love hurting girls.

             A month after, Ivchenko meets me to hand me one of Briar's old textbooks. Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts. Scrap parchment sticks inside its front cover: Tom, I made the spell. But said spell had been torn from underneath.

             'I'm sorry,' Ivchenko says. She means it. I hate her. 'I kept it. I must've left it in my old coat pocket, I don't know, but I can give it to you, if you want.'

             'Don't bother,' I smile. 'I think Briar would rather know you had it.'

             Ivchenko nods as though Briar told her to. 'Yeah. The spell does wonders. Patronus Charms can be tricky and—well, it's like there's some of her left.'

             Crumbling people are the most entertaining to watch.

             'Do you think she's sleeping well?' Ivchenko says after a hard swallow. She drains me.

             'I think so,' I tell her. 'She deserves peace.'

             You liar, I can hear Briar say. You don't care. I hate how her voice is the one my conscience speaks in.

             I don't hear her when I give her Rose's letters, though. A stack of them piles at her grave. I read a few. There's only so much Chère Briar you can read before you feel sick. When I have nothing to think about, I wonder if Briar reads them and has to endure the fact she can never write back.

             There's a girl swaying by the bus stop. It's dark. She's prey to any man watching. I speak to her and she's a mess in my hands. It's dangerous out here, I tell her over and over.

             Her words slur. 'So what?'

             She's so drunk that she can't admit it, so I joke with her: 'Does death not concern you?'

             She clears her throat. 'Should it?'

I smile at her.

             And it starts again.