Cypress Alley

Chapter 39

It had been a week after we'd been transferred to a new home, and we were finally back at school. We'd decided that Eliza's previous popularity with Jane's gang had vanished, but we were something of minor celebrities at school.

I despised it.

I spent most of my break time inside classrooms and bathrooms - anywhere that I could get away from the prying eyes of the rest of the grade, who wanted nothing more than to know what happened. Even Malcolm gave me what seemed to be an approving nod. I returned with a glare.

We got our most recent maths tests back - one that we'd taken while we were still working on the test. My GPA was down the drain. I had received, for the first time in maths, at least, a D.

Eliza, suffice to say, was bemused. Hers was far worse but seeing my results had removed all her grief. So if it wasn't enough to actually get a D, it was worse to have to be reminded of it every day.

"I can't believe Elijah Sullivan has finally gotten a D," she chuckled. "I will never forget this day."

Despite this, however, the others at the foster home were on my side. After all, we'd saved them from Ms Hartley as well.

"Shut up, Eliza," Henry scoffed. "If he'd been studying, we'd still be with Ms Hartley."

"Actually, I was the one that found out about Jane," she boasted. "So he could have been studying all he wanted and we'd still be here."

"Like anyone's going to believe that."

It was only half the truth, anyway.

That night, we received a letter in the mail. It was hardly a letter, really, comprised merely of a few lines in messy scrawl. It didn't prove too difficult to decipher, though.

Dear Elijah & Elizabeth,

You have not brought my daughter back to me - that would not be possible. But you have done for her & I the next best thing. And for that, I will be forever indebted to you.

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

- Alessandro Territo

Eliza tucked it carefully between the pages of our old casebook, wherein lay the names of all our previous suspects, the criminals, and North Territo herself.

Taking a peek, Henry jumped triumphantly. "See? He put Elijah's name first. Because you didn't do anything, Elizabeth."

Eliza made towards him but I stopped her mid-punch. "She did as much as I did. Her research was what really counted."

Eliza smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

After a moment's thought, when Henry had left for soccer training, I realised what was still bothering me.

"Eliza... I need to ask you something."

Eliza looked up from her screen. "Yes?"

"What do you think North will be remembered for?"

"Dunno... being a little bit crazy and being brutally murdered, I guess."

I sighed, a constriction forming in my throat. "After all we've done with... the case and everything... I don't want her to be remembered just for her death."

"What do you mean? I told you she was a little bit crazy too."

"No, not that either. Something more... I think we should have a funeral."

"What? There was one. Ages ago."

"Yes, but I mean with just you and me. And her, of course."

"Oh. You mean like visiting her grave?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Oh, OK. I'll go get my mourning clothes."

"Your what?" I didn't receive a reply. "Oh, no. There she goes again."

You'd think she'd have developed some sensibility after what had happened, but she had been proving otherwise. Eliza's boisterous, dramatic, and I must say, irritating self had returned, and I was bearing the brunt of it.

Although I had to admit, I missed this side of her. I missed her giggles and her snide insults: her petty adventures and games. I missed the girl who'd coined the Shylock Jones and Ron H. Dotson duo. I guess I just wasn't prepared to face her right after everything had happened.

"I think," she sniffled, strutting into the living room clad in a black sundress and a huge hat. "I think I'm ready to go."

---

North's grave was towards the far right corner of the cemetery, merely another slab of rock among hundreds. Eliza placed a small bouquet of flowers at the foot of her tombstone. Lavender, roses and daisies from the garden at home. Plus a few pieces of shrubbery Eliza had picked up on the way.

I'd found a small, metal box in the basement. In it, we'd placed all kinds of objects we thought North might like. A spare copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (we'd decided that North would make a great member), the school photo in which she'd worn a pair of Luna Lovegood glasses, a letter Eliza and I had written together, one of Eliza's stuffed animals, and some more of the lavender. Eliza admired the school picture a lot. "She's a Luna," she'd told me. "She looked so pretty in them."

At the last minute, I'd slipped in the Harry Potter poster which had once served the purpose of hiding the gap between Eliza's room and my own. It had been lying in my drawer for the past week and I didn't think I wanted to hang it up again. 

"I think you'd have liked this a lot more than I do," I whispered. "Take care of it." We shut the box and tucked it beside her grave, burying it haphazardly under a thin layer of soil.

As the sun began to set, we left the cemetery in silence, yet our chests were bursting with words left unsaid. Words that might have belonged to North, or ourselves, that we'd been holding within all this time. Finally, it seemed that they were being released into the wind, flitting away from us so quickly that we'd hardly noticed.

Until our hearts were overwhelmed by a new sense of emptiness. Not the vast, desolate emptiness that followed North's death, but the kind you'd feel gazing up at the stars on a clear, summer's night. 

Hand-in-hand, we strolled past our old foster house, the blare of the TV still raging within. With new words forming in our chests - past the case of Cypress Alley and the devilish Ms Hartley - we walked back to our new house.

At last, we were liberated from our prison and were heading home. Our very first home.