Vicious Memories

Chapter 64

I tried to stand at the back of the crowd but Mads grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, steering me to a space in the front row between Bev and Gabriel. The villagers parted without a second thought, nodding to me as I passed.

"Leaders must lead," Mads said when she let go of me.

Cooper lit several torches and passed them out. True darkness had stolen across the island like a tardy child returning home after curfew, leaving us to bury Felix beneath a black sky.

Confusion flitted from person to person, touching every villager who had come to see Felix off on his final journey; confusion about what had really happened, how he was gone so quickly, how they could be feeling emotions that fought and contradicted with each other - anger, sadness, relief. Only half of them showed up.

There would be no more answers. No explanations for the things he'd said.

Over the last hour, we'd compiled a list of questions:

Who had slipped Felix the razor? One of us, a Stranger, the person he claimed still had their memories? Too many people had had access to him to narrow down the list of suspects, and we couldn't rule out the possibility that he'd had the razor on him and we'd missed it during our search. Was he acting alone, was any of the garbled speech he'd given us at the end truthful? Did someone really have their memories? How? Why? Endless questions that were impossible to answer. How did Felix kill Jessica when his alibi was rock solid? How could he have killed Sirus when he was supposedly out gathering wood? Why would he loop around to the farm from the deadwoods? Where had he held Mads if he was with us in the village the entire time?

And finally, the most dangerous question of all:

If Felix had been forced to commit the murders, as he had claimed, who was pulling his strings? And were we still in danger?

The questions threatened insanity. I tried to keep myself from obsessing over them by focusing on the here and now.

Alice stepped up to the open wound in the ground and looked down into it for a moment. As they always did, her freckles shimmered and swam in the firelight. Her eyes swam with tears but her shoulders were set and her back was straight, a fresh white t-shirt hanging off her frame, her feet planted solidly beneath her.

I felt like I was looking at an entirely different person from the one I'd met two weeks ago. That first Alice had been strong, but in a quiet, uncomfortable, almost shy way. This Alice was stronger, and didn't care who knew it.

She tucked a lock of short hair behind her left ear.

"Felix meant many things to us," she began, "and as we send him off tonight to whatever awaits him, it's important for us to remember as many facets of him as we can. We must each make our own judgements, but we must judge him as a whole and not as a single reflection of who he was.

"The past two weeks have been unfairly difficult, for some of us more than others—" she gave a small, sad nod to Mads and Finn, "—and the past twenty-four hours have been as confusing a time as I can remember. For some people here, and for many who aren't, hatred for Felix is all-consuming. I don't blame or disagree with you for feeling that way. But final judgement of his spirit is far beyond our understanding, and it's left to each of us to decide how to make our own peace with what has happened."

I shifted my weight from foot to foot, unable to take my eyes off Alice's face. Beneath all the fear and uncertainty a rage had begun to build in my chest, red and hot, a haze that crept in at the edges of my vision, not just for what Felix had done but for our situation, for our lost lives and memories. If Alice took away our ability to blame Felix, where would that anger go?

She continued to speak calmly, emotion lacing her sentences as if it was stitched seamlessly to each and every word.

"To me," she continued, "having known Felix for nearly two years, and having been there in his final moments, Felix meant many things. He was the first to smile and tell me it would be okay after we woke up, the first to use his hands to build anything. He was the first person I would go to when I really needed something, because I knew he was the most likely to come through for me. He never complained. He believed anything we needed to survive could be built, anything broken could be fixed. He was always happy, a friendly giant. It made me laugh when he compulsively brushed his hands against his pants. He cared about us. I know he did. I saw it and felt it, and nothing will ever convince me that that wasn't true.

"In the end something went wrong. I don't know what, and I'm not sure I'll ever understand. It all went sideways, and he did unspeakable things. There's no need to gloss over it just because he's gone now. We believe he murdered Jessica, Sirus, and Shana. We think he might be the reason Mads lost her child. There's no excuse. I hate him for it. I will never forgive him for the monstrous things he did, just as I will never forget all the good he spread. Reconciling these two sides of him might be impossible. The good he did makes it harder to believe that bad. But he did it all. For what it's worth, if it's worth anything, there was true remorse in his eyes at the end. Each of us standing in that cabin saw it."

She smiled sadly, pausing for the briefest moment to glance into the grave again.

"For better or worse, that is how Felix Brighten left us. With memories of the good times, a lot of questions, a lot of anger, and a lot of regret." She bent down, picked up a handful of earth, and dropped it on top of Felix's body. "We might not know where we're going next. We don't have many answers yet. There could still be danger out there, and we should all remain on our guard. But the part of our lives that included Felix is over. We'll make our way through the next bit together."

Several people moved forward to throw their own handfuls of dirt onto Felix's grave. Some did it with words of goodbye on their lips while some muttered curses.

I slipped out from between Bev and Gabriel. Bev turned, her braid swinging, and gave me a questioning look.

"I just need a few minutes to myself," I said. "To think it all through."

The night swallowed me whole as I walked away, and I was glad.