Niamh

When I think back to Hollie’s funeral, all I remember is it being wrong. The sadness, the hymns, and DS May across the churchyard watching everyone. As I watch him talking to people afterwards, I wonder if James Hampton has any idea what Hollie knew about him. Not that it matters. When you’re dead, nothing matters.

I can’t talk about what’s happening, just feel it, under my skin, in my bones, imagining Hollie’s body without life. I think of her wide, brown eyes, her hair flowing behind her, her constant agitation with the world around her. Hollie’s world was never going to be right. There were too many problems out of her control, that she couldn’t resolve.

Hollie felt more than most people. She lived harder, experienced more intensely, hurt more deeply. I noticed it with Dylan, how a light burned between them, dazzling everyone. When he went, Hollie’s world darkened forever.

At the funeral, I wanted to shout at all the villagers, that Hollie should still be here; that her death is another that shouldn’t have happened. But behind the tears that vanished as soon as they walked out of the church, none of them cares.

The night after the funeral, I overheard my mother ask my father about Phil Mason; heard his answer, warning her not to interfere.

“A word to the wise.” His answer was another of his lies. It was Hollie who told me. Phil Mason knows my father very well. Her death isn’t the end of this. Nothing will ever be the end of this.