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THE NEXT MORNING, NOXOR took Rachelle by the hand and helped her into the carriage. As soon as she was seated and the carriage door was closed, she popped her head out the window. “You know, Noxor, Greta’s right.” She reached out of the window and seized Noxor’s hand. “Your face isn’t as bad as you think it is. Maybe you should show it off more often.”
“Of course I’m right!” Greta exclaimed. She reached down to stroke Charmaine’s head, which was sticking out of her pocket.
Noxor stared at Rachelle’s hand, which lingered on his. He was amazed at how long she held it. No one had ever touched him as long as she did. “I... don’t know.”
“I’m serious, Noxor!” Rachelle insisted. “I was expecting something WAY worse.”
“Well...” Noxor let his hand fall away from Rachelle’s. “That’s... good to know.”
“I hope I see you guys again!” Rachelle waved to Lyric and Aurora. “Well, I KNOW I’ll see you again, Lyric, but I hope I’ll see the others as well. Oh, I hate tearful goodbyes!” Rachelle reached into her dense cleavage and, amazingly enough, pulled out a handkerchief. She used it to dab her eyes.
“Aren’t you being a little overdramatic, Rachelle?” Lyric asked. He tried to offer a hand to Aurora, but she insisted on climbing into the carriage no her own. “This is like the end of some terribly sappy story where everyone talks about how much they’ll miss each other before they part ways. I don’t think our two-day excursion warrants all that.”
“Okay, but...” Rachelle returned the handkerchief to the depths of her cleavage. “As much as I hated these last few days, I might’ve enjoyed myself from time to time. It was adventurous, wasn’t it?”
“Adventurous. Ah, yes,” Lyric agreed as he climbed into the carriage. “Adventure seems to be a side effect of having Aurora in one’s life.”
Aurora scooted as far away from him as she could. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“Noooo, not at all!” Lyric objected. “Like Rachelle was saying, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of adventure.”
As soon as Noxor joined them in the carriage, the vehicle started moving. They could hear Rachelle shouting “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!” as their carriages rode in separate directions. Eventually, the sound of her voice could be heard no longer.
“So, this is it,” Aurora said. “The end of everything, huh?”
Lyric winced at her words. “You make that sound so final.”
“Well... it’ll be the end of our journey, right? And then, I guess... I guess we’ll go our separate ways.” Aurora looked down at her lap, where her hands were busily fidgeting. “Or I might die at the end of all this.”
“You won’t die,” Noxor added gruffly. “I’ll see to it that you won’t. And when Medea’s stopped, that’ll be the end of your problems. It’ll all be over soon.”
“I sure hope so.” Aurora leaned toward the window and watched the passing scenery. She wished she could take a glimpse of the future. She wished she could sneak a peak into next week and make sure everything was as it should be: Medea defeated, Meg and Mary free, and Lyric—
“Yeah,” Lyric spoke up. “I guess we will have to part ways, won’t we? I haven’t really given it much thought because we’ve always been going and going, but I guess you’re right. Huh.” Lyric gave his chin a few contemplative strokes.
“Yeah...” Aurora was glad she was facing the direction of the window, or he might have seen the tears in her eyes. “This might be one of the last times we’re together.”
The carriage rolled on, and the scenery continued to change. They journeyed through a stretch of rural land, which reeked of grazing livestock. Then they rode past a floral field, where a myriad of flower petals drifted in the breeze. The carriage eventually rolled into a dense woodland copse which, upon closer observation, was familiar to Aurora.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “That tree stump over there... look! Do you see it?”
Lyric leaned closer to Aurora in an attempt to gaze out the window. He was so close, his chin was touching her shoulder. “That knotty thing over there?”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed, trying to ignore the flood of electricity that rippled through her body when Lyric touched her. “I know exactly where we are! We’re here. We’re home!”
“You’re home,” Lyric corrected her.
“Well, yeah... oh, look!” She tried to direct Lyric’s gaze to the small cottage that was coming into view. “That’s my house!”
Her excitement suddenly changed to sadness; it was impossible not to notice the change in her disposition. “Are you alright?” Lyric asked.
“Yeah.” But the crackle in her voice was evidence to the contrary. When the carriage slowed to a stop in front of the cottage, her heart suddenly sank. “I guess I’m okay. It’s just that I haven’t really thought about how... how empty it is right now.”
“Do you want to get out of the carriage and have a look?”
“I guess so,” Aurora said with a shrug. The realization that she would never see Molly was lashing at her like a fresh wound. The finality of death wasn’t something she took into consideration until she was standing in front of the cottage with memories flooding her mind.
Lyric hopped out of the carriage and held open the door for her. “Come on. I’ll go with you.”
“Is that...?” When she was out of the carriage, Aurora pointed to a hump in the ground. Around the hump, a few large stones were haphazardly arranged. “Is that where they buried her?”
Lyric took her by the hand and led her over to the makeshift grave. Aurora stared at the hump for several moments. Her skin was prickled by a light breeze that rolled across her neck.
“It’s strange,” she said with a sigh. “I never imagined myself staring at the grave of someone I love. It just seems... it’s just... it’s more horrible than anything I could have ever imagined.”
Lyric laid a hand on Aurora’s shoulder. “I know.”
“Have you ever lost someone you cared about?” Aurora asked, surprised that they had never discussed this before.
“My parents. I lost both of them when I was very young.”
Aurora wished she could throw her arms around him, but she didn’t want to risk an awkward moment. “I’m sorry to hear that. How old were you?”
“Eleven. I’ve been an emperor since I was eleven.”
“Wow. That must’ve been... hard.”
“Not really. I had a lot of advisers to keep me on track,” Lyric explained. “If there’s anything bad about becoming an emperor at such a young age, it’s the fact that I’m horribly spoiled because of it.”
In spite of the situation, Aurora chuckled. “You’re not so bad.”
“Not so bad? Not so bad?!” Lyric exclaimed. “Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty sure.” She winked at him over her shoulder. “Anyway, where’s Noxor?”
“He stayed in the carriage. Maybe he didn’t feel welcome?”
“Well, that’s silly. He should have come.” Aurora kept staring at Molly’s grave. The thought of Molly’s body lying under the dirt sent an odd ripple down her spine. “I’ll miss her.”
“And I would have liked to meet her,” Lyric added. “I would have liked to meet everyone who had a hand in raising a little hellion like you.”
“Hey!” Aurora spun around and shook a finger at him. “That’s not nice!”
Lyric defensively threw up his hands. “Well... you shouldn’t have said I’m not that bad! That means I’ll have to try twice as hard to make a nuisance of myself.”
Oh, Lyric, her thoughts whispered. You could never be a nuisance.
Aurora reached into her pocket and pulled out a familiar figurine: the carved wooden bird. She laid it on top of the grave and slowly backed away.
“What’s that?”
“It was a gift that Molly gave me on my birthday,” Aurora explained with a sigh. “She said it was a good luck charm. I don’t know if it ever brought me good luck, but...”
Lyric picked up the bird and held it out to Aurora. “Then you should keep it. I think your aunt would want you to hold onto it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know,” Lyric said with a shrug. “It’s just a feeling I get.”
Another light breeze swept past her, lifting her hair, tickling her neck. Suddenly, Lyric’s notion made sense. If she had such a strong presence in life, why wouldn’t she have a strong presence in death?
“Okay, Molly,” Aurora whispered, wiping a tear from her eye. She took the bird from Lyric’s hand and returned it to her pocket. “You win.”