Chapter Three Viola
Mortemagi are divided in two subclasses: whisperers and conduits.
Conduits can see ghosts but cannot hear them.
Whisperers can hear ghosts but cannot see them.
three | viola
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1939
The funeral home is always quiet on Tuesday mornings.
The familiar earthy musk of the place is muddled with the lingering scent of roses, lilies, and carnations from one of last week’s funerals.
All the decorative art is gone, and the old brass candleholders along the walls are empty again.
Without them, the main room is barren of any personality— at least when we host funerals and memorials, the place comes… alive.
Mara, the mortician, isn’t here yet. For the last four years, I’ve been stealing these brief moments of solitude to visit the departed.
Mara thinks my interest in the dead is bizarre at this age, but she’s never questioned me.
Instead, she welcomed me with a job and the longest friendship I’ve had in Albion.
I slip my key in the front door, and it opens with a soft click.
After dropping my bag behind the empty front desk, I pick up the broom and head to the cold room.
No new bodies—great. I still have a few more hours before the ringing in my ears starts, a few more hours to hope for someone’s death.
Do I hear myself? This magic is abhorrent.
Maybe Olivia is right. I should wear the cuff so I can stop chasing after the dead.
But that would mean trading my momentary peace for an open line with ghosts, and I’ll never be ready for that.
Despite what Mother says, this is the perfect job: I’m helping people while saving enough money for Olivia and me to leave.
The front door clicks open, and I scurry out, leaving the sterile metal lockers of the cold room for the warmth of the wooden preparation room.
My job is to make sure the right papers are filed and the right calls are placed, and occasionally, Mara will let me help prepare the dead for burial.
When I get in earlier than her, I sweep the floors—always the best excuse should she catch me somewhere I’m not supposed to be.
“You’re here early.” Mara pokes her head through the door, her curly brown hair bouncing on her shoulders. Even in the dim light of the preparation room, I can see that she’s tired. “Viola, I’ve told you many times before. You don’t have to sweep the floors.”
“When I leave, you’ll miss my sweeping.” I bite down a smile as I set the broom against the wall and walk toward her.
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that she’s the funeral director of Dearly Departed, the only funeral home in the province of Bale.
She acts less like a boss and more like a mentor to everyone who’s worked here.
“I will miss you.” She sighs, then leads us to the front desk. Now that we’re in front of the tall windows of the main room, I can see exactly how exhausted she looks. Dark circles line her eyes, and her shoulders sag as she reaches for her bag next to mine.
“You look tired,” I note. I want to tell her to take the day off to rest, but I don’t want to overstep. We may be friends, but I still work for her.
“Exhausting night.” She half smiles, pulling a wrapped sandwich from her bag. “Join me by the lake?”
“We can’t leave the place unattended.” I protest, but I’m already following her with my own breakfast. No one would rob a funeral home.
Mara and I met four years ago at the local bakery.
She overheard when the baker sent me away as I was looking for a job and offered me a position as her administrative assistant.
Thanks to her, I managed to save enough to move to Osneau, albeit with a slight change of plan now that I’m taking Olivia with me.
“When do you leave?” Mara asks.
“After my sister’s promotional exam, so in about a week.
” I settle next to her on the cold bench and look out at the water as I peel my sandwich wrapper.
Out here, the trees sway with the breeze, carrying some of their dark green leaves over the quiet ripples of the lake.
The air is crisp but not unwelcome. The frost creeps under the sleeves of my sweater like a sharp caress.
If I were superstitious, I would think this to be an omen. “I’m hoping she’ll come with me.”
“Viola.” Mara reaches for my arm, gently rubbing it. “Sometimes, it’s okay to go our separate ways. What is good for you may not be good for her.”
Mara doesn’t understand what’s at stake.
Mages are dying, and Olivia could be next, for all I know.
“True,” I reply quietly as I throw some of my bread to a couple of ducks paddling closer to us.
I no longer have an appetite, neither for the food nor to continue the conversation about how I should leave Olivia behind.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear.” She sighs. “But you need to focus on your own future instead of trying to save everyone else. I’ve noticed how involved you are with our clients and it’s sweet, but the dead are dead, and you don’t owe them anything.”
I don’t know what to reply, so I settle on a smile. If I don’t help the dead, I will lose my mind. And if anything happens to Olivia at that wretched institute, I will never forgive myself.
When I reach home that evening, Mother stands in front of the stove, her hair pulled into a ponytail. If she hears me walk across the kitchen, she doesn’t acknowledge me. After Olivia left yesterday, I locked myself in my room to avoid her. Then, this morning, I left before she was even awake.
“Why do you always steal Olivia from me when she visits?”
Not this again. If I ignore her, she’ll follow me to my room, so I breathe in, willing myself to calm down. “Olivia is my sister.”
“She’s my daughter first.”
And what am I in this family? I clench my fists so hard my nails cut into my skin. I don’t remember a time when I talked back to my mother, so it comes as a surprise to us both when I say, “You need to stop acting like you only have one child.”
The metal spoon clangs on the floor, and she whirls around, eyes lit like the heart of a volcano about to erupt. She approaches. For a second, I think she’s going to hit me, but instead of backing off and apologizing, I take a step forward with my head held high.
Mother’s ears flush. She purses her lips, eyes twitching, her breath calculated. “Viola,” she says with a calm that crawls under my skin. My momentary boldness leaves me then, and I am ten years old again hiding in my room, waiting for her anger to dissipate.
“I miss her more than you do,” she says. It’s not a competition. I don’t complain when she hogs Olivia’s free time when she’s home from Gorhail on Midsummer break. I didn’t even say a word when they took a two-week trip to the province of Holm over the last Pine Festival break.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. I’m not sure why I’m asking for forgiveness.
With her, it always feels like I’m apologizing for existing.
We stand in this awkward space, the same one in which we’ve found ourselves repeatedly since Olivia went to Gorhail.
Me, apologizing for Mother’s shortcomings, and her, never admitting her faults.
None of this would have happened if I had never found out I was a mage.
Olivia would never have left, and Mother wouldn’t have grown resentful because of her absence.
I don’t wait for her to respond. Reality finally sinks into my bones: I have no choice but to leave Albion.
This house, this town, this province, they’re all too crowded with metaphorical ghosts I will never be able to outrun Nan and Father’s death, Mother’s hatred, and the constant reminder that I threw my sister to the wolves.
I run up the stairs to the room Olivia and I used to share.
Her side has been frozen in time, and above her bed is a string of glittery butterflies and twinkling lights that I still light up every night.
I sit on her bed and let the smell of white roses on a rainy morning wrap around me.
It takes me to a simpler time when our biggest worry was hiding from Nan after picking her precious roses from the garden.
My side of the room is drab in comparison.
Bare walls, a desk filled with empty pots, and books stacked to the ceiling.
Most of them come from Nan’s library in the attic—it’s the only reason I know as much as I do about Gorhail and my whisperer magic, and the only reason I’ve managed to keep myself sane without a relic.
In the corner, two suitcases stare at me like old friends.
I’ve packed and unpacked them countless times over the years, but I could never bring myself to leave Olivia.
Deep down, I know Mara is right. I can’t force her to move with me, but what kind of sister would I be if I didn’t try?
I sigh, looking out the window over my rose garden. Nan would’ve wanted me to protect her.
My peace doesn’t last long. The door creaks open, and Mother stands in the doorway. Under the faint glow of Olivia’s lights, she looks like she stepped out of a dark fairy tale.
“You look so much like her.”
I don’t need to ask. She means that I look like Nan. Would she have loved me if I looked more like her? Like Olivia does? Does she hate me because I remind her of Nan? Of Dad?
She strolls into the room and picks up one of Olivia’s old pictures of us. “The old crone always favored you.”
Now that’s a lie. Nan loved Olivia and me equally.
She would sneak us treats from the candy shop, bring us new books to read, and listen to us ramble about stories we made up.
Nan’s love for us lives in every corner of this house, and sometimes, I think it’s the only thing that gave me strength to stay.
Mother scoffs at my silence. “Do you think she knows my Olivia inherited her precious magic? Your sister saved this family’s reputation; she saved your grandmother’s family line after your father got himself killed.”
The only memories I have of my father are the ones I make up in my head from the only two pictures of him on the wall by the stairs.
One with Mother on their wedding day, where he looks like he is attending a funeral.
The second one a school portrait from the time he was at Gorhail.
Every time I walk by it, I wonder if he would be disappointed in me for running away from the burden that he passed on to me.
He died shortly after Olivia was born. Nan told us he miscalculated a spell, and it killed him.
Ever since she told us that story, I’ve hated magic.
I don’t want to die like him and leave my sister alone.
This curse pulsing under my skin took so much from us.
Maybe if Dad were still here, things would have been different.
Olivia would never have gone to Gorhail, Mother would never have been so bitter, and maybe he could have helped me understand why he loved magic so much he died for it.
“Good night, Mother,” I reply, before crawling under the covers. I refuse to tangle myself in her fight of the week. When I open my eyes again, she’s gone.
Anxiety and anticipation don’t mix well, I learn every time I close my eyes, but soon enough, sleep envelops me, and I dream of her again.
It always starts with a woman with bangs and beautiful straight black hair that falls to her waist. She reads me a story about a girl who defied the odds. She strokes my hair with such gentleness. Everything about it is so vivid, but when she smiles at me, I always wake up.
When I close my eyes this time, I dream of falling into nothingness.