2
“We found her.” The officer inhales, preparing herself. I can see it in the way her eyes sag, sadness crinkling the corners. The sympathy. “We found Francesca’s body.”
“How can you be sure it was her?” I ask, my heart stilled, words scraping from my throat.
The urgency of it feels like a hurricane inside me, the wind knocked from my chest.
“Are you sure?” my mother asks over me. Frustration blossoms like pins and needles in my fingertips.
“Yes, we’re certain. Though decomposition was moderately progressed, she was identified by a small tattoo on her chest. A hellebore flower.”
Shock grips my nerves, each thread of my understanding burning at the edges. She’s not just gone, she’s dead.
D e a d.
“Where?” I ask through my breath. Tears don’t come, they can’t – after months of questioning her disappearance, every possible scenario circulating in my skull, there’s nothing left to cry for. I am spent; sorrow having twisted to a blur of palatable emptiness.
“What happened?” my mother asks.
“She was found in the woods, only two kilometers from here. She was…” The officer coughs, gathering herself. “…buried in a shallow grave. A hunting dog found her.”
Her eyes flash through a series of colours – the gaudy festive bulbs illuminating her face.
Red.
Green.
Blue.
Yellow.
“So close?” I ask, words thick in my throat.
My fingers twist in my lap, restless and frantic, bones creaking as I try to steady my heart. I don’t understand. I can’t recall the last time Francesca and I spoke. I can’t remember the exact moment when everything fell apart. Why can’t I remember?
My sister creeps into the room with soft footfall, collapsing the unspooling silence. My mother stiffens again, a wraith of a woman, a shadow of a human. The room hushes for another moment before Isabel gets the hint and leaves, head bowed, shoulders sunken.
“In the woods? So close to where she went missing?” my mother questions, reigniting the conversation.
“Yes.” The officer glances at my mother and nods before casting her eyes away again.
“How did she die?” I ask, ignoring my sister’s shadow lingering at the door.
“And she was murdered?” my mother cuts in, and I want to scream. She’s taken to ignoring me since the winter feast, since I returned home covered in dirt from the forest floor, my words lost, my throat aching as broken memories began to slip from my grasp.
I can only assume she believes she knows what happened. And that in her opinion, I’ve betrayed our faith. I wish I could argue that, but with the memories gone she may very well be right. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Yes,” the officer breathes, “Sh-she was strangled. There is evidence of deep tissue damage to her neck, and broken capillaries in her eyes – but we’re waiting on an autopsy to find out what happened.”
My mother sucks a sharp breath and I refrain from rolling my eyes. She never liked Francesca – she was too free spirited and difficult to mould into what she thinks women should be.
“Her mother is letting you do…”
“An autopsy?” my mother interrupts.
“Yes, an autopsy. She was legally an adult, it’s protocol.” There’s an edge to her voice, as though she carries the same disdain for the lifestyles of the families in the hills out here. My chest warms as I consider that.
“Oh,” I breathe, trying to steady my racing thoughts.
Mother nods tightly – jaw rigid and eyes narrowed. A fist clenches inside my chest as I watch the anger turn her cheeks red.
“But I need to ask you something about Francesca,” the officer continues, eyes drawing over my shoulder for a moment as she twists a pen between trembling fingers. Grief stricken, saddened by this conversation.
“Why?” my mother questions, pursing her lips. “Have you not already asked me everything?”
“There are new things to consider, with her body being discovered. Was Francesca into anything… strange?”
I watch them converse, eyes fixed on each other, the tension thickening as the conversation continues. Neither look at me, speak to me, acknowledge me – even though I was Francesca’s kin. Her best friend.
Her soulmate.
“Strange how?”
I watch my mother’s reaction. Whether she is going to tell the truth or bury it beneath her curated demeanor.
“Like, was she in a cult? Or a new religion?”
“No.” My mother shakes her head. “She was a lovely girl, a child of God, it’s such a shame she’s gone.” The crocodile tears begin as glistening droplets trickling into the crook of her nose. “Why?”
The officer inhales sharply, her brow dipping the slightest touch, as though readying herself to continue.
“H–” she glances at the shadow rippling at the doorway, my sister still listening. “She had a pentagram carved into her chest,” she whispers, leaning closer to my mother so my sister can’t hear.
My chest tightens; all the air sucked from the room.
“A what?” mother asks too loudly, her mouth agape.
“A pentagram. A symbol. Often for Satanism or The Occult,” the officer says carefully. “Sometimes, teenagers use the concept as a form of rebellion. But we have to rule out anyone else she may have been linked to, if this were a group of people.” She narrows her eyes at my mother expectantly.
“I–”
“No,” my mother interjects. “Well… perhaps. She did start to stray from her teachings that winter.”
I clench the linen of my pant legs, my fingertips tingling with lack of blood. How dare she. Francesca was not an occultist. She was trying to find herself, outside of what we’d been taught.
The seeds of the teachings enter our systems as mere babes, ripe for suggestion. They push us and swaddle us with the concepts, never allowing the outside world to tell us otherwise. She just wanted to know more about the world.
I glare at my mother, anger boiling in my chest.
My limbs heat, my head spinning, and I swipe at a crystal ornament hanging on an outer branch of the pine tree.
It glides through the air, in slow motion, my mother’s eyes widening.
Until it lands on the floor, smashing, sending fragments of glass across every surface.
And yet,
she won’t look at me.
I dream of her every night. Of her footprints in the fresh mud that skirts the pebbled path.
Of the secrets we once shared, and now will never get to share again.
Of how our lives circulated around that secret place covered by trees, in the woods where she was buried.
That place cradled us through our adolescence, sheltering us, allowing us freedom to grow. The freedom to explore.
There’s a part of me, buried deep inside my ribs, that knew she was gone. That knew our connection had been severed, our love having frayed irrevocably as I scrambled for purchase in reality.
Memories of that time are swathed in rippling darkness, the edges not as crisp as they used to be. And when I try to recall the last time I saw Francesca, my mind fractures into images of falling leaves and upturned earth. Of rotting mushrooms and blood red skies. Of salty tears and gasping breaths.
Mother barely blinked towards me after the officers left yesterday. The invasion of them in our home, an insult.
We don’t get visitors out here. Only the neighbours who travel through the woodland to each other, sharing crops and food supplies. The roads in and out aren’t even sealed. Only the elder men allowed to utilise vehicles for supply runs.