Chapter 50
Funerals aren’t supposed to be this bright.
The sun hangs high over Doomwood Falls Cemetery, glaring down on us like it’s offended that we gathered for something as dark as death.
It feels wrong. My best friend is about to be lowered into the ground, and the sky is offering a perfect, cloudless blue.
As if the world has the audacity to keep going.
My knees threaten to give out as I approach the open casket.
I don’t want to look, but I need to. A woman who doesn’t look like Ivory lies inside, too still, her fake eyelashes brushing her cheeks like delicate shadows.
Her mother unbraided her hair—Ivory would’ve hated that.
Her lips have been painted a soft rose, not the red lipstick I’m used to.
And around her neck, glowing gold against her skin like a cruel joke, is her necklace that matches mine.
Two tiny interlocking lilies. One for her. One for me.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, but the sob breaks out anyway—raw, ugly, and loud. A few people turn. I don’t care. My chest feels like it’s collapsing, bone by bone. Because this is my fault.
If I hadn’t come to Doomwood Falls, if my mess hadn’t followed me here, if I hadn’t stabbed her, even if I’d found her in the garden shed sooner, maybe her body wouldn’t be lying in a casket. My best friend is dead because of me.
“Shari,” someone whispers behind me, but I can’t look away from Ivory’s face. I memorize every line, every softness, knowing this is the last time. When the funeral director approaches to close the lid, I almost scream for him to stop.
“No, wait.” My fingers brush Ivory’s arm. She’s not warm like the Ivory I need her to be. My voice cracks. “I—I just… I can’t. Please—”
“Shari.” It’s Fred’s voice this time, thick and trembling. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
He’s crying. Seeing tears on his cheeks—real ones—nearly sends me spiraling again. But it’s Freida, Ivory’s daughter, who hugs me and places a hand on my shoulder. A light touch. Gentle, but firm.
“We’ll make sure she’s safe,” she murmurs.
Safe? She’s about to be buried six feet underground. She’s never going to be safe again. None of us will.
When the lid finally lowers with a heavy, final creak, something inside my chest fractures. I choke on a sob so violent I double over. Fred catches my elbow, steadying me, and I don’t even have the strength to pull away.
Being a pallbearer feels surreal, like my body is moving while my mind is still kneeling beside her in the shed. Ivory bleeding. Ivory fading. Ivory whispering secrets I’ll never get answers to.
We lift her. The weight knocks the air from my lungs—not because the casket is heavy, but because I am holding what’s left of her.
My best friend. My soul sister. I don’t let go.
Even when we reach the gravesite. Even when they tell me my part is done.
Even when people begin drifting away, whispering condolences I can’t hear.
I stay rooted beside the casket, staring at the polished wood as if I can will it to open again, as if I can force time to rewind.
Freida steps up to the mound of ready dirt. Her black dress flutters in the unseasonably warm breeze, and red veins run across the whites of her eyes. She grips Fred’s arm with both hands like she needs him in order to keep standing.
“My mother, Ivory Cobb…” Her voice wobbles at first, then strengthens. “What can I say about her? My mother loved deeply. Too deeply. She gave parts of herself to the world that she should’ve kept protected. She wanted to save people. Even when they didn’t deserve to be saved.”
Her gaze flicks to Fred. He bows his head, shoulders shaking as he sobs.
Then her eyes slide to me. “I always felt like it was my job,” Freida continues, “to protect her from herself. From her big heart. From the way she trusted too easily.”
My throat tightens. I know the words are for the crowd, not for me, but I feel them like unforgiving fingers wrapping around my throat. Because that’s exactly what Ivory did. She trusted the wrong people—me, Ramsey Shenk, and Gillian. And now she’s dead.
Freida inhales shakily. “But even though I couldn’t protect her in the end, I know she loved us. All of us. And she wouldn’t want us to fall apart because she’s gone.”
Her voice breaks at the last word. People sniffle. Someone behind me weeps openly. But all I can hear is Ivory’s voice in that shed:
It wasn’t Fred.
Then who held her captive, bound her wrists so tight they cut and bled? The question drills into my skull like a parasite. Because I still don’t have the answer and never will.
Freida closes her speech with a trembling smile and Fred guides her to the casket and hands her a white lily—so perfectly suited to Ivory—to toss onto her casket with a handful of dirt.
I watch them through a haze, my heartbeat too loud, my vision misting.
Because as I stand here beside my best friend’s grave, guilt soaking into my bones like poison, I realize something terrifying.
Everyone believes Ivory’s story ended here. But I know the truth. It didn’t. And whoever abducted Ivory isn’t finished.