The Star of New Mexico

  The Star of New Mexico

  by

  Seanan McGuire

  Buckley Township, Michigan, 1945

  It had taken nearly two weeks to arrange the funeral. The funeral home hadn't been happy about that, especially after Alexander made it clear that Fran was not to be embalmed: she was going to go back to the ground, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the way that nature intended. Most people chose either preservation or a quick burial, not this in-between thing that left a body slowly solidifying in the funeral home freezer.

  "We're not set up for long term storage," the funeral home director had said.

  "Please. Fran had family all over this country, and they need to pay their respects," Alexander had replied, and pressed a roll of bills into the other man's hand.

  Maybe it was courtesy, or maybe it was avarice, but there hadn't been any more complaints after that.

  Two weeks: sixteen days, all told, from finding her body to the morning that Fran was to be buried. It was a long time, where organizing a funeral was concerned: longer by far than most people liked to keep their dead up out of the soil anymore. It was no time at all when it was set against all the days that she wasn't going to live, all the hours that she wasn't going to walk through as a living woman. Two weeks was nothing. It was a slander, an insult, a lie, and sometimes Alexander found himself wondering if he wasn't dragging his feet, just a little, to keep her with them that tiny bit much longer.

  But it wasn't just him, and he knew that. Two weeks was the time it took for Arturo and Elena to find someone to babysit their son, who was too young for this sort of thing, even if they'd had room in their car; they were driving down from Chicago with Asta and Chruse from the Carmichael Hotel in their back seat. Aldo was a tractable child, and remarkably well-adjusted considering the kind of company his parents kept. Asking him to sit through an all-day car ride with a pair of gorgons was still a little much.

  Two weeks was the time it took for Fran's old carnival home to turn around and make its way back to Michigan, flags furled and banners undisplayed. Alexander had called in a dozen favors to locate the Campbell Family Carnival before he committed to a burial date, and he didn't regret any of them, although he thought he might well go to his grave with the sound of Juniper's sobs still ringing in his ears, turned tinny and thin by the phone lines.

  Two weeks was the time it took to make a thousand phone calls, send a thousand letters—or at least that was what it felt like. Two weeks was a lifetime, and it was all that they had left.

  It had taken nearly two weeks to arrange the funeral, and a few more days than that for everyone to make it to Buckley. The funeral home had complained again. Alexander had given them another roll of bills, had told them to keep Fran as fresh as they could, but that he would understand if it had to be a closed-casket ceremony. They were preparing her for her grave, after all, not for her wedding day. It was all right if they couldn't look at her as they said goodbye.

  Two weeks, and a few more days. It wasn't such a long time.

  It wasn't any time at all.

  The kitchen light came on shortly after midnight on the night before Frances Healy's funeral. Juniper Campbell, who had been keeping her own quiet vigil over a campfire in the back field, looked away from the flames and toward the smaller, sadder light. Then, gathering her skirts in her hands like a little girl gathering flowers, she stood and started toward the house.

  Jonathan was so absorbed in staring at the surface of his coffee that he didn't hear her footsteps on the porch. The sound of her knuckles rapping against the back door made him jump, sloshing hot liquid across his hand. It burned. He looked at it for a moment, trying to decide how he should respond, before he stood and moved to let her in.

  "You're awake," he said, frowning. "Why are you awake?"

  For her part, all Juniper could do was stare. It had been Alexander who met the carnival at the end of the driveway, who had put his arms around Juniper and held her while she sobbed. And it had been Enid who helped them get settled in the field where they would be sleeping until after Fran was laid to rest. For all the coming and going around the house, Juniper hadn't seen Jonathan at all, not up until this moment.

  "I couldn't sleep," she said. She couldn't think of anything else to say. All the words seemed to be withering in her throat, turning into ashes.

  Jonathan looked like a man who had already consigned himself to the grave beside his wife. His face was pale and drawn, and he had clearly lost weight in the past two weeks; his cheeks were hollow, and the dark circles under his eyes made them look as if they had sunk into his head. He was a skeleton still dressed in skin. From the way he drooped, driven downward by the weight of the world, he wasn't going to be alive for very long.

  "Ah," he said, finally. "I suppose that means you might as well come in." He turned and walked away from her, heading back to the table. "There's coffee on the stove, and Bundt cake from the ladies of the Library Auxiliary. I'm not sure when baked goods became the appropriate way of saying ‘I'm sorry your wife is dead.' I may never eat another cookie as long as I live."

  His voice was as colorless and drained as the rest of him. It was the voice of something that had been pressed between two sheets of paper until all the life was leeched out of it, leaving only a shadow behind. Juniper stepped into the kitchen, shutting the door gingerly behind herself. Somewhere in this house, a little girl was sleeping—a little girl who would, according to Juniper's cards, one day give up everything she had because she didn't know how to give up on love. Juniper had wondered how any child of Fran's could grow up that way. Now, looking at Jonathan, she was finally beginning to understand.

  "Johnny, have you eaten today?"

  Jonathan raised his head and looked at the clock above the stove. "No," he said finally. "But as the day is only twenty minutes old, I don't feel like I've really failed at any basic tasks. Did you come in here just to ask if I'd eaten?"

  "No," said Juniper, settling at the table across from him. "Under the circumstances, though, it seems like the best thing I can do. Did you eat yesterday?"

  Jonathan's silence was all the answer she needed.

  "Fran wouldn't want you to starve yourself, you know," said Juniper. "She would have wanted better for you than that."

  "How do you know?" asked Jonathan. "Did she come to you?" A new hunger lit in his eyes. He had been at the carnival: he had seen the writing on her walls, the wards and charms that kept the dead from troubling her. If Fran's ghost was haunting anyone, it would have been Juniper.

  "I'm sorry, Johnny, but no," said Juniper.

  Jonathan sagged in his chair, all the light going out of him. It was painful to see. Juniper didn't let herself turn away. This, too, was part of losing Fran: watching all the things she'd made better with her presence fade blacker than they'd been before she came along. "Then what use are you?" he asked, reaching for his coffee.

  Juniper leaned across the table to pull the mug out of his reach. The smell of whiskey hit her almost immediately, making it plain how much he'd been doctoring his drink. She couldn't blame him. She also couldn't let him continue, not when they were burying Fran in the morning.

  "I don't know what use I am, but I know that I'm here because I loved Fran just as much as you did," said Juniper. "She was my sister in everything but blood, and I'm not going to let you bring a hangover to her funeral. It's disrespectful to her, and to your memories. You'd hate yourself forever."

  "I'm already going to hate myself forever, Juniper," he replied. "I let her go into those woods by herself."

  Juniper snorted. "As if you could have stopped her? There wasn't a man or woman alive who could stop Frannie once she had her heart set on something. She was never goi
ng to let you keep her safe, like some bird in a cage. She was happy the day she left with you. She said she'd finally figured out what she wanted to do with her life. If you can't see that, if you can't see how much she loved you, I don't know what to say to you."

  "Then maybe you shouldn't say anything," he said. "I don't care if she loved me. I failed her."

  Juniper looked at him solemnly for a long moment before she pushed his spiked coffee back toward him and stood. "I am so sorry for your loss, Johnny, but I'm going to be a lot sorrier if you don't figure out how much you have left to lose before it's too late. Come to me if you want your cards read. I'd be happy to remind you that you have a future. I'll see you in the morning."

  She turned and walked out of the kitchen. Jonathan watched her go, and watched her figure dwindle across the yard as she walked past the window. Then he picked up his coffee and took a long sip. There were still hours to burn before the morning came and they put Fran in the ground forever. This was their last night in the same world, and he'd be damned before he wasted it on sleeping.

  In the attic, the mice were entering the sixteenth day of their vigil. Candles burned on their penny-lined boulevards, shrouded by bits of colored glass that threw bright shadows on the walls and ceiling. Novices played the drums, or plunked at their tiny stringed instruments, which weren't quite harps and weren't quite cellos, but were something unique and strange, all sharp notes with no bottom end. Everywhere, the members of the priesthood led their clustered followers in quiet reflection, recreating every minute of the Violent Priestess's time with them.

  One of the old priests stood by the baptismal font, touching the sacred waters to the ears and whiskers of the babies who had been born on the day Fran. All those children would be sworn into the service of the church, regardless of where they fell in the birthing order, regardless of how many siblings had already been sworn into the priesthood. They had been born as the light of a beloved Priestess was leaving the world forever. No others would ever know Her glory, or be held, transfixed, in the cathedral chamber of Her palm. There were few enough ways for ones so small as the Aeslin to remember ones so great as their gods. This was a small sacrifice to be made in the honor of one they had loved so dearly, and so deeply, and for so brutally short a time.

  The high priest of the Violent Priestess looked down from his room at the top of the cathedral, watching the process of mourning as it spiraled through the city. He could feel the weight of every one of his thirty-seven years pressing down upon him, like an unwanted cloak. How had he, who was once so young and filled with ideas of reform and reconstruction, become so very old? And how had time, which had shown him such cruelty, not allowed him one single, perfect mercy, and taken him before their beloved Priestess could be cut down? It was not fair. It was not right.

  The high priest looked out upon the community he had served for all the days of his life, and for the first time, he felt his faith waver.

  "Master?" The voice belonged to one of his most trusted novice priests, a young mouse, still bright of eye and quick of claw. The high priest turned, studying the novice for what felt like the first time.

  He was young. He was enthusiastic. He was newly sworn to the path of the Violent Priestess: his mind was still open to all the possibilities of the world. And as he felt the measuring eye of his superior on him, he did not droop, but forced his whiskers forward, telegraphing his willingness to do whatever might be required of him.

  "How may I serve?" he asked.

  The old priest sighed. It was a deep, lonely sound, and seemed to travel from the very heart of him before it escaped into the air. "The God of Uncommon Sense will be coming to us very soon, to carry those who have been chosen to the burial grounds, there to see the Violent Priestess laid to rest among the bodies of those who came before Her."

  The young priest nodded quickly. "She is to be buried alongside the God of Early Arrivals and Earlier Departures, is She not?"

  "Yes. She will be rejoined with Him, and He will lead her to the Heavens, where She will await the faithful evermore." The words were dust and ashes in his mouth. Yes, She would ascend to the Heavens, there to share Her teachings with the Aeslin who had lived and died before She came to them, but what of him? What of all Her priesthood, who had served Her so faithfully, and asked only that they be allowed to die before She was forced to leave them?

  The young priest waited patiently for the venerable mouse in front of him to speak again. Patience was not yet a skill that came easy to him. He needed years more practice before he would be able to stand the long vigils: the Remembrance of the Well-Groomed Priestess, the Journey of the God of Hard Work and Sunshine, the painful Parting from the God of Bitter Honesty and the Obedient Priestess. He would officiate them all in his time, and he knew that his eagerness held him back, but oh, how he longed for the mysteries.

  "When the God comes, you will go to Him," said the old priest finally. "You will tell Him that you have been chosen to observe the final rites, and to remember them unto the colony. He will not question you." The God of Unexpected Situations was sunk as deep in mourning as any of them—deeper, perhaps. He had never loved the Violent Priestess as Her congregation had, for the love between Gods and Priestesses was based in the flesh, not in the spirit. But He had loved Her all the days of Her life, and He would be Her eternal consort in the Heavens. His mourning was well-earned, and would be respected.

  The young priest slicked his whiskers back in shock and confusion. "But I am not the head of Her priesthood," he protested. "This honor is yours. You should stand witness to Her departure."

  The old priest, who remembered a ride on a train, and the smell of popcorn in a circus ring, and the bemused delight of a young woman who was not yet a Priestess, but had always been destined for worship, shook his head. "No," he said. "I saw Her arrive, on a white horse, with diamonds in Her hair. I will not see Her go. I will not see the curtain fall upon the ring. I have done everything else that She has ever asked of me, but I will not do this. Because I loved Her, I will not bury Her, and because I will not bury Her, I will not be the head of Her priesthood any longer."

  He looked down at the bracelet of gimcrack beads he had worn around his left forepaw since he returned to Buckley triumphant, tucked in the saddlebag of their newest Priestess. How She had shone and sparkled in the light! She had been beautiful beyond all words. She had stolen his heart, and now She had taken it with her down into the dust.

  "You must lead Her faithful now," he said, rolling the bracelet slowly off and turning to offer it to the young priest. "You must keep Her scripture, and remember Her as I cannot. I loved Her too much to live in a world where She is gone."

  The young priest closed his eyes for a moment, bowing his head in understanding. His teachers had warned him of this: that sometimes, those who served a living God or Priestess could not survive their passing, but would grieve themselves into death. He had never expected to live to see such a thing…but then, who did? They knew their Gods were mortal. That did not mean they were ever prepared to see their Gods struck down.

  "I understand," he said, raising his head and opening his eyes as he held his paws out to receive the bracelet. The old priest pressed it into his successor's waiting claws, barely hesitating before he pulled his own paw away. The young priest slipped the bracelet solemnly on. It was loose, but it would come to fit with time. Oh, yes; it would come to fit.

  The old mouse—who was a priest no longer—said nothing more after that, for there was nothing more to say. He simply turned, head bowed, and walked out of the chamber.

  He would be dead by morning. The young priest knew that. Still, he stayed where he was, looking at the bracelet on his wrist, and feeling responsibility settle over him like a shroud.

  He would have to learn patience quickly after all.

  Morning found Alice sitting at the breakfast table and staring into her oatmeal like it had done something to offend her. She was dressed all in black: black shoes, black dr
ess, even a black ribbon in her hair, all of it sewn by Enid during the weeks between Fran's death and this, the day of her long-awaited funeral. Enid was at the stove, frying eggs that spat and hissed like demons in the pan. She wasn't sure that she could eat them. Her stomach was so sour that it felt as if it were going to climb up the back of her throat and escape. But she had to do something. Normalcy was the last refuge she had against what was coming.

  "Alice, sweetie, did you want some brown sugar for that?" she asked, glancing over at her granddaughter. Alice hadn't been eating much since her mother died. Enid couldn't fault her for that. When her own mother had died, she'd already been a mother herself, and she'd still gone a week without putting anything more substantial than milky tea in her mouth. "I can get you some, if you'd like."

  "It's not Sunday." Alice sounded almost offended. She twisted in her seat to scowl at her grandmother. "I get brown sugar for my oatmeal on Sundays. Today is Friday. I should be at school. I go to school on Fridays."

  Enid's heart, which had taken a pounding since the Wednesday morning when she walked into the woods and found her daughter-in-law's body, felt like it was going to burst in her chest. She took the eggs off the burner, setting the pan to the side where it wouldn't start a grease fire, and walked over to kneel next to Alice's chair. Her knees protested the motion. Enid ignored them.

  "Honey, do you understand why you're not at school today?"

  Alice nodded sullenly. "We have to go to a funeral."

  "Do you understand what that is?"

  "It's for Mama." Alice looked away from her oatmeal again, this time hopeful as she asked, "Is she coming home?"

  Enid shook her head. "No, sweetheart," she said, for what felt like the thousandth time since the world turned upside down. "Your mother is in Heaven now. She's gone, and she's not going to come home anymore."

  "Because she died."

  "Yes. Because she died."