Beneath a Willow’s Branches

The weeping willow located at the rear of the cemetary should have been one of the most popular spots in the whole of the graveyard. Cool green branches swept the grass in the spring, providing a secure, private place for sorrow. The tree’s relative isolation from the smoothly raked gravel paths offered an idyllic sense of nature in the midst of urban chaos. The brook, artificially created though it was, ran in spring with a cheery burble and scented the air, often muting the sounds of traffic. In winter, however, the spot was a lonely place…the willow’s branches became skeletal, often frozen to the ground by snow and ice. The brook, iced over, ran with more of a muted murmur, enhancing the feeling of isolation. However, even in spring, this single tree in the northeast corner of the cemetary remained one of the least visited. No headstone sat nearby, no bench was readily available. Although the occasional mourning individual, or couple with a desire for isolation and no ghoulish inhibitions would wander beneath the tree, no one ever remained there long. The grass, a vibrant emerald in summer and now yellowish and brittle, remained untouched and thick.

    The only constant visitor rarely left a mark. Walking with the footsteps of a cat, making about as much noise as a landing leaf, the tall shadow approached the frozen-over tree, a long item in the black-gloved hand, concealed beneath a fluff of white tissue paper. There wasn’t much to give a clue as to the identity of the figure, save the loose lock of reddish-gold hair, just a shade brighter than a strawberry blonde, that slipped from beneath the hood of the black sweatshirt. Honoria Wingate slipped beneath the frozen branches without disturbing a one, and settled herself with the eerie, fluid grace that her targets saw for a brief while (and others saw hardly ever). The item was unwound from the tissue paper to show a dark red rose, already stiffening in the cold. The rose was dropped rather unceremoniously at the foot of the tree, on a spot she found without so much as looking, so familiar was it to her, and the sidhe leaned against the cold tree, her lavender eyes flickering over the white, deserted cemetary. She didn’t shiver, even when the cool breeze picked up, snapping into a biting wind with a sudden shift of mood.

    "Sucks here."

    Her voice was raspy, almost metallic in sound, so little did the sidhe speak aloud. Now, she spoke to nothing in particular, her words directed at the empty air as her gaze followed a frozen leaf, wavering on a branch with the cruel fangs of the wind pulling at it.

    "Really sucks. Like I told you it would. Iris is gone. She’s been gone for months now. Jonas is losing his mind. Everyone else can’t figure out what to do. I’ve tried. Tried hunting her like you taught me, but the trail went cold a week after she left. Something went down in the Waterfront. I can’t figure it out. There was a lot of her blood, but there wasn’t a smell of death. Slate freaked when I tried to take off. I think the trail went to Europe somewhere, but hell if I know for sure."

    There was a pause in her raspy monologue, which had the tone of being directed at a close friend, a lover or a wall…either one would have sufficed for the flat tone of sheer repetition. Apparently she’d been rehearsing this in her head, perhaps simply to remember all the words she wanted to use. One gloved fingertip burrowed beneath the snow, feeling around a bit until it encountered what she sought, and some of the tension went out of the sidhe’s slender body. Snuggling against the tree trunk, she sighed, exhaling a plume of white into the frigid air, before speaking a bit quieter.

    "…miss you. Still. Always. You know, all that bullshit about ‘here now and forever’ that you liked so much. Fucking lunatic. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. They call me crazy now. More than they used to. You would have liked it here, I think. Everyone’s a nutjob. You’ve fit right in."

    Nothing moved in response to her voice, and the willow itself seemed impassive to the sidhe curled against its’ trunk. Winter was the only company the cemetary kept at this hour, and the dead, if they were of the restless sort, had other ears to murmur to. Honoria’s black form was the only break in the nearly pristine landscape of white and pale grey. The headstones were all lightly dusted with snow, blurring carved words and issuing a sort of anonymity to the names of the deceased.

    "It’s been a long time," the sidhe said softly, looking down at the rose, now rimed with frost. "Years now, huh? Like…five or six, I think. I can’t keep track of time very well." Her lavender eyes swept the landscape again, a habit born of long years playing predator and prey, of being both, and having roles switch quite abruptly. Beneath the hood of her sweatshirt, under the scarf covering the lower half of her face, her lips trembled, and she tucked herself up into a smaller ball against the tree, resting her forehead on her knee.

    "I miss you…" Her voice was thicker now, and perhaps it was only the cry of the wind, but at least there were no witnesses to the sidhe’s quiet tears. No one saw her curl up in the snow, her hands buried beneath the white stuff to press to the ground. No eyes watched the frozen rose being buried beneath the layer of frozen water to be closer to that which had been long since interred. No…this corner of the graveyard was deserted, and with good reason. No one dared intrude on the lingering grief of the reluctant princess.