CHAPTER 5: A FUNERAL OF LIES
A split image. The top half shows a rain-streaked, black umbrella at a gravesite, the fabric a deep, light-absorbing void against the muted greens and greys of the cemetery. The bottom half shows the same scene, but from a distorted, glitching perspective, as if viewed through a cracked lens. Ghostly, golden data streams—like molten fireflies—leak from the seams of the coffin, weaving through the mourners' legs and rising into the air, a secret spectacle visible only to a chosen few.
---
The Parisian morning was a study in monochrome, the sky a canvas of bruised purples and leaden greys that finally broke with a soft, percussive patter of rain. It was a sound as scripted as the event itself. In a synchronized, rustling motion, like a flock of crows adjusting their wings, the assembled mourners raised their black umbrellas, creating a glistening, funereal canopy. The air was thick and heavy, a nauseating cocktail of wet earth, decaying leaves, and the cloying sweetness of expensive perfume—Chanel No. 5 and mortality.
The Smythefield estate was a sprawling, gothic affair of dark, weeping stone and voracious ivy, a monument to old money and, Aurelia now suspected, an even older, more venomous grudge.
Aurelia stood beside her mother, a study in contrasting blacks. Lilith's was the black of polished jet, severe and impenetrable, the fabric swallowing the light in a way that spoke of immense cost and control. Aurelia's was the black of a void, a hollowed-out space in a simple wool coat. Hidden in her pocket, her fingers clenched the wooden fox, her thumb tracing the familiar, worn grooves like a grounding wire to the real, breathing, messy Gwen, not the sanitized memory being lowered into the ground.
Her eyes, disguised behind a fine black veil, were not on the priest's solemn face or the obscene profusion of white lilies draping the casket. They were active scanners, high-resolution cameras cataloging every face in the crowd. She saw Mr. Smythefield, a bear of a man now reduced to a hollowed husk, his shoulders slumped under a weight no parent should ever bear. His grief was real, a raw, open wound that made the air around him ache.
And then her scanning locked onto a target.
Across the sea of mourners, standing slightly apart under the skeletal, dripping branches of a great oak, was a woman. She wore the simple, functional dark clothes of a groundskeeper, her posture unassuming, meant to be invisible. But her face… her face was the one from the maglev, sharp and intelligent. Iris Mittlehill. The paramedic. The woman who had called Gwen her 'sister.' She looked younger now, perhaps no older than fifteen—a detail Aurelia's previously trauma-fogged observation had missed.
Their eyes met for a fractured second. There was no smile, no nod. But in Iris's gaze, Aurelia saw a flash of something fierce and knowing—a shared secret. Then, just as quickly, Iris looked away, melting back into the periphery.
Variable Confirmed, Aurelia thought. Iris Mittlehill is present and operating under deep cover.
Gwendolyn's immediate family formed a tight, shattered nucleus at the front. Her stepbrother, a boy with a face set in permanent, sullen marble, stood with a girl who rested her head on his shoulder. A man with the polished, unctuous demeanor of a career academic—a senior member of the Brontë Foundation—stepped forward to read a generic goodwill message, his voice a sonorous drone about "a light gone too soon." The words were as empty as the coffin was full of lies.
When he was done, he delicately placed a single, waxy white lily on the casket, the gesture flawlessly choreographed.
Lilith's hand, cold and unyielding as a surgical clamp, suddenly closed around Aurelia's elbow. "It's time to pay our respects," she murmured, her voice a low vibrato. "Remember, Aurelia. A closed equation. No more variables."
They moved toward the casket. Each step felt like wading through cement, the scent of lilies now overpowering, cloying, the very smell of death dressed up for polite company. As they stood before the polished wood box, Lilith placed a single, perfect white rose atop the lid, her movements a pantomime of somber grace so perfect it was a kind of violence.
Aurelia's assigned role was to look grief-stricken and compliant. But as she stared at the coffin, the final, damning variable snapped into place. The whisper, Iris's presence, her mother's desperate, flawless performance—it all pointed to one, inescapable conclusion.
This was not a funeral.
It was a forensic cover-up. A data purge.
The body inside that box… it wasn't just dead. It was evidence. And they were all here to bury it. Her mother wasn't just a grieving family rival; she was the chief archivist of the conspiracy.
A cold fury, purer and sharper than any she had ever known, solidified within her. It was not a hot, messy emotion, but a crystalline focus, an absolute zero of resolve.
As Lilith began to turn away, pulling gently on her arm, Aurelia didn't move. She remained fixed before the casket, her head tilted, a logician observing a critical, catastrophic flaw.
Lilith tugged again, more insistently, her nails digging in. "Aurelia. Now." The command was a shard of ice.
Slowly, Aurelia turned to face her mother. The veil hid her eyes, but it could not conceal the faint, chilling smile that touched her lips.
"Of course, Mother," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rain. "The equation is closed."
But as she allowed herself to be led away, a final, silent promise was made.
It's not.
The lie was complete. The mourners began to disperse, their black umbrellas bobbing like buoys on a grey sea. Lilith's grip was a vice, already steering her towards the sleek, black car.
As they reached the iron gates of the cemetery, Aurelia dared one last look back through the rivulets of rain on the car window.
The spot under the oak was empty. But for a single, heart-stopping moment, Aurelia's vision glitched. She saw not Iris, but another figure—a girl with the same perfectly symmetrical, ageless features as the Violet entity from the void. Gwen's face photocopied until all warmth was bleached out. Her form flickered with a faint, golden light, pixelating at the edges. For a fraction of a second, Aurelia thought she saw a flicker of something desperate in its eyes, but it was gone so fast she couldn't be sure. Then the figure dissolved into the mist like corrupted data.
Still close to the grave, the Smythefields stood huddled. The stepbrother, however, had turned. His eyes, sharp and suspicious, found Aurelia's through the window. At the same moment, a furtive movement at the tree line caught her eye—a hooded figure, swift and familiar, hurried into the dark embrace of the woods.
"I need air," Aurelia said, her voice flat, as Lilith opened the car door. "I'll meet you at the car in a moment. I forgot to give my condolences to an acquaintance."
Lilith stared, her composure cracking for a microsecond at the sheer improbability. "Aurelia, don't be absurd—"
But her daughter was already walking away, her black coat merging with the shadows as she moved not toward the remaining mourners, but toward the side path that led into the woods.
She found him waiting, leaning against a thick, gnarled oak, the hood of his jacket pulled back to reveal a striking, unnatural crimson hair.
"It's you, Aurelia," Akira said, his voice a blend of amusement and tension. "Your 'neutralization skills' have heightened unnaturally since the last time we met. How's it been, before Gwen... you know, kicked the bucket? Then again, our little trio never did have it easy, did we? Before I was... reassigned."
"I suppose the terms of our mutual appreciation for chaos are void," Aurelia replied, her voice cool, her body poised for action. "Not until now that she's been murdered. Why the hurried exit? Funeral not to your taste?"
Akira's smile faded, replaced by grim urgency. "I'm s'posed to be running my bar in Kyoto. Just got a two-hour diplomatic permit to be here. Glad to meet'cha again, though, even under these bleak specs."
"I'm not here for nostalgia, Akira. I'm here for data. I want the root cause of Gwendolyn's death."
"Don't you think I've tried?" he shot back, a flash of anger in his eyes. "I did a little... remote viewing of the Smythefield manor's digital perimeter. Firewalls thicker than a politician's skull. Found nothing. It's a ghost file."
"I know where the local backup might be," Aurelia said, lowering her voice. "Her journals. They're not digital. They're—"
"Aurelia! Ellie!" A voice cut through the damp air, sharp with anxiety. Noelle hurried towards them, her umbrella a frantic beacon. "Your mother is furious! What are you doing? You can't just run off!"
Akira didn't wait. With a last, meaningful look at Aurelia—a look that said this conversation is not over—he melted back into the forest, as silent and fluid as a data stream switching protocols.
The ghost of Gwendolyn Smythefield was not in the coffin. It was in the machine, in the whispers, in the eyes of old friends who appeared from the shadows. And it was waiting for her to log back in.
... TO BE CONTINUED...