Melissa Darnell - Covet

I stared down at Nanna’s face, at her chest that refused to rise or fall. She had kept so many secrets. She hadn’t even told me about my family’s past until I was fifteen.

But why keep this secret? If she’d only told us, we could have done something to help her get better, made her lay off the fatty fried foods or helped her work out or something. Didn’t they have surgeries and transplants for this kind of thing?

I tried again, asking both Mr. Coleman and Dr. Faulkner at the same time. “But you can still fix it. You can do a spell or—”

Mr. Faulkner shook his head again. “We can only do so much. We can’t bring the dead back to life. At least, not with a soul—”

“Then bring her back without one!” I said, my hands aching to slap him. He was just refusing to help because we were outcasts, because I was a half-breed. “She’s my grandma! You killed her. Do whatever you have to do, but bring her back!”

“No.” Mr. Coleman’s tone was final. “We don’t do that. It’s against Clann law to create zombies. And that’s all she would be, a zombie, no personality, no true life within her. Just an animated corpse. Is that what you want, what your grandmother would want?”

I almost said yes, but the words choked in my throat. Nanna would be horrified and furious if she could hear us now. She couldn’t stand to watch zombie movies and refused to read books about them. Even if I could convince the Clann to bring her body back to life, it was useless if it wouldn’t really be her again.

“Please, there has to be something….” I whispered, staring down at the tiny wrinkles in Nanna’s thin eyelids. I stroked her soft cheeks, then stopped as I realized she was already turning cold and losing her color.

No. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be gone.

“I’m sorry. But there’s nothing more we can do,” Mr. Coleman murmured. “I swear, if we could bring her back for you, or undo what’s been done here today, I would make that happen. But even descendants have limits.”

So that was it then. Like me, even with all their supposed power, the Clann could only take Nanna’s life, not bring it back. Nanna was really gone. I’d gotten here too late to save her after all.

And now I had to say goodbye.

“Nanna,” I whispered, the ocean of ache in my chest spreading over my body to make my limbs so heavy I could hardly move. The ache bubbled upward, rising to fill my throat and burn my eyes and the inside of my nose, until I felt sure it would push right through my skull. If I had been standing, it would have knocked me over like a tidal wave. But I was already on my knees, and all it could do was bend me in half over my grandmother’s body and leave me gasping for air.

I wrapped my arms around Nanna, lifting her to me in a one-sided hug, remembering all the times she used to hold me in her lap and rock the both of us in her rocking chair when I was little. And how she used to kneel just like this on her knees day after day, despite her joints getting creaky and popping with age, so she could talk to the herbs and fruit plants she so carefully tended in our backyard. It was the last time I would ever hold my grandma, the woman who had helped raise me, who at times had been there for me even more than my own mother.

She was gone. Because of me.

“I’m so sorry, Nanna.” I couldn’t say it enough. A lifetime of apologies wouldn’t make up for what I’d done.

“Savannah,” Mr. Coleman said. “Please accept my deepest apologies for your loss, and also pass on my condolences to Jo—to your mother. None of us intended for this to happen. I just wanted my son back safely, and we thought your grandma knew where… I never dreamed…”

Words apparently failed the big bear of a man. I looked up and discovered tears in his eyes, which were lined copies of Tristan’s, giving me a glimpse of the man Tristan would someday become. A future I would no longer be a part of.

Hands covered my own, easing my fingers loose. Confused, I looked down to see Dr. Faulkner trying to release my hold on Nanna.

On Nanna’s body. Because she wasn’t here anymore.

I let him take her weight and lower her body to the ground. I couldn’t move, couldn’t feel my legs or arms anymore, couldn’t even feel the clothes that were plastered to me along with strings of my hair along my face and neck.

What should I do now? What did normal people do when their loved ones died in their arms in the woods? There must be a procedure, certain steps of some kind that should be taken by someone. But my mind didn’t seem to want to work to figure it out. Wiggling my hands, I discovered my fingers had somehow become buried in the earth. When I lifted them, clods of moss and mud clung to me. The same mud that would be all over Nanna’s back now.

Nanna wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want me to sit in the mud sobbing over her body, especially not in front of the descendants who had cast her out and turned their backs on her. She would have demanded that I get up, put on a strong front, hide my pain. Show them just how strong the Evans women could be. Focus on what needed to be done, and break down later in private.

For her sake, I took a deep breath and tried to wipe my hands clean on my pants, only to discover my shirt and slacks were covered in streaks of mud. I would have to wait until I was home to clean my hands of the mess.

Home. Where Mom would be waiting soon for an explanation. Oh God. She didn’t know yet....

“We’ll help you with the arrangements,” Mr. Coleman murmured, and Dr. Faulkner dipped his head in agreement.

What would Nanna have expected of me now?

“I think…she would have wanted to die at home in her sleep,” I said to Dr. Faulkner. “She wouldn’t want everyone to know…” Unable to say the rest of it, I gestured at the mess of it all, the slop of the mud and rain and grass stains all over Nanna’s once-pristine nightgown, which she’d always been so careful to bleach a blinding white.

“I’ll make that the official report,” Dr. Faulkner replied as he, Dad and Mr. Coleman stood up, too.

I looked around the clearing, for the first time seeing again the horrified audience watching my every move. They stared at me, many of them whispering amongst themselves, as if this were a play they were watching but weren’t really a part of. Didn’t they feel any guilt for Nanna’s death? Or was I the only true murderer here today?

Mr. Coleman turned in a slow circle, drawing everyone’s attention and silence. “Today’s events will never be spoken of. Is that clear?”

Slowly the descendants nodded, though my vamp abilities allowed me to pick up the general reluctance rolling off many of them as the crowd broke up and walked away in small groups through the woods.

“Savannah…” Sounding as if he were choking on my name, Tristan tried to cross the distance between us, but Dylan and another boy held him back. Cursing, Tristan fought against their hold.

Needles stabbed at my skin, a sign of his growing power level. Tristan was getting ready to use magic against them.

“Tristan, stop,” I called out. I looked at his father. “Can I…?”

Mr. Coleman’s gaze flicked down at Nanna’s body, then he nodded.

More pain bloomed inside my chest, trying its best to rob me of air. Part of me screamed that I’d already lost enough, that I needed to hold on to what happiness I could. That I wouldn’t survive losing anything else in my life right now.

But I had to. I’d made two promises now. And it was for his own safety.

I forced my numb feet to carry me over to Tristan. Moss squished beneath my shoes with every step I took, the sound loud enough to be heard now that the storm was nearly gone. It took far too few steps to bring me to the end of the only true love I’d known.