side by side on the bier and felt nothing. No wails tore themselves from her lungs; tears lingered in her eyes but did not fall. Had they seen her behavior, her parents surely would have found it improper. It wasn't the way a young woman grieved for her parents. They wouldn't expect her to carry on like a drunken wench in the gutter, but she ought to have the decency to weep. She could almost hear her mother's voice scolding her while her father looked on in his solemn way. Her blue eyes grew defiant behind her veil as she mouthed her rebuttal and watched their faces crease with frustration.
All at once, the hard lump in her chest became brittle as glass. Her breath caught in her throat, and she held it for a moment, afraid to breathe too loudly lest she shatter. A single tear trickled downward, tracing a line through the powder on her cheek. Clutching at the handkerchief in her hand, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed away the gathering storm. Even if it was proper, she wouldn't start blubbing like some infant. She was now Ms. Victoria Dawes of Oxford, heiress to her father's estate and mistress of her house. The young girl who had let her parents die because she could not save them had died in the river. A new woman had emerged from the wreck of the buggy.
"Now, let us commit the bodies of Henry and Abigail to their final resting places."
The pastor's words brought her back to her present surroundings as mourners began leaving the chapel. They would proceed to the Dawes family crypt, where the bodies of her parents would be laid to rest. Wood creaked softly as the pallbearers lifted their burdens for one last journey. Keeping her eyes lowered, Victoria followed her aunts outside.
The April air was chilly beneath grey clouds as the procession wound its way toward the crypt. Weathered headstones stood at attention to either side of them, their mossy crowns lifted in silent salute to the ones joining their ranks. Stone angels wept into crumbling hands, still grieving for men and women only they remembered. Victoria studied them with a detached fascination, wondering if angels really did weep for the passing of mortals. Were the lives of men so valued in the heavenly realms? It seemed absurd. Surely these statues, carved with such skill and care, represented nothing but the vanity of those buried beneath them.
When the procession reached the tomb, the crowd parted to make room for the pallbearers. Victoria watched them pass, uncles and cousins she didn't know, but they didn't meet her eyes. They carried her parents into the cold shadows of the mausoleum. The stone walls of the structure were milky-grey, matching the hue of the clouds overhead. Moss wormed its way along the stone in fluid shapes, but it lacked the venerable serenity of the neighboring crypts. Her father had it built when she was a young girl to house himself and his descendants, but he had been too ambitious in its size. The sons he had envisioned lying next to him in eternal repose never arrived. Victoria's only sibling, a younger sister who had died in infancy, was the sole occupant of the family crypt.
Until today.
Tradition dictated that she should wait outside with the other women while the men followed the dead for the final interment. Had it been an aunt and uncle in the coffins, she would have gladly complied, but these were her parents. It was her failing that had brought them to this place. She owed it to them to see their bodies to rest herself.
The air inside the crypt smelled musty, of stone and soil and water. Men holding lanterns had gone in ahead of the pallbearers and now stood by the corners of the waiting sarcophagi. Eerie shadows danced to the rhythm of the flickering light like fey spirits. The sound of dripping water echoed in the shadows.
Victoria drew in a sharp breath. Her vision swam as a long-forgotten fear welled up inside her. She suddenly felt as though she was trapped inside a nightmare from her childhood. In them, she would always find herself lost in a maze of dark alleyways. Rain-slick cobblestones were cold on her feet as she ran, terrified, always just a step ahead of some unseen terror. Bleary gas lamps floated in the haze around her, but their light gave no comfort. Instead, they only served to confuse her,