The Libera Line: A Legacy

Watching from the corner of her eye as others filed into the chapel, keeping their conversations to a dull murmur, Eliot slid a glove from her hand and flicked a tear away. The clouds held the weight of the snow; poised and ready to drop at any moment, the sun’s light refused to offer any warmth.

This day had finally come.

She had often considered it as a child, and more recently in her teenage years, how the time would pass, he would move on, she would be left alone and then she would be the only Archer left. The chatter had subsided, and she remained rooted to the spot at the far end of the car park with her fingers numbed from the cold snap that had taken a stranglehold on December.

A door slammed. She turned on her heels and saw them. Six men, black robes skimming the first frost of the season as they slid him onto their shoulders. Each step they took was slow, agonizingly slow. They moved in unison through the stained-glass doors into the chapel of Bryerton College, their footsteps muted and dull. His final resting place would be here, on the grounds of this vast chapel. The plot, small and tucked into a corner of the graveyard, lay in wait, ready to seal his fate.

Her hands trembled as she retrieved the speech she had stowed away in her pocket. Mere memories of him, scrawled in her hand late the night before, littered the page and she scanned the words. The lump wedged in her throat was becoming impossible to dislodge and, as she followed the procession, behind the low cleric, she wished to be anywhere but here. Not now. Not ever. Her head felt light and every movement it made was slow. Eliot shuffled into the space that had been reserved for her and the tears threatened to fall again. Eliot cast her head down to avoid anyone’s gaze and spied a loose thread dangling from the bottom of the hastily purchased and itchy dress. Ill fitting, it made her feel like a foreigner in her own body. She picked at the thread, encouraging it in its destruction, she began to twist and turn it, coiling it around her forefinger, allowing it to dig into her flesh. She imagined that the pain was there, she could not feel anything, but the threat of a bruise lingered. Pressing down on each bulbous section of her finger, she then unraveled the thread, tucking it back into the hem, tracing the indentations with her fingernail until the feeling returned. Eliot nibbled a little at the skin on her thumb, resisting the temptation to gnaw at her nail.

A hand stretched out, rested on the back of hers and gently moved her hand away from her mouth. A couple of taps of reassurance began to quell her racing pulse. She bit her lip a little and squeezed her eyes shut. Do not cry today, do not cry today. She repeated the mantra she had recited over and over in her mind from the moment she woke that morning. The hand remained with hers and it gave another squeeze, so she leant into the shoulder of her best friend for a moment staring at the ceiling vaults, counting each family crest hanging from their ancient beams. Her eyes followed the crisscrossing pattern and wondered how long it took to build the wooden frame of this chapel. How heavy each beam must be and how many men needed to get it up there. Did they have winches and pulleys, or did they have scaffolding, like they used for the pyramids?

All The Archers, The Withearts, The Bryertons, The Yarmingtons, The Bards; so many families throughout the centuries had studied, taught and governed their people from this very college.

Eliot sighed a deep, heavy sigh and listened to the droning of the High-Cleric and focused on the back of the head of the man sitting in front of her. The wisps of hair danced and twirled as she blew gently. She imagined what he would do if she were to reach out and touch the back of his head smoothing the hair down. Would he move, shudder, tell her off maybe? She blew again and the hair once again fluttered. Stifling a laugh under her breath she felt Jasper’s knee nudge hers.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

The clocks, maps, and paintings of The Five Graces that hung from the walls were unlit, as was customary at the funeral of a prominent member of the Sacred Council. The whole community of Trans-temporals seemed to have turned out today, for him. Shrouded in darkness, the largest of the timepieces in the chapel, The Ancient, slept under a thin black cloth, the ticking dulled and muffled.

A coffin. The Graces to watch over him and all of time to mourn him.

(Perhaps more will follow: readers… watch this space)

Olie Yablonka-Clark “Mercy”

One glance, Two guns

Three Souls, Four men

Four walls, Three trees

Two eyes, One heart

One Boss, Two Guards

Three minutes, Four lights

Four Bodies, Three souls

Two shots, One kill, No trace