Page 111 of Worse Than Wicked
This is something my mother would do, wanting people to notice her and her grief. Even now, she’s silenced into shock by Mabel’s outburst.
Mabel turns to me, her expression determined even with the dark splotches on her cheeks. “Duke once told me that he wanted his funeral to be a big deal. He said he wanted everyone crying, and he wanted wailers. I don’t know what that is, exactly, but I’m doing my best. He said we should grieve for the rest of our lives. Why is that so much easier than honoring hisother wishes? He didn’t want us to mourn quietly, privately. He wanted us to be loud. So I’m being loud.”
If I doubted her grief before, I can’t now. Being loud, being seen, embarrassing herself—these aren’t things Mabel does. She would rather suffer the worst agony, the worst violation.
But she’ll do it for him.
Even though it’s too late to show him that she’d do it for him, she’s doing it.
I nod, though I don’t like it either, and she takes a breath again, deep into her lungs.
This time, when she wails, another voice joins. Surprised, I glance sideways and see Crystal joining in. She steps forward and grips Mabel’s hand, and, with tears streaming down her face, lets out a warbling hiccup of a cry.
“If that’s what he wanted, then that’s what we’ll do,” Harper says. She grabs Mabel’s other hand, throws back her head and lets out a mournful howl. Magnolia takes Harper’s other hand and lends her voice, the high, musical note in it adding sweetness to the chorus of voices. Gloria and Colt join in, though I’m not sure if men are supposed to wail for the dead. I don’t know when they came back, but they appear from the crowd. More girls join, making a circle around the casket, their heads back, mascara running, voices breaking with grief.
There’s Mom, and our grandmother, and Eliza, who came down even though they’ll be flying back for the funeral and the burial in New York. There’s Dolly and the Walton twins; Mabel’s mother and DeShaun’s sister; Natalie Fox and Daria Diaz and Lacey Murdock and a dozen other girls whose hearts he broke when he treated them the way he treated everyone.
But they still loved him.
We all still loved him.
Their voices join, twist and twine, rise and fall, the air vibrating with the sound waves, until my ears ring. Dolly’s baby starts to cry in her arms, and then Crystal’s kids do, and more babies add their distressed shrieks to the din. Somewhere, a dog starts barking, and then another, until the howls seem to spread over the whole town. The grief is too big for Faulkner, too heavy. It mutes the world like the low, featureless white of the clouds that cast the world in a dull gloom, blanketing and swallowing everything in shadow.
It goes on for a long time.
When they’re done, the crowd starts to trickle away.
“Two funerals in one week,” Crystal says, staring at the casket with bloodshot eyes. “It’s too weird. It’s like this town is cursed.”
“Dixie didn’t die in this town,” I point out.
“She was just getting famous,” says one of the Walton twins. “So sad.”
“Not famous enough,” Magnolia says, glancing at Colt. “Almost no one went to her funeral. I heard there were only, like, ten people there.”
“I can’t believe it was just a car accident,” says the other twin.
“La Muertesays the band killed her,” says the first.
“You believe some conspiracy theorist online who won’t even show their face?” Gloria asks, looking skeptical. “Mass Hypnosiswasn’t even in the same state that night.”
“Not thatweknow,” says her sister. “One of them could have flown to Tennessee.”
“Why are we questioning the police?” Mabel asks, frowning. “They ruled it an accident. There were no marks on the road, so she didn’t even brake.”
The Walton twins give her a funny look. “I know, but it’s like, the most boring way to die. She would have wantedsomething exciting, so she’d be remembered forever. Like a bombing or a mass shooting or—”
Her twin elbows her, and she snaps her mouth closed when she realizes I’m right here. No longer a twin because my brother went out in an ‘exciting’ way, a random, unexplained drive-by shooting in a nice part of a small town.
“Sorry,” they mutter, scampering away.
Harper wraps herself in Royal’s arms, pulling them around her. “I’m glad Olive isn’t here for this,” she says. “I’m glad she never has to know.”
“I wouldn’t say never,” I mutter.
Harper aims a sharp look at me. “He wouldn’t want you to hurt her. Or her sister.”
“She’s right,” Royal says. “Killing someone he loved won’t avenge him. I know it’s not what you’d do, but it’s what he’d do. It’s what he’d want. That’s how you honor his memory. It’s all we can do.”
