"Hey, Ian,” I say as cheerfully as I can, clutching the bouquet of roses in my hand. “I bet you’re getting tired of these late-night visits, huh?”
His marble headstone glimmers brightly in the moonlight. I’m glad his headstone looks pretty. It’s the least he deserves.
“Sooo… Tomorrow’s the first full moon of my twelfth birthday! Pretty cool, right?”
Tomorrow will be my New Aoibh ceremony. The Great Mother was twelve when she bound her soul with Cadhla, and she did it under a full moon. Every boy and girl must undergo a ritual on the first full moon of their twelfth birthday because of it. It honors Aoibh, and it’s the first step into adolescence, and eventually, adulthood.
“Apparently the elders are going to adorn me with flowered garlands and sprinkle holy water on my head. There’ll be chants and songs, and candle-lighting too.” My smile drops a little, and I set the bouquet of flowers down by his headstone. “Heh, be glad don’t get to go through that. It would’ve been way too prissy for you. You’re too cool for flower garlands.”
I catch myself rubbing my thumbs self-soothingly, and I pocket my hands. “Who am I kidding? I wish you could be there.”
I bat away tears and let out a long, shaky breath. I glance over my shoulders anxiously. If anyone in my family found out I was still visiting Cillian’s gravesite, they’d be so disappointed in me.
‘As a royal wolf, you can’t ever show weakness. We must always persevere and be a beacon of strength to others within the pack,’ after all. This show of affection would be frowned upon by Mom and Dad…and even Sorcha.
My family changed after that terrible dawn. I like to think Cillian was the only thing that bound them to their humanity, and once he was gone, so was their compassion. Mom and Dad became cold and distant, pouring themselves into politics. Sorcha’s visits were fewer and farther between. She always talked about how well she was doing in the dojo, and she was always restless when she wasn’t training. She even started training me in her off-days. ‘You gotta get stronger quickly, Kiana!’ she’d cry before throwing a punch at me as I dodged. If I failed a training session, she’d sequester herself in her room for the rest of her visit home, then drive back to the dojo without a farewell of any sort.
Admittedly…I started to dread her visits. I always ended up disappointing her.
Just be grateful she’s not here to see you mourn like this, I remind myself as I kneel down in front of Cillian’s headstone.
A moon-lit hand snaps into view and snatches the bouquet of flowers off the ground. “What the hell is this, Kiana?” cries a voice from behind me.
Sorcha stares down at me with dismay in her fiery gaze.
“Sorcha, it’s not what it looks like!” I stammer. Well, that was a dumb argument, I rebuke myself.
“No? Then what are you doing? Researching gardening, coincidentally in a graveyard, coincidentally in front of a headstone that says ‘Cillian Aoibhson?’” she spits.
Aoibh-son. A name given to those too young to earn their last names. He should’ve gotten the privilege of earning a last name.
I clench my fists and stand, though Sorcha towers over me. Her golden eyes glint with red-hot fury. “So what if I’m paying tribute? It seems I’m the only one in the family who cares about him!”
I can barely believe the words that tumbled from my mouth. But I want to hurt her. I want her to care!
A feral snarl rips from Sorcha’s throat, and she tosses the bouquet of flowers to the ground. Her inner wolf awakened two years ago, and she’s one of the strongest fighters in the pack. I’m a fool for angering her. “I’ll mourn how I like…but it sure as hell won’t be wasting my time in front of a gravestone!” she snaps.
“You don’t mourn – neither do Mom and Dad!” I howl, tears brimming in my eyes.
“You don’t get to judge me, and don’t you dare cry! As a noble of this pack, you can never cry!” Sorcha’s teeth are bared; her canines are longer and pointed; her fingernails are sharpened to blades. At least she can’t fully shift into her wolf-form until the full moon tomorrow.
“You don’t care about anything other than strength, do you?” I shout back.
“I do all of this because I don’t want you to end up in the ground like Cillian!” is her rabid reply.
I can’t hold back anymore. “You never loved Cillian, did you?!”
Sorcha jolts back, her jaw slacking with shock and hurt. A flicker of pride alights in my chest, and I turn back to the headstone. “Just leave me alone,” I murmur.
A strong grip snatches my shoulder and spins me around – a clawed hand streaks through the sky – I tumble back.
I try to open my eyes, but my right eye won’t open. Sharp pain consumes me, wrapping around my skull like an iron fist and squeezing hard. I can’t think, can’t hear anything, can’t focus. Warm blood runs down my cheek and onto my lips.
I make out Sorcha’s words through my shock. “If you were stronger, you would’ve caught that strike! You’ve become weaker because you’re so obsessed with this gravesite!”
I cup my bleeding face and stagger to my feet, tears pouring down my cheeks. Sorcha takes a deep breath and composes herself long enough to deliver a verbal killing blow.
“I can’t associate myself with someone so weak. If you’re so keen on joining Cillian in his little box, go right ahead! Until you accept reality and toughen up, you’re no sister of mine.”
The stabbing pain halts as her words weigh in my ears. My heart races, I can barely breathe with how angry I am. She turns to leave, and I desperately try to say something that’ll hurt her as much as she hurt me.
“I hate you!” is all I can think to say.
She doesn’t pay me any attention. She just leaves without another word, slamming the cemetery gate behind her.
I remove my palm from my face; it’s soaked in crimson blood that glistens in the moonlight. I’ll never stop hating you until the day I die, I vow as I break down into sobs.
The pack doctor patched me up the next morning. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose your eye, but that will be a nasty scar for the rest of your life,” she told me. Mom and Dad took Sorcha’s side, but they tried to be kinder than she was. Maybe it was supposed to ease the pain?
I had my New Aoibh ceremony. With medical gauze and tape over my eye, I was adorned in rose garlands and sprinkled with warm holy water. My family lit woodwick candles, and the pack elders sang solemn tunes to initiate me into adolescence.
Sorcha was there, too, holding a crackling candle. But she refused to make eye-contact, and we didn’t say a word to each other.
A week later, I sat numbly on one of the velvet floor pillows as a burly man, Master Eoin of Sorcha’s dojo, spoke. He explained how Sorcha lost control of her emotions in the dojo, how she lunged at a student, how the student had to defend himself, how it happened so quickly...
He told us how sorry he was. How she was his best student and a good friend.
He offered to pay for the funeral expenses.
I’m the only one left.