The funeral was two days later. Of all the information that his friends could have left, Marguerite and Timoteo had clear instructions in their will to be buried together in a plain pine box. There was no contingency if one outlived the other. They always intended to go together. Estella would get everything. He still had not asked after her father who remained conspicuously absent in every discussion, decision, and documentation.

Jacques arranged for the burial to take place at their home, per their request, and asked Estella to choose the plot. She selected a spot beneath their wisteria vine, “They loved to sit here. Nonno made us take our family photos in front of the oak tree after the wisteria bloomed.”

It’s good that Jacques had to wait a few days for the funeral like he wanted. Neither of them knew how to let people onto the property.

“At Saint-Tourre we have a register. It’s like a book full of names. It records visitors but also will allow specific individuals to approach the main house. Have you seen anything like that?”

Estella countered his question with her own. “There’s magic protecting the property line?”

The only book that came to her mind was the family magic book, but according to Estella the only names in it were grandmother’s dead family members. Estella did remember seeing her grandfather digging near the gate at the start of the driveway once before her grandmother pulled her away. Together her and Jacques pockmarked the ground around the gate, looking for any foreign object. Eventually, Estella’s garden trowel hit a large rock not easily unearthed. On the slab were names:

Timoteo de Luca

Marguerite Theodora de la Fleur de Luca

Jack Matthew de Luca

Abigail Karen Summers

Esther Violet Morrissy

Eloise Berdie Corbett

James Anton Davis

Jacques Francois Allard de Saint-Tourre

Matthieu Bernard de la Fleur de Saint-Tourre

Theodora Constantina de Saint-Tourre

Estella Theodora de Luca

Estella pointed at Esther and Eloise, “They’ll come but no one else will. James and Jack died, I don’t know who Matthieu and Theodora are, and Abigail hasn’t been in contact for years.”

The blood drained from Jacques’ already pale face as he struggled to compose himself. The news that Jack died was suspected but Marguerite’s full name was not. It was a coincidence, surely, that she shared Matthieu’s family name. Afterall, how many de la Fleurs existed in France? Matthieu’s family all died in the persecutions of 1584—Matthieu personally identified the bodies. If he had had any hope that a family member survived, Matthieu and Theodora would have torn the world apart looking for them. But the name and the way his friend wrote about his family members left an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

Jacques set aside the name. He can talk to Theodora about after he gets Estella safely to France.

Still, there were other reasons for the slab to give him pause. To do permission magic, even in this rudimentary form, required a set of magical skills that should have been beyond the reach of Marguerite and Timoteo. As far as Jacques knew, Timoteo was human. As part of their plea for him to help them flee Europe during the war they told him that they wanted to begin a new life in America—a life without magic and that Marguerite intended to give her’s up. She should not have been able to build a barrier, not to mention set a trigger for a letter to appear. Some tricks would have been left to her in her human state, but nothing this elevated (despite the lack of finesse of the slab, Jacques had to admit, it got the job done). With every new piece of information Jacques gained, the truth became more obscure.

Jacques shelved his curiosity and handed the slate to Estella who was craning her neck to get a better look.

“Is that it?” She asked, pursing her lips. “How do we add more names? We need to add Father Michael and the funeral people.”

“That’s the easy part.” He said, handing her the stone. “You simply have to scratch the names into the slab.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “I have to do it?”

“Yes, because you are family. Only family or those with express permission can influence permission magic.” He explained slowly.

Estella pouted, “But you’re family too.”

Jacques smiled tightly, unsure about that statement. He tried to remember that he had been a figure in Estella’s life for much longer than he’s known she existed (five days to be exact). “I think you should do it, Estella.”

She observed the cold slate in her hands, “What if I ruin it?” Her grandparents made this stone. Damaging it felt like destroying the remaining parts of them. She started to cry, “I don’t—I don’t want to hurt it.”

“Oh mon amie, it’s alright.” He told the sniffling girl, “I will help you. It will be okay.” Awkwardly, he patted her shoulder until Estella slowly calmed.

“How do I do it? Do I need a special tool?”

“Non, we’ll find something in the house or among the tools.”

“And then we’ll dig the grave?”

“Oui.”

The slate updated and buried, Jacques and Estella began to work on the grave. Jacques was unsure about Estella assisting him but the manual labor seemed to give her a silent purpose.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Estella would not say that she was distracted. She had not been so present since the crash. She was viscerally aware that they were preparing the ground for her grandparents final resting place.

It was cathartic. Some might find it morbid but for Estella, it brought home the loss that was still so difficult for her to grasp. How could life go on when the people who made up her whole world ceased to exist? It certainly felt like life ought to have been over in the days following but…

Those in her world had expanded just as the people who were her world ceased to be. Estella had heard about Jacques her entire life. He had always, through the realm of stories, existed on her periphery because her grandparents kept him present in her life—and now he was here and telling her about his family members who are now her family members and not to worry too much about formally defining their relationships. What matters is that they are family and that she would not be alone.

And so Estella had a future she could focus on when the collapsing of her current life became too unbearable.

Which is how Jacques was three feet deep into the earth and being asked by a child about his age. She also wondered what her role would be in his family but she thought they’d just have to figure that out among themselves.

“Pardone?” His head shot up. He looked a touch absurd dusted with dirt and dressed in a button down with black trousers and oxfords.

He belonged in Goodfellas with his attire. The only thing missing was an overcoat thrown off to the side.

Estella repeated her question as she organized the dirt pile Jacques put her in charge of. He dug, she made the mound.

“Ah.” He breathed, punctuating the air with an exaggerated wobble of the shovel in his hand. “Is that the question you mean to ask?”

Now it was her turn, “Pardone?”

He waved his arm, shovel and all as he explained, “Do you really want to know my age or do you want to know how long I have walked the earth? Those are different categories.”

She blinked at him. ‘They are?”

Quickly he brought his shovel hand back to his chest. “Oui. They are very important categories to distinguish. One is about how old an individual is, meaning their personal age. The other is about how much life experience they have.”

Estella wasn’t sure that she understood the point he was trying to make. “Um, both.”

“I am twenty-nine years old but,” Jacques held up his index finger for emphasis and, she swears, bowed at her, “I have nearly two hundred years of experience.”

Estella’s eyes mimicked an owl. “Two hundred years?” She repeated in a quiet voice.

Jacques scrunched his eyebrows at her. “Oui. Vampires do not age and witches—”

“Vampires don’t age?” She squeaked, her eyebrows very nearly reaching her hairline.

“No. And—”

“And witches?”

Jacques took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was not the only one his friends kept secrets from. “Witches have choices. They—”

“Choices?” Estella interjected again. He thought the child had been better informed in their strange waltz but apparently not. How much had they not told her?

Jacques, for his part, was very patient with the girl as he explained, “Oui. A witch has two options in their life when they magically come of age. A witch may either have a long life that spans two to three centuries or they may live with a normal human lifespan but limited magical capabilities. These are the options for a witch and once you choose the shorter, human life there is no going back.”

“Why would someone choose the human life?”

He shrugged. “Why would someone choose a longer life? Both have their appeals depending on the person.”

Estella tilted head as if trying to get a better view of him, “Do you wish your life was shorter?”

Jacques chortled. Here he is digging a grave, and a grieving girl asked him if he wished he was dead or would one day die. “Honestly? No. I am quite fond of my life and my family. Though I have friends who leave this world, there is always comfort in knowing the lives that they lived.”

“And my grandparents?”

He paused, the idea that he was not the only person Marguerite and Timoteo kept in the dark kept gaining traction in his mind. “Your grandfather was human. Marguerite gave up her magic to spend their lives together.”

Estella blinked at him for a moment before stating, “No, she didn’t.”

Jacques pushed down the impulse to bicker with the child. “That is what I was told,” he explained.

This seemed to set something off in Estella as her face turned pink. “If she gave up her magic—and nonno was human— who secured the property? Who made the slate we dug up earlier? Who made the brooms and mops and hand rags that clean the kitchen? Or made the cookbooks float in the air around her as she made dinner?

And nonno—nonno wasn’t human either. Or wasn’t always. He told me himself that he came from a family of witches in southern Italy. He said he preferred to not do magic.

And who…and who would have saved me if not my grandparents?” She was panting by the end of her speech, her little hands balled into fists at her side.

Jacques stood there, absorbing the information Estella had just shared with him. He supposed that all the magic he had seen was done by a human witch—that the rudimentary slate was Marguerite’s work around to compensate for her lack of magic. But the basic magic could also be the product of a witch who knows the fundamentals. He had to admit, he didn’t know which was more likely and it’s already well established that he knew less about his friends than he thought he did.

All the pieces of their deception were in his face from the moment he stepped into their home. But with the proper knowledge a limited witch could be a formidable foe and extraordinarily clever.

The bite on Estella’s arm should have given it away but he didn’t want to see it. His throat was uncomfortably tight. Why didn’t they trust him?

For Estella’s part, she worked herself into a full on cry.

It felt like her grandparents only existed to her. Jacques, this man, her guardian now, supposedly their oldest friend did not know them. Were they even real to anyone else?

Amidst the wracking of her body came a steadying force that wrapped around her shoulders.

Jacques was holding her from his position in the grave, which made his tall frame level with her crouching form. After a week bereft of the physical touch she was so used to, his warm hug gutted her further and carved out her insides. His weren’t the arms that she craved—they weren’t the soft, plump arms of her grandmother or the citrus of her grandpapa. Those arms were gone, only to be felt in haunting memory.

In a few moments, when they pull away from each other, they will find themselves on more stable ground with the other. But for right now, they were giving in to the grief and despair that comes with such a confusing and terrible loss.