“We are gathered here today…”
He didn’t need to rehearse the words, but going over them once more never hurt. “To lay to rest the mortal remains of…”
He shifted the hat and brush he was holding into one hand, and checked his notes one last time, making sure the name was correct. He would check it once more whilst in transit, but it wasn’t a long name, and he was pretty sure he had it down by now.
“We are gathered here today…”
Today was a rain day. The hot summer staggering towards autumn, like a drunk heading home in the early morning hours, the nights closing in once again.
Today was the sort of humid, grey day that funeral directors dreamed of.
‘Speaks Truth Without Words’, or 'Truth', as most knew him, gave the hat in his hands a last once-over, before setting the brush aside. The stiff black hat was as clean as he would get it, the wool almost gleaming in the weak morning sun, the sweat marks and wear on the inside known only to him.
Placing it firmly upon his head, he checked himself over one last time in the mirror. The vision before him was never how he had imagined himself looking, but it was important to play a role. The black overcoat and crimson shirt had been pressed that morning, the yellow bone buttons polished until they gleamed, and by his side, the ceremonial umbrella stood, freshly waxed. It was quite a striking image, if he must say so himself.
Through the open window, he could hear his apprentices moving around, shouting to each other as they finished tacking up the ponies, getting the last of the energy out of their systems, ready for the ceremony.
As he gave one last tug at his collar and patted down the hat, Truth considered the strangeness of his job.
Less than a hundred years ago, the profession of ‘undertaker’ hadn’t existed at all. Back then, when the world was made up of small villages and hamlets, spaced out with large stretches of forest, people would deal with their own dead. When you're a group of a hundred people, and you lose two or three a year, it's easy to deal with. But nowadays, with the ever-encroaching tide of industrialisation, that was no longer an option for most.
You couldn’t leave grandma resting in the back yard, when all that yard consisted of was a coal shed and a toilet, and that was if you were lucky enough to have a yard at all! They were building houses back to back and three high now. Long narrow rows of doors and windows, with factories at either end, passages dark from the bridges and the soot and the greenery above.
You couldn’t take old granny into the forest either, to be eaten by rain or animals. If everyone in the city did that, then by mid-summer, no matter how wet a year it was, the bodies would be piled neck deep. The city wouldn’t need walls anymore, the corpses would see to that on their own.
Never mind what things that might draw in from the deep woods. Wolves, or worse.
With one last glance down at his outfit and a last tug at the crimson sleeves, Truth headed out, spinning the umbrella with a practised motion. Time to get this show on the road.
-
The two white ponies were both hitched up to the hearse already, their coats clean and gleaming. He reckoned they would have been stomping their feet in anticipation if they weren’t so well trained.
Inspection over and a nod to the apprentices for a job well done. It wasn’t every day they got to do these fancy funerals, but they were becoming more and more common. Old Whistle and Squeak, the ponies, mostly did partner ceremonies nowadays. A happy couple swearing loyalty in front of two white ponies was an image to remember.
It all seemed very contractual to him, Truth thought, pulling himself up into the driver's seat and tucking the folded umbrella down into the foot-well, but that’s how it goes. When he was a lass, the most ceremony anyone expected for that sort of thing was a good dinner in the local inn and a drunken oath of commitment. But what did he know, most of his clients weren't up to discussing philosophy.
Times, and traditions, were a-changing, and Truth was at the forefront of it all.
The body they were going to pick up today was resting at home, as was traditional. A twelve-hour watch, and then the ceremony. Death moves fast, and therefore so must the living, burial wasn't something you could put off until tomorrow.
Most of those they dealt with were from the poor, and would be picked up in the handcart, or, if streets permitted, a basic horse-drawn wagon, but this one had been a child, from a tailors family on the posher end of town, and they were going all out. They’d even splashed out for the crimson feathered plumes on the horse's foreheads, and the fancy, gilded carriage.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
It was a shame really, that the girl herself would never get to see it, but that’s how it went. Funerals were for the living, not the dead.
Maybe that was why partner ceremonies were getting more popular, Truth mused, adjusting the reins and shifting in his seat. They were a lot like funerals, but you got to experience it all whilst still alive.
A flick of the whip, more for the noise than anything, and they were off, both apprentices taking off with a shout, jostling each other for pole position in the race out of the courtyard. By the time the carriage had cleared the front gates of the funeral home, they would be halfway to the destination.
The two of them would take the quicker route over the greenways, and he would remain on the ground with the horses.
The seat of the vehicle was covered with an overhang, but that could only do so much, and already Truth could feel the moisture settling on his face. By the time they were at the burial place, it should be a full shower. He couldn't have asked for better weather.
He would meet back up with apprentices a street before the tailor's home, and from then on they would follow along behind the carriage, their hats in their hands, the rain streaking through their hair. By the afternoon their outfits would be little better than rags.
The parents had paid extra for that, and they even provided the suits. You gotta put on a show.
-
Body collected, mournful exchanges done, heads bowed and tears acknowledged, and they were off again. The rain was starting to come down now, and the carriage moved at a steady pace as they left the city, the two apprentices trotting behind, suitably solemn with the water running down their faces like tears.
They were a good pair. The older one had been with him for a while and was honestly getting a little old for the job of mourner, but the younger, a girl around eight, was a new hire. She was the sister of one of the grooms down where he boarded his horses and ponies, and once he’d cleaned her up a bit and given her a little coaching, she looked quite the part.
Even if he hadn’t been slipped a little extra to hire her, he might have done it anyway, she had a uniquely mournful face.
-
Their destination was what the locals referred to as ‘The Field’, but its official name was ‘The Garden of Rest’.
The upkeep and maintenance of it was nothing to do with Truth or his company, he was merely another visitor, if a frequent one.
Most people would transport their relatives here themselves, on hand carts or with the help of friends. Others arrived via the new canal, or from the connected hospitals. Only a lucky few got the whole shebang of ponies and mourners.
It was a beautiful place, the Garden. One of the local factory owners had founded and funded it, taking empty scrubland and woods, and turning it into something else. Hearsay said she’d lost a child, and the place was her own personal memorial. Other rumours said she was a murderer, and it was a convenient place for her to dispose of the bodies of those workers who were too much trouble.
Having been in the industry for a while now, Truth put more stock in the first guess, but he wouldn't rule out the second either.
The building of it had been a project all on its own. First, the forest had been cut back, leaving only a few old-growth trees behind. Then other trees had then been planted and Grown, along with fruiting and flowering bushes. Winding paths lead over several acres of land, protected by the bushes and hedges, and you could walk all day and still only see half of it.
There were small hidden gardens with tiled pools in which you could rest your feet. There were fountains, mazes, and benches in hidden alcoves, to shelter the grieving family. At the end of summer, as it was right now, the whole place was a riot of colours and flowers. Above him the trees were filled were birds, all trying to outdo each other in song, and yet, somehow, it was still the most peaceful place he knew.
Directly at the centre of it all was the Hall of Memories. A purpose-built building, made to house the plaques which had long outgrown their room in the town hall. Markers in all different materials, each containing a name that would never be forgotten.
One day, his own name would hang there, and future generations would look upon it and remember him. He liked the idea of that.
-
Standing by the grave, hat in his hands and eyes to the ground Truth listened to the solemn words of the child's friends and family. The stories of her short life.
The earth had been excavated to just above the mana line, roughly ten centimetres down, the body placed upon the bare earth, and the girl laid to rest. He had said his words and his part was done, all he had to do now was stay out of the way.
Under normal circumstances, she would be covered loosely with earth, and that would be it. You didn't bury bodies too deep, as rain would percolate through the ground, but the magic contained within would quickly be absorbed by the roots of plants, leaving the earth below bereft of magic. Dead.
If you had no other options for long-term storage, burying something deep in the ground was one way to keep it from rotting, but you had to be careful with replacing the growth above.
Thus, bodies were never buried deep. You wanted to be returned to the earth, but too much so, and it would benefit nothing and nobody. You would never truly return to the earth that way, except to be interred within it, lost.
A glance up at the gathered mourners. Her father was speaking now, tears running down his face. He had the tattoos of a sailor, but the hands of a craftsman and the suit of a tailor, and Truth wondered about his history.
The arms of the family around him as he wept, and Truth moved his eyes back to the ground, the rain running off his umbrella. Already he could see seeds sprouting up out of the bare earth, a testament to the power of the rain and the disturbed soil.
Instead of being lightly covered over with earth and sod, the girl had been interred under a mound of stones, shipped in from across the sea for this sort of purpose. Truth had placed the first stone himself, and the relatives the next, until eventually the body was gone from sight.
The looseness of the stones would allow the rain to flow through, and within a year or so they would be gone to earth, and so would she. In the centre of the cairn was placed a sapling, a Walnut, in reference to her name.
As the rain poured down the sides of his black umbrella, and as he watched the family pour a final ceremonial bottle of water over the grave, he nodded to himself.
She would be remembered. The tree would grow strong, and her name would hang forever within the hall, for future generations to gaze upon. The fruits of the tree would feed those who needed it, and the world would go on.
He could only hope that he went half as well someday.