The Brigaddons had piled more than wood onto the heap in the field out back of the garden between the house and the orchard, and Orenda could not identify all of it, but she suspected that much of it was garbage from the looks of it, things like the shells of nuts, dried out coffee grounds, and other unedible parts of plants. Perhaps this was a way to get rid of things?

Sarya sat on one of the blankets that had been set out for that purpose and whispered to Barbra Allen, “Feels kinda weird singin it, you know? I hear they sang it back when he was a cage fighter but… it’s a song for younguns. It don’t seem… solemn enough… for a funeral.”

“It’s what they want Sara,” Barbra Allen whispered back, “Just… try and sing it all solemn like.”

Orenda lit the bonfire and turned to the house. She was shocked. She had expected to see the pallbearers, carrying out the corpse for burial. As far as she knew, no one had prepared a coffin, not a proper one. They had constructed a sort of box, but she knew that he deserved better. He may have been complex, may have had his problems, but he had dedicated his life to the Order, and he deserved to be recognized. He deserved a proper coffin, a proper memorial. He was going to be so much to her, the answer to so many things, the link to her past, but that, like so many other things, had been taken from her.

That was not what came out of the house. It was, instead, Gareth. He still didn’t have his mask, and Orenda never thought he would come out among a crowd- and with everyone, the pirates, the guides, and the Brigaddons, it certainly qualified as a crowd- without it. But here he was, leaning heavily on a wooden walking stick, slowly making his way toward her. Bella walked patiently beside him, and Orenda looked around to make sure she was the only one staring.

“I want to say something!” Gareth announced when he was close enough to the group, and suddenly Orenda was not the only one staring. “Do I have your attention? Everyone? Yes? Good.”

He took a deep breath and continued, “I was not there, that fateful day, in Satra, during the Eishtar festival all those years ago. But I wish I had been. Garon, my brother, asked me to go. But I didn’t. I stayed on my ship, our ship. I told him that I was good, right there on the ship- that I wasn’t going to risk my life for some half-baked plan about rescuing a shifter so he could lead us to the Kabaal, on the off chance they would tell us where Morgani Magnus was. I didn’t think Morgani Magnus could defeat the Emerald Knight. I didn’t think we should attack the festival. I argued against the event that freed your father. I should have been there.”

He looked as if he expected some sort of reaction to this, and when he got none he went on, “I have come to publicly apologize. To all of you. I should have done more. I should… he wrote me, several times, Xac did. He asked me to be there for him. And I wasn’t. I never… I never came to see him, no matter how often he asked, for twenty years. I never came. And now it’s too late. I regret that. I… want that to be a lesson. To all of you. Treasure your friends. Dear friends are difficult to find. Xac was boisterous, and annoying, and prone to a great many vices- and he deserved each and every one of them. He earned his indulgences, he earned his madness. But he did not earn the ire of a child that he tried to provide for. He lived a hard life, and I should have been there for it. I’m sorry. You did not have to be this kind to me, after the way that I’ve treated you. After the way I treated him. I’m sorry.”

“Garon, my brother,” Gareth said, and Orenda saw the way his chest moved, and knew he was trying not to cry, “Loved Xac. Before he died he… never stopped loving him. We were looking for him. I know Ronnie regrets… I know he died regretting that we didn’t find you, all of you, sooner. He would have loved you. I’m sorry.”

He looked around at the people sitting on blankets and began to make his way towards the one where Falsie and Anilla were sitting with the babies. “I’m old. I’m going to sit down now.”

The door opened again, and six of the Brigaddons, Junior, Sonny, Honney, Bunni, Garon and Sokomaur came out carrying a long wooden box. It was obvious that they had been waiting on him to finish, and when Sarya saw them, she stood, picked up her fiddle and began to play.

“Little bunny Foo Foo,” She sang with great solemnity,

“Hopping through the forest,

Scooping up the field mice,

And bopping them on the head.”

She looked extremely uncomfortable to be singing it, but the Brigaddons, and the pirates, treated it as if it was exactly what they had been expecting, as if it were somehow respectful, and Orenda supposed, given the context, it must have been. She went to sit on the blanket that had been lain out next to the pirates, where Mary Sue was sitting, and sat as quietly as she could.

“Down came the fairy,

And the fairy said,

‘Little Bunny Foo Foo

I don’t want to see you,

Scooping up the field mice,

And bopping them on the head.

Little bunny Foo Foo,

Know that if you do

I will turn you into

A goon.’

Little bunny Foo Foo

Waited until Midnight and got right out of bed

Little bunny Foo Foo

Thought she couldn’t see him

Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head.

Down came the fairy

And the fairy said

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Little bunny Foo Foo

‘I already warned you

About scooping up the field mice,

And bopping them on the head.’

Then she turned him into

A goon.

Little gooney Foo Foo

Swimming through the back pond

Scooping up the tadpoles

And bopping them on the head.

And the moral of that story is:

Hare today, Goon tomorrow.”

As she sang, the pallbearers set the makeshift coffin behind the bonfire, and after they had done this, Mary Sue stood and walked to the front of it. Sonny fiddled with it for a few seconds, and then slowly peeled back the lid. Xaxac looked much nicer now that he wasn’t covered in blood, that he was dressed in an outfit that had been knitted from sterilite, and his hair had been brushed out, his facial hair had been styled, and he seemed to be wearing some sort of makeup to make it seem as if he hadn’t been dead for days. It did a passable job, though Orenda wished she could have seen him alive to compare it. His hands were crossed over his chest, and his hair, like his clothes, glistened in the moonlight.

“When you’re on your feet,” She said, and the rest of the Brigaddons, even the children, began to chant with her, “Keep your head held high. But when you’re on your knees, you smile and lie. You tell them, ‘of course’; you tell them ‘okay’.”

Here the chant diverged. The four youngest children continued in the manner that had been stitched onto the needlework, back in the burrow beneath the house. But everyone else said something a little different.

“When they leave don’t do a goddamn thing they say.”

“My father,” Mary Sue said, “Our father, was a good man. Uncle Gary is right, he did not deserve this. But… as daddy himself always said, ‘Everybody dies. I intend to deserve it.’ Daddy didn’t believe in Thesis- I don’t think most of us do. We know that life here, this short- well, short for most of us- existence is all we have. We have to treasure it. We have to make it count. We have, all of us, the ability to look at anyone and justify the space we take up, the air we breath, the food we eat. No person, regardless of who they are, or where they were born, or how important they think their parents are, or the shape of their ears, or the length of their life, can take that away from us. The worst they can do is kill us. And those who have lived good lives can’t fear death. Daddy taught us that. The dead can’t care that they’re dead. He wouldn’t want us to grieve ourselves into a fit because he’s gone. He would… knowing daddy he’d want us to have a party. He’d want us to remember him for who he was.”

“And he was a man who believed with everything in him that we were going to beat this thing. For him, it wasn’t about getting out, getting somewhere safe. It was about making it safe here. Most of you were born right here in Uril, right here in the Burrow. This is our land. This is our home. Daddy was from the agricultural district, grew up on the Agalon plantation down the road. This place is ours. And he knew that. He knew that one day it would be safe for all of us. He spent his life working to make every person who came through here realize that they were safe, that they were valuable, that they were alive and had worth more than what somebody was willing to pay for them. He brought us strength and starlight. We have survived. We have endured. And we are gonna keep fighting his war until we win, because he died for a reason. We are gonna overthrow Xandra, and then we are gonna go after the Kabaal, and we will not stop until every person on this planet understands that they matter, and they should treasure their life for it’s innate value.”

She turned and knelt to touch the coffin, then to touch her father’s face as gently as she could, frightened that if she moved it too much it would roll, would reveal that he was not in one piece.

“We love you, daddy. And we’re gonna keep fighting for you. You’re gone, but you will never be forgotten. A hundred years from now, when we’re all gone, people are gonna know your name. They’re gonna know that you were a Knight of Order, they’re gonna know how hard you fought. They’re gonna read about you in history books because they’re gonna be able to read in public. What you did here was important. You were important.”

“If a man who was raised as low as daddy was could climb so high,” She said, “that should show us all that you don’t have to be special to do great things. No one in the Knights of Order were born with greatness. None of us are royalty. None of are special. Because that sort of thing does not now, and never has mattered! All that matters is what you do with your life. And we will make the nobles understand that. A small group of dedicated, normal people will grow, and will outshine anything a tiny group with imaginary power may think they have. All of us have that power within us, just like he did.”

She nodded to Sarya, and she picked up her bow to begin to play, but Bella jumped to her feet.

“Can I say something?” She asked.

“Of course,” Mary Sue said.

“When I as a child,” Bella said, “I had… a very bad day. I can go into it later if you like. I was a vulnerable child, and I was running for my life when I ran into the Kabbal. I thought… I thought they had saved me. They took me in- they told me everything about their organization, about how… how I was special, how I was better than other people, how I had been blessed because my ancestors had stood against a god and survived. How shifters were the only humans who weren’t weak, how we were the “true” humans, the “master” race that had stood, and survived, with magic in our blood and power in our souls. I believed them. I believed the nonsense that you just spoke against. I was so small, and I watched them do horrible things, I heard them say horrible things, I was taught… that most humans deserved what they got under the empire, and that we were being tested to weed out those who were weak. I… I would have believed that my whole life.”

“Until I met Xaxac. I had never met a shifter who… who had lived the life he had, and when someone fed him that line, Shabeel said to him, ‘You’re special. You don’t deserve the terrible things that happened to you, because the blood of important people runs through your veins’... I had never seen someone react the way Xaxac did. Xaxac said, ‘Alright’ and ‘Okay’, and when Shabeel left, Xac robbed him blind, took his mother’s book with the directions for how to find Magnus, and left that horrible place. He didn’t believe him! He saw through the lie instantly! And he fought his way out! I… I saw that strength and… I knew I had been a fool. He opened my eyes. He helped me escape them. Xac spent his entire life helping people escape horrible situations. I… I don’t know what kind of person I would be without him. Xac saved me. I’ll be forever grateful for that. He taught me that people can be kind for no reason, and expect nothing in return. I… I have thanked him, but I want to do it again. Thank you, Xac. You were a wonderful person. You introduced me to Gareth. You named your child after me. And Gary’s right… we should have been there for you. I should have been there for you. You would have been there for me. I should have been more open, I shouldn’t have been so… jealous and weird. I read…”

“Don’t go into it in public,” Gareth said to the hand he was using to massage his temples.

“You’re right,” Bella said, and Orenda thought that she had gotten carried away, because there were tears in her eyes and she looked as if she was about to break down.

“You’re right,” she repeated, “I just… I’m sorry, Xac. I should have been there for you like you were there for me. We were friends, and I owed you more than I gave.”

She sat down heavily, and Mary Sue nodded at Sarya, who picked up her violin and began to play. The song was instrumental and the tempo was slow, and at the cue signaled by the music, people began to move. The pallbearers closed the lid and locked it, then lifted the coffin heavily onto their shoulders, and the procession began to move toward the orchard. Three lengths of rope had been spread over the open grave, and they sat the coffin on it gently, while Mary Sue nudged Orenda. Orenda wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do, but she moved to stand beside her and picked up a length of rope, and watched as Solomaur, Falsie, Little Gary, Abraham, and Abby did the same. The pallbearers slowly lowered the coffin onto the ropes, and Orenda quickly figured out what she was supposed to do as she worked with the others to slowly lower it into the grave.

The music from Sarya’s fiddle filled the crisp air of the night as the wind carried it through the bare branches of the trees, and Orenda thought of what she had the first day she had arrived in Uril. The leaves crunched under her feet as she stepped back to allow the Brigaddons to bury their father, and she thought of how the trees in Uril shed parts of themselves, killed parts of themselves, and regrew them in the spring. Orenda thought of life, death, and rebirth. She thought of how it was her birthday for a few more hours, and she was attending a funeral. She wondered if Xaxac had known that he had a birthday, let alone when it was, and thought that he probably didn’t. It could be today as easily as it could be any other day.

The Brigaddons were excellent at shoveling, and Orenda supposed that they were good at digging in general, given how they had dug out an entire secret house large enough to accommodate even more than their large family. Yet still, she was amazed at how quickly they worked, as she watched each shovelful of dirt cover the coffin until she could no longer see it.