“Well?” Meea called from the basement. “How bad is it?”
He turned towards the doorway. “The front half is gone. It looks like the bomb went off right at our door. But the back doesn’t look too bad, and I’m hoping our rooms will still be in one piece. We’ll just have to…”
His voice trailed off, and he suppressed a gag. In his haste to escape the basement, he had failed to notice something. And now that he realized what he had walked by, it was like a fist to the gut. He heaved again, desperately trying to quell the nausea before Meea heard.
“Matakh?” she yelled up, sounding concerned. “What’s wrong, brother?”
“Don’t… Don’t come up here,” he said shakily. “Okay? Just stay down for now.” He gagged again, much louder this time, the taste of bile in his throat.
“Are you okay?” He suddenly heard the sound of creaking wood. “I’m coming up.”
Matakh opened his mouth to protest, to reassert that she should stay down, but his voice had failed him. His stomach felt like it was trying to push its way up through his mouth, and it was all he could do to fight it back. He stood there, one hand on his mouth and another on his abdomen, unable to do anything but watch as Meea stepped out into the ruins of their kitchen.
She instantly saw her brother’s distress, and her own face clouded with worry. “Matakh? Are you alright?” When he didn’t answer she stepped over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Brother?” She suddenly realized that he was looking behind her, and turned to follow his gaze. A strangled whine escaped her when she finally saw the blanket beside the basement door… and the two bodies it was draped over.
They were lying side by side, Linalia’s slender back nestled up against Kotaho’s strong chest. The blanket covered them from shoulders to ankles, but their faces were surprisingly peaceful, without any sign of pain or fear. Kotaho’s arm was draped around his wife in a final embrace, and Linalia’s hair was neatly brushed and pulled away from her face. It was as if they were just sleeping, but Matakh knew that they would not wake up.
“I told you to stay down,” Matakh finally managed to say, his voice barely above a whisper.
Meea reached a trembling hand out towards her parents, only to stop and pull it back. “Are… are you sure that they’re…”
He sighed, tears welling up in his eyes. “Yes, Mee. They’re gone.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, feeling them tremble. “I’m sorry.”
Meea just stared at her parents, the expression of horror and disbelief seemingly frozen on her face. A faint shiver ran through her, one which passed into Matakh as well. Time came to a halt, and the horrible moment seemed to drag on forever, as though all of the universe had ceased for one instant to spin.
Then a piercing wail cut through the air, shattering the silence like a pane of glass. “NO!!!”
With that, both siblings fell apart. Meea buried her face in her brother’s chest, quickly wetting her face and his shirt with a new flood of tears. Matakh held her close, his arms wrapped around her slighter frame as she cried. Sorrow streamed from his own eyes, carving tracts through the dust on his face before soaking into Meea’s hair, his own shoulders shaking with grief. Desperately they clung to one another, seeking comfort together amidst the horrible pain that had filled their souls and crushed their hearts.
It was several minutes before Matakh finally managed to regain his composure. He glanced once more at the bodies of his parents, feeling his stomach convulse again. But as his mind grew clear once more, something stood out to him that didn’t quite make sense. “Meea, look at them again.” Sensing her thoughts, he stroked her head. “I know it hurts, but please try.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured her. “But there’s something that just doesn’t make sense. They were killed by the bomb blast, and you can see what it did to the house. So if they were caught up in all of this, then why do they look so peaceful? I mean, their hair should have been burnt or tangled, but it’s clean and brushed. And the odds of them ending up together like that, in such a gentle way… There’s just no way that could happen naturally in an explosion like that.”
Meea finally worked up the nerve to look over at the bodies again. “You’re right. And there’s something else.” She walked over, her steps shaking, and slowly bent down to brush her mother’s hair. He could hear her sniffle faintly, but otherwise she managed to keep herself collected. “I just noticed this, but there’s a flower in Mom’s hair, a red rose. And there’s a leaf in Dad’s hair, too.”
“Someone must have been here earlier,” Matakh realized. “They must have placed them in that position, cleaned them up, and left those gifts. And that may have been the sound we heard earlier when we were in the basement, and why the door opened on its own like that.”
He had barely finished speaking when a small stone landed a few feet from the two. Surprised, Matakh looked around to try and see where it had come from. He was just in time to see a bushy tail vanish into a nearby alley.
A smile crept across the corners of his face as realization finally dawned on him. “I think I know who did this.” He leaned down and examined the stone for a few moments before lifting it in his hand. “I’ll bet that it was our little friend, the fennec.”
“Really?” Meea stepped over to stand beside him.
“Yep.” He held the stone out for her inspection. “And he was the one who threw this stone, too. I saw his tail just before he disappeared down the alleyway. Take a look.”
Meea took the offered pebble, examining it carefully. It was just an ordinary rock, almost perfectly round, but it had been polished smooth as glass. And etched into the surface were strings of characters that were not Filian or Standard, coiling around the stone in an elegant spiral fashion. The detail was astounding, even though they had obviously been crafted in haste.
“I know these characters,” Meea told him. “I’ve seen them before in my seventh-grade linguistics course. They’re from Ma’reinka, Cunia’s original language.”
“What does it say?” Matakh asked.
Meea studied the characters for a few moments longer before beginning to recite. “‘It isn’t much, but it’s all I could do. Rose for beauty, leaf for strength. May they find peace with God. Fea lairu se litham, nir lairu se attau.’ If I remember right, the last phrase means ‘From dust we come, to dust we go.’” She turned to him. “I guess we know who did all this for Mom and Dad.”
Matakh nodded and wrapped his sister in another hug, silently giving thanks to the Lord for blessing them with the little fox. True, it may not have seemed like much, but what he had done was a light of comfort breaking through the darkness that had overcome their lives. An act of selfless kindness had helped to wipe away the tears shed for the lost.
Chapter Five: Trials and Tribulations
“So…” Meea began tentatively after a moment, but she seemed to lose the will to speak.
Matakh smiled reassuringly. “What is it, Mee?”
His sister trembled a little as she looked back at their parents. “Shouldn’t we bury them? I mean, we can’t just leave them here like this.”
“I don’t know what else we can do,” he told her sadly. “This isn’t something we can handle by ourselves.”
“Who