“Naturally.”
With one last shake of my hand, she continued on to Chris. I wondered what Cherry thought of that interaction, if she’d even seen it.
She was our one floater, the unfixed point of our arrangement. With her ability to see people’s emotions, she needed to move about as she pleased, taking in any abnormalities or clues the rest of us couldn’t see. It was an essential part of the plan, but I couldn’t deny that I missed her. Even just having her beside me felt like it would make some of the deep dourness ebb.
Which was a hell of a thing to think about a woman I hadn’t even known for two weeks.
Still, we all had to do our best to give her as much time as possible to roam and investigate, so I kept shaking hands, kept hearing endless platitudes, and tried not to look like I was plotting anything. By the time the procession of well-wishers had dissipated, we were all exhausted, and the funeral was just about to begin.
“Positions?” Jackson whispered, again too loud, but at least it sounded as if he was asking if we were starting the ceremony.
“Not yet,” I answered. “Quick refresh in the standby room.”
“Right, right. I forgot.”
Fair enough. It was a small step in the plan, so I couldn’t blame him. But with our metabolism, it was best to force a deep drink, a quick snack, and a few moments to properly transition into possibly the worst part of our entire day.
Giving speeches.
For a family that all took public speaking at various times in our life, none of us liked it, a solid zero out of five. Well, four now, I supposed. Bad luck on that part, but at least we weren’t completely out of our depths. We just weren’t going to enjoy that depth.
I looked for Cherry on our way to the standby room but didn’t spot her pale pink hair anywhere. I did, however, spot the extra security we had hired. At least that choice wasn’t suspicious. It was perfectly normal for one of the three head shifter families on the East Coast to have a lot of protective personnel for such an event. I was just grateful any of them wanted to work for us after what had happened to my father’s personal security detail.
We did what we had to do in the standby room, regrouped, then headed out to start the ceremony.
An elder spoke first. The retired alpha from the McElroy pack was pushing hundred-and-seventy. We shifters were long-lived, but that was considered quite old for us. He said some kind and encouraging, albeit hard to understand words, then the priest took over.
We weren’t exactly religious, especially not in the ways of our ancestors and the two-faced or wolf deities they worshipped, but we weren’tnotreligious either, so I found some comfort in his eulogy.
And then it was our turn.
Chris went first, as he was now the eldest of our line, and the one most were expecting to take over as alpha of the pack—although I was sure challengers would come forward in the next year or so. I just hoped they waited until the investigation was over. Granted, most of them didn’t even know there was an investigation going on.
“Thank you all for coming today. I wish that our meeting was for more auspicious reasons, but I am grateful for your presence, nonetheless.
“My father, Caspian VanMarche, has led this pack through forty-three years of peace and prosperity. I, for one, will always speak of that legacy with pride and plenty of reverence…”
Chris’s speech was much kinder than I expected. Not that I thought he would go out of his way to be cruel or rude, but I didn’t expect the warm anecdotes or him to appear so vulnerable. Had Penelope helped him write it? Cherry? Or did I know Chris as little as I had known Luther?
A disquieting thought, but I didn’t have long to linger on it before it was my turn to speak.
The walk up to the podium seemed endless, with hundreds of eyes on me, each one boring their own little holes in my person. It was a trypophobic nightmare, and I would rather have been anywhere else.
But I couldn’t be. And not just because of some abstract plan. But because it was my last goodbye to my father and brother, and even the threat of someone trying to wipe out our line wasn’t worth losing that moment.
“Thank you all for joining my family in our mourning today,” I said, looking out at all the faces. One part of my mind marveled at the community on display, the other wondered if anyone here had torn my family apart. It didn’t make for a pleasant combination. “Today, you’ll no doubt hear many people talk of the amazing accomplishments and accolades of my father, aswell as the growing list for my brother, Luther, but there is something else I wanted to discuss.”
I paused, and I had a fleeting temptation to just…not.Not be vulnerable. Not open up in front of hundreds of strangers. Not reveal the sensitive and tender parts of me that were not ideal for a son in the chain of succession.
But if there was one thing that Cherry taught me, it was that emotions could be a huge unifier between people, a connection that bound everyone together intrinsically.
So, I continued.
“But what I wanted to talk about are the little moments in between, the glue that fills in all the gaps between the big events that makes up actuallife.” A slight rustling of surprise came from the pews, but I ignored it as I told them the same stories I’d told Cherry, just a little more polished. Then I spoke about my father’s drawer of treasures, and how after Luther had his first shift, he went through a period of accidentally breaking things if he squeezed too hard.
It didn’t get outright laughter, but that was okay. I wasn’t looking for that. What I did get was a chuckle here or there, a positive shift in pheromones, and most importantly, slight smiles on my siblings’ faces.
I figured if I had felt so disconnected, then so did they, and I wanted them to know there was hope. I wanted them to know we could go forward as a real family who really saw and understood each other rather than the distracted and scattered cluster we’d become.