A storm growled eagerly on the horizon as she passed through the iron gates. The wind could have been the voices of the dead, and she pulled her coat tighter around her. Headstones wove in drunken lines, leading inexorably towards the one person she’d sworn she’d never see again. The storm reached the bounds of its patience and broke, fat drops pelting down like bullets. The vibrant red of her mother’s dress ahead seemed even more garishly out of place.
The storm changed the tone of the wind: now, instead of haunting, it sounded angry—or perhaps merely irritated, she amended, listening as it rattled the trees impatiently. She dragged her fingers along the cracked ridge of a headstone, noticing the reddish flecks of hematite embedded in the gunmetal grey. Red had always been her mother’s favourite colour; she hadn’t worn it in twenty years. The red-lipped smile on her mother’s face was equally rare.
“Hello, dear,” her mother called over the storm. “Don’t worry. The police don’t suspect a thing.”