magnolia ~ h. potter

forty-five

CHAPTER 45

[ A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING ]

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IF THIS IS WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO DIE, then Emily wanted to have a serious word with all philosophers that had ever written it was a process devoid of pain and feeling.

Being dead really hurt, like seriously.

Every neuron in her body felt like it was on fire, and her head felt like somebody had split open her skull with an icepick. She felt her fingers move slightly, and stirred slightly, feeling a hard surface beneath her. She felt herself frown.

Dead people didn't stir.

She forced open her eyes, immediately closing them when she was met with the brightness of a blue, clear sky in daylight. She tried again, slowly, giving herself time to adjust to the light.

Slowly, she sat up, ignoring the throbbing in her brain. It took her a moment to register her surroundings; she was sitting in what appeared to be a meadow of tall grass, under a tree in full bloom. Squinting, she recognized the trademark white flower of the magnolia.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" came a voice from her right, and Emily clambered to her feet hastily, turning towards the source of the voice, reaching for the wand in her back pocket. It wasn't there.

A woman stood a couple of paces away from Emily, her eyes trailed on the tree above them. "I did always like magnolias in bloom,"

"Who are you?" Emily asked, scrounging the floor for a stick to defend herself with, should she need one.

"I'm not going to attack you, Emily," said the woman, appearing to read her mind, and Emily frowned at the use of her name.

"Who are you?" she repeated, and the woman gave a sigh.

"My name is Constance Greengrass," she said, finally looking at Emily.

She had the strangest eyes Emily had ever seen in her life. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope, going from brown to blue to green in an instant. Her hair was long and dark, the exact same color as Emily's, pulled into a single, long braid that reached her lower back. She was wearing a long white dress and her feet were bare.

Constance. She knew that name.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" Emily said, and the woman raised a mildly amused eyebrow.

"Are you?" she retorted amusedly, and Emily felt a tinge of frustration. 

Even if she was dead, she had no time or patience for half-rhetorical conversations with dead relatives.

"If you're the Constance I was named after, then I must be dead. Only the dead can speak to the dead," Emily stated brusquely.

"That's a perfectly feasible assumption," the woman said simply, ignoring her tone, "Except that you are not dead,"

"Please don't say I'm in a higher transcendental plane of understanding or something because I don't believe in that crap. Dead is dead." Emily said resolutely, and now Constance smiled.

"I quite agree with you," she replied simply.

"If I'm not dead, then what?" Emily asked, confused.

"Let's call it asleep," the woman replied, and Emily let out a sigh.

"That's why I'm in pain, isn't it?" she asked, and Constance shrugged, taking several steps towards her.