LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER FIFTY: Songs and Shadows

An hour after noon, the humans are out of Belle Lake. Well, except for me and Diane. Jamie and Father Sherman have already lead the others out. I think they're hoping to find more people.

They won't.

Diane's resting. She wants to heal more monsters after she sleeps some.

I hang out with Grim, sticking to the parts of Belle Lake where the shadows are real thick. Then us and the other monsters gather by the shore. All the Nøkken are there. Eurus is there, too. Even the Huntsman and Deirdre. I only see one Once-Was and one other anemoi. I'm guessing the rest of the Once-Was and anemoi are probably dead.

South's body is laying on a bed of pine branches near the lake's edge. That's when I see what all that glass did to him, glass that had been headed for Grim. Grim can't look. I stand closer to him. Nobody was really there for me when Bill died.

But I'm here for Grim.

I still feel a little lost, though. I mean, I get that this is South's funeral, but it's not like how we bury people. You know, putting on suits, being quiet, that kind of stuff. Monster funerals are different. Some of the monsters tell stories about the dead Nøkken, and then others sing about South, about the things he had done when he was alive.

"Singing to the waves," someone calls it. Nøkken tell stories, too, but I don't understand the snorts, whinnies, and pawing at the ground. I think I get the gist, though.

It's more about how brave he was, wars, and stuff like that.

Eurus tells a story, too. Her whinnies are much softer than the others. Maybe she's telling about how she first met South or what a good leader he was. Either way, I'm pretty sure this isn't about a battle. Maybe it's about something altogether different because Grim turns real red.

Grim ... When it's his turn to tell some stories, he doesn't tell the story he told me before the war ended, the sad one about the waves and stars. Instead, his are mainly about exploring different places with South and how they met. Grim had been chasing a falling star and it led him to a river. And South.

Shaking real hard, he then talks about how South saved his life.

I don't want to, but Grim wants me to tell the story about how I met South. So I do. In a way, I think Grim doesn't want this to end with him talking about South dying.

But the funeral doesn't end with my story either.

Deirdre's the last one to say anything. She sings in the weird English that the Huntsman speaks and a few other monster languages (but not Nøkken). Even though I don't always understand the words, I know that she's singing of stars, oceans, and skies. Of hills and rivers. Of places I've never seen. Of times long since gone and of the dead.

That's when I hear the soft thrum of a fiddle string. I can't see him (he's probably still laid up with the rest of the wounded), but I know that the Mourner's playing for South right now.

When everything gets all quiet, the Nøkken step forward and push wreaths of flowers into the waves. They float for a few minutes and then slowly sink down until we can't see them anymore.

When the last one's gone, the three ladies accept South and take him into the water. The body doesn't sink like the flowers. Instead it breaks apart and merges with the waves.

Grim leans on me, and I throw an arm around his shoulders.

Good-bye, South.

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