FATHER BERNIE WALKED UP to Ray at the podium to see if he was ready to begin the eulogy. He pried his eyes from the book and nodded at the priest.
“I am going to recite Simon’s favorite song, ‘A Bode to My Eternal Love.’ Don’t worry—I’m not going to sing it.” Ray began the service with a light-hearted joke. “Wherever Simon is now, I hope he is listening.”
Wren tried to smile at Ray. She knew the song he was referring to. Everyone did—it was the most cherished song within the fae community.
“‘Onto my back, I lay. Onto my stomach, I pray. Though no one hears my plea.’” The ballad was written by a man named Danny Vice. “‘My darling, my darling. I was blind in my youth. There is no wrath like a man who was blind to sin. Though time will come again—’”
Wren picked up the hymnal from the stool before her. She opened it, flipping to the page Ray was reciting. While the life of Danny Vice was taught in schools for his act of freeing enslaved humans, the human world was once blind to his influence within fae society…
Danny was a man who had lived in the South during the 1700s, and he had fallen in love with a woman who was plagued with many scars.
Not only did Danny’s parents participate in the sinful act of enslaving people, but they also enjoyed it. As a young child, Danny was ignorant of the atrocities of slavery that occurred in his father’s land. His mother always took him inside the house whenever his father was angry at someone. But as Danny grew, and when he could run from his mother’s grasp, he started to see horrible things.
Eventually, he became close to a few people who were there against their will, for he was not like his parents in the slightest—in particular, a girl named Janette, and he played with her in the fields. Listening to her stories from her village in West Africa, he fell in love with her, and he even learned Janette was not her true name.
Her name was Zuhrah.
Danny rebelled against his parents as he spoke with more people in the fields. It was common for children to wish their parents to be heroes, but his parents were not the heroes he thought them to be. He became reckless, and he would play marbles with the people who were stolen from their homes. And he would always make sure his father saw.
That proved to be a fatal mistake.
When Danny was seventeen, he returned home to find the man and woman who had behaved like Zuhrah’s parents lying dead in the field. Danny ran over to where the other workers stood, but his mother yanked him back. Feeling the fury rush in, he released a scream while he shoved his mother to the ground. He rushed for his father’s shotgun, and he aimed the gun at his father, who was laughing at the crowd who mourned the dead. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. After, he killed his mother in the same manner, and he set the house on fire.
Through the small crowd of men and women shouting at the burning house, Danny finally noticed Zuhrah. Every detail of her face haunted him until his dying day.
There was a third corpse lying in the field: Zuhrah.
After Danny parted ways with the free people from his father’s fields, he walked into the woods. From the horror, he blinded himself with twigs that he had broken from a tree. He hiked further into the woods, not knowing where he was going. He wanted to die—for a bear to maul him. He regretted not jumping into the fire, and he stumbled as he felt the trees.
And then he felt a person.
Stopping his staggering through the woods, a group of tall elves looked down at the man who had gouged out his own eyes. The elves were the tallest of the fae, and they were also the ones who had the best musicians among the courts, for air was their magical element by birth.
As Danny shouted at them to kill him, they almost fulfilled his wish. But an elder came out of her hut and ordered them to stop.
After being taken in, Danny found a new home with the small elf camp hidden in the Virginia woods. And eventually, he became a renowned bard and poet. Every song he wrote was dedicated to Zuhrah, and every tale was about his father’s evil lands.
Human history claimed Danny died in the fire, but that was not what had befallen Danny Vice.
“‘—and I will free you from him,’” Ray spoke slowly, eyes clouded. “‘You will not recognize me. For I lashed lashes upon my back. It is okay, my dear. I could not feel the pain. I feel the scars, so I know I have been struck. My heart is numb; my skin is cold. And I scream your name. As I lie on my deathbed, I cannot see. For the eyes I used to gaze upon your face, I plucked the moment you left. My dear, my sweet. Zuhrah, we shall meet under the tree where we used to sleep…’”
“‘Onto my back, I lay. Onto my stomach, I pray. Though—’” The two older women who had been gossiping at the beginning of the funeral were now standing, and they sang the song right after Ray finished reading it.
As more people stood to sing the song, Wren remained seated. Ray tried to urge her to join the others in harmony, but she acted like she could not see him. She then smiled at a young girl singing the song loudly.
After they all sang the song that a gravely heartbroken man had written, they sat back down. Ray reminisced about how Simon would always sing the song to interrupt Father Bernie. People smiled through their tears, remembering how much Simon had loved interrupting the priest’s lectures.
Ray paused, finally realizing why Simon was obsessed with the story of Danny and Zuhrah. Then, he almost broke down at the podium. But he was able to hold in his cries.
Like Danny’s parents, Simon’s parents were monsters. Also, like Danny, Simon was in love with someone his parents loathed. Thinking Wren was fae because of her odd abilities, Simon’s parents had never liked her, and they would always try to separate them whenever they played as children. Going against his parents, Simon had often sneaked out to hang out with Wren, Ray, and Esme.
Nothing could keep the four best friends apart.
Death could only try.
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