Photo by Deepak Gupta on Unsplash
The sea spray cut through even the oiled woolen blanket the sailors provided. Melinda resettled the heavy cloth about her shoulders while she huddled against the late autumn cold. “I can’t believe he is making us travel all the way to Julenheim.”
“Fifteen,” said her cousin, Mallik, from where he shivered, using the side of the boat as back support.
“What?”
“That is the fifteenth time you said you did not believe Uncle Charles is making us go to Julenheim, like you ever saw him do anything for anyone’s convenience but his own.”
“Shush.” Melinda glanced at the casket lashed to the deck. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
Mallik grunted, swiping the water dripping off his beard with his wooly, a thick poncho belted around his waist. He shifted upwards a little to look over the bow.
“See anything?”
“Just fog and rain and waves. The sailors said we will arrive before night.”
“Four days at sea. Wait overnight at the Chainhouse, overpaying for the stay. Then we have to find someone to take us across the inlet to Julenheim proper, find the family house and install him in it, and get back—”
“It’s on Brickyard, about two blocks over from Main throughfare. I have the map.”
“You told me already the lawyers gave you the map.”
“And you keep saying we need to find the house like it will be a big production.” Mallik snapped. “It will be a quick in and out, and everything is being paid for by the estate, so what do we care if we overpay for an inn on either the Chainhouse or Chainport islands? It’s not like his children need any more money than they already have. I say we sleep well, and eat better, before we get back on the boat for another four days at sea to get home. Milk it like the poor relations we are. I kept the house repaired and you sat by the old man’s bedside for over two years until he had the decency to die.”
“He gave us a roof over our heads for those two years.” Melinda looked toward the casket and addressed the spirit within, “For which we really appreciate the help.”
“Yeah, after you sold off the sisters you couldn’t marry off to the temples, it was really nice to buy back their offspring with a generous donation because you needed someone to take care of you when you were dying since your own kids and your ‘real’ relatives, our cousins from prestigious arrangements of your prettiest sister and your younger brother, refused to deal with your venomous ass anymore. You were a true gem Uncle Chuck.”
“Shush. You want him to tell everyone in the family house we didn’t treat him well on the trip out?”
“We treated him better than anyone else for two years.” Mallik wiped his face again. “If that isn’t enough, nothing will be. By the Chains, we even volunteered for this. The lawyers did say the testament allowed for hiring of professional mourners to do the transportation.”
“No one but our family should be entering the Esterall Manor.” Melinda firmly resettled the blanket, tucking her curls under the corner covering her head. “I’ve heard what the mourners do. They just take whatever bedroom closest to the door and toss in the new casket without moving the older resident. Sometimes even dumping the body into,” she whispered the next two words, “a warehouse.” Her hand moved in a complicated pattern they both learned at the temple to ward off angry ancestors. “I could never. The worst are rumored to keep the afterlife clothes and baggage for themselves and consign the noble dead to the Reaper Fires like unclanned commoners. No, Baron Charles Degree, clanhead of the Esterall, deserved a proper escort to a necropolis. If not by his children, at least by family.”
“I’m right here with you Linda.” They had different mothers, but they were born twin close in age and nature. When the Baron had come knocking on the Temple of Comfort door for a trusted servant, the priestesses had recommended them as a pair instead of one of the others his sisters had produced before their deaths and the skinflint had surprisingly agreed. “Though I will be laughing on my death bed as the clan will have to have us taken to Julenheim now that we are full clan members too.”
“The family minimal stipend isn’t enough to live on, but it will be nice to not starve immediately when we get back.”
“You could—”
“Never going back to the temple.” The words were sharper then the cold wind.
“Yeah.” Mallik nodded slowly. “Me either, though I am too old for them to even consider except as a handyman.”
“And they have enough of those already.”
He nodded. After a pause, he lifted his head above the bow again. “I think I see some lanterns burning.”
Melinda shifted to her knees to see above the wooden edge of the ship. They crackled. Thirty-three years wasn’t kind to either the temple comfort children nor the bedside keepers, but her eyes and ears worked better than Mallik’s after his years of offering comfort and home care. The mists held sparks to either side of a darken port, she could make out stone houses walking up from the shoreline, cut into a cliff face. “Looks like we will be arriving in an hour.”
It ended up being closer to two hours as the fog had hidden a half dozen other pilgrims bringing noble family members to their final homes. The majority likely, like the six coffins below decks, will be temporary residents, having paid to be put up at the taverns and rest houses along the shoreline for a time, graining them forever entry into Julenheim proper.
Better to be a beggar in one of the Julen cities than ash in the wind between them.
But a few will be escorting family to one of the upper echelons carved into the cliffs. Meanwhile, tonight, they will be rubbing elbows at one of the Chainhouse island rest homes. It was bad luck to move into a new home after dark.
Their captain helped them check into Fate Foremost, though the cousins moved the casket from the boat to their room. Across the sheltered water of the cove, the necropolis rose sharp and colorful from those families who regularly came to repaint and repair their buildings. Mallik had attempted to get their uncle to spiff up the place in preparation of his death but was refused by the incoming clanhead who held the purse strings once Charles could no longer hold coins in his hands.
They were to note any repairs needed and let Evan know so he could arrange for them when the clan had to visit during the Julen Year of the Delen-to-Julen cycle in four years. Mallik and Melinda had specific order to only escort the old clanhead to the manor with his wardrobe and baggage and nothing else. He offered to pay them two weeks of coin if they didn’t unpack for the dead man. Evan and his father hadn’t spoken directly in two full DJ cycles, and twenty-four years gave him plenty of time to figure out dozens of different ways to spite his father’s spirit.
Mallik joined Melinda on the porch, breaking a cheese bun and then passing her half while their host prepared the dinner meal. They both stood though plenty of seats were provided on the porch. “We are getting close.”
“How much did you order?” Melinda took a bite with the left side of her mouth. Her right side was missing two teeth.
“The lawyers paid Captain Rilley up front for everything. We aren’t gouging anything.” He gave her a sideways look, with a grin, “They, on the other hand, are paid a percentage of the trip, so they got us the best accommodations in town. Cove crawlers, saltwater Whites, tangled greens. Everything on the list of mourner food will be on the table either tonight or tomorrow night. Breakfast will be a simple flat bread with aged cheese.”
“You are enjoying this entirely too much.”
“Yeah, well, with you in the sickroom, you didn’t have to deal with the vultures visiting and splitting the furniture and art, nor their comments about us and the rest of the de-clanned cousins.” He tossed the last of the bread into his mouth and spoke around it. “They were wanting to know, since I had the inside scoop, which of the rest of us would be good to buy back for house servants.”
Rubbing the skin between her eyebrows did not release the tension in Melinda’s forehead. “Did they say anything about us?”
“Yeah, we were too ugly and old. Too beat up, not worth the hassle of training us to be proper servants.”
“You recommended Lynnary, Tschel, Bluem, and Ringer I hope.”
“While I would rather not help out the others, I ain’t leaving clan behind if I can save them. Even recommended little Grunt, for all the good that will do once they see his face.”
“Misha and Avery, of course are nos.”
“They are too damaged for anything.” He turned around and faced her, leaning against the porch’s barrier. “Want to tell me what happened to Chizel? You just asked for coin to burn her proper instead of adding them to the unclaimed bone pile.”
Melinda jerked her brown eyes from his green-edged ones, to stare off at the city of the dead.
“Ah, shit.”
“Leave this one in the hands of the bedside keepers.” Melinda’s voice grew softer. “Trust me on this one.”
“She was thirteen, would have been fourteen this year.”
“I brought a bag of her ash with me.”
“Now who is breaking the rules?”
“She was family.” Melinda nodded toward Julenheim. “They aren’t going to notice if the manor has more dust than expected.”
“Don’t tell me you have the rest of them as well.”
“I won’t then.”
Mallik grabbed her in a hug, engulfing her in his poncho. “Even my mom?” his voice stopped by Linda’s shoulder.
“Especially all three sisters. They deserve to have a least part of the family wealth they contributed to, even if it just in the afterlife.”
(Words 1720, first published 4/13/2026 – I think this story could be fleshed out into something real.)
