Liberté Foncée

For it's in giving that we receive

And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned

And it's in dying that we born

To eternal life

-- Sarah McLachlan, Prayer of St. Francis

EPILOGUE: WORLD KEEPS A-SPINNING

The first time around, he hadn't cried. He'd stood at the foot of the empty grave and cursed the world, felt the loss, but he hadn't cried. The girls had, both of them, and he'd even allowed himself a tender gesture in Alena's direction, an arm around her shoulder, a sleeve to wipe her eyes.

Shane didn't remember the last time he'd cried, but he knew it had been an age and a half since then. Maybe the first time he hadn't cried because somewhere deep down, he hadn't believed it and he'd known the funeral's guest of honor was still alive.

Now, with the evidence at his feet and the murder weapon in his hand, he felt the long-forgotten prickling behind his eyes just before the tears started to slip.

He walked home slowly and for all he knew he'd taken the wrong way and circled the earth first. It took ten minutes to unlock his own front door and once he was in he couldn't stay there.

The mental ward at St. Mungo's was deserted this late at night, except for a pale blonde wisp of a witch who looked like she'd been picked off an about-to-be-killed-by-vampires line up, and who tried futilely to stop him and tell him visiting hours were over.

While she dashed off to find a security wizard, he whispered to Rayne's sleeping form that he finally believed her, that he knew she'd been telling the truth. His voice cracked as in a hurried confession he told her what had happened, and he broke off as a large man twice his size with a mean expression and a wand out took him by the arm and not-so-gently showed him the way out.

He didn't see the movement in the bed as he walked away from it, didn't see the head turn and eyes stare after his back and then at the door as it swung shut with a clatter.

*

In the following months, not much changed. That's the thing about death; time doesn't stop. The world keeps spinning, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's still work to be done, but there's still the occasional free time, left wide open for grief.

Death is mundane and in most cases, there's nothing very monumental about it. In the end, everything's still the same.

*

The good don't always defeat the bad, and the bad don't always defeat the good. This imbalance is due to one significant detail that so many people overlook: good and evil don't exist. They're opposite, unreachable ends of one spectrum. Nothing in life is black and white, perhaps with the exception of a chessboard. There is too much gray to define a solid barrier. You could say that there's a thin line between good and evil, but really, there isn't a line at all.

The "good" still kill, and the "evil" still save lives. Seeing things from different perspectives define good and evil. Religious skeptics have said that perhaps God is the one fooling everyone, and the devil is actually a pretty nice guy. It's been said that heaven is boring and all the stories we're told of eternal happiness are just trying to keep us from the happy, happy orgies in Hellsville. Maybe a masochist could only feel at home in purgatory, so would it be a punishment, really?

But the point here is much more mundane than the questions of faith and belief. The point is that there is some good or some evil in every person. When do you cross the bridge from good to evil? It's much like the question of when does coffee with milk become milk with coffee, or which came first, the chicken or the egg? Only, well, not.

When and why does a person become important enough that their death will literally stop time?

*

On the morning after, Betty Taggart went shopping to buy new knitting needles and to replenish her supply of blindingly pink yarn. At the shop, she met Cynthia Wilkes, and they discussed the upcoming church charity banquet.

Next door, Violet Nicholson picked at a plate of sushi with her chopsticks, deep in thought, every so often taking a large gulp of water to keep down a disappointed sob trying to force its way out. The past few months had all been a waste, she knew. And she was fairly certain most of her family and acquaintances were now dead. The chef surveyed her through narrowed eyes from the kitchen door, positive this was an insult to his cooking.

In a land far, far away, Lord Voldemort's followers were regrouping.

Cal and Conlon were careful to keep out of Adrienne's way. While showing no signs of grief, she was all business, actively taking part in the disposal of bodies in the vicinity.

"It's okay to cry," Cal had timidly told her, and almost immediately regretted it.

"Why cry?" Adrienne had asked coolly. She gave Cal precisely two seconds to come up with a response. When none came, she turned on her heel and walked off, back to work.

*

"So you're all right, then?" was the first thing Alena said when Shane picked up the phone a few days later.

"Don't sound so disappointed," he said groggily. "And if you've called to yell at me some more, you can save yourself the trouble. I'm not in the mood to hear it."

There was a pause. "I was actually concerned," she said finally.

"Don't I feel special," Shane said. He pulled a can of ground coffee from a cabinet and scraped the little plastic spoon against the bottom, trying to get enough to make a sufficiently strong cup.

"Has the thought occurred to you that you could at least try to be civil?" Alena asked, sounding annoyed.

Shane located the paper coffee filters and made to dump the spoonful of grounds inside. His hands, which had been shaky for a while now, seemed to have different ideas. The spoon fell out of his hand, spilling the last of it on the ground.

"Fuck," he snapped.

Alena didn't appreciate this sentiment. "Apparently not."

"Not you," he said bitterly.

"I see. I'll just ring you later, won't I?"

"You do that. I'll be more open to verbal abuse when I've got some caffeine in my system."

Another pause. "Are you all right?"

"Absolutely. Everything's just spiffy."

The phone clicked off. Shane dropped it on the counter and went to look for a dust pan to clear the mess on the floor.

-- fin.