Accident
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine. I’m just borrowing them for a little while and will return them when I am finished.
Author’s Notes- This is my entry for Day 19 of my 31 Day Challenge: funeral. This is my first time writing It Lives in the Woods and this didn’t quite go the way I expected it to, but that often happens.
Rating- PG (child death is discussed)
Summary- Phoebe heard the word accident so often, that she was able to convince herself that it was the truth.
Words- 555
Phoebe had never been to a funeral before.
Her parents had gone to one or two, for older relatives or members of the community, but had always left her behind saying that she was too young. Given that she was only eight, maybe they were right.
Her mother still thought she was too young, she’d heard her parents arguing about it the night before.
“She’s just a child, Jack.”
“And this is her best friend, she deserves a chance to say goodbye,” her father had argued. “If she doesn’t go today, she’ll always regret it.”
Her mother had given in and now Phoebe was standing in her room, her hair pulled into tight braids, wearing the black dress that had been bought just for today.
Jane was dead and it was all their fault. Except, she couldn’t voice that out loud. Couldn’t explain why they were to blame and why she was the most guilty of all of them. She’d tried, they’d all tried, but the grown-ups wouldn’t listen.
Not about Mr. Red.
Their parents wouldn’t even let them finish explaining. They didn’t want to hear about the monster that lurked in the woods, instead, they insisted that it had been a tragic accident, caused because the children had wandered in the woods at night when they weren’t supposed to. But that was all it was, an accident.
Phoebe had heard that word over and over during the past week. She’d heard it whispered and screamed and repeated in calm, authoritative tones until she knew to repeat it because that was what the grown-ups wanted to hear, what they needed to hear.
She sat between her parents at the funeral. She glanced around for her friends and saw that most of them were there. All except Lily, whose mother had been the most hysterical of any of them.
None of them were sitting together. They hadn’t really spoken since… Since the accident.
Phoebe didn’t cry, she wasn’t sure why, but the tears wouldn’t come. Which made her feel worse because Jane was her best friend. Just another reason to feel guilty.
First for letting Jane died and then for not being able to grieve properly.
The service passed in a blur and later Phoebe would remember none of it. Just that overwhelming feeling of guilt. That would come to be the feeling that she associated with memories of Jane, not sorrow or longing, just guilt. Even when she repeated the word ‘accident’ so many times that she began to believe it, the guilt remained.
Even as a week turned into a year and then into ten and she forged a different life for herself, the guilt remained, a part of her. She just knew not to speak it out loud, not Jane’s name, not her guilt, not any of it.
Until the day, she couldn’t avoid it anymore, until the day everything came rushing back and she knew it was time to stop running. To stop pretending it was an accident. It was time to face the truth. To stop feeling guilty, but to finally acknowledge the guilt and that while she hadn’t been the one to kill Jane, it hadn’t been an accident either. That it had been so much more than that.
Maybe then, Phoebe would finally find peace. Maybe Jane would too.
- End
