It was raining, which was probably the universe's way of trying to be symbolic as I walked through the stone statues and markers. My father’s jacket pulled tight around me, I read the note in my hand as I walked and occasionally glanced around me.

  I had borrowed Knives’ car, the werewolf more attached to their motorcycle and admitting they didn’t need it today anyway. From there it was an hour drive away, getting lost multiple times and confused about back roads even more. The Lady had told me this was a bad idea when I asked her, and when I said it was for business she had not believed me but still gave the information over the phone.

  It was a nice graveyard, the old sort where there were two dozen stones in an area bearing the same last name. That made it easier on me as I found the section that held the Palmers, and I found Rose’s grave.

  It was a good grave, the sort of thing she deserved after what I’d done to her. Large, with a placard that listed her name, birthday, the month and year of her death, and the epitaph beloved daughter and sister. Eighteen, too young to die and not far off from how old I’d been. Above that was an angel, at least five feet tall and on a pedestal that made it stand above me as it stared down in judgment.

  The stone eyes bore down into me like a knife, and I looked back into them with a mix of emotions, trying to decide how to feel. Remorse? Pain? Judgment? I felt…none of it, and all I felt was empty as I watched the angel. I didn’t know why I’d come here, like showing up would bring about some sudden wave of realization, and I sighed as I looked down to the ground.

  My fingers fumbled with the necklace in my pocket, and I considered what the fuck I was supposed to do now. I could leave the necklace here, someone would find it eventually and there was a decent chance it’d be a family member. At the very least a grave keeper or whatever they were called might think a family member had left it and not touch it for a while.

  The thought was still turning over in my head, probably for longer than I realized, when I heard footsteps coming up behind me. A smell on the air, barely coming through the rain, was a strange smelling perfume and cigarette smoke, and underneath that a personal scent that I didn’t know.

  I didn’t move from my spot, even as the figure stood beside me and we stayed there in long silence. The rain pattered around us, until only as I was feeling ready to leave she asked, “Did you know her?”

  I turned to look beside me, seeing an older looking half-one woman, clutching a large purse close as she stood under her umbrella. She looked like she’d been crying recently, and I resisted the urge to leave without a word as I told her, “I don’t think I can really say if I did.”

  “I know that feeling,” the woman admitted, sighing as she let out a croaking noise and something that might have been an attempt at a smile, “I…I like to think I did, I mean every parent does, but…I don’t know, we talked so little that last year.”

  I nodded, not sure what I was supposed to say even as I said whatever came to mind, “my dad used to say parents know their kids like they know their dogs. You see them really like one toy when they’re young and act one way, and you never stop thinking about them in that moment. So you just keep getting the dog toys shaped like that, and you keep saying how playful they are, and then one day you realize they’re not how you remember them.”

  “God, that’s how it was with Rose,” the woman said, the laugh she let out a little more genuine and the smile more defined, “she had this strawberry shaped plush she loved when she was a kid, there were three months there she would take it everywhere she went, probably the size of her torso back then. She’d just walk around, carrying it in front of her, showing it off to everyone. I started getting her strawberry stuff all the time, backpacks, notebooks, whatever. Then just one day in middle school she looked at me and said, ‘I don’t even like strawberries, why do you keep getting me this stuff’ and I had that feeling.”

  I smiled at the thought, and at the same time a bolt of sadness shot through my heart as I knew I’d done this to her. It was…strange, and I tried to keep myself together as I said, “I guess…I guess most parents try their best, or at least some do?”

  “I know I barely understood her sometimes,” the woman muttered, shaking her head in disbelief as I got the sense the conversation wasn’t for my benefit, “I can’t believe it’s almost been a year. It…it feels like a lifetime ago and like I just saw her yesterday.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” I agreed, nodding as I turned my back to the woman, not wanting my face to betray anything, “I…I just felt like I needed to come out here, you know?”

  “I know what you mean,” she agreed, giving a small sigh at the thought, “I…I haven’t seen her for a year. She said goodbye to me one night, and I just… never heard her voice again. She went to stay with a friend so they could leave early in the morning. I…I didn’t even get to talk to her on the phone, she tried calling me and I was so busy with work, by the time I remembered to call her she…I don’t know, they said there wasn’t much signal at the cabin.”

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  “Out of the way,” I admitted, settling into trying to explain it, hoping that would help me stay calm without giving myself away. “Those mountains they…”

  “I didn’t want to let her go,” the mom thankfully interrupted, letting out a sobbing noise, “I was afraid she’d get lost, that she’d get in trouble, that something would happen. She was eighteen though, about to go off to college in the spring, swore it was going to be a short trip. I…I’m sorry, I’m dumping this all on you.”

  She was crying, silently and barely visible in the rain, but she was crying, and I nodded as I watched her. As scared as I was I’d give something away to her with my face, I still felt like I needed to do something. I needed to say something, literally fucking anything I could, just to try and help.

  “My dad was always afraid of me getting in trouble,” I said, half looking at the angel as I spoke, like it’d protect me from anything, “he wouldn’t even let me out of the house after dark. If he went out for even a few minutes he’d get mad if I didn’t lock the door behind him, sometimes he’d come back just to check. The first time I wanted to go to a new friend's house he spent a week running a background check on his family, just to make sure it was safe.”

  “Her father would have done the same if I’d let him,” the woman muttered, the words delivered as something between laughter and sobbing, “as soon as she turned twelve he taught her to use a gun, when she went to high school he gave her a gift card to her favorite clothes store and a stun gun.”

  “My dad didn’t even do that,” I said, chuckling at the memory, “my dad took me to the range for the first time on my eighth birthday, and the only thing he gave me for my first day of high school was this jacket. It had about a third of the patches it does now. He’d kill me if he saw it like this.”

  “You don’t see him often?” the woman asked, confusing me slightly about why she even cared.

  It was a tricky question to answer, and I knew I couldn’t tell her the exact truth. Werewolves and adopted by cults were things that made most people panic, and so instead I said, “I ran away when I was fifteen. Ended up moving in with a friend, and settled into things. My dad…he doesn’t like people like me, you could say, it seemed like the easier thing to do at the time.”

  The woman nodded, letting out a light, “oh,” before she said, “it’s a shame when parents let that sort of thing hurt their children. I…I hope I never made her feel scared, like she needed to worry I’d hate her for anything, you know?”

  I nodded, letting out a long sigh as I told her, “I know. I have a son, he’ll be three in…two months? I really hope I did the right thing for him sometimes.”

  I had no idea why I told her that or why it fucking mattered, and the woman looked even more surprised as she kept talking, “Rose never told me any of her friends were moms. Then again, she might have been scared that I’d think you’d be a bad influence on her. You’re so young.”

  “I was younger,” I said, letting out a small chuckle at my own joke like it would make the pain go away. “He lives with his aunt. She…she adopted him for me. I wasn’t ready to be a mom, and I thought I was until those first few months.”

  “Well, maybe that’s you doing what you think is best,” the woman said comfortingly, offering a sad smile, “isn’t that what you said? Parents trying to do what’s best for their kids.”

  “Yeah, I like to think it’s what I did,” I admitted, feeling empty inside. The words weren’t a fucking comfort, why did she think they were?

  “Rose’s sister, Beatrice, is going to be here soon,” the woman finally said, wiping her eyes as she looked around us toward the parking lot, “she should have the flowers. A grave needs flowers, it’s how you know it’s not forgotten.”

  “She’s never going to be,” I told the mom, my fingers running along the necklace in my pocket.

  “We’re…the family and some of Rose’s old friends, we’re having dinner together tonight. Just, share some stories about her, remember her, you know? Going to be a little sparse, the families of some of her friends are doing the same, or don’t want to bring it back up, and…would you like to come? Might be nice to meet some of the friends she didn’t really talk about, you know?”

  My heart dropped into my stomach at the words, and I felt like vomiting as I stared her down. I’d killed her daughter, I’d fucking eaten chunks of her, and she was asking me to come to dinner with her. She was asking me to act like a friend, be a friend, tell stories and act nice and pretend I had any idea who this woman was

  “I can’t do that,” I said, shaking my head as tears finally streamed down my face. For what felt like an eternity I considered telling her the truth, and instead I announced, “I need to get back somewhere. It’s a long drive ahead of me.”

  The woman nodded, and I watched her shift for a moment before she said, “it was nice meeting you.”

  I nodded, and without a word I turned and left, walking back through the rows as I went towards the parking lot. I was halfway back along the trail, far from the quiet sobs of the mother I’d hurt, when I walked past a woman. She looked younger, maybe sixteen, and like she’d just gotten off school as she carried a large bouquet of flowers and a backpack across one shoulder. The woman passed me on the trail, and I paused for a long moment before asking, “Beatrice?”

  Beatrice stopped a moment, and she turned back to face me as she slowly said, “yeah, what’s it to you?”

  “Nothing, I just knew you sister,” I said, turning back toward her and pulling the necklace from my pocket. I reached out, placing it in her hand and I told her, “she wanted you to have this.”

  Beatrice looked down at the object in her hands, and her eyes widened in surprise as she saw what I’d given her. She tried asking me who I was, how I’d gotten it, and a half hundred other questions as I turned and left. The woman ran after me, tugging against my arm as she excitedly wanted to know why I had it, and I ignored her until she gave up.

  Eventually she ran back toward her sister’s grave, probably wishing to share the gift with her mom. I wondered briefly how she would react to the news, if they’d put together who I must have been, and then tried to push the thought away as I started the car and left.

  I’d caused her family enough harm.

  I’d hurt enough people.

  I was never going to be able to apologize for that.

  Might as well see if I could pretend it was alright.