Speaker for the dead

Lorne asked me where I had been.

How to describe it? I’d been out of the city. Ferried away to a place where ruin walks more strongly than in Toxia, as hard as that is to imagine. I speak for the dead. When I am summoned, I must go. I cannot refuse the call, nor can my presence be refused once I am sent. They call me from their dreams.

But there were so many dead this time. So much loss. So much chaos. Over and over I researched, I talked to the survivors, I spoke trying to describe each life and give meaning to the way it was lived. I neither justify nor judge. I try to give meaning to the flaws, the misdeeds, and the intentions gone awry.

Some think me a priestess, though I am not. I mark the span. I tell their lives. I cannot help but reveal their secrets, the mysteries of each intricately woven together with the others by deception, guilt, and love. Thirty-two stones. Thirty-two tolls of the bell. I traced the Tree of Sephiroth around my neck, with the tips of my fingers, marking the Path for each one, Malcuth to Kaether Elyson.

The heat rippled off of the crumbling houses as the people left quietly and the cicadas buzzed in the trees, an electric hum permeating the air.

I speak for the dead.