Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Rocks the House

For Emery Anne Vaughn

Sister Sledge, We Are Family

Jefferson Airplane, My Best Friend

Buddy Holly, (Youre So Square) Baby, I Dont Care

Fanny, Youre the One

The Ditty Bops, Walk or Ride

They Might Be Giants, Older

The Cure, A Strange Day

Creedence Clearwater Revival, I Put a Spell on You

Rasputina, You Dont Own Me

Erasure, Hideaway

Pentangle, The Time Has Come

La Santa Cecilia, La Negra

FOR ALL the death Id seen, Id been to very few funerals.

This one was fraught, and I couldnt sort out my feelings, or what I was supposed to be feeling. Grandma Norville had fallen and broken her hip three months ago, but the pneumonia she caught after had been the final culprit. I kept thinking I should have been there. I could have come to visit one more time if I hadnt been so busy, if Id just made the effort. But I thought shed hang on longer. I thought shed always be here. How selfish was it, to feel guilty at someones funeral, as if her passing were somehow my fault, or a personal inconvenience? I was sad, nostalgic, tired, shell-shocked.

Mostly, I was worried about my father. He seemed tall and stoic enough, his chin up, eyes dry. Mom held her arm wrapped around his and kept a tissue close to her eyes. He didnt seem to be looking at anything, though. Not the flower-drenched casket, not the dark-suited minister, not the sky or grassy lawn with its rows of modern, polished headstones. I couldnt tell what he was thinking. I couldnt ask.

The service was graveside, the springtime Arizona weather was reasonablesunny, but windy. I kept squinting against dust in the air. The crowd gathered was small, incongruously young. All of Grandmas friends, siblings, and her husband had gone before her. All that was left were her three kids, their families, and a couple of staff from her retirement home. It had been a quiet ceremony.

My husband Ben and I had driven all night to get here. We stood a little apart from the others. Not so much as to be noticeable, but enough to be comfortable for us. Werewolves didnt do so well in groups, even ones as small as this. Especially when we were off balance. We stood side by side, our hands entwined. Ben had never even met Grandma. He was here to look out for me. A rock to stand next to. Hed pulled out polish, combing the scruff out of his light brown hair and wearing his best courtroom lawyer suit with a muted navy tie. Id had a terrible time packing, convinced that all my clothes were inappropriate for the situation. Id settled on a black skirt and tailored cream blouse for the service, and pinned my blond hair up in a twist. I looked like a waitress.

The rest of the family had flown ahead of us. My sister Cheryls husband, Mark, had stayed home with their two kids. Standing next to Mom, hugging herself, Cheryl seemed small in her dress suit, which she probably hadnt worn since before she was pregnant with Nicky, eight years ago now. She was staring at the flowers with a wrinkled, worried frown.

The minister, a nondenominational chaplain from the retirement home, spoke in a calm, inoffensive voice. Hed started with a Bible verse, the one about walking in the valley of shadows and not fearing evil, and dispensed comforting words of wisdom that might have come from the lyrics of a sixties folk song.

What would the guy say if I told him that Id had proof that people existed in some form after death? Hed probably say, of course. He was a minister, after all. I had proof of life after death. But I couldnt say I believed in heaven or hell. I still didnt know what exactly happened to us after we died. What had happened to my grandmother.

When people at the funeral told me that my grandmother had gone to a better place, did I believe them? I believed that part of her lived on. But I couldnt say where she was. Was she here, watching us mourn for her? I resisted an urge to call out loud to her, just in case. Was the cemetery filled with the shadows of the dead, all of them watching?

Id met beings who claimed to be gods. Were they, or were they just powerful people who had existed for thousands of years and so built up a tangle of stories around them, and in those stories they became gods?

When the minister called on his own God, did he really know who he was praying to?

In matters of faith, I couldnt believe in much of anything anymore. I had my family who loved me, my friends I could count on, and that was about it. Everything elseI saw the signs, but I didnt know what they meant. All I could do was focus on the road in front of me.

The chaplain said his amens, the rest of us echoed him, he closed his book, and that was that. I decided Grandma would have been disappointed with the whole thing. Shed have wanted something big and grand in a cathedral, with organ music. But this wasnt for her, it was for the rest of us. Funny how we all seemed so anxious. I wasnt sure having a chance to say good-bye at a funeral was any better than not having a chance to say good-bye, when the people you loved were snatched away in front of you without ceremony.

We filed back to the cars parked along the curb, leaving the flowers and casket behind. The earth that would fill in the grave had been discreetly hidden away during the ceremony, and would be brought back after wed all left. I spotted the cemetery employees who would do the deed lurking behind a well-groomed hedge, waiting.

I squeezed Bens hand before letting go and trotted forward to catch up to my dad.

Dad? You okay?

He smiled a sad smile, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close to give me a kiss on the top of my head. Without a word, he let me go and kept walking on with my mother.

So what did that mean?

My aunt, Dads younger sister, was hosting a lunchcatered, I found out after discretely poking among my cousins, which was a relief. Friends had been bringing over mountains of food as well. I didnt want to find out anyone had been cooking for everybody, but no one had. A little less guilt there. I slipped my cousins some money to help with the cost. Wasnt much else I could do. Ben got directions to their house; Id never been there. I was close to my immediate family, but I didnt see the extended family that often. Weddings and funerals, and that was it. Another clich in a day filled with them.

Before we reached the car, I took a last look over the cemeterys green slope, toward the row of folding chairs and the mountain of flowers that marked Grandmas grave. Said a farewell, just in case she was hanging around, and just in case she could hear.

Ben had stopped a few yards away from me and gazed off to a stand of bordering trees. Two figures, a man and a woman, were standing there.

You see that? he said, nodding toward them.

Yeah. They just keeping an eye on us or do they want to make trouble?

You want to find out?

I kind of do, I said, and we started toward them.

Theyd put themselves upwind so wed be sure to catch their scents: musky, odd. Werewolves and foreignnot part of our pack. He was a big, burly Latino; she was young and motherly, her dark hair in a ponytail, a gray cardigan over her jeans and blouse. When we approached within speaking distance, they lowered their gazes. She started fidgeting, shuffling her feetpacing, almost.

You must be Andy and Michelle, I said.

She blushed and smiled; he nodded, only raising his gaze to us for brief moments. The werewolf pair had gone submissive, which was a little unnervingthey were the alphas of the Phoenix pack, strong and dominant. Id been able to send a message ahead to warn them we were coming, that we had no intentions of invading, and could we please have permission to stay in their territory for as long as we needed for the funeral? Theyd sent a welcoming message back. I wasnt sure wed even meet them while we were here, or if theyd keep their distance.