Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

edge of her parents’ land, where no one had any reason to go—except, perhaps, her.

She had cleared a spot under an old, twisted apple tree. If she wanted to, she could let the violets come back and cover everything over. She hadn’t decided yet.

There were a lot of people on the hill. Those who had not come would be by sooner or later to say how very sorry they were. The thought filled Rachel with dread.

She knelt down and put the urn full of soil into the hole she had prepared. She stayed there, on her knees, while the minister read the service. Then, unconcerned with tradition, she pushed dirt in on top of the urn and tamped it down with hands that had become red and chapped from neglect.

“I would like to recite a poem,” she said, calling back a few mourners who had thought the funeral over. “It is called ‘Dirge Without Music.’ Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote it.” And without another word she began.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom, I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyed than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Unsure, now, what might come next, those assembled on the hill stood and watched Rachel as she took one long, last look around. Then, without further hesitation or the smallest misstep, she started back toward the house, her chin held high, eyes dry.

Once inside, Rachel washed the dirt from her hands and found herself a vacant chair. From this chair she did not move. Not for food: someone brought her a plate of meats and cheeses and the inevitable deviled egg. Not for drink: there was cider from somewhere, but Rachel could not drink it. Not for comfort: as if she were a queen or, perhaps, a recumbent bride, the mourners came to her, one by one, and bent or bowed or even knelt to share with her their sorrow.

“Your parents were lovely people, Rachel,” said one of her neighbors, and Rachel was astounded that she could not remember his name.

“Thank you,” she said. “They were.” She was having trouble with her voice. It was coming out all wrong. And although she could move them, she suddenly had no feeling in her legs. These were the people she loved and cherished, but there was nothing Rachel wanted so much as to have her house empty again.

When it was, finally, she moved the chairs back where they had been and went to bed in the middle of the afternoon.

Late that night she took the crock containing her parents’ remains down the hill and along Maple Street to Raccoon Creek. She left her shoes balancing on the railing of the bridge—toes hanging out over the water as if inclined to jump—and stepped carefully down the embankment with slippery feet, the poor crock tucked into the harbor of her arm. The shallow creek was icy, and for a moment she became dizzy as she felt the water racing against her ankles. Shivering, she walked down the center of the stream to where it abruptly curved away and broadened, leaving a tiny island of slick pebbles. A stubborn old willow tree reached out from the bank to canopy the island, and a few dormant weeds gave it a degree of permanence.

One of Rachel’s earliest memories was of time spent on this island, watching the crayfish spar in the shadow of the willow’s branches, cupping the sunstruck water in her hands, and imagining that the twigs she launched on the ceaseless current would somehow find their way to the sea. Her parents, watching from the bank, their arms locked, had not discouraged this notion. As she poured their ashes carefully onto the black water, she imagined that they would follow a similar course.

When she got home not long before first light, she made herself some scalding coffee, wrapped herself up in blankets, and went out onto her front porch to think about how she would spend the months ahead. But, faced with this prospect, she could no longer ignore what she had discovered that morning before the funeral. Exhausted with the drama and the details of her parents’ death, Rachel had thought that today of all days she would be spared any further need to make arrangements or heed advice. But she was wrong.

“It won’t take but a few minutes,” said Mr. Murdock, the lawyer from Randall who had called her out of the blue at eight o’clock that morning and insisted that they meet right away. “I’ll come over to Belle Haven. I can be there in half an hour. It’s important, Miss Hearn, that we discuss the provisions your parents made for you in their will.”

She had agreed because it took too much energy to do anything else. Already long out of her bed, Rachel dressed quickly and then went downstairs to wait for Mr. Murdock, a man she’d never met, never even known her parents had hired. She knew that they had owned the house outright and had never allowed their debts to mount. She knew they had been thrifty and smart with what money they had. But she