PART 1
“We haven’t even buried her yet and you’re already dividing up her things,” I heard my mother say as I woke up inside my own coffin.
I didn’t open my eyes right away. First came the heavy, sweet smell of lilies, then my tongue went bone dry, my back went rigid, and a deep ringing started up in my ears. I tried to move my fingers, but they barely obeyed. A heavy silver cross lay on my chest — one I didn’t remember ever touching.
The wooden lid wasn’t fully closed. A thin sliver of warm light came through a small gap near my face.
It took several terrifying seconds to understand where I was.
It was my mother’s living room in Milwaukee. I recognized the slow ticking of the old mahogany clock, the cream lace curtains, the folding plastic chairs we always pulled out for holiday gatherings. Only there was no birthday or family dinner that morning. There were scented candles, reheated black coffee, older women praying under their breath, and a framed photo of me surrounded by fresh white flowers.
They were holding a wake for me.
The last thing I remembered was the night before. My younger sister, Chloe, had shown up with a mug of warm milk and cinnamon because, in her gentle voice, I looked exhausted. Later that night, I’d had a sharp argument with my husband, Christopher, about an unauthorized $42,000 wire transfer I’d found in our checking account. He swore up and down it was just a routine business payment. I told him to show me the bank receipt right then.
Then an unnatural, overwhelming drowsiness took over.
And now I was lying inside a velvet-lined casket.
Then I heard Christopher speaking just outside the box.
“Gwen, please, don’t worry,” Christopher said softly. “Madelyn told me many times that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted Chloe to have this piece.”
Through the gap in the wood, I saw his pale hand reaching down. He was holding the fine gold chain with the heart pendant my grandmother had given me when I turned fifteen.
My mother answered, her voice breaking into sobs: “She never took that necklace off, not even to sleep.”
“That’s exactly why I’m giving it to her,” Christopher insisted. “I don’t want something this meaningful sitting in a dark drawer somewhere.”
Through the crack, I watched him walk over to Chloe. My sister lowered her head — not from grief or shame, but nervous anxiety. Christopher carefully fastened the chain around her neck.
Such burning rage surged through me that for a moment I forgot my whole body was paralyzed.
“What if someone asks about the necklace?” Chloe whispered.
“No one’s going to ask anything,” Christopher murmured back. “The death certificate is already handled. The insurance money will come through once the paperwork clears, and selling the house will go a lot smoother if we move fast.”
My breathing turned shallow and quick.
“Yesterday I was so scared he’d notice something off in the mug,” Chloe whispered, clutching the pendant.
Christopher gave a cold, dry laugh. “I told you exactly how much of the pills to mix in, and she was out cold in under ten minutes.”
I wanted to scream with everything my lungs had, but no sound would come. All I managed was a single twitching finger beneath the stiff fabric of the blue dress they’d put me in. I heard my aunts murmuring prayers for my eternal rest while a neighbor asked what time the hearse would leave for the cemetery. Every word landed like another shovelful of cold dirt on my chest. If no one realized I was still alive, they’d have me six feet under before sundown.
Right then, I heard small, uneven footsteps approaching the box. It was Mason, Chloe’s seven-year-old son, holding a half-eaten chocolate cookie. He waddled closer and peered straight through the narrow gap of the open casket.
Our eyes met in the dark.
I squeezed my eyelids and blinked hard.
The boy froze, mouth wide open. Then he turned to his mother and said, with unsettling calm: “Mommy… Aunt Madelyn is looking right at me.”
Chloe gasped and dropped the glass of ice water in her hand.
