A Kiss Before the Apocalypse (31 page)

And the dog explained that Madeline hadn’t been put into the ground because he could still smell her there. It took a moment, but Remy realized that the items that Marlowe had brought out to him were all items that Madeline had given to him, that had once belonged to her.

Her scent was on these things—permeating the house—and as far as Marlowe was concerned, Madeline had not left them; just her physical presence was missing.

“Coming?” he asked the dog, continuing down the path that would soon turn, taking them around a slight bend to an area of the cemetery that would be shaded by large pines in the summer months, but now would be laden with snow.

Marlowe bounded up ahead of him. It pleased him that the dog was doing so well with Madeline’s loss. Now if only he could adjust as well.

He missed her more today than the day before, and the day before that. It didn’t seem to be getting any better. Everything he saw, everything he read or listened to or did, reminded him of her and how much she had filled up his life.

But now she was gone, the one horrible inevitability that he’d always known would come from the joy of being with her. And though he had tried to be ready, tried to steel himself against the predetermined, nothing could have prepared him for the bottomless feeling of emptiness that was with him his every conscious moment.

Marlowe’s sudden excited barking startled him from his funk, and he sped up down the snow-covered walkway, hoping that the rambunctious Labrador hadn’t gotten himself into trouble with a groundskeeper or an early morning visitor to one of the other graves.

What Remy saw, as he rounded the corner, peering beneath the snow-weighted branches of an old pine, was like nothing he could ever have been prepared for.

“Look, Remy! Look!”
Marlowe barked, sniffing the large patch of green grass that had replaced the snowfall around his wife’s resting place.

Remy slowly approached, taking it all in, piece by piece.

It didn’t stop with the grass. The trees in the general vicinity of the grave were filled with leaves, providing a gentle shadow across the face of the headstone.

A snaking vine had grown up over the marble surface; delicate purple flowers had bloomed in such a way as to encircle Madeline’s name carved upon the stone. And below the grave marker, the ground had erupted in an explosion of color. Every kind of flower imaginable had sprung up from the earth, as if what had been buried there was the seed for all things beautiful.

Remy smiled, thinking that there could very well be some truth to it.

The area around his wife’s grave was lush with life. Fragrant bushes, flowers, and plants of every conceivable variety had been given permission to ignore the inhospitable touch of winter and were allowed to bloom around her place of eternal slumber, in celebration of her life and in a show of gratitude for what he had done.

Although he could not sense him, Remy knew who was responsible. Israfil had been here.

Soaking in the signs of life, he turned back to the grave and slowly knelt down before the marble marker.

MADELINE CHANDLER: BELOVED, the inscribed words read, now embellished by the tiny purple flowers. He reached out, laying his hand upon the face of the stone, and was surprised at how warm it felt.

“Would you look at this?” he asked, imagining her somewhere close by. “Someone must be pretty darn special to deserve this sort of treatment.”

He stroked the letters of her name, recalling the countless times he’d marveled at the touch of her skin, the feeling of her as he held her in his arms.

Marlowe had come to stand beside him, showing the marble headstone more attention than he ever had before.

“What do you think of this, bud?” he asked the dog, patting his square head. “Pretty nice, isn’t it?”

The Labrador did not answer, instead closing his eyes and tilting his snout up to a very, un-winterlike breeze.

“She’s here,”
Marlowe said.

And for a moment, he too could sense her. Remy could hear her in the rustle of leaves, smell her in the fragrance of the hundreds of flowers that bloomed in her honor, feel the warmth of her through the lush grass that he knelt upon.

And the tears that he’d held on to for so long began to flow, running down his face, as he basked in the loving presence.

Marlowe had been right, Remy thought, patting the dog’s side as he lay beside him atop his wife’s grave.

Madeline was indeed here—all around them, in fact.

And she couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

Thomas E. Sniegoski
is the author of the ground-breaking quartet of teen fantasy novels titled
The Fallen,
which were transformed into an ABC Family miniseries, drawing stellar ratings for the cable network.

With Christopher Golden, he is the coauthor of the dark fantasy series
The Menagerie
as well as the young-readers’ fantasy series
OutCast
. Golden and Sniegoski have also cocreated two comic book series,
Talent
and
The Sisterhood,
and wrote the graphic novel
BPRD: Hollow Earth,
a spinoff from the fan-favorite comic book series
Hellboy
.

Sniegoski’s other novels include
Force Majeure, Hellboy: The God Machine,
and several projects involving the popular television franchises
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and
Angel,
including both
Buffy
video games.

As a comic book writer, he was responsible for
Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails,
a prequel miniseries to the international hit
Bone
. Sniegoski collaborated with
Bone
creator Jeff Smith on the prequel, making him the only writer Smith has ever asked to work on those characters. He has also written tales featuring such characters as Batman, Daredevil, Wolverine, The Goon, and The Punisher.

His children’s book series,
Billy Hooten: Owlboy,
is published by Random House.

Sniegoski was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his wife, LeeAnne, and their Labrador retriever, Mulder.