“This is him.” I pull his box out and turn around toward the others. “I don’t know why this feels a little anticlimactic, but I won’t complain.”
“Let’s get him out of here,” Luna suggests. “Do you want to replace that panel?”
“No, it’s fine. They’re all going to be removed eventually anyway. I want to get out of here.”
It isn’t until we’re back outside that I take a deep sigh of relief.
“One down, a few hundred to go.” I smile ruefully at the others. “We have to start somewhere, I guess.”
“You guys can follow us up to the property. We already dug the hole, so it won’t take long.”
“You ride with me,” Apollo says to me, and I nod, following him to the truck.
“She must be out of sorts if she didn’t argue about riding with Apollo,” I hear Sarah say to Tanner as they walk to their own vehicle.
“Yeah, we need to end the secrecy,” I say to Apollo as I get into his truck.
“Isit weird that we’re burying him to Rose’s left when her husband is to her right?” I ask as we all stand around the gravesite.
“They need to be together,” Luna reminds me.
“I know, it’s just…weird.” I shrug and gently lower the box containing Daniel’s ashes into the small hole in the ground. “We should probably say something.”
The others nod and look around at each other, no one volunteering.
“Okay, I’ll do it.” I blow out a breath. “We are respectfully laying the remains of Daniel P. Snow into his final resting place, here by the sea where he spent so much of his life and next to the woman he loved for his whole life. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Rose and Daniel couldn’t be together in life, so we hope to reunite them in death. May they both rest in peace.”
Wolfe shovels dirt over the box, and the others nod.
“Well done,” Tanner says with a wink.
“I really do hope they both rest in peace,” I reply, looking down at both graves. Luna places the panel from the mausoleum at the head of Daniel’s grave, right next to Rose’s.
“That’s it,” she says when the dirt is all filled in. “It’s done. I’m glad they’re finally together.”
I sniff the air and smile when I smell the roses. “She’s here.”
“She’s been here the whole time,” Sarah says softly, tears in her blue eyes. “And I think she’s happy.”
“I hope so.” I nod and reach for Sarah’s hand as her other hand reaches for Luna’s. For a long moment, we stand together, high on the cliffs with the sea wind blowing around us, waiting until the smell of roses fades away. “I really hope so.”
April 8,2000
Dear Diary,
You know, staying at Luna’s is fun, but it also gets creepy sometimes. She has a GHOST living at her house! We’ve never actually seen her, but we smell her all the time. It smells like roses. Sometimes it’s really strong, and other times it’s faint. I stayed there last night, and we spent some time in our secret spot, up in the lighthouse. Sarah got to come for a while, too, but her mom made her go home after dinner.
I hate her mom.
Anyway, while we were up there reading a passage from the diary we found, we smelled the roses. The person who wrote the diary was named Rose, so we think it’s Rose’s ghost, trying to talk to us.
What does she want? We don’t know. As long as she doesn’t try to throw us down the lighthouse, or something, I guess it’s not a big deal.
Grandma’s house is really old, too. I don’t think it’s haunted, though. I’m sure we would have seen or heard or SMELLED something by now if it were.
Okay, I have to go eat dinner now.
XO,