Page 37 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

T om and Eliot aren’t the only ones who return to Philly this weekend. When my brothers hear my bird died, everything changes, and by Sunday, we all end up at the Cobalt Estate.

My childhood home brings an aching nostalgia I’ve been trying to avoid. The humongous oak tree deep in the backyard beyond the stone patio and heated pool had been one of my favorite spots as a kid. I spent more hours lost in the thick gnarled branches than I did in the extravagant home library.

Honestly, most of my siblings find these backyard funerals silly, but it’s not odd for them to attend.

Growing up, I had a goldfish that Eliot tried to feed to Jane’s black cat, Lady Macbeth.

Instead of flushing the fish when it died, Mom orchestrated this elaborate funeral procession that none of them really took seriously.

Tom wielded a plunger like a bandmaster’s baton, and Eliot snuck a flask of whiskey. Which got him in so much trouble.

Even when he said, “It’s ceremonial whiskey. What’s a funeral without a toast to the dead, Dad?”

He was fourteen.

Later, when Pip-Squeak passed, it crushed me. I grew up with the cockatiel, but my mom got him when he was relatively old, so I knew he wouldn’t live long enough to be with me in college. I loved that she chose the unloved bird who really needed a home.

Though for her, I think she liked the idea of Pip-Squeak being a temporary thing and not a thirty-year commitment. She’s not an animal person, but somehow, our pets always warm up to her cold nature.

I remember Pip-Squeak’s backyard funeral like it was yesterday.

The utter fucking chaos.

My siblings made this elaborate, giant paper maché cockatiel sculpture. To which Jane, Charlie, and Beckett rigged on a zip-line from tree to tree. During the ceremony, as the five-foot cockatiel took flight, Tom and Eliot threw firecrackers at it.

The paper maché went up in flames. And so did the branches to my favorite oak tree.

Jane’s white cat, Ophelia, escaped her arms and scaled the tree trunk. Some of us were wearing wings, and without thinking, I ran after the cat.

Beckett ran after me.

Right as I captured Ophelia, Beckett pulled me down—but his wings caught fire.

I’d never seen Charlie sprint that fast in my life. He pried the burning wings off Beckett in seconds. Even before I could. Mom stomped on them with her heel. Dad drew us all back and called the fire station.

The tree and Ophelia survived.

It’s hard not to think about old pet funerals when I’m at one. Typically, I was the only one who cared enough to cry. Most of the pets we buried were mine.

They did this for me, and no matter how silly or dumb or senseless they thought these funerals were or however chaotic they became, I loved every second of them—because they all showed up.

They always showed up for me.

Even now as adults, they’re here.

One through seven. We’ve all gathered around a fresh mound of dirt. White cotton-candy clouds float in the bluest August sky, and we’re barely into the funeral and I can confidently say this one is by far the strangest.

Because everyone is on their best behavior.

Charlie has yet to desecrate the grave by flicking a cigarette. Hell, he’s not even smoking. No one’s made a wisecrack about the afterlife or Big Bird. Most everyone has actually dressed in funeral blacks like this is a serious event.

Beside me, Audrey straightens her wide-brimmed black hat, the veil matching her Victorian dress with puffed sleeves and a bell skirt. She must be sweating in this heat.

Mom chose a staple black dress. Not that uncommon. She’s always in black. At her side, Dad ditched his white button-down for a black one. He’d normally show in a navy-blue suit, but will you look at that? He’s also in all black.

I can’t stare at him for long. His deep blue eyes touch mine, and a nervous sweat pricks the back of my neck.

My burgundy MVU shirt sticks to my skin, and I flip my baseball cap backward. All my brothers wear black too, and for Charlie— Charlie to conform to a dress code is just bizarre.

I realize quickly my brothers are wearing the men’s suits our mom designed.

This year, as a bonding thing with her, we helped our mom create suits after our styles.

She named each one after us—the Charlie, the Beckett, the Eliot, the Tom, the Ben—and half the net profits are supposed to go to us since we all modeled the Calloway Couture men’s collection on a runway and in ads.

The fashion line debuted this spring, and we’ll see our first paycheck in January. But it won’t help me much by then.

Anyway, I highly doubt the Ben sold well—it’s the most basic black suit, unlike Eliot’s Romeo-inspired tailcoat and undershirt, and Tom’s punk-rock jacket with zippered arms and a chain along his belt loop and pocket.

Fans have clamored to buy the Charlie purely because it’s from Charlie.

His material is black velvet, and he has no shirt underneath the jacket.

Or maybe they’ll buy the Beckett since, in my opinion, it’s the best—a slim-fitting black suit and black undershirt with silver stitching around the cuffs. Sleek and cool.

I wait for someone to speak.

A weird, respectful silence takes place for—uh, five minutes and counting? Yeah, one minute is usually pushing it.

Not this.

I look to my older sister.

Jane. With her wavy brown hair and splash of freckles on her cheeks and sly smiles—she’s a bubbly combination of our mom and dad. The ultimate big sister who will drop everything for us with one SOS text.

For this Cobalt affair, she has on a black tulle skirt and zebra-print top. She’s matching. What the hell?

Her outfits never match to the point where she’s been on Celebrity Crush’s Worst Dressed list for forever. Which should rattle our fashion designer mom’s world, but our mom wants us to be us. Terrible style and all, Charlie would quip.

Jane catches me staring. She flashes a beaming smile at me, then mimes the tip of a top hat. She would be the first to try to cheer me up. Right before Beckett.

“Oh Pippy,” she’d say when we were younger. “Don’t cry. I’m here. I’ll make everything better, and as your big sister, I will wish upon every star for it to be true.”

Jane was the one I went to for advice, so when she first left for Princeton, it’d been devastating.

We talked on the phone, and I tried to convince myself that it was the same.

But it wasn’t really. I think that’s the toughest part of being among the youngest. My older siblings were able to spend their entire adolescence with all or most of us.

Audrey and I—we had a finite amount of time where the house was full. For three years, it was just us and our parents here in Philly while my brothers were in New York and Jane lived with Moffy. Three whole years that they’ll never understand.

I try to smile back at Jane, but it’s a little difficult considering my brain is spinning. Why are they all acting normal?

Did I miss the memo? One definitely got sent around. I’m afraid it said: Take Theodore’s funeral seriously for Ben. Act like church mice.

Jane peers up at her six-foot-seven stoic husband. He’s the only person taller than me here. Brown hair curls behind his ears. His strong, clenched jaw is unshaven and makes him appear overly stern and brooding all the time.

Thatcher Moretti is a Marine vet, identical twin, full-time bodyguard to Jane, and the only person who’s breeched the Cobalt walls.

It took a literal Marine to enter my family.

I’m not so sure it will happen as easily again, and it wasn’t really easy for him.

For months, we all tested him with a series of elaborate Truth or Dares.

Prying into his personal life. Seeing how far he’d go for Jane.

He’s bouncing their unusually fussy nine-month-old in his arms. Maeve Rose Moretti. My niece is the only one crying. And it’s a literal conundrum how no one is commenting on the baby bawling at a funeral.

Mom has her fingers to her temple in a slight cringe, hating infant cries, but it’s obvious she absolutely adores Maeve because she’s not banishing the baby out of the circle.

“Shh, shh,” Thatcher coos, rubbing Baby Maeve’s back.

Jane waves a very old stuffed animal. “Look, Mr. Lion! You love Mr. Lion.”

Tom cringes at the ratty toy. “Ew,” he whispers, trying to save his voice. Thankfully no vocal bruising. It was just strained, Farrow diagnosed.

“I bleached Mr. Lion,” Jane says. “He’s good as new.”

Tom opens his mouth to respond, but Eliot kicks Tom’s shins. He shuts up.

Jane’s blue eyes flit to me, then she also goes quiet.

They’re being really obvious now.

“Shall we begin, Mother?” Audrey asks.

“Yes, that silence was long enough.”

Agreed.

Our mom hands out white roses from a bouquet to each of us. I swear she tries to smile warmly at me, and her face makes a robotic twitch.

What the fuck is happening?

When she returns to our dad, I hear him whisper, “You’re overdoing it, darling.”

She smacks his side. “He’s watching us.”

Our dad makes direct eye contact with me, and I give him a short, confused headshake. His features are impossible to read.

So I just try to concentrate on Theodore. He’s why we’re all here. I think.

Audrey has on black silk gloves. Reaching down, she takes my hand, and my chest swells with more emotion as I feel my sister trying to comfort me over seeking comfort for herself.

“Theodore,” she says. “You were beloved. And I would like to read a poem in your honor.” She takes a deep breath before reciting it by memory.

“‘Do not stand…By my grave, and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep—I am the thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond that glints in snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain.’”

I recognize the poem. “Immortality” by Clare Harner. Tom has recited it a handful of times at Wednesday Night Dinners.

I’ve never heard Audrey deliver it, and in her whimsical, breathless voice, it twists the raw parts of me.