Page 49 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

His hand clapped against his heart in dramatic mock pain. “I see. Lying is off the table but mortally wounding a man in church, that’s in good taste?”

“Good taste? You’re trying to pick up a woman half your age at your mother’s funeral.” Saga returned the volley without hesitation.

Elis pursed his lips. “Touché.” He stood up straight and straightened his tie. “So you’re saying I should wait until the cocktail hour to ask for your number?”

Gross. Though it might prove useful to the investigation.

“I can’t promise time is going to change my answer.

” Turning away, Saga saw Avery approaching them and relief flooded her senses.

“Ah, Elis, allow me to introduce you to my partner, Detective Inspector Avery Hemlock. Avery, this is Elis Goff, Eira’s son. ”

Elis glanced between them. It wasn’t entirely clear if he was more taken aback by the title of Detective Inspector or “partner.”

Avery extended a hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir, I am deeply sorry for your loss.”

Elis cleared his throat. “Pleasure,” he returned in a mumble before nodding politely and excusing himself to sit. “I believe the ceremony is about to…”

“Charming fellow,” Avery mused with a cryptic grin. “You think I scared him away?”

“Oh no,” said Saga. “I don’t think we’re that lucky.”

The two took a seat behind Leigh and Reza as a smartly dressed man in his late thirties with prematurely silvering hair in a sharp suit and glasses walked to the front of the chapel.

“Good morning,” he greeted the group, who echoed back the salutation.

He cleared his throat and struggled with a smile.

“On behalf of the late Eira Goff, I would like to welcome you all. My name is Reese Bowen, and I have been charged to handle her estate in her absence. Today we mourn the loss, but more importantly celebrate the life of a great woman. A few close to Eira have prepared something to share, from there we will invite any to share their own stories or memories of Eira, and to close, I will read from a letter Eira wrote for this day.”

Leigh stood, a folded piece of paper in one shaking hand, a handkerchief clutched in the other.

She positioned herself in front of the altar.

Her usual presence seemed muted, smaller, and it took a moment before she drew her eyes up to look at everyone.

“My name is Leigh Hudson,” she introduced herself.

Even though she did not speak at her full volume, the vaulted ceilings added to the resonance so she was still heard.

“I’m Saoirse’s youngest, and as such Eira was very much a second mother to me.

My own mother…” She faltered. “Can’t be here today, so I’ll be reading on her behalf. ”

“There has never been, nor will there ever be, another Eira Goff.

“She was my sister, my friend, and eventually, my business partner. Her parents, Osian and Mari, took me in as their own simply because they trusted their daughter’s judgment.

I would not be who I am or where I am were it not for this phenomenal family.

They ensured I was safe, taken care of, and, on more than one occasion, funded my trip home to see my parents at Christmas.

“Eira’s life was a pattern of excellence, empathy, and charity, and with it she revolutionized the medical world.

“On a smaller scale, she also revolutionized my world. She ensured my wedding day was perfect, she was there for the birth of both of my two beautiful daughters, Audrey and Leigh. She…”

Here Leigh’s voice broke, her eyes welling with tears. She took a deep breath and continued.

“She helped me pick up the pieces when my William passed away too soon, and she was there to help Hudson’s stand on its feet again. I can only hope she felt as equally loved and supported by me when her mother, and later, Heath, passed on.”

Again Leigh paused as her voice tightened and the tears flowed down her cheeks. She tried to dab at her eyes with the handkerchief but it did little to help.

Reza began to stand, but Saga placed a hand on his shoulder and got up instead, moving to stand next to Leigh.

Saga wrapped one arm around her, taking the paper gingerly with her free hand. Giving Leigh a gentle squeeze, she continued reading in her stead.

“I know my experience, while dear, is not a unique one when it comes to Eira.

It was simply who she was. We will find ourselves missing the candid manner in which she expressed her opinion, or the way she tapped the bridge of her nose and winked when she knew you were of the same mind on something.

We will mourn the silence that was once filled with clinking teacups or sneaky late-night glasses of port.

Because we who have had the privilege of truly knowing her are now tasked with the burden of knowing life without her.

“Rest well, my darling. Thank you for changing my life for the better.”

Leigh turned and sobbed into Saga’s shoulder, an embrace that Saga returned as best she could as she helped the woman back to her seat next to her husband.

The ceremony that followed was lovely, as far as funerals go. After Leigh and Saga, Elis took the stand and spoke of what it had been like having Eira as a mother.

It was a humanizing moment. He was grounded and calm, not trying to deflect or lash out at the nearest convenient person to blame.

Saga noticed the way he kept one hand in the suit pocket that held his flask.

Never once did he pull it out, but his hand remained, as if the liquor might vanish if he didn’t.

His reliance on it was heartbreakingly apparent as the petulant manchild she’d spoken to only moments before the ceremony allowed himself to be truly vulnerable.

“She was there. When I had questions, when I was lost, when I had nowhere else to go… What I would not give to have her back. God forgive me, what I wouldn’t do. ”

Saga knew she shouldn’t eliminate anyone by appearances, but seeing him there, so lost and unable to grapple with the idea that he was the last of his line, made it very difficult to imagine he could be a viable suspect.

This was not the countenance of a murderer.

This was a deeply broken man who had traded any healthy coping mechanism for one vice after another.

Following Elis was Carys. A woman Saga knew had to be in her early seventies at least but through the family fortune had suspended her face somewhere in her forties—so long as she didn’t try to move it too much.

She spoke in a saccharinely sweet way about Eira that left an uncomfortable feeling in Saga’s stomach.

She remembered the stories about Carys. Any love between Carys and Eira had been destroyed after Carys’s mother’s passing, though you would never know it the way the woman carried on, every syllable smacking with insincerity.

There was something off about her—something wrong.

Something Avery would likely want to look into.

Nearly everyone spoke at least a few words, some approaching the altar and some merely standing up from their seats.

The society papers would later report that even Hedda Schmidt had broken into tears.

The self-proclaimed rival was reduced to blubbering incoherent sobs that shook her form inside the layers of fur, and the phrase that would later be quoted (and one of the few that was understood) simply stated, “She defined a generation, and so defined me. Without her, I do not know where I stand.”

At last Mr. Bowen returned to the front, a closed envelope between his fingertips. “I have with me something written in Eira’s own hand a few nights before she passed. It was entrusted to me to be read today. I will preface that this is not related to her will, I believe, but merely a farewell.”

Saga thought his hands might be shaking as he opened the envelope.

Something passed over the lawyer’s face as his eyes swept over the words Eira had written. Perhaps it was recognition, even a little melancholy. “How very like her. She begins with an excerpt from a poem by David Harkins:

You can shed tears that she is gone

Or you can smile because she has lived

You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back

Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her

Or you can be full of the love that you shared.”

Bowen stopped, his mouth forming a thin line before he cleared his throat.

“She closes with simply, ‘My dear friends, know that thanks to you, I have truly lived. And though my curtain comes to a close, I could not have asked for a finer play, and I take my final bow with no regrets. Be kind to each other.’”

The woman who had greeted them at the door spoke again from the back row. “We invite anyone to say their final goodbyes to Eira in a procession to see her off, followed by a catered dinner and cocktail hour at the Arber Garden’s Chapel room.”

A few stood and a trickle of murmurs began and eventually rose to small conversations.

Another sob escaped from Leigh, and she turned her head to muffle the sound into Reza’s shoulder.

Reza indicated toward the outside to Saga with a subtle jerk of his head before speaking to his wife. “Let’s get some fresh air, love.” He helped her to her feet and the two made their way down the aisle.

Avery stood, offering her hand to Saga both to help her rise and pull her closer for a more private conversation. “Are you acquainted with Eira’s…” She struggled with the right term. “Paramour?”

Saga’s brows raised abruptly. “I knew there were rumors of a paramour.”

“Young man, very young, and very candid.”

Saga struggled a little with this information, simultaneously uncomfortable yet oddly proud of Eira. She tried to remember everyone who had shared stories. “Which one was he?”

“He didn’t speak.”

“Oh.” Saga frowned. “Is that…strange? It feels strange.”