"Yeah. The ghost of Merrymead yet to come visited me. Don't ask." Persephone replies and moves on to her room. She lets herself fall face first into her bed.
She'd cry if she still had tears. But while lying there she asks herself What for? I might become a monster once a month at the full moon. I've got no loved ones that I could harm. The only real worry is to get caught while killing someone. She is not sure if that makes it better or worse.
Anyway. Everything that needs to be done today is done and she can simply stay in bed and pity herself. Until after a short moment when she remembers. "S%~*! My cart!" With a sigh she pushes herself up from the mattress.
Walking past Faerveren again she announces "My cart is still at The Pig's Whistle. I need to fetch it, before it leaves with a new owner."
"There are also some dead guys waiting on your new cart." Faerveren reminds her.
The cart is still found next to The Pig's Whistle. The area of town might not be the best and there could be things disappearing but no one desperate or unscrupulous enough came along to steal a cart.
As it is afternoon already some people already found their way to The Pig's Whistle for an ale or two.
Penelope walks inside. "Hello, Isabella. I'm just here to fetch my stuff." She moves on to the broom closet to get the two sacks.
Norm bows over his beer and hopes to become invisible.
On her way out Persephone notices Norm. She takes a small detour to greet him. She pats him amicably on the back. "Hi Norm. I see you didn't manage to drown your conscience." she comments with a big grin.
Norm is visibly uncomfortable. "Mmhmmh." he agrees.
"I'm in a hurry now, but I hope we'll find a job we con do together again like with the rats. See you."
Persephone leaves the tavern, loads the sacks on the cart and pushes it home.
Once there she takes the sacks inside and puts them in front of Faerveren. "Do you have someone to turn that stuff into cash? Not the bones, the other one."
"What do you want with a sack of bones?" Faerveren asks, visible disgust on her face.
She moves on to the other sack "I don't have much connections in town, but I can for sure find someone. Can't be too hard to sell used wares. But I don't think there are big profits to make. Only the weapon maybe."
"Don't forget the stuff of our other two friends."
There is a loud knock on the door.
"Did you invite someone over?" Persephone inquires while she gets up to walk to the door.
"No." Faerveren tells and also gets up, drawing her weapon.
Persephone moves to the door. She waits for Faerveren to get into and then opens it.
In front of the house are two men from the city guard. "Good afternoon. Is this the house of the Pembrooke family? We'd like to talk to the head of the family."
"You are at the right house, but you are out of luck, as the head of the family hasn't come home for, ... three days?"
"So you can either tell me what you want or wait for my stepmother to come back."
The guard looks startled. "I'm afraid your stepmother isn't coming home. She was arrested three days ago for murdering her son on the market place in bright daylight."
"And we are here to inquire who will take care of the burial of the boy. And to see why no one came to ask about the woman and the child."
"He is dead?!?" she calls out in surprise and puts her hand on her mouth, the other one on her belly.
After getting her composure she continues "They are my stepmother and my stepbrother. To have them gone for three days means no one has been harassing me for three days. This woman has been crazy for a long time."
"I didn't expect her to murder someone though. And I guess I can consider myself lucky, that I'm not the one murdered. For she like him a lot more than me." Persephone explains.
"But I can take care of his burial. Where should I go to retrieve his body?"
The guard is uncomfortable to be confronted with details of family drama and thankfully takes the change of topic.
"You shouldn't come personally. You arrange the burial with a priest of your faith then they take care of everything."
"Ah, okay." Persephone replies, nervously playing with her hair.
"What will become of my stepmother?" she inquires.
"For now she will stay in prison. There will be a trial sometime soon I guess."
"From our side that is all. My condolences for the loss of your step brother."
"Farewell." The two men turn and walk away.
"Thank you. Good bye." Persephone replies and closes the door.
"What was that?" Faerveren inquires.
"Just another body to take care of." Persephone replies and returns to the kitchen.
"I guess I can save my condolences then." Faerveren concludes as Persephone drops the pretense.
"Wait... that surprise was an act, wasn't it? What's the story behind that?" she inquires. "You appear at The Pig's Whistle, take up jobs all over town, just now and 'surprise' the rest of your family is dead or in jail. That's no coincidence! Spill the beans!"
"Well, what can I say - you caught me." Persephone admits, her hands in the air and a mischievous grin on her face. But the latter Faerveren can't see.
She puts the kettle on the oven to heat the water for some tea.
"I see, you're not going to tell anything. But I'll figure it out sooner or later." Faerveren states.
"You got an idea whom to ask for the burial? Vorkatos had some business with a cemetery, that could be an option."
"Of what faith is that priest? I would avoid the Abadar clergy. They greet you for free but everything else costs. But one with a cemetery is a good start. Or you'd find a cleric of Gozreh and have him thrown into the sea."
"It would be nice to have a crypt. With the number of bodies already piling up here..." Persephone muses.
"You'd sell them all as your dead family? Or how would you explain the sudden need for that many burial places?"
"Wait a minute. We were rich. May dad paid for a decent burial place for my mom. We need to find out where that is!" Persephone jumps up.
"How do we go about that without asking around? I'm not interested in everyone knowing my face if my plans go south."
"Why'd you care? You have a dead family member. That's a legitimate reason to be interested in the family grave. Just don't tell them, that you intend to put some extra corpses in."
Persephone facepalms herself. "Right." She takes the pot out of the cupboard and puts some tea in. "So I guess we start with the cemetery where Vorkatos did the night watch."
Looking through several cabinets she finds there is nothing stored to go with tea. "Do you know a good bakery or patisserie?"
"I don't do grocery shopping, but I can find out." Faerveren assures Persephone.
"But that is boring. You told something about getting your stuff back that was 'stolen'. What are you going to do about that."
"First we'd need to find out where the stuff went. There was some shady guy who bought all the stuff for ridiculously low prices. I got some basic idea what stuff costs from the time in dad's shop with mum."
"A family portrait in oil is worth far more than five gold. Especially if it is framed in a gilded frame. And that is the first piece I want back."
"With the other stuff it is probably more difficult. For the furniture there might even be no possibility to get them back."
"Do you know shady guys in that kind of business?"
"Doesn't sound very shady to me. More like the guy you call to get all the stuff out of your dead aunt's house to make some coin before selling the house too. Sucks to be you and get the stuff in your house sold before being dead, but there is nothing shady about it."
"Just ask around. Can't be too hard to find if your stepmother found him. Might try the pawnshop."
Menawhile at The Pig's Whistle
Norm suddenly doesn't feel very well. A shiver runs down his spine and he starts shaking. He pays his tab and leaves The Pig's Whistle to go home.
"Good idea. But one thing after another. I need to wear some black, look sad and visit a priest. You're coming along?"
"I'm not as good as you when it comes to acting. I think I'll keep some distance, in case I burst out with laughter if you put it on too thick."
Persephone walks into the master bedroom and checks the wardrobe of her stepmother. "Ah, there it is." she takes out a black dress. "This dress had been worn to fake grief at least twice."
It is a simple full length dress with long sleeves. She puts the dress on.
"I'm ready, and you?"
"Woah. Add a black cloak with a hood and you'd look like death himself. Black isn't your color."
"I'm ready."
Persephone chuckles. "I might go for that. Add a scythe and scare people to death."
When leaving the house she inquires "You know where that cemetery is?" As Faerveren shakes her head, she shrugs. "Can't be that hard to find. Isabella gave a general direction and told that it is a walled in area."
She walks in the general direction and when she got the feeling she might have missed it, she asks someone for directions.
The cemetery covers a large area, compared to the houses in this part of town, but as the houses are built wall to wall, you can't see it, until you walk into the square where it is. A seven foot high wall built of roughly hewn stones surrounds the place. In the middle of each wall is a wrought iron gate. On three sides only a narrow one to allow pedestrians in. To the south is a large gate that would allow a coach to enter. To the right of that gate is the chapel.
There are several kinds of graves. Left of the main entrance is a large lime tree and around it without any recognizable order some old weathered headstones. Further in are newer graves with grave borders, polished headstones with engraved names and dates or statues. Here and there stands a small mausoleum.
Father Grimburrow is busy at one of them removing the last traces of the nightly vandalism.
"I think I remember that guy." Persephone tells and approaches the priest.
"Good afternoon." she greets the man.
Father Grimburrow puts down the brush and faces the young woman approaching him. "Good afternoon. How can I help you."
"I'm not sure if I'm in the right place but I believe I remember you. About ten years ago my mother died and I think you held the funeral. But I don't remember seeing the grave."
"The reason I ask is, that my brother died and I wonder if there is a family plot on the cemetery to bury him too. The name is Pembrooke."
"My condolences to the loss of your brother." Father Grimborrow replies with a slight bow.
"If you would follow me - I'll show you." the father offers and leads the way to the North-East part of the cemetery.
There at the outer wall, opposite to the chapel stands a small mausoleum. It is built of white lime, that is now green and darkened. A narrow wooden door is flanked by two angel statues. Over the door the name Pembrooke is engraved into the stone and on the pedestals the angels stand upon are three names engraved. On the left, Peter and Eleanor and on the right Sophia.
"This was the family plot where Peter and Eleanor Pembrooke were buried. When Sophia Pembrooke died, her husband had this mausoleum build on top of it. When he died a few years later, he was buried there too. But no one took care of engraving his name. It was a very sad ceremony. Only the widow, his second wife was there."
"There is room to place two more deceased."
"My brother was murdered. I was told that the church that performs the funeral would retrieve the body from the guard."
"Murdered? That's horrible - who did such a thing?" Father Grimburrow asks aghast.
Once he recovers from the shock he confirms the procedure. "If you task me with the burial, I will take care of that, yes."