Dark clouds swirl above as I pass people on the street. A ragamuffin calls the morning headline "Granny murdered by poison, Twinngs tea tastes like chocolate, Bank’s hold meeting this Sunday.”

At the street corner men stand in groups smoking, and old men seated outside cafes hold hands of yellowed cards. A cat stalks pigeons near a pile of trash, as filth and mud run rivers down the streets and under the soles of my heeled boots, temporarily easing the stench away from the city center. 

I shadow them briefly with my passing, the umbrella I hold darkening what is expected to be a dreary afternoon. I pass the open metal gates of Kensal Cemetery, a lone widower making a visit, paying silent respect to the many monuments of days past. 

I come to stand on the soft grass before the marked place, upholding a parasol against the impending rain that blackened the grass with soot washed from the tombs. 

Nathaniel Miller 1861 - 1913

Clara Miller -1883 - 1913

Sasha Miller 1902 - 1913

dearly missed

It was not a bad sentiment, but for the relations that paid cheaply to raise this stone, they hardly had the right to claim they 'dearly missed' him when they dearly betrayed Nathaniel first. 

 In front of the stone, a candle illuminates each engraving. I watch the slow flicker as I had long ago watched smoke on the horizon, lifting their ashes free of the poisoned ground. 'Vampires, the human-faced devils,' they said. And they had set our beautiful home ablaze. 

I suppose I could have moved away, but all I owned was the small house my uncle left. I had been declared dead in the fire and had not shown up for a resurrection. Thus the change of name and loss of inheritance. No legacy to call my own. Only a fictional character in a pretty little cottage.