The funeral for Lola and Hosea was a closed event with few in attendance. What it lacked in number, it more than made up for in purpose. Cousin Rob and Miss Elizabeth were there. Uncle Paul was accompanied by a Circle Knight Elder. Paul’s guest was a very fair-skinned woman with the bluest eyes Ruth had ever seen. The woman glowed; even her footprints glowed behind her whichever path she chose. Ruth overheard someone saying that Uncle Paul did, indeed, still have friends among the Circle Knight Elders. He had once been one himself, but he’d been forced to resign his post largely because of Chase’s doings. Chase had been his protégé. When he went rogue, others argued that somehow Paul’s acceptance of Chase and other non-conformists had emboldened them against the leadership.
Paul knew that his days as an Elder were numbered when he first volunteered to head up counter-intelligence. In that role, you can’t help but get your hands dirty. Once your hands are dirty, your perspective can change. Some would say that it did with Paul. At least seven of the other eleven Elders said so.
Elisa was there as well. Ruth remembered well how Elisa hugged Lola’s casket and wept bitterly over it. Uncle Paul tried to pull her off the casket, but she pushed him away. Finally, Cousin Rob came over and lifted her off the casket.
She turned to embrace him and cried into his ear, “Oh my baby, my baby. Our baby’s gone.”
Ruth heard the words but thought that perhaps she misheard or didn’t understand the context.
The woman with the glowing footprints walked to Rob and Elisa and said to them, “From this hour forward, you must focus on the sisters, for when they are ready, neither the temples of Olympus nor the Gates of Hell shall stand before them. Equally, will they be dust beneath their feet.”
From that day forward, Hosea and Lola’s daughters were commonly referred to as “The Sisters”.
Miss Elizabeth, for her part, when not attending the girls, sat in front of Hosea’s casket in a brown folding chair speaking softly to him. Tears streamed slowly down her face. She told him how his girls were doing and how she was going to take care of them and that he shouldn’t worry. While most of the crowd hovered around Lola’s casket, Elizabeth remained alone with Hosea. She’d instructed the girls to take a seat on the pew after they viewed their parent’s bodies, and they obeyed. Eventually, she motioned them over to her and the five of them said goodbye to Hosea one last time.
The girls realized that they were the only one’s there to mourn their father, even though he was well known by other clergy. Everyone else there was there for Lola, or more accurately, for Elisa, Rob and Paul. This saddened Ruth but it made Deborah a bit angry and resentful towards Uncle Paul.
Rob and Uncle Paul came over to say goodbye to their brother in arms and then closed Hosea’s casket. Everyone returned to their pews and a man Ruth had never seen before got up to speak. He didn’t announce his name, but everyone seemed to know who he was. Ruth would hear later that he was an emissary from the Circle Council. He read through some scripture, said a few words, and then smiled at Ruth and her sisters. He was the first in a series of well-wishers, known and unknown, who took time to tell Ruth and her sisters what they already knew – that their father was a good and faithful man.
However, even Ruth, who always hoped her mother would change, was struck by the fact that Lola, who had been so rash and mean, was at the center of this event. Her father who sacrificed so much and loved so many seemed to be secondary at his own funeral. Ruth wanted to get up and shout “Oh, you simple people! Did you not know my mother? Why are you crying for her? Sure, we cry as her children for what will never be, but we cry for him for all that was and is now lost!”
Ruth knew that her sisters were thinking similar thoughts. Each of them managed to hold their tongues through the service, even Deborah, although her eyes were as cutting as razor blades during eulogies for their mother. Years later, Ruth would come to understand that Circle Knights and their associates still considered Lola to be one of them, albeit a wayward member of their clan. Although they all appreciated Hosea, most viewed him as a civilian. To their credit, throughout the years to come, anytime Rob would call on one of them to assist him in protecting the girls, they did not hesitate to respond. That, too, was their way.
After the funeral, Rob ushered Elizabeth and the girls to a waiting limousine. The bodies of their parents went directly to unmarked graves in a cemetery just west of town. But the girls went straight to the airport with their new guardians. Even though there was supposed to be a truce in place that said no one on the Council of Nob would attack the girls directly, neither he nor Elizabeth trusted Matasis or “those crazy folks that work for him.” They were sure that they’d find some way around the agreement or pervert it in some way. Once at the airport, the girls met Rob’s special operations team. Ruth would only remember a few of the details of those days, but she never forgot the feeling of Rob’s buddy, Big Mike, picking Sarah and her up into his arms and carrying them to their gate.
The grownups let Ruth sit next to the window. Big Mike sat next to her on the aisle. Cil and Deborah were across the aisle and Miss Elizabeth sat with Sarah in the row in front of them. Ruth turned to Big Mike and asked, “Will there be horses where we’re going?”
Big Mike answered her, “I’m sure we can round you up a few.”
The little girl replied, “Good, we love horses.” Ruth stared out the window and played with the pink ribbon in her hair as the plane soared into the heavens on its way to Mexico City. There, they would catch a small plane for an unfamiliar land in the Mexican peninsula, to begin a new life – a life of new blessings, haunted by old curses.