Dulce Lacrimae

Aniela stood with her backpack beside a plain little building. She was on the other side of the Glenfallen river, so the mortuary wasn't too close to the rest of the town. A man came out.

"Ah, you are Aniela, right? Ambrose's daughter? It's nice to meet you. You can call me Thomas." He took out his hand so she could shake it. Not just Ambrose's kid. After these years, she didn't feel at all like they are related.

"This is probably the first time we had a student take up work experience in TY in our little mortuary. Not that I blame them, it's not a very nice job. But I'm sure your dad told you all about his job." He smiled, making his whole beard lift and his eyes were barely open.

"Come right in, I'll show you what to do." Aniela was taken around the little building. It was a simple set up, you first enter the reception. Down the hall you go to where the bodies are kept in a frigid environment, and then at the end of the hall you have rooms for autopsies and cremation.

"We rarely do autopsies here. We are blessed to be in an area where people die usually from natural causes."

Aniela just looked at him blankly. "Anyway, you'll be mostly siting with Amanda at the office. I doubt you'll get to see any autopsies. And I doubt you want to see cremations as well."

"No." She interrupted him. "I'd like to see the cremations."

The man raised his brows. "Is that so? Maybe on the last day you can.”

Aniela sat with the woman called Amanda in the reception. Her mother told her once about women like her. Divorced and angry at everyone. But Aniela had a feeling she wasn't divorced, she was just angry. The papers bore Aniela, but she wasn't expecting that people would let her work in an environment where everyone was on a higher education level. But she still wasn't delighted. The past Third year she tried to revive animals, but nothing seemed to work. Her book slowly took her to human necromancy. Exactly what she was looking for. And the book told her she needs to get something. Amanda looked at her annoyed and made a big sigh.

"Here, I want you to deal with these papers. Exactly like I told you before." She put a stack of papers in front of Aniela. This is how her first day looked like. Covered in papers. Papers mainly about money. Riveting.

Tuesday wasn't much different. Aniela sat with Amanda when Thomas stalked in.

"Amanda, l'll need your help with some of the cremations. Eve is still sick, and I only have two hands."

"What about the kid?" Amanda retorted. Thomas looked at Aniela.

"You can handle the reception on your own right?"

Aniela nodded. "Of course."

"See, she'll be fine." Thomas walked off before Amanda could even try to protest. The woman puffed and turned to the girl.

"Do not touch the computer. If I see you messing anything up, you'll have to finish this week somewhere else. And if anyone comes in, tell them to wait." And the woman walked away.

About an hour later Amanda came back and scanned the whole desk and then nodded.

"Maybe you are not as stupid l as I thought."

Amanda sat and Thomas walked in.

"The family will come on Friday right?"

"Not sure, let me check."

Amanda turned to her computer and typed in her password. It wasn't very creative, and Amanda usually gets it wrong two times, making her type it in slowly. Aniela mentally noted what she typed on and returned to sorting the papers.

"Yes, Friday at one in the afternoon."

"Thank you, Amanda.”

Wednesday and Thursday weren't very eventful either, and everyday Aniela was left alone with the papers. Aniela also noticed that everyday, Amanda goes on break at eleven in the morning, while Thomas goes an hour after. This way there was always someone at the mortuary with her.

Aniela once asked why they always leave for breaks. Amanda just snorted.

"Because food is not allowed in the mortuary. Do you realise how unsanitary that is?”

Aniela sat in her usual seat on Friday when Thomas stalked in as usually.

"Amanda, shouldn't you have went out for lunch?" The woman looked at her watch. "Oh, I had so much of work that I forgot." She scowled at Aniela.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I forgot."

She grabbed her nose and took a deep breath. "It's fine, l'll just go after you." "But the family will be here at one afternoon, as you said yourself. Aniela can stay here, she proved herself the whole week."

Amanda glared at Aniela. “I don’t care if she’s Ambrose’s kid, I’m not leaving the building with just a dumb teen inside.”Thomas rolled his eyes. “Just yesterday you told me that the papers never were sorted faster. Clearly she isn’t as dumb as you think.

Amanda turned red. "Fine. Don't touch the papers that I didn't give you. Don't touch my computer either. Don't even dare. And you." She turned to Thomas. “One mistake she makes, and we’ll never take another teen for work experience. What teen would want to go to a bloody mortuary.”

She muttered the last part more to herself and got up to stomp away.

Thomas smiled at Aniela and walked out. The sixteen-year-old knew that Amanda had nothing to worry about, because she was not going to touch the papers. She looked down the hallway. Aniela didn't believe that this would work. After all, it’s a mortuary in the middle of nowhere.

She waited five minutes and then got up. She walked down the hallway with her backpack to the crematorium. She jingled the handle, like expected, it was locked. She took out a bobby pin from her coat and tried unlocking it like a detective. Nadia taught her the best way to do it. After five minutes of sweat dripping down her cheek, she opened the door. Inside the room smelled stale. Aniela didn't dare turn the lights on. She walked through the room, with a big oven like machine on her right and a bunch of shelves with two or three urns on them. She put her backpack on the floor and took out a little plastic jar and a spoon. Her book said a lot is not needed. She took the first urn, slowly opened it like she saw Thomas doing it two days ago, and then scooped up two spoon fulls carefully into her jar. She closed the urn and reached for another one. She repeated this process two more times.

She was putting the last urn back until she heard.

"Aniela."

She slowly turned back, and to her surprise, it was Federov.

"What are you doing?"

"What are you doing here Federov?"

"You didn't answer my question, my dear." He walked up to her. "What are you doing?"

She blinked. "I'm doing research."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Federov walked around her in a circle, like a vulture spying its prey. "Do you really want to go down this path?"

"Yes." Aniela stared into his soul. "I'm sure." She had to.

"Fine then. They have cameras everywhere, haven't you noticed?" He stared right back at her. "You'll have to corrupt the files."

"And where do I that?" How could have she forgotten about the cameras? She felt embarrassed but she couldn't show it. She could not show weakness.

"The little monitor on the desk you were at."

Aniela quickly walked out of the room.

Once Federov left she closed the door.

She rushed to the desk. She wrote in Amanda's not so secure password, but then again who can memorise such complicated passwords? Aniela looked for Federov but he was already gone.

She decided the best thing to do is look for the CCTV files. After a bit of digging, she found what she was looking for. She dug through the files until she found the footage she was looking for. She deleted it. She heard footsteps, so she quickly logged out and turned off the monitor.

"Good. The place is in one piece." Amanda looked at her with not so hidden distaste. She sat down and went back to ordering Aniela around.

Aniela entered her room and immediately crouched down to put away her new jar. Her room was covered in papers from the floor to the ceiling, and on the right wall was just photos of her beloved mother. The room was dead silent, silent for the past three years. And the room smelt stale and rotten, like the flowers on her windowsill. Around on the hurricane of paper were the remains of flowers and animals. She opened her book. She opened her new jar and put her finger into the dust. Then she smeared it on a page of the book with a red little circle with other red circles. She could hear the book chuckle. The voices praised her. But her heart stopped, for she noticed one voice.

"Well done, Aniela." Said a voice pure as an angel's soul, sweet like sugar, warm like a fire. Her mother.