Chapter 1 - The Weight of the Grey
The fog did not float.
It hung over the granite headstones like a saturated woolen blanket.
It tasted of crushed limestone and old, stagnant rain.
The dampness clung to the leaves of the ancient oak trees.
Droplets gathered on the tips of the bare branches, swelling until gravity dragged them down into the black soil.
A young woman knelt entirely in the mud.
Her dark red dress absorbed the wet earth.
The fabric grew heavy, clinging to her calves and the thick, undeniable swell of her pregnant stomach.
Over the dress, a beige apron was stained with dark, asymmetrical patches of wetness.
Her bare knees sank deeper into the graveyard sludge with every breath she took.
She curled her spine inward.
Her shoulders hunched, forming a fragile human canopy over her unborn child.
Her long black hair fell in thick, wet ropes.
The strands stuck to her cheeks, heavy with the cemetery mist.
In front of her, the earth was freshly turned.
A mound of pitch-black soil sat completely bare, save for three white roses.
The petals of the roses were already beginning to brown at the edges.
The cold seeped through the thin soles of her flat shoes.
She wrapped both of her arms tightly underneath her belly.
Her fingers interlocked, the knuckles turning a sharp, translucent white against the red fabric.
The wind blew, rattling the dead leaves against the stone markers.
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She did not shiver.
She just pressed her chin closer to her collarbone.
