My Boy Builds Coffins
Inspired by: My Boy Builds Coffins by Florence + The Machine Sunlight by Hozier
Relationships: Kravitz & RQ, Taakitz
It starts like this:
A wagon rolls into town one afternoon. All colors, shameless shanties and swaying lanterns - gently glowing.
With it, a group of three. One man, and - this is crucial - two elves, twins to be exact.
And most importantly, an elf twin named Taako.
*
The funeral home smells like dust. Dust, always dust no matter how much they clean. Dust, sometimes flowers, and that certain smell most enterers can’t identify but both remaining members of the MacAllister family know is death, death.
*
Her son stands at the window in the front in his black suit, his white-gloved hands clasped neatly behind his back, like usual. Like every day since his father died.
“Brooding,” she says.
“Thinking,” he says, or “I’m just people-watching, Mother.”
“You think too much,” she says and it makes him smile a little, but all it does is remind her of the days when he was young and happier and hopeful. And how all that joy withered to nothing, slowly but surely.
*
Kravitz used to play with the litter of kittens behind their neighbor's barn, until one day, they were just gone. Something was wrong, she knew immediately when he came home with a slow opening of the door and his footsteps barely audible on the hardwood floor. She was washing the dishes when it happened.
“They're dead, aren't they,” he asked, just a boy still, his hair curling just barely below his ears and she had said yes because they both knew it was the truth. He looked thoughtful but wouldn't look at her, his mother, in the eye.
“I hope they didn't suffer,” he said absently as he climbed up the stairs to his room. She was left alone in the kitchen with her hands covered in dishwater, and with a lump in her throat she fought hard to swallow.
*
Put in a burlap sack and thrown into the lake they were. She tried not to think about it. She hoped her son didn’t know.
*
Working at the funeral home is not what Raven wanted for her son but it’s what they both ended up with. Kravitz grew from a somber boy into a somber man and it saddens her to see him so serious.
“A damn shame,” his father, her husband, would say if he was still alive. But he lived his life building coffins, he left this life in a coffin and all he left them was coffins.
Now Kravitz builds them, for better or worse, in sunshine and rain.
*
She joins him by the window just in time to see one of the elves blow Kravitz a kiss. The shock on her son's face, his feathers ruffled, makes her hide a smile in her palm.
*
The elves are a wild kind. They talk too loud, they laugh too loud. They wear too little or too much, they dress so strangely.
“They stay out too long after sundown, and their windows are lit until close midnight,” Susan tells her in a stage-whisper, a basketful of fresh-baked, elven-made goods hanging on her arm, the hypocrite.
Raven looks at the bakery window, sees the elves laughing and tossing flour at each other. She sees people leaving the establishment with their hands full and their mouth smiling.
“They sing such terrible songs,” Susan continues, hissing, like it’s all some kind of devious conspiracy.
Raven realizes she never liked her, truly.
*
“He’s busy, probably,” Kravitz says under his breath, wringing his gloved hands. “Most- most likely.”
“More the reason why you should go offer a helping hand, Kravitz,” she says without looking up from the flowers she’s arranging. It’s been a week already, and Raven has heard all the rumors, while Kravitz has just been looking. He feels safe behind the glass, she figures, though the window is a poor cover to hide behind.
Raven prefers to leave her son to his own devices most of the time, but she has seen. She can’t help but notice the way Kravitz’s eyes have been glued to one of the elves in particular. The brother, Raven knows by now. The sister is married to the human they arrived with.
“I don’t think-”
“You think too much,” she says again and leaves the flowers in favor of grabbing her son’s arm and dragging him towards the door. “Just go , Kravitz.”
“Mother!”
“Go, and don’t let Susan catch you, or we’ll never hear the end of it,” she says and ushers him, pushes him , out of the door and towards the bakery on the opposite side of the street. The building smells like cinnamon, fresh bread and has an atmosphere that livens up the whole village.
*
The next morning, Kravitz comes down the stairs looking like he always does but somehow, he’s different.
She’s his mother, she can tell.
She smiles at him.
He smiles back.
She feels her heart jump with joy.
*
Kravitz is quiet and gentle. A soul born in cold and rain.
She remembers that night well.
It’s a boy!
Her baby cradled in her shaking arms, her husband’s hand was heavy and proud on her shoulder. Just like his mother , the midwife had said. Dark skin, hair black as winter night but unlike her, his eyes like pieces of coal ready to spark with flame.
Congratulations, Mr. MacAllister, they said to him, ignoring her.
She hummed a tune and held her son while outside, white November turned into a grey December.
The night was long but in the morning there was sunlight, sunlight.
*
They’re in the back room having tea when front door bangs open and makes them both jump. Raven manages to hold onto her cup - and avoid an incident - but Kravitz spills his and he peels his soaked gloves off with a hiss and a grimace.
They both know who it is, even without the carelessly spoken oops that follows. There’s only one person who would enter a funeral home in such a way.
They move to the front to greet their guest, Raven still cradling her cup in both her hands. She smiles to herself as she observes the tension in her son’s shoulders melt away. Taako’s very presence seems to help lessen the gloomy atmosphere of the room.
“Goddamn it’s grim around here, would it kill you two to have some music on or something?” Taako complains as he invites himself in with a basket full of something sweet-smelling hanging on the crook of his arm.
“Would it kill you not to torture us with your baking Taako?” Raven asks good-naturedly averting her eyes from the scene. The way Kravitz’s face lits up with a smile is enough for her. She knows her son is in love, she doesn’t feel the need to spy on the pair’s reunion. though their separation has been brief, they saw each other yesterday, last.
Taako scoffs, “It's not torturing if I'm bringing you some.” He drops his basket on the very expensive, wooden desk and out of the corner of her eye, Raven notices the crumbs now littering the surface. Kravitz does not. He’s too busy staring into Taako’s eyes.
She hums in answer and lifts the cloth over the basket, grabbing one of the scones she finds underneath to enjoy with her tea.
Taako grabs Kravitz by the forearms and pulls him into a gentle sway, humming a melody.
She leaves the room with her delicious prize, knowing her son is in good hands. Kravitz’s voice is warm and Taako’s laugh is high and tinkling.
*
They reach the summer solstice. Their little town is much changed from before the brightly-colored wagon arrived. The midsummer festival with its flower crowns, birch saplings, and the huge bonfire remains constant, however.
Raven skips the festivities, just like every year. But this year she enjoys the look on her son’s face when he’s dragged out of the house by Taako.
She has an uneasy feeling but she tries to ignore it, as she often presumes the worst.
But also, she’s never wrong.
*
Come dawn, the bakery burns.
*
“They’re dead, all three”, they say, when the sun has revealed the destruction in its entirety. Raven can see her son’s world crumbling into pieces as their eyes meet.
Good riddance, some of them say.
Some say, they knew the three newcomers were somehow wicked.
They’re all dead, the human man and the elves both.
In her mind’s eye, she sees Kravitz’s hands making a coffin.
A coffin for his lover.
White like a dove, the bird, and the loving nickname he gave his beloved.
She hates the world for being so cruel.
*
She doesn’t see Kravitz cry but she knows better than to assume he doesn’t.
His gloves are gone now. Replaced by bandages covering his burned hands, wounded when he and disappointingly few others dug through the still-smoldering rubble of the bakery. They all knew they would find no survivors. But Kravitz had wanted to confirm, to see the dreadful truth with his own eyes.
*
By the time it’s obvious that the fire was no accident, they’ve found no bodies. Raven doesn’t know what to think of it, but she dares to hope. Kravitz paces the hardwood floors, his eyes empty and dead.
*
It’s a cool and quiet night, a week after the fire when they hear a gentle rapping at their window.
Kravitz only has eyes for his untouched bowl on soup. His spoon is idly stirring, but Raven looks up and gasps, loud, as she spots a wayward flash of golden hair in the darkness behind the glass.
Kravitz stirs and raises his eyes to her but she’s already hurrying to the window, pulling at the latches and pushing it open.
She hears Kravitz’s chair fall to the floor as he rushes to his feet because it’s Taako, leaning against the frame like he isn’t supposed to be dead. He doesn't look good, doesn't look well but he isn't dead
“Looking grim as usual, MacAllisters,” he quips with a grin that softens first into a smile and then turns into a frown as he takes in Kravitz’s rumpled suit and messy hair. “You look tired hon, wait, what happened to your han-?”
Taako cuts off as Kravitz surges violently forward with a choked gasp of the elf’s name and then they are both tumbling out of the window and down onto the dewy grass below.
*
“Taako, he- I mean, they’re leaving and he wants- no he, he needs me to go with him.”
“I know, Kravitz,” she says gently and reaches for his hands, holds them between hers.
“Mother,” he says, his eyes sorry and pleading. “Mother, I’m-”
“I know , Kravitz.” She smiles. “I loved, once. Truly loved. But it was a different time,” she says and thinks of golden eyes and long silver hair even though she shouldn't. Her husband was a good man.
“You must go, Kravitz.”
She brushes the hair out of his eyes and cradles his cheek.
“You must live.”
He sobs and surges forward to embrace her. To her shame, it catches her off guard. She squeezes her eyes shut against the tears, hides her face in her son’s hair.
“I promise I’ll write,” he chokes out.
“And I will treasure every letter,” she replies, her voice shaking but she is smiling - of course she is. She can’t recall a time when she last felt this happy.
*
In the morning, Raven takes her tea out to the back porch, eats a leftover scone, and basks in sunlight, sunlight.