Lady Lazarus

It has been said, if you wait for the right moment, on the right day you can see a miracle. The question about miracles is, that every time one happens, you can not be completely sure that it really happened.

So, in early morning of that as the light glinted off the snow, the setting was perfect for a miracle, a hidden secret - it was also perfect for just imaginigng it.

If one were to look at the right angle, through the trees the way the sun bounced off the snow, it almost made it appear as if there was a young girl, long brown hair cascading down her back as she lounged across the tombstone with her name engraved on it. She looked exactly as she would have the last time anyone saw her. Only she was paler than the snow you could see through her.

Another blink of an eye, and the image would be gone. Anyone could easily say that it had been a trick of the mist. It would take a real stubborn mind, or perhaps a desperate, determined one, to truely believe the girl had been there at all.

Artemis was thinking about how his life was turning out. And it wasn't getting any better since Phillie died. His brother and sisters where tell him that it would get better. It only has gotten worse. He would have rather died just to be with her. Then to try and find someone to fill that whole in his heart.

For some reason today he wanted to visit her. He would bring her flowers and would spend a whole day crying over her tombstone. All he wanted was for his angel to come back to him. Everything that he dreamed of sharing with her was never going to happen.

He then walked over but he looked and seen that she was laying across it. Artemis knew that this had to be a trick because she wasn't alive. He was told that she killed herself. He then dropped the roses that he had brought her and ran over to her tombstone. He hoped that this wasn't his eyes playing tricks. Artemis needed his angel to feel whole again. Life was hard without her.

But he then blink and she was gone. This couldn't be happening to him. She was gone again it was like he lost her twice. Artemis then went and picked the roses up and laid them on her grave and started to cry. “ I feel no longer whole without you.”

Kallie trampled across the snow in the small cemetery. The place calmed her, it reminded her of the little place back home where they had buried her sister. It had been her hide out from everything bad when she was a child. Now any cemetery had the same affect on her.

And boy did she need something to calm her out right now. Everything was falling apart. So she had gone to the only place she thought she could walk around and get some peace.

The sounds of tears though, true grief, broke her out of her own thoughts. Her experiences with her mother - and to some degree her father - lent her to be both more able to help cope with others's pain, but it also gave her a slight degree of distaste for prolonged grief. She understood it was a sickness, her mother had not been well, but try telling that to the wounded child still within her who had just wanted her Mama.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she called out mirroring the language she had heard the man speak. "Has it been long?"

Artemis felt like he was living it all over again. He knew that he had seen Phillie here today. But it would have been the snow playing tricks with him. He was always bringing flowers to her grave. Making sure that she had least one person who still loved her. But he would do anything just to have her in his arms again.

His life was only getting worse everyday and didn't know how he keep everything together. He kept telling himself that he needed an animal. Artemis also keep up with his rose garden. He knew Phillie would have loved that.

He continued to cry for her. Artemis wasn't even sure why she did it. She was so happy when she was with him. His angel, princess made him feel like life was worth something. And he was doing his best to cope and live. But everything was just hard for him. All he wanted was for her to come back to him.

Artemis then looked up and never seen this person before. He then whipped his tears away. “ It has been about a year. I found out right when I started to teach at Beauxbatons.”

She glanced over the grave, scanning the names and the dates. Doing the math she realized that the child couldn't have been more than fourteen when she died. The thought saddened her even more than she already had been feeling. It is cruel when life was cut short, the shorter the worse it was.

For a brief moment she thought she saw something flash beside the man, it looked like an outstretched hand. But shaking her head Kallie decided it must have been a trick to the lights playing with her.

"It is sometimes worse, isn't it, when the wound has been there a long time, instead of just when its fresh. People think its the other way around but... there are pains of all types, just as there are all types of people to deal with some better than others." She gave a soft frown, "If you do not mind me asking, how did you know her?"

Artemis then was watching this women. He had never seen her before but here she was talking to him. Telling how sorry she was for his lost. In a couple more years and she would have been finished with school. He knew that he life was too short and knew that she should have had a chance to leave. And had a chance to love him.

All he wanted was to feel Phillie again. But that wasn't going to happen.

“ Yes it was painful to find out that she killed herself. And then having a fellow professor telling me that she would be there for me. And then she disappeared and I never seen her again. I remember my brother and sisters had a hard time because all I wanted to do was die just to be with her again.” This women then was asking how she knew her. “ I meet Phillie at a party she was supposed to dance with some older gentlemen. I walked over and said she promised me a dance.”

Kallie couldn't help the slight raise of her eyebrow. So she had taken her own life. How especially tragic. She had spent most of her childhood - once she was old enough to full understand her mother's illness, her depression - worried that her own mother would do such a thing. The news some how managed to settle close to home even when she knew neither this man, nor the girl they were talking about.

"If she truly cared about you, I do not think she'd want you to repeat her foolish act." A sad smile came across her face as she listened to his story, "How gentlemanly of you. I bet she though you were quite the catch - young handsome, saving you from the clutches of the world." Kallie could remember when she was young enough to think she needed a hero. Sometimes she still thought she needed a hero, though she was wise enough now to not expect to get one.

The woman shivered as the wind swept passed them, once more having to shake her head as she was sure she heard laughter and music being carried upon it.

Taking about Phillie was only bringing up feeling again. And it didn't help that he thought he had seen her. And he didn't even know this women that he was talking to. But she seemed to understand what he was going through. It was nice talking to someone who didn't even know how he was.

“ I ask myself every night why did she have to do this? I know her brother was killed and I know that she was hurt by that. Because she ran to my home in France.” He then watched as this women had a sad smile on her face as he was telling her the story. “ Yes I know that she thought a lot of me. The more time I spent with her I was falling in love with her. Gave her everything that she wanted and she knew that I would have done anything for her.” Artemis then started to sigh.

All he wanted was to hear Phillie's voice again. “ That is why I come up here to visit her grave. I don't think she was on good terms with her parents. And I know that she loved my yellow roses from my garden.”

Kallie heaved a sigh, a slight frown on her face, "Sometimes, some people just can't handle... its an illness really. There is something wrong with their brains. I don't know if the clinical reasons make it any better or not, but they are there. It is hard to handle life. Sometimes they see it easier to just... give up."

Give up. How Kallie hated that phrase. It seemed what her parents had done to her. They had given up on life, and as a consequence her. She could never forgive them for that, and in return, she had a hard time feeling sympathy for anyone who gave up. She in herself has run into problems by not letting the right things go.

"Well that is a very noble thing to do. Sometimes I wonder if the dead can feel alone. Or if it is just our human nature that wishes to anthropomorphize them."

Artemis was then listening to what this person was saying. He really didn't that Phillie would ever give up. But she killed herself by drinking poison. Artemis always thought that she would come to him. But instead she killed herself. This really wasn't making it any easier on him.

He couldn't believe that she would give up life. Artemis knew that she had so much to live for. He loved her so much. She knew that Artemis would have done whatever for her. There was a part of him that was mad at her for doing this. But he was more upset that it happened. She was his life.

Artemis then was listening to how this person was telling him that he did a noble thing. “ I don't know the anwser to that question. All I know is that I miss her more than anybody could know. I let someone back in only to have her just leave and crush my heart.”

"Being alone, though sometimes hard, is our burden to bare." Being alone was Kallie's life. Whenever she looked back upon the days she had lived, they were seas of solitude, broken up with years with Brock, followed by more heartbreaking solitude, and then Eli.

And of course, the present complication of Brock again. But that was supposed to be non-existent. She made her choice. Kallie loved Eli. Even if she still loved Brock, she had to accept that she made her past.

"At least you have some ability, to come back. Perhaps she's not here in body, and soul, but you have... some ability to feel a connection to her. Connection is all, in the end, we have. We make connections to people, or we don't. What we do with those connections, and how we make them in the first place is up to us. We have no one else to blame, or thank."

Artemis then listened as she was saying that it was a burden being alone. “ I had never felt more alive and complete when I was with her.” After her death he thought that he would be able to move on. But it was harder than her thought it would be.

He though about how Phillie would want him to be happy with someone else. But that was something that he really couldn't see. Because he was scared of getting close to anybody. Scared that this might happen again.

“ I still cry every night before sleeping. Because I remember asking her to come live with me. And I gave her a ring before she went back to school. It was a ring that my grandmother gave me and told me to give it to a girl that was special in my life.”

"Giving a ring takes a lot of commitment... means a lot of commitment in this society," her own words caused her to glance down at her own ring, the engagement ring as much a part of her now as the finger it sat upon rare when noticed by the woman unless there was some reason to think about it. A frown noting it was off centre, she reached down and straightened it.

"Ultimately these are answers that we cannot answer. Only the departed can share their secrets, and seeing as most departed stay so," she shrugged her shoulders delicately.

Artemis sighed as he thought about it. “ Yes I know this. Phillie knew that I would have done anything for her. She was my life and now she is gone forever.” He thought about everything and the ring didn't even matter anymore. He then watched as she was fixing her ring on her finger. “ Do you love the man that you are marrying?”

He didn't know what else to say. It was already a year that she had been gone. And that was too long for him. And he was sure that he would never find anybody as much as he loved her.

She was startled for the question for a moment, glancing down at her hand, again, although she had just adjusted it, she hardly remembered that it was there. For a moment she wanted to bristle, say that that was a personal question.

But then again, had her questions not been personal too. Sighing, she softened, a smile slipping on her features.

"I do, I really do. I didn't fancy that I'd find love so late in my life, but..." she smiled. "Eli's been a godsend. Really don't know what I'd do without him."

Artemis was looking at this person. But then he would look back at Phillie's grave. It felt that the love of his life was gone. And he would never find love again. He knew that he asked a personal questions and was regretting that he asked her.

He then stood there as she looked like she was going to answer his question. But he then seen a smile appear on her face.

“ That is good that you are doing this for love. There was a great muggle man his name was John Lenon. Great man, shot in the back but he believe that all you need is love.”

"Even as practical as I can be, I can't see anyone doing Marriage for anything but love," she shrugged her shoulder. "Its simply not a rational factor, once you put all things aside."

A slight sigh, Kallie nodded her head to his words, "How I wish that man were right... though I'm afraid that in my life I've come to find love only gets you so far. Maybe you can't live a life without love... but you can't live a life just on it either. The world is far too complicated, problematic, heartless for that."

Artemis sighed as he looked at Phillie's tombstone. “ I thought love was enough. I loved her and told her every time that I seen her. But she killed herself and I will never know the reason. I know her brother was killed and that affected her. But I know she knew that she could always come to me.” He then sighed as he was talking. It was still hurting when he would talk about Phillie.

“ I wish that he was right too. I know I seen where love got me. It has only hurt me to where I can't trust anybody else. I don't even know how to move on.”

Kallie gave a snort, shaking her head, "Moving on... do any of us really know how to do that? I certainly believe its a mystery I have never quiet mastered."

Taking a step around the tomb stone, looking out into the distant, away from the man, she was trapped in her memories, her own thoughts. Piles upon piles of examples of how she had never moved on, how ever one she knew had never moved on.

Did she know anyone, who, just once, had actually moved on from something?

"I suppose the only thing to do is... pretend that you have, and hope that reality will catch up in time."

Artemis then watched as Kallie gave a snort. And she was talking about moving on. “ I think it time people learn how to move on.”
He couldn't help but stare at the tombstone because the was where Phillie was now. He had nothing to remind him of her. Artemis was sure that nobody could ever replace his Phillie. There was something about her that just made her one of a kind.
But everything that was said is easier said that done.
She then was telling his that he should pretend that he actually moved on and hoped that reality would catch up with him. “ I don't know.”

Kallie flashed the man a sympathetic smile.

"Its a hard, hard world, and I think that moving on, although making it much more difficult, only makes it harder," she let out a sigh, and began walking, she was getting further away, though still talking to the man, "Emotions are apparently what make us human, though they seem to only make things more complicated."

She gave a incline of her head, and a wave of her hand, "I am required to go now. Though I hope you do find something to make things easier. Look me up sometime. I'm sure if you spread the name Kallie Nikkala around you should be able to find someone who can direct you to me."

With a slightly amused grin, she waved again and then was gone, leaving nothing in her place except the oddly ghostly waver that had been floating around the grave for a long time now, unnoticed and yet ever present.