The Alchemist's Practice Chapter 6

Edric wore an outfit that his master had bought for him to the funeral. It was meant for important occasions, and he had worn it several times when meeting with prolific merchants or dignitaries. It felt appropriate to wear it now, for his parent's funeral and seedling ceremony, but compared with the simple farmers and traders of Mayel, he felt out of place.

The outfit was a tunic of dark forest green and gilded trim with black and gold buttons, a black knee-length overcoat, breeches, and buckled boots. Edric also had a kerchief around his neck, puffed and held in by the buttoned tunic.

The only other who came close was Kennard, who wore similar formal wear but not as elaborately designed as Edric's. Wynn came third with a simple black gown, laced tight at the front, and a silver belt around her waist. Garrick, bless him for trying, wore his cleanest tunic with a long shirt and breeches of simple homespun that looked like they itched his legs because he kept scratching them.

The rest of the village, almost two hundred strong, looked much like Garrick did. These men and women were farmers and hunters, spinners, smiths, cobblers, and simple merchants. They had no formal clothes, and so they simply wore the cleanest clothes they had.

Rorick wore the same robes he had been wearing the day prior when Edric spoke with him. Black, with a white stole around his neck. On the stole were patterned roses, the outlines of which were different colours. Starting from the top of each side was white, which would be difficult to see if not for the stole being off-white, then yellow, peach, orange, pink, red, lavender, purple, blue, green, and, at the bottom, black. The colours blended in a gradient from one rose to the next, save pure white and black, which were wholly separate from the rest.

Edric, Wynn, Kennard, and Garrick sat together at the front of the church. Typically it was an area reserved for family, but Edric had no family for him. Not anymore. And so, his old friends sat with him without a word of planning, as though it were the most natural thing to do at that moment.

Those who hadn't seen him the day before came to offer condolences, give the white, and comment on how much he'd grown.

He knew what it meant to receive the white rose. It was a symbol of love and remembrance for him and his family. Yynndal's white rose was the beginning, just as love is the beginning of her teachings and the most important one. It wasn't just an expected offering; it was a loving gesture. But as he returned the blessings one after the other to nearly each of the two hundred villagers there, the words lost all meaning, and he felt like he was sleepwalking by the end.

When all the village had gathered, Rorick went to the podium to speak. Behind him, directly underneath Yynndal's statue, were two coffins. The local woodworker made the coffins out of the local beech. They weren't oranate or elaborate, but they were smooth and stained a beautiful dark colour. There was room for a third, but Edric made clear that he wouldn't allow it.

Rorick began his sermon, but Edric was lost. He tried to listen but couldn't hear the words from the teacher, and his thoughts turned to ash. He looked up at Yynndal, large and imposing and made of many unstained beech planks, the same beech as the caskets. He couldn't look into her eyes, the dead, lifeless eyes of a dead god, and so he looked down at the floor.

His thoughts went everywhere and nowhere like great waves crashing against each other in his head. He was lost in the force of the memories rushing at him until he drowned in them, and there was only silence.

Then, there was a hand entwined in his.

He looked over and noticed Wynn's hand holding his own. She wasn't looking at him, but her grip was firm to the point that it nearly hurt him. He awoke from his daze and squeezed back.

Then Garrick grabbed onto Edric's other hand and pulled it over so Kennard could join in as well. Each of them looked as serious as statues. As serious as friends trying to bear their feelings and impart their strength without words.

Edric raised his head, and he could hear the words again. He looked into Yynndal's eyes, and they no longer seemed as lifeless as they had.

At the end of the sermon, Rorick shared a few accounts from several of the villagers about his parents. It could have been Edric telling those stories, but it didn't feel right to him. He had been away so long, and the shadow of his parents loomed large, impossibly large, to talk about their deeds while he was gone.

That, or he simply couldn't bear to talk about them in that way. The way one spoke about how things used to be. The way one talks when the future is gray and withered and bereft of light and love. The way one talks when a thing is no more and can be no more—the way one talks of the dead.

By the end of the stories Rorick shared, there didn't seem to be a dry eye in the entire church. Wynn tried to hide it as she wiped a tear away, Garrick was openly bawling, and even Kennard looked misty-eyed.

It made him feel ashamed that he knew so little about how involved his parents were in the community, how much they had helped others in times of need or just by being there. Was the love that the villagers showed him simply an extension of the love they had had for his parents? What had he done for this community? He had left it.

It also made him ashamed that he didn't feel the same emotion as those surrounding him. The tears wouldn't come, though he thought they should for him most of all.

Rorick finished his tales, and now it was time for the seedling ceremony. First, Edric, his friends, and some of his parent's close friends carried the caskets to the graveyard. The graveyard was outside the village a ways, but close enough that walking there wasn't difficult.

The caskets were light, too light for what they should hold. Edric didn't want to think about it. His parents were caught in a fire, so there was probably little left to go inside the casket. He knew that Rorick must have mentioned something about it, but he had trouble remembering much of their conversation the day before outside of their argument.

Outside the church, the sun was shining brightly overhead, but Edric could see a few dark clouds off in the distance. It was a good omen for a seedling ceremony.

They carried the caskets straight from the church to outside the village and into a fenced graveyard. The graveyard was full of many-coloured roses in full bloom in the light of the sun. Each grave had a small, fenced plot where the roses could grow and stone steps between each plot for walking. Near the back, the graveyard was empty of roses and headstones, and two had mounds of dirt next to them, ready for his parents.

Around those plots, Edric could see graves for his grandparents, their parents, and other relatives. He also saw a third plot next to his parent's graves with fresh dirt atop it. Though he had an argument with him, Rorick was a man of honour, it seemed, and he respected Edric's wishes.

They gently lowered his father and mother's caskets into the graves dug for them. Once they laid there, Rorick held in his hands a platter with four roses, two white and two black, some twine, and two small, glass containers of soil mixed with ash and seeds.

Edric took one white and one black rose, tied them together with the twine, tossed it into his father's grave atop his casket, then did the same for his mother. He was lost in thought again, thinking of anything but what was happening, what he was doing. He thought about how quaint it was that Rorick insisted on following the tradition of the black rose, as they hadn't been in Sybold for as long as he could remember.

The black rose was Fillith's rose, a rose of death. Only the Hend worshiped Fillith now, and none wanted to be associated with the Hend.

Edric tried to think about what Rorick had said about Fillith and why he still followed the tradition, but he couldn't remember their conversation again. He had always prided himself on his memory, but now he had trouble remembering conversations from just a day prior.

Edric looked up and noticed all eyes were on him, and his parent's graves were already filled with dirt. He took the cup of soil and seeds one at a time and spread it across the graves of his parents. The soil was mixed with ashes made from a bone of his parent's bodies. Thus, if they bloomed, it was said they would be reborn as Yynndal's cycle allowed.

After watering the seeds, the ceremony was complete. Rorick said a final prayer, asking Yynndal to bless the seeds and let them grow so that his parents could rest and eventually return to life.

For the first time in a long while, Edric prayed, and he prayed for the same.

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Thank you for reading The Alchemist's Practice Chapter 6. If you're enjoying it, please share it with your friends and give it a heart at the bottom. If you like my writing, be sure to check out http://www.mcleansnovels.com to see more of my full length novels.

So, I hope this was an interesting chapter. No dialogue, but there was some worldbuilding which maybe brings to light some of the beliefs and traditions that I've been hinting at. If the story seems a little slow, it is by design, but I hope it's still engaging.

Happy reading!