Part 2: The Undertaker’s Smile
523 Words
*Elias visits Thomas Pryor, the town’s undertaker, whose eerie calm unnerves him. Pryor admits the coffin was sealed before he saw the body — and whispers that the weight felt wrong. He implies Margaret Ward insisted on secrecy. Pryor suggests: “That wasn’t your man in the box.”*
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The bell above the door of Pryor & Sons Funeral Services let out a tinny jangle as Elias stepped inside. The scent was unmistakable — lavender, camphor, and something deeper, like soil kept too long in a closed room.
Thomas Pryor appeared from the back without a sound, as if he’d been expecting him. He wore a brown waistcoat, perfectly clean, and his white sleeves were rolled meticulously to the forearms. His thinning blond hair was slicked back, and his spectacles sat low on the bridge of his nose.
“Constable Harrow,” he said, with a voice as calm as linen. “Is someone new… or someone old?”
Elias didn’t answer. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, letting the click of the lock punctuate his silence.
“I’m not here for a service,” he said. “I’ve got questions. About Charles Ward’s burial.”
Pryor folded his hands before him and gave a slow, dry smile — the kind given not to mourners, but to riddles.
“I thought you might.”
Elias stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You signed the burial documents. Oversaw the box into the ground. Yet you never saw the body.”
“I saw what I was permitted to see,” Pryor said. “The family was very clear.”
Elias narrowed his eyes. “Family, or Margaret?”
Pryor’s smile didn’t change. “The matriarch. She insisted the coffin remain sealed. Something about trauma. She claimed the coroner had already verified.”
“But there was no coroner.”
“No. There wasn’t.” He tapped the side of his spectacles with one long finger. “I filed what I was told. But between us — strictly between us — the casket felt… light.”
Elias’s eyes sharpened. “How light?”
Pryor tilted his head. “Light enough that I wondered if I was burying a memory, not a man.”
The room fell silent, save for the ticking of a wall clock.
Pryor stepped around to a shelf and picked up a small, black-bound record book.
“No weight was recorded,” he said. “Odd, considering Mr. Ward was known for his precise accounting.”
He placed the book back, gently.
“I make no accusations, Constable. I only handle the dead. I do not chase the living pretending to be them.”
Elias stared at him. “You think he’s alive?”
“I think we buried something,” Pryor said, “but not someone.”
He gave Elias a thin smile and turned to go.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said over his shoulder. “If Mrs. Ward comes asking, do let her know… she wasn’t the only one who looked at that coffin strangely.”
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**End of Part 2**
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