Viridian Tears by Rachel Green Read Free Book Online

others. Honestly, she just wanted to pay her respects to a friend, not convert to Christianity. Not for the first time she wished Helen had been an agnostic. Humanist funerals were so much more cheering. There were tears, certainly, but none of this doom and gloom. None of this I-am-not-worthy stuff. She glanced at the other people on her row. Two to her right, a girl was busy tapping out a text, her two thumbs a blur of movement. At least she’d put the phone on silent.
    Reverend Dodgson began reading Psalm twenty-three. Meinwen groaned, but not as much as when he opened his Bible and began reading from John. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
    There was justification for a zombie apocalypse right there. Modern cinema had it all wrong. The undead were just missionaries. If Helen Matthews rose from her coffin there’d be mass heart attacks. Hers too, probably. She was almost surprised he hadn’t read the bit about New Jerusalem from Revelations. It would be quite appropriate, considering this was Eden Gardens, locally known as “New Eden” or “the new cemetery” depending upon whether the speaker approved or not.
    The service segued into another hymn. Jerusalem . She could have written this.
    By the time they reached the committal, where the priest asked for divine intervention on behalf of the deceased,   Meinwen breathed a sigh of relief that the tedium was almost over. The coffin slid slowly out of sight, downward rather than the traditional through a curtain. As a child Meinwen had always imagined the crematorium flames behind the curtain and generally wondered why the material didn’t catch fire.
    She was first out when they opened the doors.
    It had, mercifully, stopped raining. Although there was a covered area, the roof half-glassed like a Victorian conservatory, much of it was open to the elements. The sky was pendulous with cumulonimbus, a chill wind beating them across the sky like a milkmaid with her cows. Were milkmaids still a career option, or were they Agricultural Livestock Technicians these days? Meinwen wandered across to look at the flowers left by mourners. It hadn’t even occurred to her to bring any. She’d make a donation to charity in their stead.
    Some attendees were lighting cigarettes. It explained why much of the mourner’s area was open to the sky. A full conservatory would have been impossible, and illegal, to smoke in. A man she recognized as Helen’s husband made his way to the lychgate leading to the car park, followed by his son and, presumably, his daughter-in-law. Several of the mourners lined up to murmur consolations as they left, some to go to the wake at the Green Hill, others to return to jobs or home.
    Meinwen spotted a dark-haired woman in a business suit talking on the phone. She recognized Eden Maguire from the newspaper. They’d done quite an expose on her when the cryotorium first opened amid a flood of protests from people who either thought the process dangerous or who simply didn’t want a new cemetery on the site of the old community college. The woman was trying to keep her voice low while conducting her half of an argument. Several people glanced her way and she gave a half-smile, then slipped back into the building. One of the staff moved in front of the door to prevent any of the mourners returning inside.
    Meinwen bit her lip. Although attending the funeral had been her excuse to come here, she had another matter on her mind, the reason she’d been skulking in the garden of rest for almost an hour before the service. She headed to the door but the attendant barred her way. “Can I help you, madam?”
    “I just need to go back inside for a moment.”
    “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Please make your way to the car park via the exit provided.”
    “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Maguire.”
    He withdrew a small tin from his