Courage & Resolve
1.13 - The Presley Family
In what felt like way too short of a time, Amelia was dressed up for a funeral, looking through Cory and Jamira’s closet to try and find clothes suitable for the occasion. Amelia still couldn’t really believe that Jo was gone. She’s been such a constant the entirety of her life in Willow Creek that the simple fact that she couldn’t knock on the door and instantly be greeted with understanding eyes and a warm cup of tea just felt… off.
Something about her passing felt wrong to Amelia too. Why would Jo suddenly go banging around on her floors, trying to find out if there was some hidden passageway to a forgotten basement? Even moving furniture and potentially hearing hollowness and choosing to investigate seemed unusual for Jo as well. She lived by a simple routine of tea and books that was only ever interrupted by visitors, and none of her visitors spent time jumping around on her floors either.
She’d chatted about the whole situation with Felix and Genevieve after processing Jo’s passing for a few days.
“Why would an old woman like Jo suddenly discover her forgotten basement now, after living in that house for decades?” Amelia had asked.
“I think it’s weird too, Amelia,” Genevieve had said, shaking her head. “There’s definitely something more going on here.”
“And, let me guess- we can’t do anything about our feelings about this?”
Felix nodded. “Unfortunately. All we’re at liberty to do anything with is Travis’s case against the realtor who sold Jo the house. Everything related to the forensics investigation of her death… that was all wrapped up internally.”
“It was ruled an accidental death,” Genevieve added. “Because the investigators think there was no foul play at all here, they determined the cause as a nasty fall down the stairs and considered the whole thing solved.”
“The fact that we can’t do anything is infuriating,” Amelia had sighed, crossing her arms.
“Yeah, tragically, our hands are tied here,” Felix said.
“Listen Amelia, there’s something else you need to know,” Genevieve added. “Jo left everything to you. We understand that you’re not going to want to go through her things right away, so we’ll keep her house locked up for you until you feel ready.”
“Thank you guys,” Amelia smiled, trying her best not to burst into tears.
Now, as she picked out the outfits Cory and Jamira would wear to Jo’s funeral, Amelia didn’t feel any less ready to go through Jo’s things, and doubted she would anytime soon. She just hoped that somehow, she’d be able to find out the truth behind Jo’s passing, and that would give her enough peace of mind to be able to go through her things.
Finally settling on the two outfits she was okay with Cory and Jamira wearing to the funeral, Amelia grabbed the clothes off their hangers then went back into the dining room, where the two were waiting.
“Cory, here’s yours,” Amelia said, passing him his stack of clothes. “And Jamira, yours.”
Jamira accepted her stack of clothes as Cory headed to the bathroom to change.
The two of them sat there in a painful silence.
Eventually, Jamira had to break it. “Mom. I’m worried. What if we’re the only three there? Like, did Jo have any other real friends? I’m just so afraid that we’ll be the only three, Jo deserves so much better than that.”
“Don’t worry, Jamira,” Amelia said. “Remember that family the three of us baked cookies for that we met on our first day in Willow Creek? They should be there.”
“Oh… Honestly, I don’t know if that makes me feel worse or better. I thought they were terrible.”
“We’ll just have to see, Jamira. I sure hope they’re more respectable than the last time we met them, I really don’t want to see Jo’s memory tarnished. But… Jo always did vouch for them, so I have hope.”
The two fell back into silence.
Eventually, Cory emerged from the bathroom. “Is this really the best I have mom?”
Jamira pushed past Cory to enter the bathroom for her turn, closing the door before hearing Amelia’s answer.
“That it is, Cory,” Amelia said, giving him a sad little smile. “We weren’t well prepared for this, and didn’t really have the time to go out and buy anything nice and tailored, so this is going to have to do.”
Cory frowned, but sat down next to Amelia. “I was listening from the bathroom, and that other family you said is going to be there… they’re going to eat us up, aren’t they? They’re like, celebrities, right? I bet they’re going to show up in limos and wear whatever rich people wear while we have to walk in whatever we already had in our closets.”
“Don’t waste time comparing yourself to them, Cory. They might live more glamorous lifestyles than us, but from what I heard from Jo, that life is riddled with needless drama and half of the members of that house have hated each other at one point or another. All that doesn’t seem worth the price of their lifestyle at all to me.”
Cory nodded, feeling a little bit more reassured.
Once Jamira emerged from the bathroom, the three of them set off for the funeral. Amelia had allowed for their wealthy neighbors to take care of the funeral proceedings when they’d asked, so the ceremony was being held at their private mausoleum.
It was an ancient looking dark stone building, an intimidating looking iron fence surrounding the entire thing and the front garden, which was littered with intricately carved stone statues. Amelia had the feeling the entire lot had once had a purpose- potentially the same purpose- before their neighbors, the Presley family, had purchased it, but she resolved not to ask questions she wouldn’t appreciate the answers to as the three of them approached the gate.
“Travis said all we’d have to do is knock three times on the gate…” Amelia muttered, reaching out her hand.
She knocked three times, and a blonde haired man hurried to the gates. He moved a latch, then dragged one half of the gate open a crack before gesturing for the three of them to hurry in. They did as he gestured, and the blonde man managed to close the gate just before a man with a camera tried to push his way in.
“Sorry,” the man said sheepishly. “The paparazzi is incessant. Name’s Travis, by the way.”
“Travis,” Amelia said, holding out a hand. “Good to finally meet you.”
Cory and Jamira shared a look. This man seemed much more put together than the women they’d met in their childhood.
“I’ll show you all to the rest of the family, and uh, more importantly, the ceremony,” Travis said, gesturing for them to continue to following him.
They did as he asked, and that was when they met the other attendees of Jo’s funeral. In one corner of the front area that had been swept clean of autumn leaves, an older woman was clearly in the middle of telling some elaborate story to two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy was listening with rapt attention, while the girl looked up at the sky, an expression on her face that made it clear she was irritated about something.
“Over there, we have Giovanna, and she’s reading to my kids, Clara and Jacob. If you want this ceremony to remain orderly, I recommend not interacting with any of them too much. My kids are just too young to take anything seriously, and Giovanna… she’s old.”
“Yoo hoo!” an elegantly dressed blonde woman called out, walking over, a man who looked to be her husband on her arm. “Don’t you think you should be introducing, you know, the people who can actually interact properly first? Wait… do I know you guys?”
Amelia nodded. “Yes. You certainly do. We brought you cookies, and you ended up taking the whole plate.”
The woman still looked confused.
“You were probably drunk, Summer,” the man beside her whispered.
“Ah yes, of course. Summer Holiday,” she said, stretching out a hand. “This is my husband, José, and I will see what I can do to get you that plate back.”
“We’d greatly appreciate that,” Amelia smiled. “Now, is there anywhere you want us to sit?”
José shook his head. “Anywhere will do. We’re just glad we all were able to get together to celebrate Jo’s life.”
“Yeah, speaking of that, I want to talk about the manner of her passing more with you all,” Amelia said. “It’s true that one of you found her, right?”
“That we did…” Travis muttered. “Um. Do you want your children to go elsewhere for this conversation?”
“Not at all. They’re mature enough.”
“Mom. It’s alright,” Jamira spoke up. “Cory and I will go and entertain… Clara and Jacob, I think it was?”
“Speak for yourself,” Cory snorted.
“No, you’re coming with me, moron,” Jamira said, dragging him away.
“I’m sorry if I offended you in any way, Amelia, just as a father of young children myself…”
“I get it. I was once in your position, and you’ve just got to wait until the day your children are mature enough that they wow you. That’s when you know they’re ready for the entire world. Should we sit?”
Travis nodded.
The four of them sat down on the benches immediately In front of Jo’s painting.
“Well,” José said. “It actually wasn’t any of us three who found Jo. It was Giovanna.”
He pointed at the elderly woman, who was now bewildering both Cory and Jamira with a story that involved her waving her hands around a lot. Clara and Jacob, meanwhile, seemed to have vanished into the mausoleum.
“Granny!” Summer called out.
Giovanna heard the name, and headed on over.
“Granny?” Amelia asked.
“It’s a long story I’d rather not get into,” Travis said, shaking his head.
Giovanna sat down near everyone else, and José turned to her, speaking very carefully. “Giovanna. Could you tell us about the way you found Jo?”
“Jo!” Giovanna exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. Then, she seemed to sadden. “Jo… Yes. There was… a hole. In the floor. Stairs, leading down… a room with so many candles! Endless candles! Jo… she was at the bottom. I ran to her. I slipped, on something red on those stairs…”
Giovanna fell into silence, clearly lost in deep thought.
“I don’t know about you guys, but Jo’s passing has always seemed like something that wasn’t an accident it to me. It makes no sense that she’d go sniffing around for some secret basement. And, if Giovanna here slipped on something on the stairs… I think it’s very possible she accidentally destroyed some crucial evidence.”
The three of them shared a look.
“Giovanna here knew her best,” Summer said. “And, clearly, she isn’t going to be of much help to us. The only other people who knew Jo better than we do are somewhere far away right now. So far away that they couldn’t make it back for this, we weren’t even sure if the message we sent reached them. I’m truly sorry, Amelia, but I don’t think any of us are going to be of much help.”
“I will be meeting with a representative of that realtor sometime in the future, though!” Travis added. “So, at least we’ll get some answers there.”
“I know the realtor didn’t kill her though…” Amelia muttered. “Why would they?”
No one had a response to that.
Summer’s phone started ringing, breaking the silence. “If you’ll excuse me, I think that’s the nanny,” she said, walking away as she answered the phone.
“Well, once Summer is off the phone, we’ll track down Clara and Jacob and start the ceremony. Are you going to want to say anything?” Travis asked.
Amelia nodded. “Of course. She was my best friend.”
It took a bit, but eventually, the family was able to wrangle together Clara and Jacob, and seat them somewhere near Giovanna so she could entertain them. Everyone else tried to sit in front of them, to hopefully avoid any disruptions.
Travis gave a sweet speech about how much Jo meant to the family, about how they could always count on her and how much she’d be missed. Giovanna went up next, and tried her best to give a coherent speech. Finally, it was Amelia’s turn.
She cleared her throat when she got up to the podium. “Jo Kauffman. Where do I even begin? I moved to Willow Creek in a time of such duress, I’d finally fled what long terrorized me, but I still spent each and every day living in fear, afraid that this new beautiful world I was living in would be ripped away from me, like some fleeting dream. But, I was lucky enough to move into your neighborhood, and meet you on my first full day here. You were ever the voice of reason, I could go to you with any problem and you’d have so much wisdom to share. Somehow, you always had tea on the brew, a warm beverage to go along with the warmth you provided to me, as well as, I’m sure, to everyone else here as well. You didn’t deserve to go like this, Jo. I’ll miss you.”
Amelia wiped away some tears, then walked quickly back to her seat, where she could cry without being stared at by everyone else.
In the bushes outside the Presley’s private mausoleum property, a man with white hair turned away, and wiped away tears of his own. His roots were starting to grow in now.
In a fancy hotel room that he could definitely no longer afford, a man paced back and forth.
Of course he felt terrible. He hadn’t meant to kill anyone. He’d just wanted to hurt her a little bit, just enough to get the information he needed to get Cory and Jamira all for himself. But Jo had been so bold, so willing to get in his face and insult him that he’d lost control.
Samson hadn’t seen Stefan since that night. Stefan had dealt with the situation, covered for him, then promptly disappeared. Samson kept waiting outside the spots he knew Stefan frequented, but he never showed. He couldn’t get into his apartment building without being buzzed in, but whenever he looked up at the windows, the lights were always off. Stefan clearly didn’t want to be found.
Which meant Samson was now on his own. But even on his own, Samson wasn’t about to give up. He was probably better off without Stefan anyway. He’d always organized the plans, and each and every one of his plans had failed. It was time for Samson to work on a plan of his own, something he could be sure would succeed.