The rear doors opened, cold air moved through the narrow gap above me, and the person standing beside the coffin reached down before anyone else could see what was happening.
Her fingers closed around the small silver pin I pushed through the lining.
It was Erin.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then she whispered my name.
I tapped once against the lid.
Her face appeared in the thin opening when she lifted it just enough to look inside. The light from the candles outside crossed her expression, and she stopped when she saw the bandage around my head, the dried blood near my mouth, and the way I was holding my injured ankle still.
She had not been told the truth.
My mother and grandmother had told everyone that something had gone wrong during the family blessing. They said the blood was a sign. They said the baby was cursed. They said removing me from the house would protect everyone else.
Erin had been given a different version.
She thought I had lost the pregnancy.
She thought I was unconscious.
She did not know I had been listening from inside the coffin.
I looked at her and said only one thing.
“Don’t close it.”
My voice was barely there.
Erin’s eyes moved toward the front of the hearse when my mother’s voice carried across the gravel.
“Do you need help with the candles?”
Erin lowered the lid again, but she did not lock it.
The difference was small.
It was enough.
I kept my hand against the edge while I listened to footsteps moving around the burial ground.
A few minutes earlier, I had believed the only thing I could do was wait.
I had counted every turn on the road because I needed to know where they were taking me.
I had counted because screaming had not changed anything.
My ankle was broken. My scalp was bleeding under the bandage. My body hurt every time the hearse moved over uneven ground.
But the baby moved.
That was the one thing that kept me focused.
I pressed my hand over my stomach and felt the small movement again.
I was still there.
We were still there.
When Erin returned, she moved differently.
Not like someone following instructions.
Like someone trying not to be seen.
She slipped something under the blanket beside me.
My phone.
I looked at her.
She nodded once.
“Your purse was under the front seat,” she whispered.
That was when I understood she had already made a choice.
Not a loud choice.
Not the kind people notice immediately.
A quiet one.
The kind that changes what happens next.
I turned the phone on with shaking fingers.
The screen lit my face for a moment before I covered it with my sleeve.
There were messages waiting.
Missed calls.
Notifications.
Proof that the world outside this family burial ground was still moving.
I started recording.
I did not know who would believe me.
I knew what I had heard.
I knew what they had done.
And now I had a way to keep their voices from disappearing.
Outside the coffin, my grandmother was still arranging the candles.
She always did things in a certain order.
The candles had to face the same direction.
The cloth had to be folded evenly.
The ground had to look prepared.
She had spent more time fixing the scene than asking whether I was alive.
My mother stood nearby.
I heard her tell Erin that everything would be easier once the family could move forward.
Her voice sounded calm.
That was what made it worse.
She did not sound like someone who believed she was hurting me.
She sounded like someone protecting a decision she had already made.
Erin came back to the coffin after a short silence.
She whispered that she needed to know what happened.
I told her.
Not everything.
Not yet.
Just enough.
I told her about the blessing.
The blood.
The moment my grandmother looked at me and said the baby was a curse.
The moment my mother stopped arguing.
The moment they decided I could not stay in the house.
Erin covered her mouth.
She had known my family had rules.
She had known my grandmother controlled every gathering.
She had not known it went this far.
Then we heard a door close.
My mother was coming back.
Erin stepped away quickly.
The coffin lid lowered again.
The darkness returned.
But this time I was not alone.
I held the phone against my chest and listened.
My mother stood beside the coffin.
“She needs rest,” she said.
Erin answered before she could stop herself.
“What if she wakes up?”
Silence.
A long one.
Then my grandmother spoke.
“She won’t remember much.”
The words entered the recording.
I did not move.
I did not breathe loudly.
I let the phone capture everything.
That was the first mistake they made.
