It was just after sunrise, and the dense, heady smell of chlorophyll at work stuck thickly to the damp air. Icarus Aeson and Penelope Chryseis were asleep, foggy and dewy, the greenness shrouding their matching forms – the same glossy, arrow-straight black hair, the same creamy olive skin, the same thick black eyebrows brooding over what would have been dark olive eyes had they been open, but the thick, heavy eyelids were even thicker and heavier as they slept. When the ghostly sunlight dripping on them began to saturate Penelope’s eyes, she sat up, stretching her arms behind her and digging her long fingers into soft soil.

They were enclosed by masses of tall, cool trees, crystallised grass and clumps of thick weeds. Little birds flickered like cracked gems, and the frantic hum of the woods swelled in Penelope’s ears – surely Icarus couldn’t sleep through this, she thought, but his hat was pulled right down and his strong, square chin still jutted with tense sleep.

She stretched out a long leg to where her mother lay, gently lifting the shoulder with the toe of her shoe, before letting it fall with a soft, dull thud again. Still dead. Penelope smoothed her skirt over her knees and looked up through the canopy at smoky clouds and dense air. It was beautiful. Opaque sunshine smeared across a frosted sky, thick and condensed like a bathroom window. Reclining, legs crossed on the ground and kissed by the grass, head thrown back so she could see patterns in leaves, Penelope breathed in the damp air and cleared herself before getting up, crouching next to Icarus and loudly snapping her fingers in his face.
“Wake up,” she said.

There was no need to get dressed – they had slept in their day clothes, blanket-less and cover-less but for the carpet of soft dewy grass and scratchy insects. Penelope had slept on her back, and she could feel the wet soaking through her clothes, sitting like a film on her skin. Icarus had slept on his belly, elbow up, head down, drool pooling in the crook of his arm. Now, they were up, and in their crinkled clothes they fixed breakfast as best they could from the stuffed rucksack Penelope had thrown together. She flipped her mother’s body over, so the flat surface of her back faced upwards, and laid out the bread and butter as on a table. Icarus, yawning and with sleep in his eyes, picked up a blunt knife and started making a sandwich.

The misty sky started to condense. Fat drops of crystal rain burst on the dry earth until soon it wasn’t dry anymore. They could feel muck oozing underneath and through them and suddenly it all struck Icarus and he couldn’t stand to see his mother’s dead face smothered in it. “Penelope…” he began, glancing uncomfortably at the blonde hair and soft skin, now covered with the sloshing, bubbling mess. She understood what he meant and she knew what he wanted her to do, and he looked at her with such a sad plea in his eyes until she viciously shoved her mother’s head further into the slop. Then he exploded.

“You can’t do that!” he yelled, all the frustration and grief and silence boiling up and bubbling over.
“After what she did to us!” Penelope shrieked indignantly, “I can do whatever the hell I want!”
“It’s not her fault, Penny, it’s not…” and he trailed off and tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she slapped it off and looked like she was going to walk away. But for the first time in days, she stared at him, so intensely he felt almost scared, and for the first time in years, he could see her olive eyes blistering with hot tears. “How could she do this to us, Icarus?”
“She didn’t mean to, she didn’t Penny,” and he started to cry.
“Don’t. Don’t cry. She doesn’t deserve it. That bitch. That stupid piece of shit. You bitch!” and she shoved the body over so it was lying on its back again. Icarus thought she would hit her again and he restrained Penelope’s hands but she had started sobbing, hot tears sluicing her face and her whole body shaking and convulsing with a rattling cry. She started to wipe off the mud with her hands, her skirt, anything, and the face was cold and clammy and breathless, a solid cadaver turning rancid.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she wailed uncontrollably, before turning from the body and digging her head into her brother’s chest, shaking and sobbing, “Oh, God, she’s gone, Icarus, she’s gone and I loved her so much and she left me, she left us and she’s not coming back.”

Just yesterday, Penelope Chryseis had woken up to a pretty day with pretty sunshine and she had brushed her hair and put on some pretty clothes, a pretty skirt and a pretty top. She had gone downstairs for breakfast and shortly after, her brother Icarus Aeson had done the same. Their mother hadn’t. Icarus went out. Two hours later, she still hadn’t. An hour later, Penelope went upstairs to check on her, because the sun was sparkling and normally she would have been up when the birds were. She brought a mug of warm, friendly tea, and she came downstairs shaking and wailing and screaming because her mother had died in her sleep. When Icarus came home, she told him what had happened, they packed a bag and they just left. No-one to even leave a note for. They brought the body with them without even thinking, and Penelope was both relieved by this and scathingly resentful. They went to the woods.

Now, it was just after sunrise. The rain pounded. The air was cleansing, wringing the dampness out of itself. From the trees, a broken sapphire of a bird darted down and rested on the body’s breast, while two matching eighteen-year-olds sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.