From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 58: And I Thought They Were Family

Merry felt the Vale change as soon as she stepped through the old moss-covered arch. Lucian’s voice, normally so gentle and comforting, faded behind her.

The wind pulled inward--not away--like breath reversing direction inside lungs made of smoke. She recognized the silence, and it was not peace. Luckily, there was no danger either.

It was just a waiting room.

Merry realized she was holding her breath, because she recognized this kind of quiet. It was the language of aggressively washing dishes when someone slammed the door too loud.

The kind that arrived when her great-aunt Agatha spoke.

And then the world slowly fractured and fell like autumn leaves.

+

Merry was sixteen again, standing in her childhood kitchen. Pale blue tiles on the kitchen backsplash and a beautifully rendered oil painting of a hamburger and French fries was framed on the wall in the dining room.

There was a chipped ceramic bowl of bruised peaches on the counter. Slowly, the haunting aroma of steamed cauliflower and watered-down English Breakfast on the kettle.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a dream.

She was remembering the scene exactly as it was.

At the table sat her great-aunt Agatha.

She was a heavyset woman with arms and legs as thick as tree trunks. Her hair was tied in a tight, no-nonsense knot on top of her head. Great-aunt Agatha’s cardigan sleeves were soft, but beneath them were sharp fingers, almost hook-like.

But what Merry remembered most were her eyes. Great-aunt Agatha had small, exhausted, and constantly moving eyes--like she was always looking for the next thing to fix.

And unfortunately, her gaze often landed on Merry.

"Ah," her great-aunt said brightly. "You’re eating that?"

Merry looked down.

Her hand was already reaching for a buttered bun.

She flinched.

+

The scene rippled and changed like water. Now they stood in a clothing boutique’s fitting room, her mother and great-aunt waiting for her to finish getting changed.

Merry stared at herself in front of the mirror, wearing a white dress with blue flowers embroidered on it. The material was soft and felt great against her skin, but the only thing she could see were her flaws.

They’re going to say I don’t have enough foundation to cover up these acne scars...I knew I shouldn’t have scratched it, even if it was super itchy...and they’re going to comment on my arms, I just know it. Doesn’t this dress come with a cover-up?

Merry sighed and wished she could just live somewhere else. Or become someone else.

"Don’t worry," Present Merry whispered to her younger self. "It gets better. Just hang on."

Sixteen year-old Merry left the changing room and the clucking started. Merry’s mother, a thin woman who always wore a thick coat to combat the cold, adjusted the dress’s collar.

"Mm...I think this one hides your stomach better," she said. "The front has ruffles."

Great-aunt Agatha agreed. "She always looked better when her clothes...weren’t so tight, don’t you agree?"

"I’m fine with the other one," Merry heard herself say—younger, softer, still trying. Great-aunt Agatha’s previous choice was a square-necked dress with a ruffled skirt.

Her great-aunt smiled. "You’ll thank me when you see the pictures. In the meantime, some exercise would do wonders for you. Think about it, won’t you darling?"

+

The Vale didn’t just give echoes.

It gave sequence.

One room bled into the next. A childhood birthday where the cake was fruit. A party where a cousin called her heavy and her mother laughed too hard to stop it.

The worst part wasn’t the shame.

It was the praise.

Great-aunt Agatha was visiting for a week when Merry officially chose to become a vegetarian.

Present Merry winced. My vegetarian phase. This means I was at least twenty-four. Before the Queen summoned me to be a court mortician. They wanted me thinner than Her Majesty.

"Which was impossible..." Present Merry whispered. "Half of her is a skeleton."

She knew that now, but before? Merry would have given anything to be that small. Mostly because instead of criticism and unsolicited advice, there was praise.

And lots of it.

+

Merry was eating a green salad (light dressing, a teaspoon of nuts, with slices of carrot and apple) when her mother entered the dining room.

"You’re doing so well now," her mother said, a softness to her voice. "See? I told you, you’d feel so good when you weren’t eating so much."

It was never "Good job, I’m proud of you."

It was always "I told you so."

Just like her great-aunt. "Listen to me. We know what you’re going through."

And still, even now, Merry didn’t hate them.

She just didn’t understand why her mother and great-aunt had a talent for making Merry feel terrible about herself. Every compliment was wrapped deep in correction, and, Merry knew now, their love had a shade of control.

+

Her footsteps were slower as she moved through memory-rooms like a ghost, the Hearthroot Lexicon heavy in both hands. It refused to open, no matter how much Merry asked.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t hers to open here.

She was navigating a rite she didn’t know how to finish.

At last, the Vale stopped showing her different memories from her psyche. This time, it showed her something new.

There was a clearing full of silver mirrors, each reflecting her great-aunt Agatha and her mother.

Younger. Older. Laughing. Sighing. Arguing. Crying. All versions. All real.

And in the center of them, a statue. A girl with a hand pressed to her stomach, looking down in shame.

The plaque read:

"The Unwanted Rite: Viewing the Body as a Burden"

Merry stood in front of it, hands trembling.

A line of glyphs flickered across the air:

[Ritual Fragment: Trapped Between Pleasing and Healing]

[Echo: Undefined Maternal Shame Detected]

Would You Like to Finish the Rite?

Merry fell to her knees.

"I don’t know how," she whispered. "I don’t even know what she wanted from me."

The Lexicon opened with a groan of living bark.

No instructions.

Just one blank page.

Waiting.

Merry sat for what felt like a long time.

+

She remembered every failed conversation.

Every time she said, "But I like bread," and her mother’s face stiffened.

Every apology she never received.

Every back-handed compliment thrown at her.

Merry tried so hard to change without hating herself. It had taken some distance to achieve it, but it worked.

The day the Queen summoned her was the moment that, Merry was convinced, saved her life.

She wasn’t starving anymore, and she wasn’t tiny because she desired to be accepted. Merry’s body was steady, healthy, and rooted to the forest she loved.

However, she hadn’t buried the grief of who she could have been if she had a mother or a great-aunt who was kinder to her.

Instead, it had just been stored.

Merry took a deep breath.

And drew a glyph in the dirt.

She didn’t know its name.

But she let it grow from her instead of from guilt.

A spiral.

A heartline.

A broken mirror rejoined at the center.

And the statue changed.

The hand moved—from her stomach to her heart.

And the plaque now read:

"Body as Belonging."

Merry cried quietly.

Not because she was broken.

But because something inside her had finally said: you were never the problem.

A loom waited at the edge of the clearing.

Massive. Quiet. Covered in shadow.

The Spinnermaid stood beside it, her veil heavy and hands moving in threads of gray and gold.

She looked at Merry—but didn’t speak.

Not at first.

Then, in a voice like linen soaked in rain, she said:

"That grief was woven into your bones. Quite deeply."

Merry nodded. "I don’t want to pass it on."

"You still might," the Spinnermaid said. "But you’ve begun to change its pattern."

The threads on her loom shimmered invitingly.

"Do you wish to learn?" she asked.

Merry hesitated, unsure what was being asked of her.

"Learn what?"

"How to transform your deepest and unresolved grief into glyphs. Not just name it or bury it. But to shape it. To complete it as you think it deserves."

Merry looked at her hands. They were imperfect, but they knew the value of growing things.

Her Grimoire was focused on healing others, and somewhere along the way, that was how Merry fixed herself.

She looked inward, at her own healing journey and the scars that had come with it.

She stepped forward, curious about what the Spinnermaid had to offer.

But she held up one gloved hand.

"There are four of you. Unfortunately, I will choose only one. All of you may learn my pieces. But only one will carry my thread in full."

Merry bowed her head. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

And stepped back.

Not in rejection.

In reverence.