All that was left

I'm back ^w^ I have a bit of brain left from my review to write. Too bad it's another tragedy but I'm kind of working on the romance again

[WP] End the story with this passage: "In the end, all that was left under the soft shade of the tree was a skeleton, holding on to an almost life-like statue in a gentle and loving embrace."

In my hometown, there’s this tree that has been memorialized for a few decades now. How it became famous… well, there was plenty of stories and almost every story varied in one way or the other. But the most striking thing you’ll always notice each time you passed by that tree was a statue of a man and a skeleton that was basically stuck to the statue in such a tender, loving embrace. It was poetic in a sense. Almost like two lovers that never want to part. They probably were because I can’t imagine holding someone like that if not a lover or family. 

I have noticed that whenever I go into town with my grandmother, and we pass by that tree, she would pause for a while and she would look at the figures with a sense of longing. Maybe grieve. I just couldn’t really tell. Sometimes a few words would slip but her voice was quite faint now to be heard amongst the bustling crowd. 

“Gran, we need to go now” I looked at her again and saw that she was still fixed on her spot, staring at the figures as if she was reliving a memory of sorts. 

“You two are unfair for leaving me alone. I could have helped you both” Her tone was heavy with dejection and longing that for a while, I didn’t dare speak 

“Gran… Do you know those statues?” 

Her trance broke and she instantly turned to me “Maybe I did. But they’re gone now”

She then turned in the direction of the house and left without taking another look. Gran just made me more and more curious when she has these moments. At home, we didn’t speak of the topic and the night proceeded as usual with us making dinner together and then cleaning up. Yet this night, Gran seemed to linger longer in front of the fireplace.

“Have something on your mind?” 

I was greeted with a soft hum and a short pause as if Gran was thinking of what to say “I was just thinking about my older brother” 

“You never told me you had an older brother” I pulled over a stool and settled next to her

“I used to have one. He made a big sin, you see” She patted a page on the photo album on her lap. There was a black and white picture of two kids and I assumed it was Gran and her older brother. “You know that old tree? That used to be an execution spot” 

I was taken aback by its gruesome history when it now became a tree for lovers “What’s that tree got to do with your older brother, gran?” 

“He’s the statue buried there. And the skeleton was his lover” A deep sigh escaped her as she seemed to be recalling fragments of her memory “My brother’s name was Edward. A happy lad he was. And there was the sacristan at the church, Angelo. He was an orphan yet he was allowed to play with us outside of his duties in the church” 

I could faintly see her lips curling up in light amusement. I wish I could have seen the memories Gran had

“Anyway, they got way too close to each other. They started fooling around with each other and with their bodies. That tree was where they met up because no one dared to go to the executioner’s tree, yet they did. Sometimes I followed my brother when he kept telling me no because I wanted to play with them too but whenever I saw them by that tree, they would always be kissing or they would just sit there and talk and they always looked so happy like that that I didn’t want to bother their moment, especially when they just leaned incredibly close to each other. Even as a teen, I knew what that meant” 

A smile crept on my lips with how she fondly described her eavesdropping and snooping “But what happened?” 

Instantly, her lips curled in a frown “The church found out.” She cleared her throat “One night, my brother hadn’t returned and our parents didn’t think much of it because he was a young man by then. But it was nearing midnight and I was about to look for him but Angelo snuck into my room while crying. He kept apologizing to me while telling me to follow him. I did. We were at the executioner’s tree and there was something new there. A statue that resembled my brother. I asked him what happened but he just apologized and kept hugging the statue. I told him that he should try to get some sleep and that if he was free, he should help me look for my brother because if he was insisting that the cemented figure was my brother, it was a really disgusting joke.” 

“Wait… so that statue…” 

“It really was my brother. When I went back there… Angelo was gone too. He stabbed himself and nobody dared try to move him. Even the church that raised him. They kept saying he was a tainted child and that a proper burial was not fitting for such a child. In the end, they covered him with cement too when he was starting to decompose but it mostly only clung to his bones, which is why you could mostly only see bones on it. They even tried to burn down that tree but in the end, all that was left under the soft shade of the tree was a skeleton, holding on to an almost life-like statue in a gentle and loving embrace.”