Burn Our Bodies Down

by Rory Power

  Gram had another daughter. Mom’s sister. My aunt.

  And a part of me is saying, You already knew. The girl in that field, the body you found. You knew sister wasn’t right. Cousin, though. Katherine’s daughter. Try that on. But that doesn’t stop the questions. Doesn’t stop the panic, stretching and strong, fizzing in my fingertips, building behind my heart.

  I’m used to not knowing; I’m used to building my life around empty spaces, around locked doors and unanswered questions. And now this. An answer I never asked for. Blowing through every wall I’ve ever put up, tearing apart every memory I’ve ever kept close.

  “Well,” comes a voice from the doorway. I whip around. “If I wasn’t sure you were a Nielsen before, I am now.”

  FIFTEEN

  Officer Connors is standing in the doorway, watching me with raised eyebrows. My heart thunders, breath catching. I knew this could happen. I broke the door down because I didn’t care. But he can’t take me away now. Not when I’ve finally figured out the right questions to ask. What happened to Katherine? Maybe she left a daughter behind, not Mom.

  “Shit,” I say. “I . . .” There’s no way to get out of this, though. Papers are still scattered around me, one box still open.

  “You’ve been in town two days and been in trouble as many times,” he says, coming farther in. “Should I expect Tess to jump out of the shadows?”

  Tess. I forgot. She must be somewhere else in the basement. I hope she hears him, stays far away. There’s no reason for both of us to get caught.

  “I just needed to check something,” I say, which sounds ridiculous. Connors obviously thinks so too. He huffs out a laugh and crouches next to me, picking up one of the stacks of paper and flipping through it. Over his shoulder, Tess peers around the doorframe. When she sees he isn’t looking, she meets my eyes and tiptoes past toward the stairwell door, holding up crossed fingers and mouthing “Good luck.”

  She’ll sneak out the back and step into the sun and everything will be the same for her as it was when we got here. And I’m here sitting in a whole new set of ruins. A cousin, maybe, and an aunt, and both of them gone before I ever had a chance to know them. If Katherine’s anything like Mom, then nothing could bring her back here. Maybe that girl felt the same pull I did. Maybe she came looking, and Gram hasn’t been keeping her hidden at all.

  “So,” Connors says. “This old chestnut.”

  “What?” He sounds so casual about this, this thing that’s upending every part of me. More family than just the line from Gram to Mom to me. It could have been like those pictures at Fairhaven. Branches and roots both.

  Connors ignores my surprise, and the flash of anger I can’t put out. “We’ve been looking at this too,” he says, and he starts piling everything back into the open box. Calmly, like it doesn’t matter that I forced my way into someplace I shouldn’t be. “Of course, most everybody from back then is already familiar to us. We don’t need all this to keep it fresh.”

  I stand up with him and watch as he carefully slots both boxes back into place on the shelf.

  “But a fire out at Fairhaven,” he says, turning to me. “And you. And that girl. History repeats itself, you know? Only this time we’ve got a body.”

  This time. Me and that girl, history happening again, because we’re just like Mom and Katherine.

  Everybody fucking knew, didn’t they?

  It’s a harder hit to take. Everybody. Every single person in this town, I bet. They knew, and they must have thought I did too, because why would Gram and my mom keep this from me? What kind of family would do that? Not a secret at all—just something so obvious nobody ever thought to say it out loud.

  The missing picture on the wall in Fairhaven. You look just like them, from the pharmacy clerk. Them, them, and every time I thought it meant Gram and Mom. But it meant Mom and someone else. I’m shaking, goose bumps dotting my arms, and the room around me feels like that shimmer of heat on the road, like it’ll disappear if I look closer. I’ve been careening through this town, breaking and oblivious, and I didn’t even realize it.

  “I have to go,” I say. I have to talk to Gram. This is what she was protecting. Not my sister my mother left behind, but a whole other set of family. And there are still too many questions—how, how did nobody know that body when we pulled it from the fire?—but now that I know this part of the truth, there’s no reason for her to hide anything else.

  “You have to what?” Connors says. He looks almost amused. And I remember where I am—in a police station, in a room I broke into, surrounded by records I am very much not supposed to be reading.

  I shove my hands in my pockets. “Sorry.”

  Connors settles back against the shelves and folds his arms across his chest. I remember that yesterday he was the nicer of the two. I think if Anderson had caught me here, I’d already be upstairs in the conference room being questioned.

  “You’re curious,” Connors says. “I get it.”

  “I just found out my mom had a sister,” I say. “So maybe you don’t actually get it at all.”

  “Really?” Connors’s eyebrows tick up. “Just found out? Seems like keeping secrets is a hard habit for your grandmother to break.”

  “She had her reasons,” I say. Defending her, even though she’s not here to reward me for it. My own habit, I guess.

  “Whatever reasons those are, I’m not sure they’re good enough. Everybody here knows about the twins.”

  Twins. Nothing new to him, but I see it in a flash. Mom and another, on the porch at Fairhaven with matching smiles. Of course. Of course it was twins. And Mom had me, and Katherine had her, that girl in the field. Another generation of Nielsen girls, and both of us strangers to Phalene. Both of us looking for family. Maybe Gram wasn’t keeping her at Fairhaven, but she was still keeping her a secret.

  “There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about this,” Connors continues, “if you don’t know what happened here. Hell, there’s a lot even if you do.”

  “Like what?”

  Connors eyes me. I try not to let him see how nervous it makes me. Finally he sighs and straightens. “How do you think she died?” he says. “That girl?”

  I can picture her there, in the field, curled on her side. And then later, on her back on the side of the highway. There was no blood. There were no bruises. She just wasn’t alive anymore. “Smoke, I guess,” I say. “Or something like that.”

  It was bad enough out there with safety just behind me. How would it be to be trapped, to know you’d never get out? To feel the life fade from you, and to think that even if you managed to keep breathing, the flames would swallow you whole?

  “You’re right,” Connors said. “And I know you said you’d never seen her before.” I open my mouth, and he holds up one hand. “I believe you. I mean, we haven’t either. So I’m asking. Do you know why your grandmother’s lying to us?”

  Because she doesn’t trust them with the truth. That much is obvious. But she’s lying to me, too, and I don’t want her reasons to be the same. I shrug, look away.

  “The girl, then,” Connors tries. “Let’s start with her. I’ll even do you a favor and ignore your resemblance, for the moment. Do you know why she might’ve been out there?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time.” That’s what Gram said.

  “Well, that’s definitely true,” Connors says, cracking a smile. He’s easing back, trying to manipulate me into feeling comfortable. I spare a thought for Mom, a thank-you, because she may not have taught me much but she taught me how to understand this. “But the fire wasn’t an accident, as it happens.”

  “How do you know that?”

  His smile fades. “We do. It’s hard to tell sometimes, but there are people who know what to look for. And they found it.”

  Okay. Okay, okay. The fire wasn’t an accident. But that doesn’t mean someone set out to kill that girl. There has to be some other explanation. Because if there isn’t, I don’t know how to handle that along
with everything else.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I say instead. Maybe it’s not wise to turn this into a fight. But I’m too busy holding myself together to hold on to my patience too. “I’ve been with Tess from the second I got here. I’ve never even been to Fairhaven until yesterday.”

  “Take it easy,” Connors says. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you didn’t do this, okay? I know that.”

  I let out a breath. It’s a relief to hear someone say it. Growing up with Mom, all the guilt she put on my shoulders—you bear it long enough, you start thinking it belongs there.

  He nods to the boxes of files. “I’m telling you this because none of it’s simple, Margot. Vera denies all knowledge of this girl. We have no idea where she came from. But I’m fairly certain that somebody set that fire on purpose, and it ended up killing her. And I think I’m beginning to see how this fits together, except for one piece.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I need your help for that part. Can I show you what I’m talking about?”

  I don’t think I can say no. And more than that, I don’t want to. If this is pointed at Gram, or at Mom, I need to know. Whether that’s so I can protect them or so I can be the first to knock them down, I’m not sure. But I don’t have to be right now. Not yet.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “What is it?”

  “The girl.”

  I snatch a quick breath. “She’s still here?”

  “Sure. Phalene County’s not big. We do everything in the same place.” He winces good-naturedly. “Puts a bit of a damper on lunch hour when you know the coroner’s only one floor down.”

  I let his ease push away some of the tension hanging around my shoulders. Right now all I have to do is follow Connors. That is the only thing in the world, and I’m used to this part, to putting things away until I need to feel them. It’s already happening. Katherine farther and farther away, the thought of her like pressure on a healing bruise.

  I follow Connors out of the records room and to the right, along the hallway and around the corner to where a set of swinging doors leads to a large open space, about the size of the bullpen upstairs. We must be underneath it.

  Inside, the halogens wash the world in yellow. A whiteboard stands streaked and dull in the corner, and a bland painting of a vase of flowers is hung crooked over a metal sink, like somebody put in the bare minimum effort at cheering the place up. But none of that matters. Because along the wall facing us are rows of metal berths, their rectangular doors shut tight. Stacks of metal coffins.

  My breath catches. She’s in there somewhere.

  It’s all right, I tell myself. I saw her once. I can see her again. And this time I know what she is.

  Between me and the far wall is a long silver table with a channel around the edges. Despite my reassurances to myself, my throat goes tight at the sight of something there on the metal, dull and black against the shine. What is that? I don’t think it’s blood.

  “Okay,” I say, and I flush at the tremor in my voice. “I’m here. Let’s get on with it.”

  Connors skirts the metal table and the little tray next to it holding a pair of magnifying glasses and a clean scalpel. I don’t follow. There’s a drain in the middle of the floor. I can’t take my eyes off it. This windowless room, cold and empty—I could be here. It could be me. What’s really different between me and her?

  I don’t want to look at her. It’s sudden and strong, the certainty that I can’t. Because if I do, and if there’s really no difference, what will that mean? Who will I be then, if I’m a dead girl too?

  “Come on,” Connors says. His hand is resting on the handle to one of the berths, stacked in the wall like drawers in a dresser. A clipboard hangs from it, holding what must be the usual forms.

  It takes everything, every ounce of will I have, but I force myself to cross the room and stand across from Connors, leaving space for the drawer to slide out between us. What am I nervous about? I’ve seen her. I’ve touched her. But I can’t get rid of the prickle along my skin.

  “Now, normally,” Connors says, “I wouldn’t be showing this to you. And normally you’d stay upstairs, instead of breaking into our records room. So I’d say we’re a little past normal, aren’t we, Margot?” I don’t answer. He sighs. “Right. You ready?”

  No. Never. But I swallow hard, set my shoulders. “Okay.”

  He grips the drawer handle and pulls. The tray inside comes rattling out.

  For a second all I see is the white of the sheet. She’s covered. I have that to hold on to, at least. But there are stains, that same black color from the table, leaking through the fabric. My stomach turns. They’re right where her eyes should be.

  “What . . . ,” I start, but I don’t get anything else out. Still, Connors must know what I mean.

  “Her eyes? Yeah, I don’t know,” he says. “The coroner doesn’t either.”

  He reaches for the edge of the sheet, but I beat him to it. I owe her that much, at least. My hand isn’t steady, but Connors thankfully doesn’t mention it as I lift the sheet and ease it back.

  The smell of smoke hits the air. I blink hard to get the fire out of my eyes, focus on what I can see. Her hair, dark, smooth, gray threaded through. Just like mine, and I fight the urge to twirl the ends around my finger, the way Mom does sometimes with me. Take a deep breath. Gulp down the cold. I’m here. We’re both here. And I’m alive.

  I draw the sheet off her face. Drop it, and stagger back a step. My mouth suddenly dry and sour, throat working.

  Her eyes are open. But they’re wrong. Curdled. Black and seeping into her eyelashes, a liquid viscous and clinging. The stain on the sheet. The drips on the metal table. From this.

  “What happened to her?” I manage, my voice raw. This isn’t how bodies decompose, and even if it were, it’s been barely a full twenty-four hours since we found her. Her eyes, running out of their sockets like thick black tears. How could that happen? The fire couldn’t have done that. “She didn’t look like that on the highway.”

  “No,” Connors agrees. “She didn’t.” He takes the sheet from where I let it fall and lays it over her again, covering her eyes. As if that could keep me from seeing what’s happened to her. My breath is coming too quick. Dizziness creeping in on the edges of my sight. But I can’t look away. I can’t. Because she’ll be there when I do, and she’ll be there forever, with something in her rotting.

  “The coroner couldn’t explain it,” Connors says. “She couldn’t explain a lot of things.”

  He slides the tray farther out. Her whole body between us, and his hand isn’t steady as he flicks the sheet back from her legs. Pale feet, veins raised and delicate. And above, reaching down her left calf, thin white lines like a lattice of scars. They make a strange pattern, spirals made of spirals, all braided together, and they stand out sharp against the shiny redness of her burned skin.

  That’s where the fire touched her. The only place it did. When she came out of the field, the spark catching on her dress, on her skin.

  That is not how a body behaves. Her eyes, these marks. Not a body like mine, or like anyone’s. But I don’t know what that means. Or what I’m supposed to do with it.

  “You ever seen this happen to someone?” Connors asks. Like the answer should be yes, like I should be able to explain. Like I’ve ever stood over a corpse before and matched its face to mine.

  “Of course not,” I say. “Have you?” He shakes his head but doesn’t move, and I can’t stand it another second. “Can you . . . please, can you put her away?”

  He waits a beat, agonizing and endless, before he slides the metal tray back into its berth and shuts the door. The latch clicks. I let out a breath.

  “Maybe you haven’t,” he says. “But I think your grandmother might know something about it.”

  This, finally, gets me to shut my eyes.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I tell him. And then, because it’s the only way I know how to ask for someone to
take this out of my hands: “I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

  “You read those files,” Connors says. “Your grandmother said Katherine ran away, but she never went looking for her. Why not? What does she know that we don’t?” He leans against the wall, his hands in his pockets, the handle to the body’s berth digging into his arm, the clipboard hanging there jostled to one side. “My bet is that Vera knows more than she’s saying. And she won’t tell me, but she might tell you.”

  I stare at the clipboard instead of at him, focus on the words I can read off its report instead of how he won’t move, how he won’t let me out of here, outside into the unbearable heat. Notable conditions: inverted heart position, considered nonessential. Amphetamines: none detected. Barbiturates: none detected. Chemical compounds: detected, pending analysis.

  “Margot?”

  I draw in a deep breath. Force my eyes back to him. Yes, something’s wrong with Gram. Something’s wrong with my whole family. But whatever they’re hiding, it’s mine to unravel.

  “Ask her yourself,” I say. “If you think she has something to do with this, then—”

  “We did,” Connors interrupts. He’s frustrated now, and letting me know it. “We tried this morning. We’ve been trying to talk to her for years, since Katherine disappeared. We even had a warrant back then. Searched the whole place, which is how I know that a warrant’s only gonna show me what Vera wants me to see. I need you. If I’m gonna get anywhere, it’s gonna be with your help. And you need mine too,” he adds when I don’t say anything. “Breaking and entering back there? Trespassing? That kind of thing could get a girl like you sent to juvie. But we can call it a wash. Like I said, I get it—you wanted to know. But so do I.”

  For a moment we just look at each other. I know he’s right. But I won’t help him. Nobody but you and me, that’s what Mom always said. She’s not here, but Gram is. And whatever secrets Gram is hiding, they’re for me, not him.