Mortal Remains

by Mary Ann Fraser

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s a flyer for the End-O’-Summer Beach Bash. Look, commercial sponsorship, an all-night bonfire, and, wait for it . . . they’re bringing back the beach challenge!”

  It was a total setup, but Evan was either oblivious or playing stupid. He excelled at both. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. “That’s some prize money.”

  I met his hazel eyes in the rearview mirror. “Tell me you aren’t seriously thinking of competing again after what happened last year.”

  “You kidding? This time I’m ready for Kyle Mumford. He’s gonna eat my sand.”

  Well, Evan might have been able to put his disgraceful display behind him, but I was not. While he was getting cheated out of a trophy, I’d been wading around a cove, trying to find a seal pup a bunch of kids from school said they saw stranded in the rocks there. No one mentioned it was dead—a deliberate omission, I’m sure. I had to wait hours until the tide went back out to rejoin the group. Of course the girls all apologized, saying they had no idea I couldn’t swim. Yeah right. Mallory had eventually returned to fetch me, but that hardly made me want a repeat. But what had she said about being bold?

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess I’m in, too.”

  “Well, don’t get too excited about going.” Mal’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You come too, Adam.”

  Before I could lodge a protest, Evan launched the van out of the drive and onto the street, causing a reporter loitering by the streetlight to drop his box of doughnuts. It was good for a laugh until a dark SUV pulled away from the curb and started shadowing us.

  “Looks like we’ve got reporters on our tail,” said Evan. “Watch this.” He whipped a right turn into an alley, pitching me into the door.

  “It’s an Astro, not a Maserati,” I reminded him.

  He drove two more blocks and pulled behind an abandoned filling station, where we all held our breath until the SUV rolled by. Adam was pretty shaken—we all were. Not so funny now.

  “That was some slick driving,” said Mal.

  “Yeah, but did you notice there was no satellite dish on that car and no plates?” I said. “That was not a news van.” And I’d swear it was the same SUV I saw parked across the street the day we found Adam.

  “Probably some sleazebag hoping to snag a photo to sell,” said Evan. “But hey, if you ever want to make a few bucks, Adam—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warned.

  “I’m kidding!”

  Sure he was.

  Evan waited a few more minutes to be sure we were in the clear before pulling back onto the road. To distract Adam, Mallory swung into full tour guide mode. “Oh! Oh! Look! There’s Manny’s Pizza Shack. They have the most outrageous Hawaiian pizza. Tons of cheese and the pineapple is totally fresh, not the canned stuff. And over there, that’s CyberZone, where the hard-core gamers go, and . . .”

  Her tour babble trailed off as we all saw a billboard of Jim Sturbridge’s giant mug plastered top to bottom with the words: A VOTE FOR JIM STURBRIDGE FOR CITY COUNCIL IS A VOTE FOR GROWTH AND PROSPERITY.

  I groaned. “Since when is he running for city council?”

  “Since he realized he could buy his way into politics,” answered Evan, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “I heard he wants to rename the town.”

  “To what? Sturbridge Hollow? You know if he wins the election, he’ll rezone us right out of business, not to mention what he’ll do to all the other mom-and-pop shops in town.”

  “Who is Jim Sturbridge?” asked Adam.

  “A big business developer from the city,” I grumbled. “He owns Eternal Memorial Services, and would like nothing more than to see us close our doors for good—if he can’t buy us out first. I’d rather see our mortuary sold to almost anyone else than see a hundred and fifty years of my family’s blood, sweat, and tears end up in his greedy hands. He’d have the McCrae Family Funeral Home on the auction block before you could say rigor mortis.” Damn Sturbridge. He’s the kudzu to all those who put down roots in this town long ago. “There she goes again,” said Evan, shaking his head. “Most of the time you can hardly get her to talk, but bring up Sturbridge and you can’t shut her up. But does she do anything about it? No. She would rather dump that on someone else.”

  I threw up my hands. “Like you’re any better. The way you talk, it sounds as if you’d like nothing more than for us to lose the business.”

  “So not true. I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life hauling stiffs. Besides, the pay sucks. You know that.”

  “Not everything is about money. What we do matters to people.”

  “Not if they’re dead, it doesn’t, but hey, I forget who I’m talking to. Or I should say I forget who you talk to.”

  “We help those left behind, too, you know.”

  “You don’t, not if you can help it. Sometimes I think you’d spend your whole life locked away in the prep room if you could avoid having to deal with people. But as far as I’m concerned, you can have it all. Besides, it’s what Dad wants.”

  “What about what I want?” I said under my breath.

  “What do you want?” asked Adam.

  “A way out.” Not that I didn’t care about the business. I did. But I couldn’t expect him to understand. When his father demanded he stay, Adam obeyed.

  “So, Evan, you declare a major yet?” asked Mallory.

  “Sure did. Game design.”

  “That’s so cool,” she gushed. “You’d be great at it, too. Those sketches for your senior project last year blew me away. And that whole dungeon model. Too cool for school.”

  “Game design?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You told Dad you were going into marketing.”

  “I changed my mind. It’s my money. I ought to be able to choose my own major. And don’t you say anything, either,” Evan warned. “I’ll tell them when I’m good and ready.”

  And leave me to break my father’s heart.

  The Way We Wore thrift shop occupied what used to be the library before the new one was built on the east side of town. The owner claimed he carried vintage clothing, but it was more of a catchall for clothes no one wanted anymore—plaid skorts, gamy hunting vests, bibbed overalls. There was a rack of ghoulish costumes even though Halloween was three months away. The women’s clothes were sorted by color, but the men’s looked as if they’d been shot onto the racks with a cannon. We dug in.

  “How ’bout these?” I held up a pair of black pants and a dark gray button-down.

  “Seriously,” huffed Mal. “Just because you dress corpses for a living doesn’t mean you always have to go with dark and dismal.”

  She had a point. Outside of my usual black attire, I usually opted for faded denims and what Mal labeled my “downer shirts”—the ones that said things like Nothing Sweet about Diabetes, Click It or Ticket, and Don’t Let Cancer Steal Second Base. Most I got from various volunteer gigs, but at least that beat the free corporate advertising disguised as cutesy logos that she plastered across her butt and chest. It was exploitive, I told her. Mallory took that to mean she should be paid for contributing to their brand recognition.

  “Now this is what I’m talking about,” said Mal, and she shoved a pair of bright paisley board shorts into Adam’s hands. “Try these.”

  Adam had unbuttoned his fly and was about to drop trou right in the middle of the aisle when Evan intervened with a “Whoa, dude, let’s save it for the floor show” and directed him to a dressing room.

  “Have you forgotten that we run a funeral home?” I said to Mal. “He doesn’t need swim shorts.”

  “No, but they’re perfect for the beach now that he’s going to stick around a bit longer.” She gave me a wink.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t give me that,” she scolded. “He’s not my type, but he’s clearly yours.”

  “What do you mean, ‘my type’?”

  “You know.”

  “You mean weird.”


  “I didn’t say that. More like . . . brooding.”

  “You’ve been reading your mother’s romance novels again, haven’t you?”

  “The point is he’s a viable option.”

  “I don’t need an option. I don’t need anyone.”

  “Right. You keep telling yourself that.” Her phone rang, and she took the call outside.

  Evan and I managed to scrape together a suitable wardrobe for Adam along with a couple of casual items. Adam then accompanied me to the register while Evan rooted through the Halloween costumes in search of a mask to scare Mal.

  “Hey, I saw you on the news this morning,” announced the cashier loudly. “You’re the boy they found down in that mine shaft, aren’t you?”

  “Fallout shelter,” he corrected.

  Several heads popped up from behind clothes racks. I dropped the money onto the counter and quickly dragged Adam and Evan from the store.

  “Who was on the phone?” I asked Mallory once we were safely back in the van.

  She checked to make sure she had Evan’s attention. “Only Hayden Jornet, a friend of Aslyn’s. He’s having a small party on Friday to show off his new loft downtown, no big deal.” She paused for effect. “Oh, and I think he said something about members of the Jaded Corpses dropping by for a bit of jamming.”

  “For real?” Evan snorted. “You’re hangin’ with Hayden Jornet and the Jaded Corpses?”

  I crossed my arms. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “It’s Hayden Jornet. He’s so, so . . .”

  “Out of her league?” I said.

  “Well, yeah. That’s one way of putting it.” This from the guy who was parading around the thrift shop in a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask not ten minutes earlier.

  Mallory looked crushed. “Fine, don’t come. He’s only the most up-and-coming badass music agent in town. At twenty he’s already repping two of the hottest teen bands.”

  “Hold on. We’re invited, too?” said Evan.

  Mal shrugged. “He said to bring a few friends, but if you don’t—”

  “I was just messin’ with you, Mal,” Evan backpedaled. “You know me. I’m always up for a party. When is it?”

  “A week from Friday. How ’bout you, Lils?”

  First the beach bash and now this. She was really testing my limits. But I still owed her for bailing on the last party. “Fine. I’ll go. It’ll be fun.”

  Like sticking yourself with a needle is fun.

  RULE #11

  DON’T MASK THE FACE; GIVE IT LIFE.

  “It used to be the caretaker’s cottage,” I explained to Adam. “It’s a bit primitive, and you’ll have to put up with Nana banging around the shop in the next room, but it beats the bunker in the fallout shelter and the sleeper sofa, don’t you think?”

  Adam flopped onto the bare mattress and spread out his arms like an albatross’s wings. The old springs complained loudly. “Yes, much better,” he agreed.

  “And it has a nice-size window. See.” I pulled back the curtains, and the late-afternoon sun bathed the dingy walls in a wash of golden light, making them appear much cheerier than they deserved. If only I could pull back the curtain keeping him from seeing me, the girl he once befriended. Then again, maybe starting over was better.

  He watched me with an intensity I should have found unnerving but didn’t. Probably because I didn’t sense any judgment attached, only curiosity. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught him studying me. Usually I was in the midst of the most mundane task imaginable—threading a needle, removing an earring, filing my nails. That was the thing about Adam; he made me feel utterly visible . . . just not memorable.

  The vague look of contentment faded from Adam’s face as his eyes drifted up, toward the open rafters. I searched the ceiling for spiderwebs or signs of water damage. “Something wrong?”

  “In my old room there were stars on the ceiling. They glowed at night.”

  “The kind that stick on?”

  “That’s right. I would stare up at them and try to imagine a night sky without branches or walls. I never could. Silly, I know.”

  “Not at all. You were a hostage in your own home. But prison cells come in all shapes and sizes,” I reminded him, thinking of my own situation. “It’s about freedom, really, isn’t it? Freedom to choose where to go and who to hang out with?”

  “Hmm. I suppose,” he said, but he seemed consumed by some bigger worry.

  “Did you ever wish you had someone to talk to, someone besides Neil?” I fished, hoping to stir some lost memory of me.

  “I did, but it was like wishing for wide-open skies. Since coming here, though, I’ve begun to see what I was missing.”

  Same here. I’d thought the company of the dead was enough until he arrived. It wasn’t anymore.

  He rolled onto his side. “Can I ask you something?”

  I took a seat at the end of the bed. “Sure, shoot.”

  “Why would I want to shoot?”

  I sometimes forgot how literal he could be. “That means say what you want to say.”

  “Oh, I’ll make a note of that.” Blink. Blink. “Do I look . . . different to you?”

  Different? If he was asking whether he was anything like the boy he once was, the boy who taught me how to crack a walnut with the well-aimed thwack of a rock, who once shook a spring tree to shower me in blossoms, then I would have to say he looked the same and different. It had been six years. But if he was asking whether he’d changed since I found him in the shelter, then the answer was no. I mean, sure, he was stronger now and didn’t tire as easily, but there was still an “otherness” about him. It was in the way he had to decode people’s expressions, the way he marveled at items I take for granted—organ, laptop, cell phone—and the way he clung to the dark as if it were a security blanket but shirked tight spaces. “I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking?”

  “I mean compared to other people.”

  “Other people? Well, yeah. No two people are exactly alike—unless they’re twins, of course, and even then there are always subtle differences. Take the Swain brothers: They died within a week of each other. One had ground his teeth smooth, but the other twin’s teeth were still sharp—less stress, I guess. Why do you ask?”

  “I wonder if I fit in. Is that odd?”

  “No. I wonder the same thing all the time,” I confessed, shocked that I would so willingly break one of my hard-and-fast rules. He did that to me: opened me up and made me spill thoughts I rarely shared outside the prep room. “I’ll leave you to get settled in,” I said, rising and reaching for the door. “If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

  “Wait.” He slid his feet to the floor and stood, blocking my exit. “There is something.”

  He was standing so close—too close. I inched away and, to cover my unease, said, “I’m not doing your laundry, if that’s what you want.”

  He cocked his head in that way he did when I’d lost him. “I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

  “Smile, Adam. It was a joke. You’re so serious all the time.”

  “I will have to work on that,” he said so gravely that I couldn’t help but laugh. “See,” he said, “it’s working already. No, I wondered if you would take me to Sal Zmira’s house to ask him about his metal detector and my father’s lockbox.”

  “You can ask him yourself.”

  “You’re better with people than I am.”

  That’s like saying a grenade is better than a missile; they’re both going to bomb. So I made an excuse. “I can’t. I told Nana I’d take in a pair of pants for her so she can wear them to the senior center tomorrow.”

  “Can’t you do it for her in the morning?”

  “I would, but I promised I’d do it tonight,” I lied. “You wouldn’t want me to break a promise, would you?” It wouldn’t be the first time, but thankfully he’d forgotten that we once promised to always be there for each other. I waited six long years to return to him and had been
nearly too late.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Besides, you don’t need me. It’s only a few blocks away. Ask Mr. Zmira if he has the box, and if he does . . . I don’t know, tell him you want it as a keepsake, something to remind you of your father.” Although, knowing Zmira, I seriously doubted he had a sentimental bone in his body. “It’ll be fine.” With that settled, I skirted around him and out the door.

  “Tomorrow, then,” he called after me.

  “Busy,” I yelled back.

  Later that evening Adam was a no-show for dinner. I asked if anyone had seen him, but they all shook their heads. He was probably sulking in his room because I wouldn’t drop everything to go with him to Zmira’s. Besides, if Zmira had found the box, it’d probably been cleaned out and trashed by now.

  By the time I finished altering Nana’s pants, everyone else had turned in for the evening. Still no sign of Adam. He hadn’t struck me as the sort to hold a grudge. Maybe I’d underestimated how important that box was to him. I’d see about getting Evan to drive him over tomorrow.

  I went out back to tell him my idea, but all the lights in the cottage were out. No point waking him. It could wait. I retreated to the main house, drew the shades, and checked and double-checked all the doors. Satisfied that I’d secured the house, I stopped in the kitchen for a drink. As I reached for a glass, I heard the creak of the screen door’s hinges. The door handle twisted left, right, and then rattled violently. Someone was trying to break in. Everyone here was in bed or had a key.

  Hands trembling and heart galloping, I slid open the knife drawer and fished out the largest cleaver I could find. “Leave now or I’m calling the police,” I threatened, my face inches from where the door met the jamb.

  “Lily?” answered Adam’s strangled whisper. “Let me in!”

  I turned the lock and was nearly bowled over as Adam shoved past me, slammed the door, and flipped the dead bolt. I switched on the light. He saw the raised cleaver and shouted, “It’s me! It’s me!” That startled me into dropping the knife. It clanged onto the countertop and fell to the floor, where the blade stuck into the linoleum inches from my foot.