Back in the living room, both Dad and Darby sat on the piano bench with their arms around each other. Everything inside me magnetized toward them, but I fought the pull.
“I’m not riding the bus today,” I called and rushed to the garage for more bricks and my bike.
A gray sky masked the morning sun while a crisp wind blew past my face and bare arms. As I pedaled, the goose bumps disappeared and my breath grew ragged. I arrived at Heartland Cemetery in no time.
A giant padlock bolted the gates together. It was too early in the morning for the graveyard to be open, so I rode to the side where a chain link fence was my only barrier to Mom. The dead’s business hours were about to change.
After leaning my bike against the fence, I began to climb. When I reached the top, I swung one leg over to straddle the top rail. A nearby tree’s thick branch was just an arm’s stretch away. I wasn’t the neighborhood tree-climbing champion when I was younger, probably because I didn’t handle heights well.
When I leaned toward the branch, the bulk of my backpack shifted and I lost my balance. I windmilled my arms, fighting for control. One of my legs slipped from its hold on the side of the fence. I hung from the top by the back of my knee. My heart pounding, I pulled myself up to a sitting position. After tying my backpack straps to my belt to keep the bag secure, I tried again for the branch. My fingers grazed the rough bark, and with a bit more leaning, I got a good grip.
My legs swung beneath me as I shimmied down the length of the tree branch. I let go and hit the ground running.
Next time, I would bring a crowbar rather than channel my inner monkey.
Gasping for breath, I skirted Sarah’s footprints and the dead black tree. A shiver swept over my spine when I neared Mom’s grave, but the smooth dirt still held her tight. I sank to my knees with relief.
A pile of green leaves lay near the white plastic sign in the ground. Someone had twisted the stems together to form a sort of small wreath. Had Dad done that and left it for Mom? The thought of him here alone nearly choked me.
A sudden gust of wind chilled my arms, along with my next thought. Did Dad come here to see if Mom had returned? He’d looked so hopeful that she would, but there was no way I was going to let her come back.
A pile of thorny twigs lay next to the leaves, and something purple and shiny flashed between the sticks. I reached across Mom to lift one. Her purple gardening gloves, the framed picture of the four of us, and bricks were underneath the pile.
I’d buried these, hadn’t I? With a sigh, I sat back on my knees. Why wasn’t anything making sense?
The wind lifted a few of the leaves in the wreath. There was something underneath. A white card. Four words were written on it:
It can’t be you.
What the hell did that mean? It can’t be Mom? For what? And who’d written that? Shaking my head, I found Mom’s white-handled garden shovel in my backpack and started digging.
Mom, it’s me a—
A shadow fell across me. “You promised me.”
I kept digging, the chilly, moist earth spraying my jeans.
“Leigh, you promised you would take your Mom’s things and go.” Scary Boy knelt next to me and slid his hood off his head.
I could feel his eyes penetrate me. “How do you know my name?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“A promise means something where I come from.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” I finally stopped digging and looked up at him. His eyes had sharpened themselves into two points of disapproval. He was still dressed in brown pants and an oversized green sweatshirt. Were those the only clothes he owned?
Scary Boy paused for a moment, then said, “It was written on the back of that photograph.”
I glared at him. “The one you dug up.”
He stood. “Yes.”
My rage bubbled to the surface. I stood, too, and shoved the boy with every ounce of strength I had. He didn’t budge. He was a boulder; I was a fly trying to push him over. This pissed me off even more, so I slapped him. Hard. A red echo of my hand appeared on his face. But all he did was look at me with the same look of disapproval.
“Don’t touch my mother’s things.” I jabbed the blade of the shovel into his chest. “Got it?”
He twisted the shovel out of my grasp and spun me around so fast, there was no time to protest. I couldn’t anyway because his hand covered my mouth. His other arm imprisoned me against his chest. My heart exploding with fear, I fought to break free.
“Stop. Listen to me,” he said.
His breath against my ear made me squirm even more. There was no way I was going to stop fighting to free myself, but he held me tighter.
“You have no idea of the danger you’re in by giving gifts to the dead. There are evil things that will see, and I will not let them find their Three in you.”
I jerked and screamed at him to let me go, but his hand muffled my words.
“You can threaten me all you want, but I’ll keep erasing any sign that you’ve been digging in your mother’s grave. Got it?”
His breath blew hot on my neck as I continued to struggle against him. I pulled in the rich scent of dirt and wood from his palm still clamped over my mouth. Did I get it? No. I shook my head, even though I knew he could snap me like a twig. But I really didn’t get it. Any of it.
Scary Boy sighed, but then he chuckled. The same bell as the other day tinkled in my ears. What was with that thing? He released me from his grip.
I wanted to plant Mom’s shovel into his neck, but curiosity glued me where I stood. “What’s a Three? And who’s them?”
The boy’s eyes looked fierce. “You don’t want to know.”
Actually I did, but whatever. This conversation needed to end so I could get to school on time.
He studied me for a moment. “You can’t come here at night. Ever. Especially after you’ve given gifts to the dead. I would make you promise me, but I guess that doesn’t work with you. Just… don’t come here.” He mumbled something else and walked off.
I knelt next to Mom’s grave again and watched him go. He probably believed everything he said, but I wasn’t crazy in the same way he was. He could have his belief in Three, whatever that was. I believed in preventing Mom from coming back. If he dug up everything I buried, then I would have to bury things deeper.
I dug furiously, dirt splashing up my arms and onto my t-shirt, all the while talking to Mom in my head. Eight pictures, her purple garden gloves, and the sheet music went into the ground. Then I dropped in twelve bricks, some from the last time I’d done this, so they would form a blanket over Mom’s body. I preferred the term blanket to blockade. While I finished covering the holes, I told Mom about Callum and our almost-kiss, because she would want to know.
When I was done, dirt caked the front of my clothes and wedged beneath my fingernails. There was no time to go home and change since I was probably late for school already.
Before I left, I settled the wreath where I’d found it because Mom would’ve liked the leaves.
The gates of Heartland Cemetery creaked open. Good. I wouldn’t have to swing from the trees to get out. When I heard the grumblings of a white-haired man and his heavy footsteps, I ran and hid behind an angel statue. He was saying something about darned kids and a tree doctor. As soon as he shuffled past, I took off running, my backpack bouncing up and down with each stride.
A sudden realization slowed my steps. Scary Boy. If he worked here, did he really love his job so much that he arrived before the white-haired man? Or did he sneak in just to ramble on about whatever and bug me?
I would have to tell Jo that I would be a third wheel on her date with Miguel. There was no way I was going to let anyone get close to Mom’s grave at the Wake the Dead party. Plus, I couldn’t let Jo come here at night by herself.
That evening, half of me appeared in Darby’s bedroom doorway. This was my way of asking if I could come inside. She was sprawled on her bed, coloring a pictu
re.
“Can I see?” I asked.
“No.” She flipped the picture over and crammed her black crayon into the box.
I could tell she still stung from that morning because she always showed me her artwork. “Can Merlin read to me?”
She sighed and looked up. “Only if you swear you won’t yell at me.”
“I won’t yell at you.”
“Ever again.”
I went into her room and sat next to her. “What if you pull off my ears? Can I yell at you then?”
She giggled, and the sound made me smile. “Maybe,” she said.
While she put her picture inside a dresser drawer, I fluffed her pillows and sat them up against the wall to support my still damp head. I’d showered and changed right after school so there was no trace of graveyard dirt for her or Dad to ask about. Everyone at school had stared at me like I’d dunked myself in brown anthrax even after I’d scrubbed my skin raw in the school bathroom.
Darby, with her fat Merlin book, plopped down next to me and squirmed into the crook of my arm so I would hold her. She felt so fragile, but I squeezed her anyway. After she cleared her throat and shook the stray hairs off her face, the drama that wasn’t my life began.
The soft gray light outside faded into a velvet black night. Soon, Merlin couldn’t keep his eyes open, and I knew it was time for Darby to go to sleep.
“Okay, Merlin. Time for bed,” I said, untangling myself from the blankets, pillows, and my sister.
She marked her place with her mermaid bookmark and settled under the covers with the book clutched to her chest. “What do you think’s going to happen next?”
I laughed as I tucked the blankets around her to make her into a burrito like Mom used to with the both of us. “You already know what’s going to happen next.”
“It could change while I’m sleeping.” She wriggled her hands out of the tight covers to her face and handed me her glasses.
“Well, I guess it’s good you’re holding the book so no one can change it.” I kissed her on the forehead then set her glasses on the nightstand. “I’ll go get Dad to tuck you in, too.”
“I love you, Leigh.”
“I love you, too.” I brushed the hair from her face and left to search for Dad.
He was in the living room on the couch, snapping his cell phone closed. “Your mother’s gravestone is ready.” He looked so tired and defeated, like he’d aged ten years in the last week. It hurt to look at him.
“Oh,” I said, then sighed, suddenly exhausted.
“It should be in the ground by late Friday. Maybe we could go to the cemetery this weekend to visit.”
“Have you gone there before? Without us?”
He stood and shook his head. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, but he must have decided against it. If he was going to say anything about coming back from the dead, I was glad he changed his mind. I didn’t want to tell him about Sarah, but I would. He had to understand that Mom couldn’t be that way.
“Will you do me a favor?” I asked. “Don’t go to the cemetery alone. Take Darby and me with you.”
“Why?”
“Because. When I think of you alone…grieving, I can’t breathe.” I tried to swallow the emotion in my voice but couldn’t. “Take us with you, okay?”
Dad wrapped his arms around me and squeezed.
“I can’t breathe,” I croaked.
When he finally let me go, his eyes swam with tears.
“Darby’s waiting for you,” I said and stood on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek.
As soon as he rounded the corner, I shook out the quilt on the back of the recliner and hid as much of the piano as I could. Someone had righted the glass of Mom’s spilled seed pods. I covered that, too.
Everything of hers needed to be buried. That’s how she would stay in the ground. That’s how I could keep her from coming back. I pinched the bridge of my nose to keep the tears away and shook my head the whole way to my bedroom. My funeral dress still hung from the neck of Mom’s guitar in the corner, and I stretched the fabric over it to cover every inch.
This wasn’t normal behavior. I was pretty certain of that. Then again, these weren’t normal times, but I would do whatever it took to keep Mom from being like Sarah.
Later, while I lay in bed and waited for sleep, a sudden realization split my breath into gasps.
Scary Boy said something about three. Three fingertips pressed against the glass in front of Sarah. I didn’t have a clue why Scary Boy and Sarah were both fixated on the number three, but sleep didn’t come easily that night.
“You should ask Callum about how dangerous I am with nun chucks.” Jo grinned and swiped lip gloss across her lips for the thousandth time. “That was one bloody day.”
Carbonated dinner choked me. I coughed into my hand and stared at Jo like she’d morphed into recycled cardboard. “Say what?”
Jo dropped onto the couch next to me. “I split his head wide open. He had to get twelve stitches.” She grabbed the remote from the coffee table and flipped through the channels. “Maybe there’s a karate movie on to help me reenact my skills for you.” As always, the TV was muted so we could make up our own dialog.
“Are you really bringing your nun chucks tonight?”
She stared at the flickering images racing across the TV screen while tapping the buttons on the remote. “Yep. If anyone tries to wake the dead, it’ll be a bloody night.”
I squeezed my can until the metal popped and took another drink. “You can say that again.”
“I’ve got brass knuckles too, if you want them.” Jo settled on a black and white western, and then hiked up her long, flowery skirt. “Look. I shaved my legs.”
I whistled. “Miguel better watch himself.” According to Jo, it was okay to drop ‘From Spanish Class’ from his first name, since he was officially the Miguel.
“You already threatened to decapitate him if anything happened to me tonight,” Jo said.
It was true, though Jo was capable of decapitation on her own. He was cool with driving me to the graveyard, but not the part about the decapitating.
“I was only half kidding,” I said.
“Shh. We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“Oh, right.”
Everything was top secret since Jo’s parents came home from their restaurant early on Fridays. They were here now, watching TV upstairs. The plan was we would be “asleep” by eleven and then sneak out to Miguel’s car when he got here around eleven thirty.
“I’m so tired,” Jo yelled for the benefit of her parents.
“Real smooth, Jo,” I said, chuckling.
“I’m going to tell them goodnight.”
“Wearing that?” I asked, pointing to her skirt and peasant top. “You don’t even have your pajamas on.”
“Good point,” she said and rushed to her bedroom.
I heard her rummaging through drawers. She’d been making a lot of noise all day, jumping around and waving her arms wildly like a Jo-in-the-box. I couldn’t help but feel happy for her even if the date was at a stupid party.
Twisting his ring around my finger, I looked at Callum’s empty bedroom and sighed. Our almost-kiss was the last time I’d seen him. The memory of that moment helped power me through the week, but the absence of him dulled the world to a boring gray. Was he avoiding me?
Jo came out of her bedroom wearing a long, white t-shirt that said, “I’m sleepy” in green block letters. Her skirt trailed from underneath the shirt and billowed behind her on the way up the stairs.
I smothered my laughter with one of the pillows on the couch. Elf, who was snuggled next to me, looked up all sleepy-eyed. I coaxed him back to sleep by massaging his silky ears, but the thunder of Jo’s feet back down the stairs woke him up again. His body rose and fell in a sigh. Poor Elf.
“Let’s turn out the lights and hide in my room. Come on!” She pulled me from the couch, and I mimicked her excitement the best I could.
The world seemed to brighten, and my mouth stretched into a grin. But he didn’t smile back. In fact, he didn’t even look at me.
A shiny brown head streaked behind him. I knew that color of brown.
Megan. The bouncy cheerleader who called me a stupid freak. Why was she with Callum?
My mouth sank into a grimace, and everything paled.
Jo’s excitement melted as she glared at Callum and shoved her feet into her shoes.
Megan twirled out from behind Callum. “Hello, girls.” She gave us a pageant girl wave, and then turned to Callum. “Where is your bedroom?”
Numbness descended over me like a thick fog.
Callum finally looked at me but spoke to Megan. “Uh, it’s the first door. You can go on in. Your notebook is under the bed.”
“Okay,” Megan said and bounced inside.
Callum closed the door behind her, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Callum Monroe,” Jo growled. “You said you broke up with her months ago.”
His gaze snapped to her. He held up a hand as if to push her anger aside. “Don’t. You’re going to the party?”
“I already told you I was.”
“Is Leigh?”
I held my fury in my fists while I glared at him. Was he really that much of a wuss? I was standing right here. Couldn’t he ask me himself?
“Yes, she’s going, but—”
“Is someone taking you?”
“Yes.”
“I think your ride’s out there. Mom and Dad went to bed,” he said and glanced at me. “I need to talk to Leigh. Alone. Now go.”
“I’m not leaving without her.”
His gaze shifted to me again. “She’ll be out soon.”
The Grave Winner Page 5