The Grave Winner

by Lindsey Loucks

  Tram and I shared a look. “I’m a friend of the family.” He stuck out his hand. “And a friend to Leigh’s friends.”

  Jo pumped his hand up and down with a grin stretched across her face. Miguel shook his hand, too, but Callum stood like a statue, his eyes pointing bullets.

  “We better go before more cops come,” Miguel said, his arm circling Jo’s waist.

  “I don’t want to be anywhere near Sarah if she really is at the cemetery.” Jo hugged herself and scooted closer to Miguel. “Ready?”

  If only it had been Sarah, I might’ve been able to stop shaking. Might have. “Just give me a minute.”

  She and Miguel went to his car, but Callum stayed where he was, still imitating a statue.

  I sighed. “Give me a minute, Callum.”

  “I’ll be in my car if you need me, Leigh.” He raised his eyebrows at Tram and stalked away.

  Tram took a step backward. “I should go.”

  “Will you check on my mom?”

  He frowned. “Your mom’s fine.”

  After what I’d seen at the graveyard, nothing was fine. “Will you check on her anyway? And those cops, too?”

  His intense gaze cut through me. “I promise,” he said.

  I nodded and took a step closer to him to make sure the others wouldn’t hear. “I think you saved me from…them. Somehow.” A soft breeze turned his blond curls toward the streetlight, crowning him. “Thank you.”

  His gaze didn’t waver from my face while he took another step backward. “You’re welcome.”

  “Are those…Sarahs still back there?” The night breathed a chilly sigh, and I stuffed my hands in my pockets, suddenly freezing. A symphony of crickets split the darkness with their spring song.

  “They’re trapped,” he said with a nod. “They won’t escape.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “How did you do all that?”

  Tram half-turned toward the graveyard, silent.

  “I’m coming back. Tomorrow.” I stepped toward him to jab at his chest with a finger. He felt rigid, like someone chiseled him out of a cliff. “You’ll have a lot of questions to answer, and I won’t leave until you do.”

  “Fine.” A twitch of a smile turned up the corner of his mouth. He walked off.

  “Tomorrow then,” I said. “And not at night.”

  It was official—the graveyard in daylight was way better than at night. The sun shined brightly, giving Dad, Darby, and me plenty of light to see. Wind blew like it was supposed to. The tree roots and branches were in their normal places. The ground wasn’t shaking. Even the beer cans and bottles were gone.

  And, and as far as I could tell, no dead ladies with glowing blue eyes hung around to drag me across the graves. Hurray for that. The thought of their icicle hands touching me drove spikes of shivers between my shoulder blades. I kept shooting glances behind me just to be sure those ladies weren’t around.

  Yellow crime scene tape bordered off an area inside a cluster of normal-looking trees. All but three hadn’t been normal the night before. One more thing to add to the growing list of confusing. I remember quite vividly pulling up clumps of crispy, black grass. Why were Sarah’s footprints the only black grass around?

  Behind her footprints, Sarah’s nightmare tree had been leveled to a black stump. I guessed the white-haired guy was tired of looking at it.

  He was talking to several police officers who stood inside the tape, heads bent, faces solemn. I averted my eyes. Was that one policeman okay? I couldn’t go over there and tell them what I saw last night because they would never believe me anyway.

  Dad looked over at the policemen. “I wonder what happened over there.”

  I kept quiet and looked down at Mom’s smooth, flat grave.

  “Are those your mom’s gardening gloves?” Dad asked.

  My gaze followed his pointed finger. The thumb of her purple glove poked out from under the pile of twigs and waved in a soft breeze.

  “Uh, I brought them,” I said. “For Mom. A few days ago so she’d have them.”

  “Well, I think we should take them home, Leigh. They could get ruined out here.”

  “Okay.” After last night, I was already reconsidering the whole burying items in Mom’s grave thing. I would just have to think of another way to keep her in the ground.

  Her headstone gleamed in the sunlight, and I squinted to read the inscription.

  Kassandra Baxton

  1981 - 2014

  Sparks Fly Everywhere She Is

  Engraved in the marble was a photo of her smiling face, looking up at a sky filled with colorful fireworks.

  “I remember that night.” Darby’s mouth lifted into a smile before it fell back into a frown. “She was almost as excited as me.”

  “She packed enough food for all of Krapper and wrangled us to the park,” I said, then bit the inside of my cheek to keep any stray tears from falling. “Even I had a good time.”

  We stood looking at her headstone for a long time. I tucked that happy memory of Mom away with the thousands of others I didn’t want to forget. Like when she cart-sailed the aisles at the grocery store or her obsession with brushing her teeth three times a day.

  Dad knelt and put a single red rose next to the fresh wreath of leaves I was sure belonged to Tram. It was kind of nice of him to weave the leaves together like that for Mom. I looked around for a glimpse of a green sweatshirt but didn’t see him.

  Darby stepped forward, her body stiff. She placed her small bouquet of Mom’s lilacs on the grave. Her shoulders hitched, and she threw her arms around Mom’s headstone.

  I reached for Dad’s hand as Darby’s grief tore my heart in two. The wind tried to dry my tears, but there were too many. With blurry eyes, I looked at Dad. He covered his face with the hand that wasn’t squeezing mine.

  How were we supposed to function without Mom? How were we supposed to go on if we broke down like an old car on the side of the road every time we thought of her? She was everything. My inner gas tank pointed to E without her, and I would never be the same because of it.

  I let go of Dad and crouched next to Darby to circle my arms around her tiny body and hoist her up. She fell against me, and I half dragged, half carried her away from Mom’s headstone. Glancing at Dad, who watched me with tears streaming down his face, I told him it was time to go through the father/daughter psychic bond we shared. Ours wasn’t quite as strong as mine and Mom’s, but he seemed to get the message.

  Dad scooped Darby into his arms. I grabbed the pictures and other items, as well as the rose and lilacs, since they were gifts for the dead, too. But I left the bricks because I couldn’t carry all of them.

  With each step out of the graveyard, I feared the heaviness squeezing my heart would pull me under the path and I would never be seen again. Darby glanced at me over Dad’s shoulder and held out her hand. I took it and squeezed. Maybe I wouldn’t sink into the ground after all.

  As soon as we got home, I told Dad I was going to Jo’s but pedaled back to the graveyard. Alone. Somehow Dad and Darby had made it not as creepy. Maybe because they weren’t there the night before and had no reason to believe anything dead would drag them across the graves. It was daytime, so nothing weird could happen. If I told myself that again and again, then it had to be true. But doubt raced from my heart and chattered my teeth anyway. I shot through the gates at full speed and almost barreled into an old lady.

  “Sorry,” I yelled over my shoulder.

  My bike bumped me along the path to Mom’s grave. I slowed my pace, my gaze darting back and forth while I listened. No cracks or pops. No whispering.

  Other than the black stump of a tree and Sarah’s footsteps burnt into the grass, everything looked normal. If it weren’t for the police tape, I would think I imagined the whole thing last night. After leaning my bike against a nearby tree, I parked myself next to Mom’s headstone.

  It’s me again, Mom. I can’t stay away from you.

  Movement caught my eye. Tram walked
toward me, scooping back the hood that covered his head so his curls could turn in the wind. I scolded my heart when it did a little flip, but it was hard to deny his hotness.

  “I was here earlier. Where were you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” he said as he came closer.

  Did he ever change his clothes, or did he have thousands of brown pants and green hooded sweatshirts? His clothes never looked dirty, even though he always wore the same thing.

  “You’re a weird guy, Tram.”

  “Well,” he said, stopping next to me. He held out Callum’s ring. “I’m not the one who’s digging in my mother’s grave all the time.”

  I snatched the ring from him and stuffed it in my pocket. “I’m glad I amuse you.”

  My drop-dead glare only made him smile as he sat next to me.

  “I think I know why you do it, though,” he said. “You do it to keep her there.”

  “And you’re not helping.”

  “Leigh,” he said, and his voice was almost gentle. “You don’t have to do that. She won’t come back.”

  I searched his eyes for any sign that he was lying, but all I saw was green specked with golden brown. Beautiful. “How do you know?”

  “The things you saw last night, the girl who committed suicide and came back from the dead. None of that has anything to do with your mother.” He shook his curly blond head as if for emphasis.

  I studied the blades of grass over Mom’s grave. They swayed with the wind, but their anchored roots lodged them in the ground. Forever, hopefully. “You’re sure she won’t come back?”

  “I promise.”

  My breath came out in a whoosh. I covered my face, embarrassed that he knew my darkest fear.

  Tram touched my back, just a quick pat, but his fingers radiated comfort through my body.

  “I lost my mother, too,” he said. “She died when I was young.”

  Lowering my hands, I looked into his eyes. Their usual sharp edges dulled into a sadness that carved into my heart. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” He plucked a blade of grass and twisted it between his fingers. “My foster parents don’t know either. I’m not even sure what she looked like.” His gaze swept to Mom’s picture engraved in her headstone. “Yours was pretty.”

  “She was.” I rubbed my hand over the soft blanket of grass where I thought her hair would be. For some reason, she’d always hated her hair. “I’m sorry about your mom. Did your foster parents know her at all?”

  Tram let the blade of grass fall through the cracks in his fingers to the ground. “No.”

  “Where do they live?” I realized I was pouring on the questions, but I knew nothing about him.

  “Wyoming.”

  I frowned. “Wyoming? So why are you here?”

  He rolled his lips together and studied his shoes. “Work.”

  I rolled my eyes at Mom’s picture. Are all boys masters of conversation like he is, Mom? “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want.”

  “Sorry. I’m just not used to talking about myself. We can talk about whatever you want.” He smiled, but quickly looked away. A breeze lifted the curls around his ears and stuck one to the stubble along his jaw.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s talk about last night then.”

  He scooted away from me, and I tried not to take it personally.

  “Fine,” he said, shrugging.

  “What happened?”

  Tram shook his head, his jaw tight. “I didn’t get here soon enough. You had already buried your ring. And now they know.”

  “Who are they? And what do they know?”

  “They’re One and Two.”

  I held up my hands and lifted my eyebrows. He was going to have to help me out a lot more than that.

  “They’re Sorceresses, back from the dead.”

  “Dead…Sorceresses?” I heard the disbelief in my voice, but after what I saw last night, that sounded like a reasonable explanation. But still. Dead Sorceresses in Krapper, Kansas? Reality had sprung a serious leak. “But Sarah’s not a Sorceress.”

  Tram rested his elbows on his knees. “She looks and acts like them because they brought her back, but she’s just an innocent victim.”

  A victim. That made sense. Sarah wanted to die, wanted to escape, but she wasn’t allowed to do either one. That explained the haunted fear in her eyes.

  “Why isn’t she like them?” I asked.

  “She was cast out of her grave because One and Two need it. She wasn’t chosen to be Three.”

  A tiny brown spider crawled up the leg of my jeans, and I brushed it away. “Why do they need her grave?”

  “They have certain…requirements for their rituals,” Tram said.

  I shuddered. “Like black trees and grass?”

  “No. That happens just because they’re around.”

  “But why?”

  Tram stood and began to pace. If my questions were starting to irritate him, too bad. I was just getting warmed up.

  “They gave special gifts to the dead,” he said. “That’s why they were chosen.”

  I shook my head. “What gifts? Chosen for what?”

  “No one knows for sure what their gifts were.” His feet crunched the gravel path as he paced back and forth. “The graveyards where they were buried and resurrected are no longer there. But they were chosen because they knowingly offered gifts when everyone where I come from knows not to do that. Ever. No flowers, not anything.” He glanced at me, but instead of seeing an accusation on his face, I saw a glimpse of a silent plea.

  To believe him? How could I not?

  I felt the lump of Callum’s ring in my pocket and flexed my scabbed knuckles. “That’s why you didn’t want me to bury anything, right? Because those were gifts?”

  Tram nodded. “I hid all those items under hawthorn tree sticks so One and Two wouldn’t sense them.” His hands formed fists, and he kicked a rock. “But I didn’t have time last night to hide your ring. I didn’t get here when I should have.”

  “Well, shit,” I said, hugging my knees to my chest. “Why didn’t I listen to you when you warned me?”

  He stopped walking to roll rocks under the toe of his shoe. “They can’t get to you, though. Not anymore.”

  “Good.” I’d never have to hear their hisses or feel their cold touches again. They couldn’t get to me. I took a deep breath and let the fact fill my lungs. “So these dead people who keep popping up. They kill things just by being around them? And Sarah’s yard looks like that because she was brought back to life?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the smell?”

  “Death.”

  My eyes fluttered while I tried to make sense of all this new information.

  Tram sank into a crouch in front of me, placing his hands on the sides of my face. “Do you believe me?” His tone made him sound like my answer might make or break him.

  “I do.”

  I covered his hands with mine and watched the sunlight dance across his eyes. The sparkle took my breath away. Blond curls fell across his forehead, threatening to hide their beauty, and I wanted to brush them away. His mouth was just inches from mine. I never noticed how full it was, how soft it looked. It fell open slightly, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

  He slipped his hands from underneath mine and sat back on his feet. Patches of red blossomed on his cheeks while he stared at the ground.

  Whoa. Talk about an intense connection. I cleared my throat in an attempt to calm the flutter in my stomach.

  “But a couple days ago? When you were Scary Boy?” I said. “I would never have believed you.”

  A trace of a smile skimmed over his lips. “Scary Boy?”

  “That’s what I called you. When I didn’t know you.”

  Tram stood again and laughed. It brightened his entire face and flashed inside his eyes, olive-colored with shards of sunlight inside them. Then that stupid bell tinkled again.

  “Do
you hear those bells or is it just me?” I demanded.

  His face grew somber. “I hear them. That’s three warnings.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Who’s Three?”

  His eyes fell shut and his jaw muscles pulsed. “Someone who has the third gift for the dead.”

  “So One and Two have dead-gifter radar or something?” I grabbed his hand so he could help me up and to make him look at me again. A girl could get addicted to him looking at her when he was being honest, not scary.

  “Yes, something like that.” He looked down at my hand in his, so small in comparison, and rubbed his thumb over my scabbed knuckles. “And they came this close,” he said, holding his thumb and finger of his other hand together so they almost touched, “to dragging you away from me so they could put you in their special grave.”

  Icicles needled through my spine, remembering just how close they’d come. “But, I…” I shook my head as if that could quake the memories away. “I don’t want to be like them.”

  Tram looked at me and frowned. “Then stop digging in your mother’s grave to give her things. At night. With hands covered in your blood.”

  “Okay. I won’t.” My throat muscles seized, and I forced myself to swallow. “What about those cops? Are they okay?”

  “One of them is safe. The other…” Tram studied me, his gaze unwavering.

  “He’s dead?” My voice sounded raspy.

  “I told you not to come here at night.”

  Something fell away inside me. I struggled to breathe. “He was chasing me. It’s my fault he’s dead.”

  Tram took my wrist and squeezed, but the warmth of his hand didn’t soothe me. “It’s not. You didn’t kill him. They did.” His head whipped around toward the crime scene tape. “I have to go.”

  “What? No.” I grabbed his other hand as if I could plant him in the ground. “I still have a thousand more questions. And I still don’t know what you did to save me last night. Or how you know all this.”

  “Just promise me—and mean it this time—that you won’t bury anything else.”