Bone Hollow

by Kim Ventrella

  “Don’t let go,” said Brother Patrick, placing a hand on Gabe’s shoulder.

  “It’ll be over in a minute,” said Sir Carlton, grasping his elbow.

  And then they were zooming up into the spinning clouds. None of the faces were laughing at him this time. They all watched with looks of quiet concern, and no one grabbed him or licked him or tickled his toes.

  When the ride was over, Brother Patrick and Sir Carlton deposited them gently on the quilt Gabe had laid on the grass, next to the crackling fire. Ollie greeted them, but even he seemed to understand that Wynne was sick, because he didn’t jump on her or attack her face with kisses.

  “This is where we leave you,” said Brother Patrick, bowing to Gabe. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  “Until we meet again,” said Sir Carlton, and then they turned around and were lost to the sea of rolling mist.

  Gabe sat on the blanket next to Wynne, Ollie whining in his lap. Overhead, a willow tree rattled its long branches in the breeze. He stroked Wynne’s hair and touched her cheek. Her skin was hard and cold as bone.

  Sitting with her like that, in the quiet of the evening, he thought all the way back to that first night, the night he’d left Macomb County for good. He could still see the fear in Miss Cleo’s eyes, and the hatred on everyone’s faces as they’d chased him clean out of town. Running from that anger and hate, he was certain he’d never find a place to call home again. Then, just like that, Wynne had found him and everything had changed. Maybe it had been a coincidence and maybe not, but he’d found a home, and it was all thanks to Wynne.

  “Don’t you go leaving me, too,” Gabe said, shaking Wynne’s shoulder, just a little. “You wake up, now. Go on, wake up.” He shook her harder, and Ollie shifted around in his spot, whining something awful. It was bad enough that he couldn’t see Gramps and Mama and Daddy, even now that he was dead. He wasn’t about to go losing Wynne, too. No way.

  “Come on, stop playing around.” His face crumpled, the way it did right before he was about to cry, but he swallowed his tears down again. “I’m serious. I know you’re an old lady, but that doesn’t mean you can fall asleep whenever you want. No, sir.”

  He buried his head in Wynne’s shoulder, and that was when he felt her stir next to him. He sat up and watched as Wynne’s eyes flickered open and settled on his. Relief coursed through his veins, almost as strong as when he’d found Ollie safe and sound after that awful storm.

  “That’s more like it,” Gabe said, laughing. He pulled her into a hug without even stopping to think about it. Sure, maybe he was hugging Death, but he didn’t care.

  Wynne blinked, and Ollie licked her on the mouth, but just a tiny bit. “Sorry to have caused so much trouble,” she said, wheezing over each and every word. Gramps had sounded that way, back when he’d caught pneumonia, only a week or two before he passed. Gabe tried not to let that worry him. Wynne was strong, even if she wasn’t young. She’d be alright.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Gabe said, and he squeezed her hand in his. He’d never held a girl’s hand before, even Maisy Hughes’s, on account of her complaining that Gabe sweated too much. It felt nice, even though Gabe’s cheeks started to burn.

  “How did I get back here?” Wynne tried to sit up, but she couldn’t.

  “Ghost tunnel.”

  “Brother Patrick and Sir Carlton?”

  “Yup, that’s them.” Gabe shuddered a little at the memory of traveling in the tunnel, but that only made Wynne smile.

  “You’ll have to tell them thank you for me,” Wynne said, studying Gabe’s face. He wondered what she was hoping to find there.

  “You can tell them yourself.” He squeezed her hand tighter. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

  They were quiet for a while. After a few minutes, Gabe let go of Wynne’s hand and went inside to get more quilts, leaving Ollie on guard. When he returned, he covered Wynne in a thick, sparkly one tied with blue and purple ribbons, and rolled up another for her to use as a pillow.

  “How about some hot chocolate?” he said. He gathered up his focus, despite Ollie pawing at his leg, and a few moments later a steaming mug of hot chocolate appeared in his hand.

  “Thank you,” Wynne said. She held the cup to her mouth, the steam bringing a hint of color to her cheeks. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  A few more minutes passed in silence, and then Gabe lay back on the quilt, too, looking up at the stars. There was a question pressing hard against his brain, but he didn’t know the right way to ask it. “So … how does it work? When people die, I mean …”

  Wynne didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was soft, like the breeze brushing against Gabe’s face. “I try to help them not be afraid. That’s all.”

  “Like with Gramps?” Gabe said, remembering that last horrible dream he’d had, where no one had come to be with him.

  “Yes,” Wynne said. “Like with Gramps.” She took a few slow sips of hot chocolate. “How did you know I was there?”

  Gabe glanced over at Wynne, who was still looking up at the sea of blinking stars. “You mean that really was you? In real life, not just in my dreams?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Gabe remembered how helpless he’d felt, watching Gramps suffer and fret all by his lonesome. He’d wanted so badly to reach out to him, to tell him Gran was coming soon and everything was going to be alright. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad he wasn’t alone.” And he was. Even if his only companion had been Death.

  “I guess Death isn’t like I thought,” he said.

  Wynne tried to smile, but it quickly turned into a cough.

  “You should get some sleep.” He cringed at the sound rattling away in Wynne’s chest. “I can help you inside if you want.”

  “No, I like it out here.” She stared up at the stars, and he found himself wishing more than anything that she didn’t see another flame. Not now, when she was so weak.

  Gabe closed his eyes, and overhead the flutes played a sweet, woodsy music.

  “He asked about you, you know,” Wynne said, struggling just to breathe.

  “Me?” Gabe sat up, trying to remember exactly what Gramps had said in his dream, but he couldn’t.

  “Right as I was leading him into the light, he asked who would take care of Gabe when he was gone. I told him not to worry. You have one friend who’ll always be there for you.”

  Gabe thought surely she wasn’t talking about Miss Cleo, but then he remembered Gran’s words. “You mean Ollie!” He laughed. “But I don’t understand. How’d you know about Ollie in the first place, way back when?”

  Wynne tried to answer, but she couldn’t. All that talking and laughing had sucked the breath clean out of her chest. Gabe’s chest grew tight, too, like her not being able to breathe was contagious. He ached seeing her like that.

  “You go to sleep, now, and that’s an order,” he said.

  Wynne didn’t say anything else. She closed her eyes, as instructed, and Gabe fell asleep to the scratchy sound of her breathing. He didn’t sleep well, though, since he kept waking up to make sure Wynne was still okay. She kept on breathing through the night, though only barely.

  By the next morning, Wynne was still sleeping, and two new flames had appeared, burning over the treetops. One was buttery yellow, the other a creamy lavender, like Miss Cleo’s favorite type of paint. Gabe had helped her do her whole house that color, inside and out, even Princess Carmella’s miniature claw-foot bathtub. Not that he’d gotten so much as a thank-you in return.

  Gabe didn’t even think about waking up Wynne to tell her about the flames. He knew they belonged to people needing help, but surely the dead could wait. Only maybe they couldn’t. Gabe thought of his very own gramps, scared and alone in his bed, but then he shook the thought from his head. Wynne was sick, and she needed rest bad.

  At Gabe’s urging, she slept all through the day and into the n
ight. Whenever she tried to look up at the sky, to check for flames, Gabe ordered her to lie back down and close her eyes. Finally, just as the moon reached its highest point in the sky, he couldn’t stop her from waking. She blinked, but didn’t look strong enough yet to talk.

  “How about some tea?” Gabe said, and he felt behind Wynne’s ear and concentrated real hard and a cup full of steaming hot tea appeared in his hand. He brought it to Wynne’s lips and helped her drink.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Wynne said, admiring the fancy teacup Gabe had conjured from thin air. “Soon you’ll be better than m—”

  But Gabe shushed her and made her drink that whole cup of tea. She lay back down and didn’t wake up again till the moon had been replaced by the sun. It shone soft and warm behind a row of wispy clouds.

  “Time to go, sleepyhead,” Wynne said, startling Gabe from his thoughts. He hadn’t even seen her sit up beside him. “They need me.” Her voice sounded stronger than before, but still not strong enough.

  Gabe and Wynne and Ollie looked out over the treetops, where the purple flame was now beckoning, having doubled in size.

  “They can wait,” Gabe said, feeling Wynne’s forehead. It was still cold as stone. “Besides, one of the flames already disappeared. A yellow one, just over there.”

  “Some people need us more than others.” Wynne sat up straighter, managing a playful smile. Her skin wasn’t nearly as gray as before, and her cheeks even showed the faintest hint of color. “Some people can face dying all on their own, without our help. If the light goes out like that, it means the person’s already passed over.”

  “You need your rest,” Gabe said, trying to push Wynne’s shoulders back down onto the quilt.

  She laughed for the first time in days. “I’m feeling better, I promise. Besides, I thought I was supposed to be the one bossing you around.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Gabe said. “And I wasn’t bossing you around.”

  “Sounded like it to me.” Wynne didn’t look mad, though. If anything, her smile widened. Gabe still didn’t believe her, but he didn’t want to argue, either.

  “It’s getting bigger,” she said, her sad eyes peering up at the purple flame. And it was true. Even as they watched, the ball of flame pulsed and nearly doubled again in size. “That means someone’s really in need. Either they’re scared or they’re waiting on something.”

  “Something?”

  “Or someone,” Wynne said. She started to get up, but Gabe stopped her, and Ollie jumped in her lap just to make sure. “They need me, just like your gramps did,” she said, but Gabe shook his head and pushed another cup of tea into her hands.

  “They can wait one more night.” He didn’t know if that was true, but he couldn’t stand the idea of Wynne getting hurt again. “Till you feel better.”

  Wynne tried to smile, but her eyes looked so sad they kept ruining the effect. She sipped her tea in silence, and Gabe lay back on the quilt, looking up at the clouds.

  “One more night,” she said with a sigh, and Gabe let himself sink deeper into the blanket, the tension in his shoulders and neck easing just a little.

  They lay there side by side, while Ollie spun around and around in between them, trying to get cozy. He ended up with his head on Wynne’s elbow and his butt propped up on Gabe’s chest.

  “You’re lucky to have such a good dog,” Wynne said, scratching Ollie behind the ears, just the way he liked it.

  “And a stinky one, too,” Gabe said, but he knew what she meant. “Did you ever have a dog?”

  “Pork Pie,” Wynne said, eyes lighting up in the steady afternoon sun.

  “Is that supposed to be a dog?” Gabe said, laughing.

  “Sure he is! The best dog you ever met.” Wynne paused, waggling her eyebrows at Gabe. “Well, maybe the second best.”

  “Dang right.” Gabe was still laughing when a serious thought occurred to him. “Do you think you’ll ever see him again? Pork Pie?”

  Wynne thought it over, turning onto her side to face Gabe. “I hope so,” she said. “But I don’t really know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You are Death, aren’t you?”

  “That’s true.” Wynne managed a soft laugh, and the sound made Gabe feel warm inside. “I hold their hands, I tell them everything’s going to be okay, but in the end, I don’t know what happens after people die.”

  “But you have to know. If you don’t know, who does?”

  Wynne shrugged. “That’s just it; I don’t think anyone does. At least not until they die. And dying, really dying, is the one thing I’ve never done.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yes,” Wynne said. “Like you.” A wintry breeze whispered over Gabe’s cheeks, and to his surprise, a few fat snowflakes drifted down from overhead. “But you still have a choice.”

  “I told you my answer,” Gabe said. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

  Gabe watched Wynne’s face, but to his surprise her smile didn’t falter. “I know.”

  “I mean it.”

  Wynne didn’t say anything. Instead, she focused hard on one of the ribbon ties on the blanket, and soon a tray full of piping hot grilled cheese sandwiches appeared in her lap. “We can talk about it more later,” Wynne said. “For now, eat up.”

  So they ate, and watched Ollie catch snowflakes on his tongue, and soon the sun had dropped below the trees again and it was dark.

  Gabe rekindled the campfire, and he and Wynne spent the evening roasting marshmallows. All around, the blue flowers glowed, despite the cold, twisting around tree trunks and dangling from the branches overhead.

  “Was it you?” Gabe said, staring into the crackling flames. “That night in Miss Cleo’s bedroom?”

  Wynne stared at the flames for a while, too, before answering. “Yes, it was me. I was your gramps.”

  Gabe’s marshmallow turned brown and then black on the end of his stick. “But I don’t understand. I saw what you did with the old man in the cemetery. You led him into the light or whatever and he disappeared. His body was there, sure, but he wasn’t.”

  Wynne shifted uncomfortably on her rock. “Yes? What do you want to ask me, Gabe?”

  “Why didn’t you take me into the light, like you did with the old man?” As soon as the words were out, Gabe’s throat stung, like he’d swallowed a bottle of Gramps’s Christmas Day fire whiskey. He needed to know the answer, but he was afraid, too. Sure, Wynne had wanted him to be Death, just like her, but what if it was more than that? What if he wasn’t good enough to go into the light, and that’s why he kept on going? Why he couldn’t cross over to see Mama and Daddy and Gramps?

  Wynne didn’t answer right away, and that stinging feeling dropped down into his chest, eating him up from the inside out.

  “It’s because they didn’t want me, isn’t it?” Gabe’s belly sizzled so hot now, talking was like spewing out flames.

  “Who didn’t want you?” Wynne said, crunching her forehead into a frown.

  “You can tell me.” The heat was building up behind his eyes, too, and even though he didn’t rightly know where all these dang feelings were coming from, he started to cry. “Gramps and Mama and Daddy. They didn’t want to see me, did they? That’s why I’m still here? Why you had to rescue me and take me in?”

  “No,” Wynne said, sliding off her rock and squeezing onto his. She wrapped her arms around him and spoke gently into his ear. “What’s gotten into you? Of course they want to see you. They love you, and you love them.”

  Gabe knew she was right, but he couldn’t seem to stop crying.

  “Besides,” Wynne said, “you know why I didn’t take you into the light, don’t you?”

  Wynne waited while Gabe choked out the last of his tears. They were real tears, too, the kind that dribbled down his cheeks and drenched the neck of his T-shirt. At least the snow helped some. He let it settle on his face for a while, cooling down the fire inside.

  “Why?” Gabe said. “Why did y
ou keep me?”

  “I didn’t keep you,” Wynne said. “I just saw you. The way you help everyone around you, even when they treat you mean. No offense to your Miss Cleo. You’re kind to people, and not just her, either. Your friend Niko. When she first came to Macomb County, do you remember what people said? Awful things. Talking about the color of her skin and how she’d better leave town before her family got hurt. But you didn’t hear a word of that. You saw someone in need of a friend, and there you were.”

  “But I didn’t do anything special,” Gabe said. “She was better than the rest of them combined.”

  “Caring about people more than yourself is something special.”

  “Hang on,” Gabe said, wiping the last of his tears from his face. “You mean you’ve been watching me ever since then?”

  Wynne looked him straight in the eyes and nodded. He didn’t know how he should feel about that, but he found it impossible to get mad. Not at Wynne.

  “So you chose me?” Gabe said. “Hoping I’d take over for you when …”

  “Not exactly,” Wynne said, and Gabe was glad he didn’t have to finish his sentence. “It always happens like this. When one Death goes, another’s chosen. I don’t know how it works, not really. Like with me and my great-gran. She didn’t suspect or pray that I’d be like her when I was still alive, but when she heard about me sticking around when I was supposed to be dead and buried, she knew.”

  “But you were watching me before I passed.”

  Wynne shrugged. “I had an inkling, I guess. But I don’t decide. It just is.”

  Gabe’s lips grew numb under the coating of fresh snow. He licked them clean and scooted the tiniest bit away from Wynne. He knew she wouldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to, but still.

  A gust of wind shook a pile of snow from the treetops that landed smack-dab on Ollie’s bottom. That sent him into a frenzy, racing circles around the campfire, barking and snarfling.

  “That’s some dog,” Wynne said.

  “Sure is.” There was plenty more Gabe wanted to say and ask, but for the moment he was happy for the distraction. He didn’t wanted to think any more about Death or being chosen or what his not passing over meant for his future.