“In the morning, I’m going to track down the flames,” Wynne said, giving Gabe a look that meant she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She stood up, refusing Gabe’s help, and snuggled into the cozy pile of quilts. A few minutes later, she fell into a deep sleep, and Gabe was left staring up at the dark night sky.
There were more flames now, three in all, but the purple one was by far the brightest.
“Alright,” Gabe said, draping the starry blue blanket over Wynne’s tiny body. “But I’m going with you.”
By morning, only two of the flames remained, a small red one far on the horizon, and the purple flame, so big now it seemed to tickle the belly of the sun.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Gabe said.
Wynne stood up, wobbling with the effort, and smoothed down her dress. “’Course I am.” She grinned, almost like her normal self, but her eyes still looked tired. He wished he could get her to rest another day, but he knew it was no use.
“I can carry you, if you want,” Gabe said, but Wynne only laughed.
“I didn’t forget how to walk.” She placed a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”
Gabe let out a long breath, holding Ollie tight to his chest. “I guess. I just wish it didn’t have to be ghosts,” Gabe said, remembering the long, chilly tongues and groping fingers. “Couldn’t we travel by portal or something, like in the movies?”
“Sorry.” Wynne winked. “Ghosts are all we’ve got.”
Gabe swallowed hard and set his jaw. “Okay, let’s do this. Just don’t let go of me this time.”
“Promise,” Wynne said. “And you don’t let go of me.”
Gabe closed his eyes. He didn’t feel anything at first, except for an icy wind whipping around his face. Then he made the mistake of opening his eyes. Gray faces stretched past. Some smiled, some laughed, but most looked solemn and concerned. No chilly fingers reached out to grab him, and before he knew it, all the clouds cleared away and he found himself standing in the middle of a wheat field. The strands reached up to their shoulders and whispered softly in the wind.
“That wasn’t half bad,” Gabe said, and Wynne looked happy, too, even relieved. “I thought you weren’t worried about the ghost tunnel.”
“I wasn’t.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I was more worried about you.”
“Come on, let me help you.” He tried to take Wynne’s arm, but she shrugged him off.
“I told you, I can walk.” She smiled, and started off slowly through the brittle wheat up to an old farmhouse, the small red flame glowing in the background. Ollie raced ahead, climbing the rickety steps and barking at the open front door. Inside they found a young boy sitting on the floor next to a body. The body belonged to a middle-aged man with a short-clipped beard wearing work pants and a red flannel shirt.
The boy, who was happy enough to pet Ollie, looked up at Gabe and his eyes went wide. “Bone man,” he said.
Gabe didn’t know what he was talking about, but he glanced down, and just for a second his hands looked like bone, just like Wynne’s on the first night they’d met.
“Maybe we should go outside,” Gabe said, reaching out his bony hand. To his surprise, the boy took it, and they went out to sit on the porch, Ollie on their heels. Gabe had no idea what he was doing, but he decided for the boy’s sake that he ought to try his best.
“You have a nice house here,” Gabe said, hoping it was the right thing to say. “And a nice farm.”
“My dad built it, the house, I mean,” said the boy, fiddling with the skin on his lower lip. “But I helped. I put up the gutters all by myself. Almost.”
The boy was four or five, Gabe figured, but he nodded all the same. “Is that right? I wouldn’t know the first thing about putting up gutters.”
“Oh, it’s easy. First, you …”
And so the boy told him all about attaching the metal gutters to the side of the house with screws and a nail gun. Inside, Gabe could barely hear Wynne as she coaxed the man into that mysterious beyond.
“He’ll be looked after, we’ll make sure of it,” she was saying.
“Call my sister, Florence. Her number’s on the fridge. She’s the only one … the only one …”
“I know,” Wynne said. “We’ll call her. You come with me now. Your son will be just fine.”
“I need to say goodbye.”
“Quickly, now.”
The man stepped onto the wooden porch, though his boots didn’t make a sound. “I’m gonna be gone for a while, little man. A good long while, but I’ll see you again.” He paused, looking to Wynne for confirmation. She chewed on her lip, too, but in the end she nodded. “You be good for your auntie Florence, you hear?”
“When will you come back?” the boy said, not looking at his dad anymore, but at the reddish-yellow light filling up the whole entire house.
“Soon, little man. I hope it’ll be real soon.”
He hugged his son to his chest, and then pulled him off, ’cause otherwise he probably never would have let go. With silent tears shining on his cheeks, he took Wynne’s hand and walked into the light. The boy just stood there staring for a long, long time, even after the light had gone and Wynne got on the phone to call the police and leave a message for Aunt Florence.
Gabe and Ollie sat with the boy on the steps till the police arrived, and then he and Wynne and Ollie slid into the shadows.
“Bye.” The boy waved, saying it over and over again.
“Who are you talking to?” said the policeman, peering into the dark.
“Bone man,” said the boy, and he waved even harder.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Gabe said when he opened his eyes again and found himself back in Bone Hollow. “How do you know just the right thing to say?”
“I don’t,” Wynne said, settling down in her old spot by the fire. “I do my best. That’s all anyone can do.”
Gabe added one more stick to the growing flames, and then he took a seat next to Wynne. “I guess I always thought Death was different somehow. Taking Mama and Daddy and Gramps away from me. I thought Death was the same as dying, but now I know it’s not.”
“Everyone dies,” Wynne said, smoothing a blanket over her knees and offering half to Gabe. “It isn’t good or bad. It just is. It’s what happens before people go that matters. They need to know that someone’s there looking after them and the ones they leave behind. That’s where Death comes in.”
“Hmm.” Gabe considered, pulling Ollie up onto his lap. “You’re more like an angel, then. That’s what Miss Cleo would call you.”
“I hope so.” Wynne covered her cheeks with her hands, but he could still tell she was blushing.
He watched her, the firelight turning her face a deep shade of orange. “How long has it been, exactly? Since you became Death, I mean?”
Wynne peered up at the stars, the slant of her cheekbone catching the moonlight. “Seventy-five years, give or take.”
Gabe let out a long sigh, shaking his head. The thought of Wynne being alone in Bone Hollow for all that time made him feel like someone had grabbed his insides and wrung them out to dry. “Didn’t you miss them? All the people you left behind?”
“Sure I did,” she said, without taking her eyes from the stars. He could see something powerful in those eyes, even from where he was sitting. A longing so deep and old, it was bigger than the ocean. Bigger and wider, too. “But Granny showed me how she helped people, like I showed you, and I knew I couldn’t say no.”
Gabe sat with that information for a while, the air pressing down on him like a heavy stone lid.
“I’m tired, Gabe. Real tired.” She tilted her head toward him, and he could see just what she meant. Her eyelids had turned gray and brittle at the edges, and her eyes … There was something so old about them, almost ancient. “I don’t want to let anyone down, I don’t, but I won’t be able to do it for much longer.”
She kept looking at him, and Gabe was too scared and ashamed
to look away. The air grew even heavier, bearing down on his chest and squeezing around his throat.
“Even us Deaths can’t stick around forever.” With that, she slid off the rock and curled up on the ground, pulling the quilt tight around her knees. Gabe scooted over beside her.
“You mean there’s more than one of you?” A tiny hope flickered inside him. If there were others, then maybe one of them could take over for Wynne.
“Every Death has their own area. That way …” Wynne tried to keep going, but her voice grew hoarse and turned to a cough.
“Have you ever met one?” Gabe said once she’d recovered.
Wynne shook her head, and she looked so small and sad and lonely, Gabe couldn’t stand that he was letting her down.
“How about some tea?” he said. “You need something warm, to make you feel better.”
But Wynne wasn’t listening anymore. Her gaze had shifted from him up to the purple flame now taking up half the sky.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time for tea,” she said, patting Ollie gently on the rump. “One more visit, I think, and then I can rest.”
Gabe didn’t like the way her words sounded so final, but he didn’t have time to argue. She’d already taken his hand. “Hold on to Ollie and close your eyes. Picture the purple flame in your mind. The sweet lavender and icy pink. Imagine it’s calling to you, drawing you closer and closer.”
This time, Gabe felt the wind brushing gently over his cheeks. He grasped on to Ollie’s fur as tightly as he could, but it was all over in a few seconds. No ghostly faces or fingers or tongues. His bare feet settled on frozen grass, and then the wind went still and Gabe opened his eyes to the sound of squawking chickens. As he looked around at where they were, a ball squeezed against the inside of his ribs, like it was trying to break out. The cool lavender paint sparkled under the light from the full moon, and the night was quiet, apart from the chickens and the roar of that bright purple flame.
“Miss Cleo,” Gabe said, to Wynne and to Ollie and to no one in particular. “It can’t be.”
Wynne’s hand tightened around his. She looked the way he would always remember her, sad and hopeful all at the same time.
“I think this one’s for you,” she said, so quiet he could barely hear. Her face had grown pale and sickly again, the soft skin slowly turning back into bone.
“But you were fine,” Gabe said. “Back at the campfire. I was going to make you a cup of tea.”
“I know.” Wynne smiled, and he could tell by the way her lips quivered that it took every last ounce of effort. “Don’t worry about me, not now. You have to be strong.”
“I can’t go in there,” Gabe said, every inch of his body starting to pulse in protest. “I told you I wouldn’t do it. I … Wynne, she can’t be … she just can’t.”
Wynne squeezed his hand. It was cold and hard, and after a moment it fell from his grasp. Wynne sank down onto the frost, like she couldn’t support her own body anymore.
“But you were better! Just now. Wynne!” He grasped her by the shoulders, trying to pick her back up again, but she couldn’t stay upright. “Wynne …”
She looked up at him, love and sadness and relief in her eyes.
“I knew you were the one,” she said, though it was so quiet he had to press his ear right next to her mouth to hear the words.
“But I’m just me; I’m not anyone special. I’m not like you,” Gabe said. Overhead, the flame sputtered and spit, but Gabe didn’t care. “I can’t leave you here.”
Wynne pushed him toward the door, with the very last of her strength.
He wanted to argue, to say there was no way in hell he was leaving her alone, but then Ollie plopped down right by her side.
She opened her mouth, like she wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t.
“You keep an eye on her, boy,” Gabe said, tears filling up his eyes. “Just till I get back. You make sure she’s okay.”
Wynne blinked. “Thank you,” she mouthed, though not a word came out.
Still, he didn’t want to go, but the flame kept on roaring in his ears, and he knew he had to do it. For Wynne, and maybe for Miss Cleo, too.
Tearing himself away, he hurried for the door before he changed his mind. He didn’t let himself think about what he might find inside. The living room smelled just the way he remembered it, full of dust and chicken feathers and Miss Cleo’s greasy old toe cream. He was surprised to see his picture still sitting on the mantelpiece, in the cobbled-together frame he’d made from bits of stray wood. The TV was blasting The Price Is Right, Miss Cleo’s favorite show.
He didn’t see her at first, and a wave of relief shot through his chest, but then he took a step closer to the TV and there she was, her big blue hair poking up over the top of her worn-out green recliner.
A sticky ball pushed its way up Gabe’s throat, and he was certain he’d never be able to say a single word to Miss Cleo.
Then he eased around the sofa and saw her watery eyes peering up at him. She looked so small and frail and alone that he was talking before he even knew it. “Don’t be scared, now, Miss Cleo. I’m here. It’s me, Gabe. I’ve come back home to help you.”
He didn’t know what he expected. Maybe for her to start hollering and calling him a monster and telling him to get the heck out of her house, or maybe the opposite. Maybe she’d hug him after all this time and finally say she was sorry. Instead, she just blinked those milky eyes at him, like she was trying to brush the cataracts right out. She scrunched up her forehead and screwed up her lips, and even though he knew he’d only been gone a few months, he swore she looked ten years older than the last time he’d seen her, her gray wrinkles drooping down her hollowed-out cheeks.
“You can come with me now, Miss Cleo. Everything’s going to be alright.”
But it wasn’t going to be alright, because just then she pointed at him and her hand started shaking. She opened up her mouth real big, almost like she wanted to scream, but instead she said, “Dan?” She stood suddenly, leaving her body behind in the chair, and reached out for him with hands like claws. “Is it really you?”
Gabe stepped back, thinking she was having some kind of fit, but then he remembered. His eyes drifted back to the mantel and the picture next to his. It was a faded photo in a polished gold frame. The man in the photo was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a brown corduroy suit. At the bottom was a plaque that read, “In loving memory, Daniel Scott Filner.”
“Your husband?” Gabe said as Miss Cleo pulled him tight to her chest. She was shaking all over. Shaking, and sobbing, too. “No, Miss Cleo, it’s—” He was about to say “me,” but then he stopped. Miss Cleo had been waiting for someone, only it hadn’t been him. A few months ago, that would’ve eaten him up inside, but now he was mostly worried about getting back to Wynne. And maybe it made sense that Miss Cleo missed her husband more than she missed him. At least she had found someone in her life to care about.
“You came back for me,” Miss Cleo said again, shaking so hard he had to hold her around the waist to keep her from falling. “I knew you would. Life wasn’t easy after you left. Scrounging around to pay the bills. Stuck up in this house all alone, for years. But I always said, I told ’em you’d come back for me one day, and look, you finally did.” Miss Cleo took a few deep breaths and wiped the bulk of the tears from her face. She fixed Gabe with an expression he’d never seen before. Vulnerable and scared, like whatever he said meant the whole entire world to her. “You did miss me, didn’t you? When you were gone?” Just then the TV went to commercial, and Gabe glimpsed his reflection in the blank screen. As he’d suspected, he wasn’t Gabe anymore, but a middle-aged man in a corduroy suit.
“Of course I did.”
Gabe pushed down all the old, nasty thoughts that were warring inside his head, how Miss Cleo had never missed the real him, not one tiny bit.
“I guess it’s time to go,” she said, staring at the ball of golden light that was blazing where the front door used t
o be.
“I guess so,” Gabe said.
Supporting most of her weight, he helped her toward the door, but Miss Cleo stopped him halfway. She reached for the mantelpiece. He was certain she was going to pick up the photo of her husband—maybe she wanted to take it with her into the great beyond—but she didn’t.
Instead, she rested a hand on his very own picture.
“Whatever happened to you?” she said, a fresh round of tears filling up her eyes. “Can’t say I’ll ever forgive myself for how I treated that boy. I done wrong by him, sure enough, and now he’ll never know that I was sorry.”
Gabe couldn’t think of a single thing to say, but in the end he didn’t need to.
“Do you think he could ever forgive me?” She looked deep into his eyes, and in that moment he was certain she knew. That somehow she could see him inside his body, right alongside Dan.
“I know he would.” Gabe squeezed her tighter to his chest, and Miss Cleo let out a long sigh of relief.
“You were a good boy,” she said in his ear, her words low and ragged and fierce. “A real good boy.”
She squeezed him so tight he thought he might burst, and then all of a sudden she let him go.
“Miss Cleo, wait, you need my help.”
“You already helped me,” she said, walking toward the light, all on her own. Just before she left, she turned to him and smiled. “More than you know.”
With that, the light grew brighter and brighter, and just when it got so bright Gabe had to shield his eyes, a crack of thunder shook the house and, with a snap, Miss Cleo, and the light, were gone.
“I knew you could do it,” Wynne said when Gabe finally came back to his senses and hurried onto the lawn. Ollie was still sitting by Wynne’s side, his paws resting protectively on her lap.
“She’s gone,” he said. He wiped his face and found his cheeks warm and wet with tears. “Is it always like this? This hard, I mean?”
Wynne opened her mouth, but she couldn’t answer. Her whole body started to shake, the same as Miss Cleo’s. Gabe grasped her under both arms and helped her to her feet, but she had to lean against him to keep from falling.
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