Beyond the Grave

by R. W. Wallace

  “Uh…” The man seems to have trouble following the sudden change in mood in Evian, which is understandable, especially for someone who wouldn’t have caught any of the otherworldly conversations in the room. “Of course. I’ll make sure it’s in your inbox by the end of the day.”

  “Thank you.” And without another word, Evian almost runs out the door, with Doubira scurrying out after her.

  I wait a few seconds before speaking. “That wasn’t very nice, Clothilde. You scared the captain.”

  Clothilde shrugs and jumps up to perch on the empty workbench along the wall. “She can take it.” She looks longingly at the door where Evian and Doubira disappeared. “Imagine what we could do if we could assist her during the investigation. She’s so receptive.”

  “I know,” I reply.

  But that’s never going to happen.

  Eleven

  The coroner continues working for a couple of hours, still not talking to himself, so we don’t know if he finds anything interesting. Before leaving, he stands next to Clothilde’s body and puts his hand on hers—or what remains of them, anyway, mere bones barely covered with a thin, dry skin—apparently saying goodbye. But without saying anything out loud, of course.

  “Seems like you made an impression,” I say.

  “You jealous?” Clothilde is on her workbench perch, Converse-clad feet dangling through the cupboard and hands under her thighs. She’s back to her usual self, the anger nowhere in sight.

  I know it’s lurking not far beneath the surface.

  I grin at her. “I’d be more affected by the young girl who was raped and murdered than the middle-aged man who’d clearly led a rough life, too.”

  She shrugs. “We’ll both go back to the cemetery, anyway.”

  With a slight squeeze, the coroner finishes his goodbyes and exits the room, leaving just the two of us.

  Four of us?

  I’m going to go with two. That skeleton hasn’t been me for a very long time, and I don’t think Clothilde identifies much with the mummified thing either.

  Speaking of which…as I watch the folded hands of Clothilde’s corpse, they move.

  “What the…” I move closer, peering at the fingers. They don’t seem quite as solid as they were earlier. Could the coroner touching them have made what remained of the skin fall apart?

  Another movement. Now that I’m staring at it, I can see it’s the little finger of her right hand that’s falling away from the rest of the hand. It’s still attached—sort of—by a piece of skin so thin I can see right through it.

  “What’s so interesting?” Clothilde asks.

  I wave for her to approach. “Come over here, will you? Look.” I point at the finger. “I think your finger’s coming off.”

  She rolls her eyes, proving that teenager Clothilde is indeed back. “Gross.”

  I eye the cloth of her yellow dress, which goes all the way to the end of the table. “Would you mind trying to get it to fall off all the way?”

  “What?”

  I’ve surprised her. It’s good to know it’s still possible. “You’re better than me at affecting the living world—”

  “I wouldn’t really call this ‘living.’”

  “—and I’m wondering what would happen if your finger stays behind here.”

  Clothilde catches my meaning immediately. She eyes the barely attached finger, the cloth leading the way to the edge of the table, and the floor. “You think I could stay with the finger if they leave it behind?”

  I meet her gray eyes and lift one shoulder. “Won’t know unless we try, will we?”

  We’re clearly linked to our dead bodies. Wherever the bodies are stuck, so are we.

  But what happens if the body is in several pieces? Can we choose which part to follow?

  It’s certainly worth a try.

  So Clothilde does her thing, rushing around like an angry poltergeist, throwing herself at the finger. I step away in order to avoid being in her way and not getting too dizzy with all the movement, and I admire her work. For a ghost, she certainly has a lot of energy.

  It takes over an hour, but it works.

  The last strip of skin lets go and the bones of the little finger fall off the hand. They tumble down along the folds of the yellow dress and tumble off the table and to the floor.

  Three small bones clatter to the floor, the sound like sticks knocking together.

  Clothilde shivers and shakes out her right hand. “Gha…that felt weird.”

  We both stare at the bones on the floor. They’re very visible, at least the first two, so chances are that someone will pick them up and put them back on the dead body shortly. Still, it was worth a shot.

  “Want me to try on yours?” Clothilde asks.

  I look at my skeleton and shake my head. “We won’t be able to make any bone move that far.” My bones are all lying flat, basically a 2D image instead of the 3D one that Clothilde’s body presents, and there are no clothes to help us along.

  “I can’t just stay behind if you go back to the cemetery,” Clothilde says. She’s worried, and I’m not entirely certain if it’s for me or for herself. We’ve been in each other’s company for so long, neither of us is comfortable with the idea of splitting up.

  “You can, and you will,” I tell her sternly. “If you have a chance to figure out what happened thirty years ago, you have to take it. We’ll never get anywhere working out of the cemetery.”

  She’s not happy about it but I can tell she’ll do it. She really does need to get out there to find her killer.

  “If you miss me too much,” I say, meaning if she gets stuck here in the morgue and it turns out even more boring than the cemetery, “your body will be in the cemetery with me. You can come back.”

  Clothilde’s eyebrows draw together as she eyes the finger bones on the floor. “You think that’d work?”

  I have no idea. How am I supposed to know? “Maybe?”

  We both burst out laughing.

  Twelve

  Emeline wants to be present when they send the bodies back to the cemetery. She feels like she owes them at least that much.

  When she enters the examination room where the coroner did his job, there are already five other people present. They’ve brought back Clothilde’s original casket and somebody has fixed up the little dents Emeline and Malik made in the lid when they forced it open.

  For Monsieur X, they’ve brought a body bag. Until they figure out who this guy was, he’s not going back to the cemetery. Emeline briefly played with the idea of shoving him into Clothilde’s casket but quickly came to her senses.

  She can’t even understand why she had the urge to make sure the two aren’t separated. Sure, they’ve been buried together for thirty years but they’re dead bodies. Monsieur X is nothing but a heap of bones.

  They don’t care.

  And yet, Emeline does.

  She wants the two to stay together and she wants their bodies to be treated with respect. Which is why she’s here to supervise the transport rather than getting a nice meal from the Chinese restaurant just around the corner from her new apartment and relaxing with a book.

  There are too many people in here. Because of her request not to disturb the bodies, there are four technicians to lift Clothilde into her casket.

  Emeline has an urge to walk to the other side of the room—so she does.

  She has these weird feelings when working cases sometimes and she’s learned not to fight them. Her subconscious thinks she might see something interesting from the other side of the room, so she’ll go there to have a look.

  Everything looks the same.

  But what’s that on the floor?

  She takes a step closer, bending down to see between the legs of the woman closest to her.

  Something has fallen to the floor
close to the working table where Monsieur X’s skeleton lies.

  It’s a finger. The three knuckles of a finger lie forgotten on the floor, close to being stepped on by the technicians.

  Emeline takes two steps closer to Clothilde’s casket to look at the mummified corpse that is now back to its final resting place.

  The little finger of the right hand is missing.

  Clothilde’s little finger is on the floor.

  Without thinking, Emeline bends down and picks up the three knuckles. She has the urge to put them in her pocket.

  Why would she do that?

  Still, the urge is strong. She stands there, in the way of the technicians who are moving to put the lid on the casket, with three bones in her hand, and although her mind is telling her to put the things into the casket with the rest of the body, her hand is moving toward her pocket.

  Emeline’s breathing becomes erratic and little stars appear at the edge of her vision like they do sometimes when her brain isn’t getting enough oxygen. The ventilation system seems louder than the voices of the people around her, and the smells of antiseptic and dirt make her want to sneeze.

  She sees a movement out of the corner of her eye, something that looks like a dark-haired girl, but when she turns to look, there’s nothing there.

  She takes a deep breath. Another one.

  Tries to think.

  It’s another one of her gut reactions, nothing more. She’s always had them and they have always served her well. Perhaps her subconscious wants her to keep a memento of the girl who was killed but never found justice, to make sure she doesn’t give up on the case.

  But it’s bones.

  “Wait,” she says as the technicians lower the lid to Clothilde’s casket. She steps forward and slips her hand through the gap between casket and lid and drops the bones inside. She nods, indicating they can close the lid.

  Bloody hell, maybe she really should have gone with the book and Chinese option tonight. She wouldn’t risk grave robbing.

  As the technicians bring out the body bag that Monsieur X will live in until they figure out who he was and where he should be buried, Emeline takes a step back and puts her hands in her pockets.

  Her right hand touches on something.

  Her breath catches and her heart beats loudly in her ears as she slowly pulls the object out of her pocket.

  A knuckle.

  It’s the smallest of the three bones she found on the floor, a tiny piece of mummified skin still stuck to the tip. Somehow, she managed to throw only two of three bones into the casket, and the third one found its way into her pocket instead, like her subconscious wanted.

  Emeline sighs. Well, if her subconscious wants it that bad, it can have it. She’s not asking the technicians to reopen the casket so she can admit to stealing a bone.

  She takes three steps so she’s standing between two of the technicians at Monsieur X’s table. She grabs onto the cloth covering the table, like they have.

  Now what?

  It’s like Emeline has lost all control of her body. First, she slips a bone into her own pocket without realizing it, and now she’s butting in on somebody else’s job for no apparent reason.

  The technicians look at her sideways but don’t say anything. They’ll apparently let her “help” if that’s what she wants.

  Oh, look, more finger bones.

  The thought pops into her head so loudly it’s like someone is standing right next to her, yelling it into her ear.

  And the voice is right. She’s standing at the level of Monsieur X’s left hand, where the bones cannot be recognized as a hand anymore but it’s the right location and Emeline knows enough about the human body to recognize the little bones for what they are.

  She has an overwhelming urge to steal one of them.

  It wouldn’t be stealing if the owner wants you to have it.

  Now where did that thought come from?

  Something very strange is going on here. She’s tired and somewhat stressed out about this case, but not to the point of hallucinations and grave robbing. Something in this place makes her behave strangely—but in a way that has happened so many times in the past when she followed her gut feeling. A feeling that has yet to lead her in the wrong direction.

  Her gut is telling her that she should have a piece of Monsieur X’s skeleton.

  “On three,” the technician standing next to Emeline says.

  Now or never. Emeline grabs the cloth with the others, making sure to grab close to the collection of fine bones from Monsieur X’s hand.

  On three, she lifts with the others, but also slips one of the bones into her hand. When Monsieur X is in the body bag, she drops the bone into the pocket where Clothilde’s little finger is.

  The elation she feels makes her want to jump from joy—which would be downright rude and weird considering the circumstances.

  She needs to get out of here before she does something she’ll regret, or something that will draw attention to her little theft.

  “Thank you for letting me be present,” she tells the technicians, all of whom regard her somewhat oddly—understandable, since she hasn’t actually done anything but stand there and watch, as far as they know.

  Then she hightails it out of the morgue, one hand in her pocket, playing with the bones.

  For the first time since exhuming the bodies of Clothilde and Monsieur X, the feeling of being…not alone…doesn’t go away as she leaves the bodies behind.

  Thirteen

  “We made it! We’re out!” Clothilde jumps with a fist toward the sky like she just won the Olympics. Her hair is exuberant, her eyes shine, and her smile takes over her entire face. I think she’s outshining the sun as it’s beating down on us in front of the metallic doors of the morgue exit. I can almost feel the rays on my skin and I could swear I smell the lavender blossoms that line the path toward the parking lot.

  I want to jump with joy like Clothilde but I’m also recovering from the fear of being abandoned all by myself in the morgue for who knows how long.

  We both assumed our bodies would automatically be sent back to the cemetery. We had a faint hope that Clothilde could somehow remain behind because of the dislodged finger. But at no point did we envision the option where I’m left behind in a body bag in a morgue, where I’d have no say in how long I’d stay there and no way to help find my murderer.

  I also wouldn’t be able to help other ghosts move on, the only thing that has been keeping me sane as I work toward my own redemption.

  While I froze in panic back there when I realized where my body was going, Clothilde didn’t even hesitate. She yelled, she cajoled, she touched, she pushed. She did everything she could to get Evian to pick up a piece of my skeleton as well, so that I’d have the same chance as her at getting out.

  Miracle worker that she is, it worked.

  And to top it all off, our theory that we could follow the body part of our choice seems to be working.

  It was far from a picnic, though. When Evian walked through the door of the morgue, I felt a slight pull at my left middle finger—the one that Evian had stolen the bone of—but it would clearly go away quickly if I ignored it.

  When Evian passed the threshold, we both walked out with her, mentally grabbing onto the link we had with those tiny little bones, and forcing our way through the invisible barrier that the door represented for us.

  It was like walking through mud, with weighted-down shoes. I felt my skeleton in that body bag pulling me back, stronger for every step I took past the threshold. Despite not having need for breath for over thirty years, I now took deep ones, searching for the strength needed to follow Evian wherever she was going with that little piece of me.

  Clothilde struggled, too. She leaned forward as if she had a rope around her torso, pulling her backward. But she kept her eyes on the
prize—Evian a few steps ahead of us—and kept fighting.

  “Focus on the link to that finger,” I told her, and forced myself to do the same. Instead of exerting myself thinking about the link to my body, the link I wanted to sever, I focused my energy on strengthening the link I wanted to keep.

  I’m not saying it was easy, but it did the trick. When the door to the morgue slammed shut, we were on the far side of it, and I felt the link to my body snap like a released slingshot as I sped up to find myself as close to Evian’s pocket as ghostly possible.

  I didn’t have to worry about Clothilde—she ended up in the exact same spot as me, making our ghostly forms overlap for a moment before we adapted to the new situation enough to take a step away from the tiny bones that were suddenly our only links to our dead bodies.

  And now, here we are, outside the morgue and following the police officer who is trying to find our murderers.

  Well, trying to find Clothilde’s murderer and my identity, but same difference.

  “I’m going to test the allowed distance,” I tell Clothilde and stop walking.

  Evian seems to be heading for the visitors’ parking lot, which is less than one hundred meters away. I want to know how far away I can go when we’re in a place with no obvious barriers.

  “Do your thing, detective,” she replies joyfully as she skips along next to Evian, grinning madly at the woman who is sensitive enough to otherworldly activities to have busted us out of that morgue. I do believe I’m seeing some hero worship, not that Clothilde would ever admit it.

  I don’t quite feel brave enough to walk away from Evian, but I stop where I am, letting her walk away from me.

  Immediately, the need to run after her rises in my chest. I’m really not comfortable letting her walk away like that.

  But I force myself to hold out. To feel the pull of my bond to that bone, how it pulls at my chest, at my entire being. When she’s twenty meters away, I think I see filaments of my ghostly body escaping toward her, making me look more and more translucent as parts of me fly away.