Every Touch

by Parke, Nerika

  With one look back, Laila turned and ran down the steps and was gone.

  Forty-One

  Laila looked up at the thirteen foot high wrought iron fence and ornate gates leading into the cemetery.

  “It’s a good thing the fences at the side are lower,” Kelly said, standing beside her.

  “Yes,” she replied, “and less pointy.”

  She, Laila and Trish looked toward the side fence fifty feet away to their left.

  “Hmm,” Trish said, sounding unconvinced.

  They had scoped out the cemetery two days previously and come prepared. Nevertheless, their planned route into the dark graveyard still looked daunting.

  They made their way around to the side of the enclosure, fighting their way past bushes planted out from the base of the fence, apparently to dissuade anyone from doing exactly what they were about to. By the time they reached the fence, all three of them were sporting several scratches on their exposed arms and faces.

  “If anyone comes up with a believable story I can tell John about how I got these, let me know,” Trish said, dabbing a tissue at some blood oozing from a cut on her elbow.

  “Tell him you went jogging and tripped and fell into some bushes,” Kelly said.

  Trish snorted. “I said believable,” she said. “He’d never swallow a story involving me jogging.”

  “Really?” Kelly said. “You look in great shape. You must work out.”

  “I like you a lot,” Trish smiled, patting her on the shoulder.

  They looked up at the ten foot high wrought iron fence in front of them.

  “Well,” Laila said, “let’s do this.”

  She extended the folding ladder she was carrying and leaned it against the fence, making sure the base was secure on the ground. She winced at the pain as she stretched, checking the dressing over the long cut on her forearm. She wasn’t sure if she could bleed out Denny’s blood, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She was relieved to see it holding secure.

  “Right, I’ll go over first,” Kelly said, “then you pass the bags over to me when you get up there Lai, then Trish, you can come last.”

  “Sounds good,” Trish said. She grinned. “I feel like an action hero.”

  Kelly took hold of the bottom of the ladder, stopping when Laila threw her arms around her, hugging her first then moving to Trish.

  “Thank you both,” she said, blinking back tears. “I’m so grateful you’re here. Denny and I are so lucky to have you.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said, turning back to them and opening her arms wide, motioning them in with her fingers, “group hug.”

  Laughing softly, they embraced each other then stepped back.

  “Alright, go,” Laila said, waving Kelly away, “before I burst into tears.”

  Kelly scaled the ladder quickly, dropping athletically to the ground on the other side, impressing Laila no end. She followed up the ladder at a more sedate pace then straddled the fence and reached down to grab the two backpacks Trish handed up to her. Passing them down one at a time to Kelly, she then climbed all the way over, lowered herself by her arms as far as she could go, then pushed herself away from the fence with her toes and dropped to the ground inside the cemetery. Her ankles protested as she landed and bent her knees to absorb the impact, but she made it intact. It wouldn’t do to injure herself when they’d barely got started.

  Trish climbed next, sitting astride the fence at the top as Laila had then lifting the ladder and manoeuvring it closer to the iron bars. Laila and Kelly reached through and grabbed it, pulling it between the bars and setting it against the inside of the fence, and Trish climbed down to join them.

  They looked at each other and grinned, enjoying the small victory of getting inside with relative ease. Trish and Kelly shouldered a backpack each and they started into the graveyard, Trish leading the way.

  The cemetery was on the outskirts of town, far away from any businesses and on the edge of a housing development, so there was little passing foot traffic during the day and practically none at night. The street lights out on the road were few and far between so the interior was dark, barely lit by any artificial light. The moon was three-quarters full, however, and it cast an eerie glow on the surrounding headstones.

  “We’re three women in a cemetery at night,” Kelly said quietly as they moved between the graves. “I feel a bad horror movie with ropey special effects coming on.”

  “Nah,” Trish replied, “our acting’s too good.”

  “Besides,” Laila said, “vampires and zombies don’t exist.”

  “No, just ghosts.”

  All three stopped as Kelly’s reply soaked in.

  “Hey,” she said, “you don’t think...?”

  “Not the time or the place,” Trish interrupted before she could get any further. “Let’s not make this any scarier than it needs to be.”

  She started off again when something caught Laila’s attention. She grasped Trish’s arm.

  “I hear something,” she whispered.

  They held still to listen. The sound of a car engine rumbled from the direction of the front gate. Laila peered through the darkness. A streetlight was about ten feet from the gates and it reflected from the edges of a car that had pulled into the area in front of the gate, its headlights illuminating the street in front of it. She could just make out the rectangular lump of lights on the top. The driver’s side door was opening.

  She dropped to the ground behind a gravestone, pulling Trish down with her. Kelly lowered behind her.

  “What?” Trish mouthed silently.

  “Police,” Laila mouthed back, pointing toward the gate.

  Both Trish and Kelly looked in that direction. Their expressions told Laila they had seen what she had. Both of them found a gravestone to scuttle behind. Moments later, the beam of a powerful torch swept the area around them.

  Laila huddled herself into as small a size as possible, pressing herself against the cold, hard marble hiding her. Her heart pounded. She looked toward where the ladder leaned against the side fence. If they or it were seen, this would all be over, ended before they’d even had a chance to try.

  The beam of light continued to move around the cemetery for a few more seconds before abruptly vanishing. The thud of a car door closing echoed from the surrounding headstones and an engine roared into life and moved away. Laila waited a full minute before she peeked around the side of her hiding place. The area by the gate was empty. She breathed out.

  “Probably just a routine check,” Trish said as she straightened, readjusting her backpack as she did.

  “I hope so,” Laila said, standing.

  They continued across the large cemetery in silence until they reached the section dedicated to cremations. Trish hadn’t visited Denny’s grave since the headstone had been laid five years ago, saying she preferred to remember his life rather than his death, so when they had visited two days previously, they had found the spot, making sure they knew exactly where they were going. When they reached it, the single rose Laila had placed in front of the small pink marble headstone two days ago was there, a little wilted, but still red in the darkness. For some reason, seeing it made her smile. She moved it aside.

  Kelly and Trish removed their backpacks and opened them, taking out small folding spades. Kelly handed one to Laila and together they began to dig.

  They removed the top layer of turf carefully, setting it aside so it could be replaced afterwards. Then they started on the hole.

  “We’d have been really screwed if you hadn’t gone for a cremation,” Kelly said after they’d been digging for twenty minutes. She pushed a lock of hair back from her sweaty forehead.

  Trish grunted and kept on digging. She looked paler than usual in the moonlight and Laila wondered how much her recent donation of blood was affecting her. It was more difficult than Laila had thought it would be. The ground was hard from the recent hot weather and even the relatively small hole they had to excavate was taking
a lot of effort. She checked her bandaged arm and was dismayed to see fresh blood staining the fabric. She stopped.

  “Kelly?” She held her arm out for her sister to see.

  Kelly stopped digging and dropped her spade, removing the leather gloves she was wearing and gently easing back the dressing. Blood oozed out.

  “We need to stop that,” she said.

  “We should all take a break,” Laila said, looking at Trish in concern.

  Denny’s sister nodded wordlessly and plunged her spade into the earth at the bottom of the two foot square hole once more. A thud resounded into the night air. The three of them looked first at each other then into the hole. Kelly scrabbled in her backpack and pulled out a torch. Dropping to her knees to point the beam only into the hole, minimising the risk of the light being seen, she switched it on. At the base of the excavation, by Trish’s spade, a wooden lid poked through the earth. Fatigue and bleeding forgotten, they grabbed their spades again and worked around it to liberate the rest of the box from the soil.

  With it finally free, they sat on the sides of the hole and stared at it standing between them.

  “Stage two, complete,” Trish announced with a small smile. Laila noticed she was breathing heavily, her face bathed in sweat.

  “Are you alright?” she said.

  Trish shook her head, waving her hand. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

  Reaching for her backpack, she pulled out a bottle of water and took a long drink, handing it to Laila after her. Kelly inspected the cut on Laila’s arm while she drank.

  “It’s stopping again,” she said, putting on a fresh bandage. She threw the blood soaked one she had removed into the hole.

  Laila passed the water to her sister and stared at the box containing Denny’s ashes. She hadn’t fully allowed herself to truly hope they could get this far, but now they had it seemed almost unreal. They were here, they were ready, they could do this. Although the next part was the most likely to get them discovered.

  “Are you ready?” Trish said, pulling Laila from her thoughts and looking at her.

  She nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

  Trish put a hand into her backpack again and pulled out the two Christmas boxes.

  “For a long time after Denny died,” she said, staring down at them in her lap, “I kept these beside my bed. I felt like I needed them to keep a connection to him.” She caressed them gently with her hands as she spoke.

  “We could just use one,” Laila said, feeling terrible for taking something with so many memories attached from her new friend. “You could keep one.”

  “No,” Trish said decisively, “you need an item imbued with love and the more love you have, the more likely this is to work. I don’t need these to remember my brother and if this works, I’ll get him back. You have to use both of them.”

  She held them out to Laila and she took them, smiling at her and saying, “Thank you.” It didn’t seem nearly enough to express her gratitude for all Trish was doing.

  Laila placed the boxes into the hole and picked up the box. Kelly and Trish stood on the grass surrounding the hole and Laila sank to her knees. Opening the lid of the box, she tipped it up and let the ashes gently pour out onto the earth inside the hole over the boxes until everything was covered with the grey powder.

  Kelly withdrew the plastic blood bag filled with Trish’s blood from her backpack and Laila used a penknife to slit it open, pouring it over the ashes and boxes. The chips of wood soaked in Denny’s blood were sprinkled on next.

  “Okay,” Laila said, holding her arm out to Kelly.

  Her sister knelt beside her and unwrapped the bandage from her wound. It was beginning to scab over. Kelly held a scalpel she had taken from her pack.

  “Are you ready?” she said.

  Laila took a deep breath and nodded. “Do it.”

  She held her left arm out over the pile of ashes in the grave and Kelly carefully cut along the wound, slicing through the scabs and clotting blood and reopening the blood flow. Laila gritted her teeth, trying not to flinch as pain burned white hot into her arm even worse than it had with the original cut. She whimpered involuntarily and Kelly glanced at her, worried.

  “Keep going,” she said, trying to take slow, steady breaths and not allow the hyperventilation her lungs were begging for.

  Trish walked around the hole and knelt next to her, taking her right hand.

  Kelly resumed her surgery and Laila squeezed Trish’s hand, leaning her head against her shoulder and clamping her eyes shut. When the blood began to flow freely again, Kelly stopped cutting and Laila opened her eyes, relieved beyond belief. She lowered her arm, allowing the scarlet flow to seep down her hand and drip from her fingers onto the pile of ashes, wood chips and blood.

  As each drop hit the mound, a wisp of what looked in the darkness like smoke puffed into the air with a faint sizzle. Laila watched in surprise.

  “Do you think that means it’s working?” Kelly said, looking into the hole.

  “I hope so,” Laila replied.

  “It’s certainly doing something,” Trish said.

  They stayed kneeling beside the grave until the blood stopped flowing from Laila’s arm. The instructions hadn’t specified the amount of her and Denny’s mingled blood was needed, but she wanted to give it as great a chance as possible so she let it continue until her natural clotting mechanism kicked in and it stopped seeping from the cut. When it finally did, Kelly bound her wound securely so it would heal.

  Laila could tell her sister was concerned about her, yet she said nothing. She took it as a sign of her increased confidence in Laila’s ability to look after herself. When she was bandaged, Laila took Kelly’s hand and smiled at her. Kelly smiled back and nodded.

  They stood again and Laila took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and a small torch. Trish stood ready with a box of matches.

  “I still don’t see how we’re going to get it to light,” Kelly said. “It’s all soaked in blood. You can’t set light to blood, it’s mostly water.”

  “I don’t know, but the instructions say to light it so we have to try,” Laila said. “Maybe the ashes will help by absorbing the moisture.” She didn’t feel very confident about her theory, but it was all she had.

  She looked towards the gate. This was the part she’d been most concerned about. Once the fire was lit, if it did light, it would be disturbingly visible in the darkened cemetery to anyone who came past. She couldn’t see anyone there now, but she didn’t know how long they would have to leave the fire burning. The ritual demanded it be left “until all is burned up”, which was as infuriatingly unspecific as much of the rest of the ancient ritual’s instructions. She felt like far too much was being left to chance, but she had no idea how to change that.

  A picture of Denny waiting at home came into her mind. He was relying on her to keep them together. A fresh wave of determination swept over her. They had done all they could, she would see it to the end.

  Please, she prayed silently, please make this work.

  “Okay, Trish,” she said out loud, “I’m ready.”

  She unfolded the piece of paper on which Denny had copied the words for the ritual, as the instructions directed, “read from words inscribed by the spirit itself”. Trish struck a match. It flared into life, burned for a second, then died. Laila and Kelly looked at her.

  “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “I’m a bit nervous.”

  She withdrew another match and struck it. It flared and burned, this time staying alight as Trish shielded it from the breeze. She let it burn for a few seconds to make sure, then tossed it into the hole.

  The entire grave burst instantly into flames with a loud whoosh. The three women staggered back away from the conflagration in shock. It had ignited as if they’d doused the whole thing in paraffin. Laila squinted her darkness acclimated eyes against the bright light, waiting for them to adjust.

  She looked at the paper in her hand. She no longer needed her t
orch to read it.

  Raising her voice above the crackling of the flames while attempting to shield herself from the heat of the fire with her free hand, she began to read.

  She had practiced the Latin incantation over and over, making certain every syllable was pronounced correctly, and she read with confidence, not stumbling over the words once. Once she had finished, she threw the paper into the waist high flames. It caught light in mid air, blazing white for several seconds within the fire, twisting and burning as it did so. Then it vanished with a flash. As abruptly as it had started, the fire extinguished and they were plunged into darkness again.

  Laila couldn’t see anything but the bright yellow imprint of flames on the insides of her eyelids. She blinked several times, trying to relieve her eyes which felt hot and dry.

  “Damn,” Kelly said.

  No-one responded. They stood in silence for a while. Laila’s night vision began to return. Eventually, she turned on her torch and shone it into the grave hole. It was completely empty with no sign that the ashes, blood or boxes had ever been there. The surrounding grass, however, was singed black.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Trish said, staring into the hole. “Something must have happened.”

  Laila knew she had to be right. She just wished she knew what it was.

  “We’d better get this filled in, in case someone saw that,” she said.

  They replaced the empty wooden box that had contained Denny’s ashes in the hole, refilled the grave and placed the turf back on top. It didn’t look untouched, but they agreed it didn’t appear too badly disturbed. The journey back through the cemetery to the ladder was uneventful and they were back outside quickly.

  They went straight back to Laila’s car and drove away, her heart pounding with hope, fear and excitement all the way home.

  ***

  They’d been gone for over an hour and Denny couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore. Would they have done the ritual by now? It should only have taken them twenty minutes to get to the cemetery, there would be no traffic at this time of night. Had something gone wrong? Had they done it and it hadn’t worked? He couldn’t take not knowing.