Ashtown Burials

by N. D. Wilson

  And her shelves were organized.

  Most of the shelves held books—books that had belonged to their mother, their father, their grandparents, and a few that had belonged to people with “great” and “once removed” attached to the relationship. Three shelves sagged beneath photo albums entirely full of her own Polaroids. One sagged with old family albums, two sagged with circular tins full of film reels, and one held her cameras. She only had two—the eight-millimeter silent-movie camera that had belonged to their father’s father, and an early bellows-style Polaroid that had been their mother’s.

  The only patch of wall that wasn’t carrying shelves was just above her bed. There, nine picture frames hung in three rows of three. The top six were rotated out weekly, but the bottom three never changed. On the left, a young man with hair even blonder than Dan’s had been in California was hanging upside down in a tree. On the right, a laughing woman with hair spun from midnight was reaching toward the camera, trying to block the shot. In the middle, a serious blond boy held hands with a very small dark-haired girl, and between them, seated and shirtless, a fat infant was eating dirt.

  While Antigone adjusted the legs on her movie screen, Cyrus rolled up on his side and stared at the pictures.

  “You’d’ve killed Dan if he put that guy in this room. You know you would.”

  “Yes,” Antigone said. “I would. But I wouldn’t steal the man’s keys. And you can’t blame Dan. I’m sure he’s getting paid well, and we need it. You know he has it worse than we do.”

  Cyrus sat up. “Wait. You’d kill him, but you wouldn’t blame him?”

  “Right.” Antigone stepped back to the projector and flipped it on. Empty wheels spun, and a misshapen square of light appeared on the screen.

  “And he has it worse than us?”

  “Right again,” Antigone said. “I’m proud of you, Cyrus. You’ve learned to listen.” She glanced up. “You and I don’t have to deal with us. We are us. Dan does have to deal with us—you in particular. Now, here’s the deal, Cy. You go give the man his keys, or you don’t see today’s reel.” She shrugged. “I shot a lot of Mom, and I don’t mind keeping it to myself.”

  “That’s cheap. You shouldn’t have left me behind in the first place.” Cyrus stood. “You know, I don’t even feel like today really happened.”

  “I feel that way about … everything.” Antigone sighed and looked up, almost smiling. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll find out that we’re still four and five years old, I’m still taller than you, and everything around here has just been a very complicated daydream. Mom’s fine, Dad’s alive, we never moved, and Dan still knows how to smile.”

  Cyrus breathed slowly. Half a continent away, he could almost hear the ocean. “No waffles,” he said. “No motel.” He grinned. “But I was already taller than you when I was four.”

  Antigone spun her brother around, put both hands on his back, and pushed him toward the door. “Go,” she said. “Movie when you’re clean.”

  The door closed, and she was alone with a whirring projector.

  Outside, Cyrus looked up at the night sky. The clouds had blown over, and the stars of early summer had crowded silently into place above the Golden Lady.

  The yellow truck sat where he’d parked it, immediately in front of the two adjacent doors—110 and 111. Both rooms had curtains drawn over the windows, but both rooms still glowed. Dan’s room was out of sight, by reception, opening on the courtyard. And no light trickled down through the walkway from Mrs. Eldridge’s room. She had checked out two hours ago, showering Dan with a barrage of shouted warnings before dragging a single suitcase toward the road.

  Cyrus took a long breath of the cool night and stepped over to his bedroom door. For a moment, he listened to the neon buzzing of the Lady, and then he knocked.

  On impulse, he raised his thumb and covered the peephole. A mosquito drifted past his ear and settled on his extended arm. He slapped at it and waited. A few slow seconds ticked by, and he knocked again.

  Muffled footsteps approached. A dead bolt slid. A chain rattled.

  The door opened, and William Skelton, smoking, leaned against the frame.

  Cyrus took a step backward. The man was wearing jeans and a tight, stained tank top. His face was pale and sickly, but his bare shoulders and arms could have belonged to a thirty-year-old lumberjack, a lumberjack with a taste for morbid tattoos. The man’s skeleton had been crudely needle-etched onto every visible part of his body from the neck down. Scrawled collarbones stood out above a cage of blue ribs. Ink bones marched down his shoulders and arms. Even the backs of his hands and the tops of his bare feet were detailed with every joint and knuckle. Slanted notes and calligraphics filled in the remaining space on his arms and shoulders.

  Cyrus couldn’t help but trace every bit of ink with his eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. Fear was trying to crawl up his spine. He pushed it away. It was ink. Nothing but ink. Looking up into Skelton’s sweating face, Cyrus dug into his pocket and pulled out the ring. “I brought back your keys. You know you can’t smoke in here.”

  William Skelton turned and walked back to Cyrus’s bed.

  “Hey.” Jingling the keys, Cyrus stepped into the doorway. His room had been destroyed. His shelves and their collections had been torn down off one wall and piled on the floor. The wall itself had been ripped open from end to end, revealing a row of hollow cavities and cast-iron plumbing. On the side of the bed, a small but bellied man was sitting with his legs primly crossed. He was wearing a gray suit, and half-moon glasses were perched on the end of his nose. Large sheets of yellowing paper were mounded around him.

  “What?” Cyrus scanned the carnage of his room, his life. “You trashed my room.” Fear was gone. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips as his mind scrambled for some kind of explanation. “You know what?” He kicked a shard of drywall at Skelton’s legs. “I’m keeping your keys, old man. They’re going to disappear. All of them.”

  The small, fat man clicked his tongue and cocked his head. “This is the boy?” he asked Skelton. “This is the best you could do?”

  William Skelton nodded and pulled at his cigarette. He had chewed the end almost flat.

  Cyrus glared at the man in the suit. “Who are you? Did you rip into my wall?”

  Peering over his glasses, the little man examined Cyrus’s shorts, his shirt, and finally his face.

  “I was getting some clean clothes,” Cyrus said. “It’s been a long day. Why did you wreck my room?”

  “You’re sure about this, Billy?” the small man asked.

  “About what?” Cyrus asked. The room was chilly with air-conditioning, but William Skelton wiped sweat from his forehead onto the back of his tattooed arm.

  “Kid,” he said quietly. “How do you feel about Death?”

  “What?” Cyrus took a small step back.

  “Death,” Skelton said again. “Dying. How do you feel about it?”

  “How do you think I feel about it?” Cyrus asked. “Death sucks. I don’t like it. How do you feel about it?”

  The old man stared at the end of his cigarette. “People say you can’t run from Death.” He shook his head. “People lie. Running’s all you can do, kid. Run like Hell’s on your heels, because it is. And if you’re still running, well, then you’re still alive.”

  Cyrus opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say. The little man was sorting through his wrinkled stacks of paper.

  Skelton examined his tattooed hands. They were trembling, but his voice was calm. “You know what happens when you run too long?” He made a fist and looked into Cyrus’s eyes. “Death becomes … a friend, a companion on the road, a destination. Home. Your own bed. The place where your friends are waiting. You stop being afraid. You stop running.” He dropped the stub of his cigarette onto Cyrus’s carpet. “Tonight,” he said, grinding the butt out with his bare foot, “I stop running. Someone else is gonna start.”

  Cyrus blinked. Sweat dripped off the man’s nose. His
pale face was blotchy, like old dough. “You still look afraid,” Cyrus said. “Your hands are shaking. What’s going on?”

  Skelton looked over at his small friend.

  “A touch of spunk,” the man said, nodding. “But only a touch. His odds are still terribly low.”

  “What does he have to sign?” Skelton asked.

  “Him? Nothing.” The small man raised a small selection of the papers. “You’ve signed the appointment already, and I’ve found the paperwork to demonstrate that you have the necessary relationship to do so, though leaving it with me in the first place would have been wiser than hiding all of this in the walls. I can supply the Order notary and testimony of fitness and volition. As a Keeper, I can witness the declaration.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, heavily creased paper card. Unfolding it, he extended it to Cyrus. “Read that aloud, please.”

  Cyrus looked down at the slip, and then back up at the strange scene in his room. “What’s going on? Those papers were in my wall?”

  “It was my wall first,” Skelton said. “I gave this place to your parents years ago.”

  “Just read it,” said the little man. “They haven’t enforced the original oath in generations, but I’d like to cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s in this situation.”

  “It’s the other way around,” Cyrus said.

  “We’ll cross and dot both. Read it, please.”

  “No thanks,” said Cyrus, backing toward the door. “I’m gonna go now.” He tossed Skelton’s keys onto the bed and felt for the doorknob behind him. “See ya.”

  The keys smacked into Cyrus’s chest; Cyrus caught them at his waist. Skelton smiled and shook his head. “Those keys should have been your father’s. It doesn’t right old wrongs, but they’re your burden now, Cyrus Smith. The race is yours. The world is yours. Run until Death’s your friend, and then set those keys in another’s hand. Not before then, hear me? Once you give them, you can’t get them back. And not a soul should know that I’m setting them in yours. I’ve got more to give, but that’s a start.”

  Cyrus looked at the little man on the bed, and then back into the empty eyes of Billy Bones.

  “Don’t worry about Horace here,” Skelton said. “His family’s kept more secrets than a dozen graveyards. And as for me, well, dead men tell no tales. At least, not usually.”

  Horace scraped the stack of papers off his lap, hopped to his feet, and slid the card into Cyrus’s hand.

  Skelton nodded. “Now read, boy. We’re doing what we can to make sure you’ll have the help you need.”

  Cyrus swallowed and looked at the keys. His hand closed around them, and for the first time, they felt cold and heavy. The old man was crazy, no question. “I don’t want these.”

  “Don’t you?” Skelton asked, creasing his forehead. “I’ve seen enough of you to know you’re no coward. You want to walk away? You want to live a life without knowing what those unlock?”

  Cyrus looked around his ruined room. He wanted the men to leave. He wanted his wall back.

  Exhaling slowly and ignoring the old man’s eyes, he dropped the keys into his pocket and moved quickly across the room toward the warped mirror door to his closet. He could always give the keys back in the morning. In the right kind of mood, he could even throw them into one of the pasture streams. He pulled out a pile of fresh clothes and turned around.

  Antigone, wide-eyed, was standing in the doorway.

  “What on Earth,” she said, looking at the wall. She turned to the sweating old man, her eyes taking in the tattoos. “I hope Dan has your credit card.”

  “The girl, I assume?” The small man straightened his suit. “If both are present, only one needs to declare; the other can offer assent. Are you sure you want both included? You have the right to name two, but I can see definite benefits in selecting only one.”

  “Both,” Skelton said. “They’ll need each other.”

  “Who are you?” Antigone asked the little man. “What are we talking about?”

  Cyrus slipped back to the door and held up the small card. “It’s in another language,” he said.

  Antigone took the card from him and squinted at the printed letters. “No, it’s not. ‘Please declare aloud …’ What is this?”

  The little man stepped forward. “Excuse me, miss,” he said. “If you don’t mind, the Latin is actually preferable in the current situation. We’re going above and beyond.”

  He plucked the card from Antigone’s hands, flipped it over, and returned it.

  “Pronunciation isn’t important. Do your best.”

  Stepping back, he tucked his thumbs into his vest and waited.

  Antigone stared at the words in front of her. “Are you serious? What is this supposed to be? I’m not saying it.” She handed the card back to Cyrus.

  Cyrus looked into the tired eyes of William Skelton.

  “You really want us to read this?” he asked. The keys were heavier in his mind than in his pocket. Antigone didn’t need to know that he was keeping them. Not yet.

  The old man nodded.

  “Okay,” Cyrus said. “I’ll read it if you answer our questions.”

  After a moment, the old man nodded again.

  Cyrus handed his stack of clothes to Antigone. “How do you know Mrs. Eldridge?”

  “We were schoolgirls together.”

  “Funny,” Antigone said. “Har, har.”

  “It’s close enough to the truth,” said Skelton. “Met as kids. Hated each other since.”

  Cyrus swallowed. For some reason, his throat was tightening. He didn’t really care about Mrs. Eldridge. “How did you know our parents?”

  William Skelton sighed. “For a while, I was their teacher. For a while, I was their friend. I met them before they married. Helped them through some tough times. Made some tough times tougher.” His eyes dropped to the carpet.

  “And?” Antigone asked. “What happened?”

  The little man coughed loudly.

  Skelton nodded. “It’s late,” he said. “You can hear the whole story tomorrow.” He pointed a tattooed finger at the card. “Do an old man a favor and read the paper. Soon enough, I won’t be keeping any secrets.”

  Cyrus and Antigone looked at each other. Antigone nodded. Cyrus cleared his throat, raised his eyebrows, and began to read: “Obsecro ut sequentia recites …”

  Pausing, he glanced up. William Skelton was staring at the ceiling.

  Horace, the little man, was pursing his lips expectantly. “Go on.”

  At first, Cyrus read slowly, stumbling and tripping as his tongue attempted to string the odd syllables together. But after two lines, his voice found a rhythm, and he could almost believe that he understood his own strange chanting. He smeared words, blended, missed, and guessed at words, but he got through it, and when he did, he held the card out to the little suited man.

  “Keep it with you,” the man said. “Miss Smith, do you offer assent?”

  “Um, sure,” said Antigone. “I guess.”

  Hunching over the bed, the man checked his watch and made a note of the time on a large piece of paper. Then he signed the bottom with a flourish. “Billy Bones, that’s all I need. Know that I am risking a great deal for you.” He scraped all the papers into a pile, and then he shoveled the pile into an enormous leather folder. When he had finished, he shook hands with Billy, shook hands with Cyrus, bowed to Antigone, then picked a bowler hat up off the wreckage of Cyrus’s shelves and popped it on his head. “Good luck and good night to you all,” he said. And leaning to one side, he lugged the enormous folder out into the night.

  Billy Bones slumped onto the end of the bed and put his head in his hands.

  “Go now,” he said quietly.

  Cyrus and Antigone backed slowly through the doorway.

  The old man looked up suddenly, and his face was gray and bloodless. “Wait. Music. Your record player. I couldn’t get it to work.”

  “It’s broken,” Cyrus said.
“Always has been.”

  “No, it’s not,” Skelton said. “Not for you. Not anymore. Turn it on for me.”

  Antigone’s hand closed around her brother’s wrist. Cyrus stared. The old man was getting stranger. Sleeping next door could be too close.

  “Please,” Skelton said. “Just flip the switch.”

  Cyrus walked to his dresser, glancing back at the man on the bed. He’d already put a record on. John Coltrane. Cyrus had never listened to it. He’d never had a record player that worked. Flexing his fingers, he reached down and slid the power switch with his thumb. A spark tickled its way up into his hand, and the vinyl disk began to spin slowly. The mechanical arm lifted off its rest and swung into place.

  The voice of a smooth sax filled the room.

  When the door to 111 had closed safely behind them, Cyrus turned to his sister. Antigone widened her eyes. “Can this get weirder?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” Cyrus said. “I bet it can.”

  four

  THE BEREAVED

  CYRUS OPENED HIS eyes—there was no point in having them shut—and rolled up onto his side, clawing at his forearm. But that meant he couldn’t scratch his calf. Splaying his toes, he put them to work, too.

  The lights were off, and his sister’s breathing was even. The curtains were glowing, backlit by the Golden Lady—he wondered if Dan even knew how to turn her off. The air-conditioning was humming, and the bed squealed every time he moved. He had kicked all his blankets onto the floor at least two hours ago.

  They had only watched Antigone’s movie four times, but he hadn’t been able to stop replaying it in his head. His sister’s movies were always odd. The clicking, flashing images made new things seem old and forgotten. They made his dark, smooth-skinned mother seem painted and imagined. Her sleeping face had somehow steadied the camera in Antigone’s hands, and the picture had stopped bouncing and shifting and had become still. His mother’s hair, almost invisibly white, had grown since their last visit, and Antigone had made an exception to her rule, as she always did on Mom days. She’d let Dan take the camera and had entered the frame herself, holding her mother’s hand, brushing her mother’s hair.