by Hannah Tinti
When they reached the churchyard, there was no watchtower, no iron gate, no lock to pick. The graves were in an open field, unprotected, surrounded only by a low stone wall and a simple wooden stile to keep out wandering cows.
Benjamin pulled the wagon to a stop.
The wind picked up, the leaves rustling overhead. Tom slipped off the side of the cart with a pained expression. He took the lantern and one of the shovels and stepped over the wall, cutting his way through the damp grass. The twins scrambled out of the back, then stood by the side of the road. They looked from Ren to the graveyard and back again.
Benjamin tied the reins of the horse to a tree and began to unload the burlap bags from the wagon. He nodded at Dolly. “Wake him.”
Ren pinched Dolly’s hand. The man opened his eyes and climbed unsteadily out of the cart. Benjamin handed him a shovel.
“Time to pay us back.”
The spade looked like a toy in Dolly’s hands. He wrinkled his brow.
“Please,” said Ren. “We need your help.”
As soon as the boy spoke, Dolly’s indecision cleared. He gripped the shovel as if he would break it. “Just show me where.”
The men went over the stile, Benjamin leading the way. As soon as they were gone, Ren crouched by the wagon, pretending to fix something so he would not have to face his friends, but the twins were behind him in an instant.
“What are we doing here?”
“You lied to us.”
Brom grabbed Ren as if he could force the answers from him, but Ren pushed him off.
“Now you know,” he said.
There was a shout from the graveyard. Benjamin was calling Ren’s name. The boys were startled out of their argument and hurried over the stile. They found the shovels on the ground and Dolly holding Benjamin up against a tree.
“For Christ’s sake.” Benjamin was dangling from the front of his new blue coat. He swung his legs, he slapped at the air, but Dolly would not let go.
“Put him down!” Ren cried.
“I’m not digging up the dead,” said Dolly. “Not for you. Not for anybody.”
The jacket slipped and Dolly pressed harder into the tree, his hands moving to Benjamin’s throat. Ren threw himself onto Dolly’s arm. He swung his weight down, but the arm held steady, as if it were the branch of a tree.
“Listen.” Benjamin’s voice was a whisper. “Listen.”
Out of the mist Tom appeared, the heavy iron spade over his shoulder. He came up silently behind Dolly, swung wide, and hit him in the head with the shovel. Dolly stood there for a moment, twitching, and then he crumpled, taking Benjamin with him, his body hitting the earth like a clap of thunder.
“Get him off,” Benjamin cursed. Tom and the boys rushed over. They rolled Dolly clear of Benjamin’s legs.
Ren pinched Dolly’s hand again. He called his name. When Dolly didn’t respond, Ren brought his ear to his mouth and listened. After a few moments he heard a bit of air, a low sound, like the wind coming off the water.
Tom leaned in. “His headache’s going to be worse than mine.”
“You didn’t have to hit him,” Ren said.
“Really,” said Tom. “And can you think of a better way to stop him from strangling people?”
The group stood around Dolly in the darkness, listening to his labored breathing. Ren and the twins struggled to lean him up against the tree. Dolly was still unconscious, his head against the bark, his knees peeking out from beneath his robe.
“We’ll never finish without him.” Benjamin crouched down in the grass. He tugged at his hair. Then he looked at the boys, and every part of his face seemed to sharpen. He took Dolly’s shovel and put it in Ren’s hand. The wooden handle was rough from being left in the weather.
Benjamin corralled the twins and pushed them toward the graves. “Look for the markers,” he said. “We need to be gone before the sun comes up.”
The headstones in the center of the yard were made of slate, long black shards jutting from the ground. To the side there were some made of marble, with urns and angels looking down in grief at the names and weeping. Benjamin pointed to the farthest corner. “I put white stones at the base of each one,” he said. “You should be able to see them in the dark.”
Tom set to work digging along the row. For that’s what it was, Ren could see now—a row of freshly turned graves. There were four plots. Two medium-sized crosses, and two smaller ones. The bartender and his family.
“Get the old man first.”
“That’s what I’m doing.” Tom was already ankle deep. He was breathing heavily, his face slowly gaining color as he worked.
Benjamin led the boys toward a cross farther down the row. “Don’t clear the whole grave. We only need to reach the head of the box.”
Ren walked over in a daze, the spade dragging behind him. At the bottom of the cross was a piece of clear quartz. He picked it up and ran his thumb across the surface. The corners were soft, with tiny iridescent flecks that sparkled in his hand. He closed his fingers around it. He turned to the twins. “We’ve got to dig.”
Brom shook his head.
“I don’t want to do this,” Ichy whispered.
Ren pushed the shovel into the ground, lifted a small patch of dirt, and steadied the handle with his stump. The earth was heavy from the rain, the top crust hardened and dry. He tried not to look at the marker, or the name—Sarah, wife of Samuel— that was carved into the wood before them. He thought of what Dolly had said: that he’d heard them digging for him. That he’d heard them coming through the earth.
Tom cursed the twins until they began to help. Brom took turns at the spade with Ichy, while Ren cleared the rocks away. It seemed the work would never end. They drove deeper and deeper, until suddenly there was a thump when their shovel hit wood. Ren crouched near the edge of the hole. He could see the pale pine coffin far below, the end peeking out from the earth like a head from a blanket.
Benjamin came forward with a long-handled spade. He pushed the boys aside, then slid the pole in. It took three tries until the blade connected and they heard the wood break. Then Benjamin pulled the spade out, and Tom brought two chains with large metal hooks attached at the ends. They were meat hooks; Ren recognized them from the butcher shop as they were lowered into the grave.
“Have you got it?” Benjamin said.
“Almost,” said Tom. “Just there. Yes. Got it.”
They hooked the body underneath the arms and pulled it out.
Sarah, wife of Samuel, had been buried in her wedding dress. It was not silk, but a stiff, hard linen, with pink flowers embroidered around the neck and shoulders. There was a line of pearl buttons, from the collar to the waist, and a set of crocheted gloves pulled over the dead woman’s hands.
Ren tried to focus on the dress and not her face, which was terrifying—her skin stiff and cold as wax, the hair like straw. Benjamin removed the meat hooks, replaced them with his hands, and dragged her to a patch of grass, her dress trailing dirt, her small, white leather boots appearing beneath the skirt like two painted branches. Her lips were deep purple, slightly open, and pulled apart.
“Give me the knife,” Benjamin said.
It took a moment before Ren understood. He reached into his pocket, took out the bear knife, and passed it over, full of apprehension. Benjamin slipped the blade beneath the collar of the woman’s wedding dress and cut straight through the row of buttons in one movement. The pearls sprang into the air like rice and scattered across the grass, turning to specks in the moonlight.
Benjamin handed the knife back to Ren. “Get the rest of her clothes off. That dress is worth five dollars, at least.” He left the children and walked over to Tom, and together the men started to unearth the next grave.
Ren turned to his friends, the knife in his hand.
“What are we going to do?” Brom whispered.
“I want to go home,” Ichy cried.
Ren could have kicked him. “We’re not going anywh
ere.”
He tried to pull the dress down from her shoulders, but her arms would not bend. He threatened Brom and Ichy until they got on their knees and helped, the twins too panicked now to do anything but follow. In the end they rolled her onto her face, severed the back ties, and took the dress from behind, Ren cutting along the seams. Underneath she wore a simple white petticoat and corset. There was a mole on the back of her neck, two brown spots held together that looked like a tiny, tiny mouth.
The boys stood around her, trembling and guilty. Ichy began to pray under his breath, and Brom soon joined him. Our Father, Who Art in Heaven. Ren turned away toward the neighboring grave and saw the naked body of an old man on the ground, his penis like a soft piece of rope, his eyes open and staring.
* * *
It took hours to finish. The boys shoveled until their arms ached and their backs were sore and blisters rose on their fingers. Benjamin walked from the graveyard to the road, watching, listening. Each time he came back to the group, he appeared more nervous and pressed everyone to work faster.
When they had loaded the last of the bags into the wagon, Tom covered the bodies with a blanket, then took the flask from his pocket and begin to drink again. The twins scrambled up in the back and collapsed, exhausted, while Benjamin took the driver’s seat.
“What about Dolly?” Ren asked.
Benjamin’s face was set. “Get in.”
The horse shifted. For a few moments the only sound in the dark night was the animal breathing. Then Ren’s feet began to move, one by one, and then they were running from the wagon, over the stile, toward Dolly, and then there were other feet, he could hear them, coming faster, coming after him. Benjamin scooped Ren up into his arms and held him tight.
“He’s no help for us.”
Ren struggled to get away.
“You want to stay with him? You want me to leave you here?”
Ren could just make out Dolly’s profile, a mountain of misplaced earth. He was still underneath the tree, his eyes closed. Ren did not want to leave his friend. But the thought of being abandoned in the churchyard was worse. He stopped fighting, his strength gone. Benjamin loosened his grip and placed him on the ground, then led Ren back to the cart.
“I warned you,” said Benjamin.
Ren watched Dolly’s tree as they pulled away. He imagined his friend calling for him in the gloom, the crosses and headstones standing close and silent. The graveyard faded around the turn in the road, and Ren hid his face in his jacket.
“Come on, now,” said Tom. “None of that. You’ve got your fellows!”
Brom and Ichy were as still as dolls, their eyes on the pile of bodies next to them in the cart. Tom coughed, drew the bottle from underneath his coat, and took a long, slow drink. When he was finished, he smacked his lips.
“Let’s have a song.”
The orphans did not answer.
“Don’t you know any? Didn’t they teach you boys to sing?”
“We know some hymns,” Brom ventured.
“They’re in Latin,” said Ichy.
“Well, that’s not going to raise any spirits. How’s about ‘Hey Nonny No’? Or ‘Bonnie My Bonnie’?”
“We don’t know those songs.”
“Well, it’s time you did.” Tom drank from the bottle. He cleared his throat and began to sing, his voice high and surprisingly pleasant.
“Lavender’s blue, diddle diddle
Lavender’s green,
When I am king, diddle diddle
You shall be queen.
“You know this one,” said Tom. He tossed the bottle to Benjamin.
“A brisk young man, diddle diddle
Met with a maid,
And laid her down, diddle diddle
Under the shade.”
Benjamin took a drink, then threw the bottle back.
“Here,” said Tom, passing it to Brom. “Sing. All you need to know is the ‘diddle diddle’ part.”
Brom tentatively took a sip from the bottle and grimaced. Ichy followed, coughing out what he had taken in, but when the chorus came round, they joined Tom with their small voices.
“For you and I, diddle diddle
Now all are one,
And we will lie, diddle diddle
No more alone.”
Ren watched his friends. The song had made them feel better. But the words echoed over his head like a warning. There was no rustling in the leaves. No wind through the needles. It was as if all the trees had stopped to listen. Ren glanced up at Benjamin on the driver’s seat. His shoulders were slouched and he was not singing. He was looking ahead, to the crossroads.
A sense of uneasiness came over the wagon as they drew closer to the signpost. Ren leaned over the side. He could see shapes farther down the road. Fellow travelers, coming their way. Benjamin cursed and sat up in his seat, and Tom threw another blanket over the bodies.
There were five men on horseback. With the moon behind them they nearly looked like trees themselves, their shadows stretching out before them. The men had hats of different sizes and shapes. A bowler, a straw hat, a watchman’s cap, a top hat, and one with a blood-red band. The figure in the center wore a long black riding coat. The horses seemed restless, as if they’d been waiting for some time, nodding back and forth, tugging at the reins.
“Mister Nab,” said the man in the riding coat.
Benjamin pulled the wagon to a stop. He looked the men over. “I don’t know you,” he said.
The rider pushed back the collar of his coat. It was the man with the red gloves, who had cut off the bartender’s hand at O’Sullivan’s. By his saddle he held the length of a shotgun, but he did not make a move to lift it.
Benjamin smiled. “There must be some kind of misunderstanding here.”
“No misunderstanding.” The man with the red gloves pointed to the wagon, and the Bowler and the Straw Hat moved their horses alongside. The Straw Hat leaned over and used his shotgun to poke at the bags, then pushed a flap of burlap aside and revealed the face of Sarah, wife of Samuel.
“Wait.” Benjamin raised his hands. “These folks, all of them, they’re my kin. The only ones I’ve got left. And they should’ve been buried with my family, not plopped into some beggars’ corner in the country. So I’m bringing them home to bury them proper. It’s as simple as that.”
Ren watched the man in the red gloves shift in his saddle. He was chewing a piece of tobacco and twisting his finger around and around the end of his reins.
“Doesn’t matter to us who they are or how you got them,” the man said. “But you’re not taking them any farther.”
Benjamin shrugged his shoulders and kept his hands lifted. Then he leaned forward suddenly and cracked the whip in his hand, slashing hard. “HA!” And the mare broke through the wall of riders.
“Hang on!” cried Tom.
The wagon bounced along the road, hitting a hole and nearly throwing Ren. He gripped the side as it sped on. They hit another ditch and Brom and Ichy were tossed close to the edge. Ren grabbed Brom by his shirt, his fingers wrenching, the crook of his arm straining against the weight. Tom stretched out a leg and caught Ichy with his foot, just before the boy slid out from the back.
Benjamin was standing now. He snapped the whip again and again. The riders had recovered and were coming up behind. Ren turned and saw them through the dust, spurring on their horses. A tree branch hit Ren in the side of the face, and the sound of the wagon and hoofbeats thundered in his ears. Two of the men were holding pistols. They were beside the wagon now. Pulling ahead, then slipping back when the road narrowed.
Tom reached for one of the bodies. He nodded to Ren and together they dragged it to the edge of the wagon. It was hard to keep hold of the bag. Ren could taste dust at the back of his throat. Tom pushed the body out, and Ren watched it fall in the path of the Watchman. The man’s horse stumbled and the Watchman was thrown to the ground.
They grabbed another and began sliding it toward the back. A shot r
ang over their heads. Tom ducked and began to kick the body with his feet. It went off the end, but this time as it landed the men spurred their horses and leaped over.
The cart rounded a bend, the wheels clattering, Brom and Ichy slipping across the boards. They hit the side next to Ren and clung to him, their fingernails raking his skin.
Two riders broke from the group and dashed into the woods. In a few moments they appeared ahead on the road, then dropped behind. It was the man with the red gloves and the Straw Hat. They were right next to the driver’s bench, close enough to touch Benjamin if they wanted. They lifted their guns.
“Look out!” Ren screamed.
They shot the horse. One, two holes into the animal’s neck, and then a third through her leg. The mare swerved left and right, stumbled, tried to right herself, then fell. The wagon traveled right over her, the stays hitting the ground and breaking, and Ren watched Benjamin fall and then the wagon was tipping, turning, and it felt like the earth had broken through beneath them and they were dropping into a chasm, and then Ren’s face hit something and there was a heavy weight across his back.
In the silence that followed, Ren felt the trees were coming for him. He could hear them groaning beneath the bark, their branches reaching out. He tried to warn the others, but his throat was closed tight. Then he felt himself being carried, and every movement was another boot crushing down upon him.
“Is he dead?”
More boots. Boots with claws. Ren tried to ask for help. He felt the tiniest slip of air go down. He sucked on it, and then another small breath came, and then another.
They had landed in a bog. The wagon was completely turned over and half submerged, the wheels broken and dripping in the muck. Brom and Ichy were standing to the side. The man with the watchman’s cap was pointing a pistol at them. Tom was underneath the wagon, his cries muffled, the bottom half of his coat just visible. The Bowler and the Straw Hat were digging him out.