The raspberries were thick with fruit, and new canes curved wildly across the entrance. He pushed the thorny tangles aside with the leather bag. Inside the garden, the air was heavy with the scent of flowers and ripening vegetables. Ranger snuffled in the dirt at the edge of the pool.
“Hey, get away from there. The Book of Night and Day says that’s a Nightside pool—you know it’s not safe to drink from that.” But the dog ignored him. He pawed at the dirt at the edge of the water and started to whine. “What is it, boy? Did you find something?” The dog paced, agitated, his nose to the ground. Dekker walked over to the water and looked where Ranger was pawing the dirt. Nestled in the pink flowers that grew around the pool was the journal, opened to the drawing of the wavy figure traveling through the pool.
Ranger was at the edge again, snuffling and whining. Dekker crouched down and picked up the book. Two small, clear shoe prints were pressed into the mud at the water’s edge. The empty space in his chest felt suddenly colder. “She wouldn’t have, would she?” he whispered.
Ranger looked up at him and pushed his wet nose against Dekker’s shoulder. “I can’t go that way—I’d come apart. And we don’t know she went for sure.” His mind was racing, spinning like a bicycle wheel. “You wait here in case she comes back. I’m going to check at the 4-H club.”
As Dekker hurried toward the house, fear rose in his throat. He knew she wouldn’t be at the 4-H barn. He dashed through the kitchen and raced up to her room. The clock on her bedside table read 7:07 AM. There was a long lump under her covers, but when he sniffed the air her scent was stale. She had left hours ago. He threw back the covers. Two pillows had been stuffed lengthwise under the blankets. He looked around the room. Her pink bag was gone, and so was Harper’s bone music box. “No!” he shouted, sitting down on the bed.
“Dekker, is everything okay?” His mom stood in the doorway, her eyes sleepy and soft. “Where’s your sister?”
“She left without me to go see Bluebird. She promised she’d wake me up so I could go too, but she didn’t.”
“She’s getting so independent since we moved out here. Don’t be too mad at her; she’s trying to be like you.” His mom wrinkled her nose. “You can go down to the 4-H barn too, but after you shower.”
Dekker stood up, out of her reach. “Mom, there’s no time! I mean, there’s no point. I’ll just get dirty at the barn anyway. I’ll shower when I get back, okay?” He left Riley’s bedroom without waiting for her to answer and raced downstairs to the front room, where his aunt was reading the weekly rural paper and sipping her morning tea. He grabbed the paper out of her hands and started flipping through it. “Come on, come on, where are they?”
Aunt Primrose huffed. “Young man, what is the meaning of this?”
“The obituaries. Didn’t anybody die this week?”
“On the back page, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
Dekker flipped the section around and threw the rest of it on the floor. “Oh, yes! There’s a funeral today.”
“What on earth are you rambling about?”
Dekker pointed at a black-and-white picture of an old woman. “Alva Conquergood. She died at the nursing home three days ago. This is great!”
“Young man, your manners are unconscionable. You didn’t even know that poor woman.”
“I don’t care who she was,” he replied. “It means I have a chance to catch Riley before it’s too late.”
“Riley? Tell me what happened.”
Dekker lowered his voice. “I think she went through the pool last night.” He held up the notebook to Aunt Primrose, who snatched it out of his hands.
She looked at the drawing of the pool, and her face went pale. “You’re right, Dekker, you have to go to the graveyard. Tonight.”
“So how do you hitch a ride with someone who died?”
“The correct term for it is traveling. You find a soul ready to walk the paths of the dead, and you convince it to tether itself to you.”
“What do you mean, convince it?” asked Dekker.
Aunt Primrose set the weathered book on the kitchen table and flipped through it to the right page. She pointed to a diagram of a soul rising from an open coffin. It seemed to be tied to a small figure crouched at the base. “Look here. A soul is its own master. It will either take a traveler or it won’t. Some say you can talk to it, or offer it something in trade.”
“What would a soul want?”
Aunt Primrose sniffed. “I couldn’t rightly say. I myself have never attempted such a crude thing. To negotiate with the dead seems somehow untoward.”
“How do you get to Nightside then?”
She stared at him until Dekker looked away. “As the keeper of this place where Dayside and Nightside are joined, I am granted the freedom to travel into the borderland as I please. It is not a gift I can grant you, not without a heavy price.”
“Jeez, Aunt Prim, you don’t have to get all cryptic.”
She ignored him and continued looking at the book. “Observe how the sun sets behind the coffin.”
“How do you know it’s not the sun rising?”
“Don’t be obtuse. What doors do you think the rhyme of the Nightclock refers to?”
“Sunset, for opening doors. Oh yeah, that does make sense.”
Aunt Primrose glared at him. “Indeed. The spirit opens a door you can step through into Nightside. You can follow the spirit’s tether to its own body back to the borderland. Best to come back by train from there, I think—once you’ve found your sister.”
“And my heart.”
Alarm flashed in her eyes as she reached out and clutched his hand. “My boy, remember you have so much further to go in your training. You must consider the possibility that your heart is beyond easy reach. If you discover this to be true, I hope you will have the sense to put Riley first. She has gone there for you. You must go for her.”
“I know. But I can at least keep an eye out for it while I’m looking for Riley, right?”
The old lady said nothing. She patted his hand roughly, then turned to one of the last pages of the book that had been written on. “The gravedigger will see you off at sundown. Reed knows his business, and if I ask, he will help.” She closed the book slowly and slid it into the leather bag. “Once you leave the borderland around Button Hill, you won’t have much use for the book. What little is known about Understory comes from rumor and hearsay. I myself have never journeyed that far. If you are able, try to record what you see on the blank pages at the back.”
Dekker took the bag and slung the strap over his shoulder. “What should I bring with me?”
“The book. The bag. The courage to stay human.”
He swallowed. “That’s not very much.”
“Study the book, and add to it if you can. You and your sister will be the first Daysiders to travel beyond the borderland in many years. If you return, your knowledge will be invaluable.”
Dekker turned and wobbled down the stairs into the basement. Is it weird to miss this freezer? This might be my last time. The lid closed above him and he settled onto his bed of frozen peas to wait. As he opened the journal, he noticed a yellow-brown spot the size of a quarter on his right wrist. Stupid arm. I forgot to do my tomato. He scratched at it without thinking. The skin peeled back like an apple gone bad, but dry and scabby. The muscle beneath had turned brown, and he could see the bone under it, gray and tinder dry. He pulled his sleeve down, not wanting to see what was happening to him. I have to hurry. I’m running out of time.
Fifteen
An iron raven stared down at Dekker from the top of the cemetery gate, as if daring him to enter. He pushed through the wide gate with a clang. Ranger trailed a few feet behind, his head hung low. He’d been waiting by the freezer when Dekker rose and had refused to leave his side. Every few minutes he whimpered and nudged Dekker’s leg. “I’m going as fast as I can,” said Dekker. He had tried to pet him, but the dog had moved back, out of his reach.
“I smell that bad, hey?”
The headstones nearest the entrance stood like guards on either side of the path. He left the narrow road that traversed the grounds and walked up a side path toward the back of the cemetery, where Aunt Primrose had said the funeral would be. He had timed it so that he arrived at the end of the service, before the gravedigger lowered the coffin into the ground.
As he crested the hill, early-evening light shone through the crypts and statues that ringed the oldest part of the graveyard. Dekker crouched behind a stone angel and looked down to where Mrs. Conquergood’s small gathering was beginning to break up. He watched as the pastor shook hands with a few elderly people dressed in dark colors; after the last of the mourners had departed, the pastor drove away in the long hearse.
Once the last car was out of sight, Dekker and Ranger walked swiftly down to the open grave. The casket sat at the foot of the hole; a mechanism with heavy straps, gears and a winch handle stood behind it.
The quiet graveyard lay under a dusky-purple sky that signaled the end of day. An owl hooted in the trees that ran along the edge of cemetery. Dekker looked up. A man in baggy pants and a flannel shirt was getting out of an old half-ton truck, a shovel in his hand and a wad of chewing tobacco bulging one cheek. He approached Dekker and raised his chin in greeting. “Your aunt called, told me what you need. Name’s Reed.”
Dekker stuck out his hand, and the man took it. His hand felt rough and dirty. “Did—did she tell you what happened?” Dekker asked.
The man shrugged and set his shovel against the casket. “Told me what you did to save your sister, and that you were there when my daughter went into the gorge. Said I should mind my own business too.”
Dekker tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “That’s what she always says to me.”
“Uh-huh. To everyone. You look bad, kid. So what happened?”
Dekker could feel the gravedigger’s stare boring into him. It was like taking a test at school and not having any of the answers.. “I didn’t know you were Harper’s dad. Cobb stole my heart—and Harper’s music box. She said she had to stay with Cobb to get it back from him, so she could come back to Dayside. Harper wouldn’t get off the train. I’m sorry.”
Reed whistled through his teeth as he began to set up some sort of mechanical device at the foot of the grave. “Harper’s drawn to Nightside. Always been curious about her mother’s side of the family, so to speak. That music box came with her from the dead city when her mother sent her back to me all those years ago. It has some kind of power in it, enough to keep her grounded in Dayside. Without it, she must have felt a mighty strong pull into the dark.”
“I get that, but why she helped Cobb do this to me… It’s just so unfair,” said Dekker.
The gravedigger brushed the dirt from his hands and looked Dekker up and down. “One thing I learned, fallin’ for a woman who was already dead, is that life ain’t fair and neither is death. The question is, what are you goin’ to do about it?”
Dekker felt hollow inside as he imagined living forever in Button Hill with his aunt and mother, never seeing Riley again, and he weighed that against his fear of being trapped in Nightside. “I have to get Riley back. That’s all there is to it. And my heart, if I can.”
Reed turned his head and spit into the grass beside the dirt pile. “And what about Harper? Will you bring her back too? Ahh, don’t matter without the music box anyhow.”
“Actually, I think Riley already has the music box.”
Reed looked up, eyebrows raised. “Then you do what you can—you promise me that.”
Dekker frowned. “I don’t know if she’ll even listen to me. She’s the one who helped Cobb get my heart in the first place. But I’ll try,” said Dekker.
“Good. What’s that under your hand?” Reed pointed at Dekker’s arm.
Dekker looked down. He’d been rubbing at the spot he had scratched open without realizing what he was doing. He frowned and pulled his sleeve down. “What do you think it is? It’s getting worse. Let’s get this over with.”
Reed nodded and turned to the coffin. “Once I shut you in with Mrs. Conquergood, it’s going to be up to you to sweet-talk her into opening the way.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Reed shook his head. “Your aunt didn’t teach you much, did she?”
“She said she didn’t know. And The Book of Night and Day doesn’t say.”
“Travelin’s how I got started as gravedigger. Gettin’ to the other side was the easy part. I was sick with love. When I realized my girl had already passed on, it drove me crazy. I think the spirits I traveled with fed off that madness, that crazy love. All I had to say was please. You got to think about what’s in your heart; maybe that’ll work for you.”
“My heart’s in Understory. I can barely feel anything these days.”
Reed looked up, his eyes caught in the light of the setting sun. “You aimin’ to go all the way to the city?” Dekker nodded. “Your aunt tell you no one living’s ever come back from that far in?”
“No, she must have forgotten to mention that.”
“Huh. Musta thought you wouldn’t go through with it if you knew. Return trip’s the tough part. When I saw the gorge, I turned back. It’s got its own kind of weight, the kind you can’t shake off so easily.”
Dekker nodded. “I felt it too. But I have to go all the way.”
Reed cracked his knuckles and moved closer to the coffin. “How’d your sister travel?”
“She went through the pool in Aunt Primrose’s garden.”
The gravedigger sucked in his breath and grimaced. “Dang, you’re in a tight spot. Your spirit can cross into Nightside from pretty near anywhere. Only a few places where you can cross over in the flesh, like in Button Hill, but almost no one does it—too dangerous.”
“Why?”
“To the dead, life shines right out of a person, like a big ol’ star. It attracts creatures that still hunger after life, who long for the warmth of Dayside, like a moth to a flame.”
Dekker imagined Riley alone in Understory and surrounded by Nightside creatures. He had to find her and bring her back, no matter what the cost.
Reed clapped Dekker on the shoulder. “Your aunt said you were in a flap this morning when you realized what your sister had done. Maybe that feeling’s your ticket to ride.” The gravedigger checked the sun again. Its lower edge grazed the horizon, and the hills in the distance were the color of blood. “Sunset’s now. Hurry up, or it’ll be too late.” He slid the thick straps of the lowering device under the coffin and angled it out over the grave using the crank. Then he opened the coffin lid.
Dekker leaned in. An old woman lay on a satin sheet. She looked asleep. Her hair was pulled back, her face plain and pointed at the sky. She wore a royal-blue dress and matching hat and a string of pearls, and her arms were at her sides. Reed eased Alva Conquergood’s body gently onto its side, and Dekker swung his leg up and into the casket.
He closed his eyes and shuddered as he slid his legs into the satin-lined recess. Mrs. Conquergood’s knuckles pressed into his leg. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said.
“Too late,” replied Reed, and he pushed Dekker’s head down like a police officer putting a criminal into the back of a patrol car.
Dekker opened his eyes. He was inches from her body, able to see every spidery wrinkle and eyelash. There was no part of her face or neck that wasn’t creased like a crumpled paper bag. “How come it smells like flowers?”
“Open-casket viewing at the funeral parlor in town. They spray lilac water on the body so it smells nice for the family. You should try it sometime.” Reed’s head appeared above the coffin, his silhouette blocking out the light of the dying sun. “Once you’re on the other side, try to hold on to Mrs. Conquergood’s tether as long as you can. If you’re lucky, it’ll take you past the gorge, to the outskirts of Understory.” He leaned closer. “Watch for the light. Good luck!” Before Dekker could a
sk any more questions, Reed closed the lid of the coffin and latched it.
Dekker was back in the dark. He felt a bump, and the body pressed against him as the casket tilted slightly to one side. He heard a muffled mechanical noise, and the casket bounced several times before lurching to a stop. He pushed the body as far away from his own as he could. After a few moments something dropped heavily onto the lid of the casket. The sides of the wooden coffin rattled as the lid shook. “Reed!” he shouted. “Let me out—I changed my mind.” But the thumping continued, rhythmic as a heartbeat. It faded gradually until he could feel only a slight vibration, and a few minutes after that he could feel nothing at all. Everything was perfectly still. His mind filled with doubts. What could have happened to Riley, alone in Understory, and where did Harper’s allegiances lie? And what could he really hope to do about it even if he did make it to the city of the dead?
Dekker glanced at the corpse, now outlined in black and white in the dark. “Well, we’re good and buried now. Do your thing, Mrs. Conquergood.” Nothing happened. “Anytime you’re ready.” All was quiet. So this is what it’s like to be really dead. Boring. “Mrs. Conquergood, please!” he shouted.
Her eyelids fluttered open, and soft brown eyes without pupils stared back at him. “There’s no need to shout, dear.”
“Jeez, you scared me.”
The old woman smiled dreamily. “I wasn’t expecting company either. The quarters are a little close.” Dekker could hear her voice, but her lips weren’t moving. “What on earth are you doing in my coffin?”
Dekker hesitated for a moment, ready to lay on the charm, then decided honesty was best. “I need your help—bad.”
“What can I do? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m dead.” Her skin was beginning to shimmer with a faint opal light.
“I know. That’s why I need you. I lost something, and it’s in a place where dead people go. And my sister went to get it. Only she’s not dead yet, but she will be if I don’t try to find her.”
Button Hill Page 10