by Jenny Goebel
My thoughts were wandering, and I tried to shut them off. I knew by then Mr. Stein would’ve found the empty pockets in his overcoat. Michael may have bought me more time, but I still needed to hurry.
I found row J and started counting plots as I went so I wouldn’t get lost again: J1–J3 belonged to the Schell family, J4–J6 were still empty. J7 and J8 were filled by Mr. and Mrs. Jones. J9 for Mrs. Nelson, J10–J15 belonged to none other than —
I stopped cold.
Every part of me froze, from the hairs on my head to the tips of my toenails, except for my heart — it beat wildly out of control. I was used to the pitch blackness of the night by then, and I could plainly see where, right on our family headstone, just above the plot reserved for yours truly, was the likeness of my face etched in stone.
My very own portrait of death.
My laughing eyes, my nose, and my tight-mouthed grin stared back at me. I gasped for air, but none came. My lungs were empty. My hope was crushed, chewed on, and spit out, all at once. It was over. This, my portrait, meant I’d failed. And miserably, horribly so. Mr. Stein was going to win … and I was going to die!
Thoughts flooded back into my brain with a panicky pace. I’d taken all the empty tiles … I’d cracked them far beyond any usability … Mr. Stein had then brought his tools to this wide blank target in the cemetery — my family marker … That scraping noise I’d heard, it was my own life ending … Mr. Stein hadn’t expected me to be in shock when I’d bumped into him in the den; he was expecting me to be on my deathbed … I was so worried about Michael, I’d entirely missed the fact that Mr. Stein had turned his sights on me.
That’s when I started to feel the tingle in my fingers, the even sicker feeling in my stomach and the tightening in my chest. The metal box slipped from my grasp. I flung the bag off my shoulder and onto the ground in front of me. I pulled open the drawstring and spilled the contents onto the grass.
Isabella’s portrait tumbled out first. I knew it wasn’t possible, but her stone-etched eyes seemed to flash with a fear mirroring my own. Next, the tools toppled out onto the grass. Shiny and silver, they winked at me between the grassy blades. Not a spot of rust on either one. I sunk to my knees on the ground that would soon be my grave.
These weren’t them.
These were not the cursed hammer and chisel. These were new, and not the tools that would end my life.
I shook my head, noticing the way a lack of air was making me feel dizzy and light-headed. I struggled to keep the dark spots in my vision from connecting and turning my world entirely black. This must be what it feels like right before your heart stops working, I thought. This must be what Isabella and Mrs. Evans and all the others felt before they died.
I was so caught up in all that hopeless terror that when Mr. Stein’s cackle pierced through the ringing in my ears, I didn’t even jump.
“I see you’ve discovered my latest work of art, Bernie — the resemblance is superb, don’t you think?” He talked like we were merely in Ms. Greene’s gallery, admiring one of the paintings on the wall. “I am surprised, however, that you didn’t find it sooner. Say, on the night you followed me here.”
I fought against eyelids as heavy as two anvils and glanced up. Mr. Stein was standing above me, blocking the path to Mrs. Evans’s grave. “I waited for you, anxious to chisel in the final touches, but you disappointed me. Perhaps you’re not as bold as I thought. ”
Mr. Stein’s jaw tightened as he waved his hand in front of it. “No matter. You’re here now, aren’t you? And I have your full attention.”
His overcoat was still missing. Mr. Stein wore a dark, short-sleeved shirt and crisp blue jeans, and for the first time I noticed the worn, leather sheath strung from his waist. His thumb carefully caressed a sharp edge of iron extending from it. Mr. Stein followed my gaze. “Ah, yes. These.” He stopped stroking the tools and gave the sheath a friendly pat. “They are what you were hoping to find in my coat, are they not? What’s wrong, Bernie? Don’t you like the replacements?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t say anything. The prick in my chest was spreading to my throat, and the dots in my vision had grown into caverns.
“You’re like me, Bernie.” Mr. Stein glanced down at Isabella’s portrait on the ground, and for a second, I thought I saw doubt flicker across his face. “And like her, too, I suppose,” he said, his voice dropping to an octave so low he almost sounded sad.
“Isabella,” I said, my voice strained.
“Yes, Isabella. She was beautiful, but she was stubborn like you. She was careful, too. Kept the tools locked in a glass case and wouldn’t even let me hold them for a proper appraisal. All those fragile sculptures of hers, and it was a pair of rusty tools she didn’t want me to touch.” Mr. Stein looked down at the hammer and chisel, and again, patted them lovingly.
“Isabella was used to men pursuing her, for both her looks and her money, of course. But I was different. I saw beyond all that.”
Somehow I managed a cold, disbelieving laugh.
Mr. Stein’s eyes flashed with anger and then clouded with white as he tore the iron hammer and chisel from the pouch at his side. He scraped the sharp edge of the chisel across the face of my portrait and I felt incredible pain ignite on my cheek — like it was being seared with hot iron.
I yelped and Mr. Stein pulled the tool away from my stone image, and continued. “I saw that Isabella was scared and alone; lonely — like I was, and like you are. She just needed someone to help her carry the burden.”
Mr. Stein’s jaw was hard as ever, but the lines around his eyes and the pucker of his lips were heavy with misery. “But she refused to love anyone. She refused me.”
Imagine that, I thought, but kept it to myself this time. I didn’t dare to even groan.
“Then, Ms. Greene told me about Isabella’s ancestor, and about the tools, and I felt sorry for Isabella. Nobody believed her, not even her friend. Nobody loved Isabella, nobody understood her the way I did …” The misery spread from the corners of his eyes and lips until his entire face dragged downward and even the bones in his jaw seemed to sag.
“I know what you mean,” I said softly. It seemed with Mr. Stein distracted, a bit of my strength was returning. I wanted, needed to keep him talking. “The engagement ring Isabella wore — it was from you, wasn’t it? Did you blackmail her, or …” My thoughts trailed off. I pictured Mr. Stein using the tools to etch not a headstone portrait, but a pleasant little scene … man and wife? A wedding portrait?
Mr. Stein sniffled and wiped his nose with the back side of his hand, and then he nodded. “She wouldn’t accept my advances otherwise, so I did what I had to do. I took the tools, nothing else. I don’t know why she even bothered with a police report. I didn’t want her riches, I just wanted her. I would never misuse the tools like her father had.”
“Right, ’cause using the tools to control people and for murder isn’t nearly as awful as using them for money,” I said, realizing that if I had the gumption for sarcasm, the strength of my portrait was indeed waning. If Mr. Stein hadn’t chiseled in the final touches, maybe its dark power was incomplete. Maybe my death wasn’t sealed. Then again …
It had been foolish of me to ridicule him. Hard angles reappeared on Mr. Stein’s face. I glanced nervously at the chisel, but Mr. Stein kept talking. “It wasn’t murder. What could be,” he spat out. “That’s what the blacksmith said, and that’s all I wanted. Why shouldn’t I have what other people take for granted? A happy home. A loving wife.”
“Isabella found out, though, didn’t she? She must’ve suspected. Did she find the portrait? Is that why she took off the ring? And you started hating her.”
Mr. Stein grinned, a gesture that concerned me slightly more than his scowl. “Yes, Bernie. You get it.”
I shook my head. “No. No way.”
“Come on, Bernie. You think I couldn’t see how desperate you were for your father’s attention the moment I walked into the den, and then all tha
t longing over Isabella’s portrait?” He shook his head in mock pity. “What about your mother? Is she giving you what you want? Poor little Bernie, trying so hard to be good and rubbing everyone the wrong way.”
I couldn’t have answered just then, even if I’d wanted to.
“You know what it’s like to never get what you rightfully deserve. But the injustice, the inequalities in life, all even out in the end. Doesn’t matter how heavy or light your heart is when you’re dead. And, Bernie, I’ll let you in on a little secret, balloon-like hearts are the easiest to puncture.” Mr. Stein stopped here and stared hard at me. “All these lighthearted people around here: easy targets. I was doing you a favor, and you just couldn’t leave it alone.”
“You think I wanted all those people dead,” I said, “just because they were happy?”
“No. Because they had what you didn’t. Because they made others brighten in ways that you’re not capable of.” He glanced at Thomas’s name on the family marker, and my heart sank with denial.
“Life around here needed more balance. If we can’t have what we want, why should anyone else? What could be, right? Lives or stones, it feels good to crack them apart.”
Mr. Stein turned his attention back to me. “Of course, once I heard from that dear Mimi of yours that you were headed off to Silverton … Cheerleading, was it?” Mr. Stein dipped his head and made a “tsk” sound with his tongue. “I knew you’d find out about the tools, even more than you’d already suspected, and that would be the end of our playful jousting. I knew you’d want the hammer and chisel for yourself, and we can’t have that, can we?
“Luckily, I knew the best way to get rid of you … Seeing you yesterday was like seeing a ghost. You really shouldn’t have been able to climb out of bed as close to finished as your portrait is.”
The way I’d been feeling lately … I thought it was from all my fear and worry. Had it really been the portrait draining my strength down to that of a cracked and dry riverbed? As if to confirm it, Mr. Stein traced a line on my portrait, down the hollow of the neck, and I felt my throat closing off, the air being stolen from my lungs.
“And that thing with the soup — priceless. I’m really going to miss you, Bernie.” Mr. Stein extended the hammer away from the chisel, into the night, and then back down. I felt the crack of iron against the stone as loudly as I heard it.
My entire body flinched this time, and then flooded with pain. My heart didn’t feel strong, not in the slightest. But I wanted to live. And want was something my heart was used to. Even though I couldn’t move, I could feel the want fighting inside me.
“Isabella’s heart struggled right until the very end, as well. Resilience is built by hardship,” Mr. Stein said. “That’s why the cheery ones die so easily, and you’re giving — me — so — much — trouble.” Each word spoken was accented by a hammer swing and the chipping of granite. The tools began to glow red in his hands, looking as they must have all those years ago. Fresh from the blacksmith’s smelting pot. Right before they were baked in bones.
Mr. Stein’s white-laced eyes bore into me as he drew the hammer back one last time, and the ache in my heart pierced deeper. “Now let’s put an end to all this nonsense, shall we?”
I thought of Mimi and Dad and even Michael. Then, I thought of my mama, my poor, heartbroken mama, about to lose a second child on this wicked day.
Mr. Stein’s arm fell. Iron connected with iron, and stone cracked. The last thing I remembered before everything went black was the distant sound of a woman’s voice crying out my name.
I CAME TO WITH COLD, CRISP GRASS BLADES CUTTING INTO my cheek. I was still alive. But how? My eyes and mouth gaped open as I gulped in the night air and at the same time I noticed the hammer and chisel on a patch of earth right in front of me. Not the shiny new ones — rather, the blacksmith’s tools that spun this nightmare into being. They were still giving off a soft red glow, and I hopped up to snatch them — quick as a thief.
Mr. Stein was standing in the same place, next to my portrait. He was clear-eyed now, and for some reason he was cowering away, like he was afraid.
“Impossible,” he said. “You’re dead.”
The tools felt icy-hot in my hands, and I felt a sudden surge of energy, just as I had the day I destroyed the portraits — only it was frightfully greater. Whatever power the tools possessed, I was now a part of it. I lunged forward. What I wanted shocked some deep-down part of me; but at the moment, I just didn’t care. I wanted so badly I couldn’t see straight, or right or left for that matter — just color. Everything radiated color — especially Mr. Stein. His heart beat bloodred.
Every pumping artery sent rays of crimson into the night. And every pulse drew me closer. I took another step. I pointed the chisel at his heart. Mr. Stein clutched at his chest. The tools felt warmer and warmer in my hands as the beats of his heart began to slow.
Mr. Stein stumbled backward, wheezing and gasping for air, and his legs flew out in front of him. A loud CRACK rang through the cemetery as he knocked his head hard on the base of our family’s monument. Then his body went still on the ground beneath me.
I stood over him, knowing even without a portrait, the tools could help me end his life. I wanted it. I wanted Mr. Stein’s heart to stop — for Mrs. Finley and Mr. Fuller, even more for Isabella and Mrs. Evans. I wanted to feel the chisel break his skin and dig between his ribs, find the source of the pulsing red light and put it out. Forever.
“Bernie?” The sound of my name was closer this time, but still small, and shrill.
I stopped moving. The voice tugged at my heart, but the want was stronger. I bent down and pressed the chisel to the left side of Mr. Stein’s chest. I raised the hammer.
“Stop!” The voice was louder now. I tried so hard to ignore it. To ignore her. But the voice was velvet smooth and chocolate sweet. “Please,” she pleaded. “Bernie, please.”
I turned my head and gasped, “Isabella?” A woman stood a few yards away. Her hair flowed in waves of soft yellow light. She wore a brilliant white gown and her own heart beat softer rays of red. When she parted her lips, the sound of my name came out on wings of blue and lilac — colors even more appealing than the bright red of Mr. Stein’s heart.
I took a step away from Mr. Stein, and then another. I walked forward, wanting only to touch Isabella’s ghost before her shimmering image vanished before my eyes yet again.
The tools yanked and pulled, trying to drive me back. But more than anything, I wanted to dip my fingers in the lavender lights streaking from Isabella’s hands. I uncurled my fingers and let the tools slip.
Then all the colors wilted away. The power I’d felt was gone.
Only the image remained. It did not dissolve into the night and abandon me as it had after every nightmare. This image was earthly and real.
“Mama?” I whispered in confusion.
My mother was colorless in the night, her face ever as pale as the moon. Her hair, having grown in the months she’d locked herself away, now kissed the tips of her shoulder blades. Still dressed in her long white nightgown, her feet were pink, soft, and bare.
Mama reached her hands out to mine again, and I knew. Of course. The beating heart. It could never have been Isabella at all. Isabella’s heart stopped weeks ago. My mama’s, broken as it was, was still ticking.
I knew then that Mr. Stein had mistaken my mama for Isabella, just like I had. The thought of Isabella rising from the grave to seek her revenge must’ve frightened him into dropping the tools. However, the mistaken identity had caused me to let go of the hammer and chisel for an entirely different reason.
“Mama,” I said again, this time rushing into her arms.
“Bernie, what’s going on?” she said. I saw the way her eyes flicked from my portrait on the family monument to Mr. Stein lying unconscious on the ground beneath it. “Were you trying to kill that man, Bernie?” She shook her head like it couldn’t be true. I was thankful for that. It meant even if she didn’
t think me saintly, she couldn’t figure me for a murderer.
I wanted to tell her everything, replay every day from the moment Mr. Stein showed up, but just as I opened my mouth to speak, a bright light blinded me.
“Bernie!” Michael shouted. “Mrs. Morrison? Are you okay?” The beam from Michael’s flashlight skipped from me to the marker and then played hopscotch over my portrait and along the body lying on the grass. “Holy cannoli, what happened?”
Before I could say anything, a second light appeared, crossing Michael’s and lighting up the cemetery like a grand opening event. Sheriff Romano was breathing hard and looked a bit jumpy with one hand on her holster, and the other spotlighting the graveyard.
“Okay, Michael,” she said, catching her breath. “This had better be important and not some sort of game.” Just then, she seemed to notice Mr. Stein. He was starting to sit up, although rather woozily. Michael’s mom dropped the flashlight so that light cut through the grass and bounced off the shiny replacement tools at Mr. Stein’s feet. Sheriff Romano glanced at them, and then at my portrait, before swiftly yanking Mr. Stein’s wrists behind his back and locking them in silver cuffs.
Michael and I exchanged a look as his mother pulled a pair of gloves from a pack near her holster and stretched them over her slender fingers. As she lifted the new tools from the dewy grass, Michael and I watched each other’s faces. We were playing chicken. Who would say something first? Would either of us say anything at all?
It would’ve been the perfect time to come clean and to draw Sheriff Romano’s attention to the second set of tools nearer my own feet. If the cursed hammer and chisel found their way into an endless vault of crime-scene evidence, it might keep them nearly as tucked away as if they were buried in a grave. However, my mind was still flooding with possibilities. Instead of directing Mrs. Romano to the proper tools, I scooted over an inch or two, closer to my mama, to where I could block the rusty hammer and chisel from Sheriff Romano’s view.
Michael’s eyebrows drew together and his dark eyes sunk deeper into his huge head. Did he know what I was up to? Did he disapprove?