Graveminder (10 page)

“Been a while since we had a tourist.” Charlie’s voice was laced with obvious amusement.

“He’s not a tourist,” William said. “He belongs here as much as any of us ever do.”

“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Charlie stopped at an intersection and tilted his head, the cigar clamped between his teeth. The street was completely clear. He held up his hand and motioned for them to wait. “Just a moment.”

No more than six heartbeats later, a train tore through the intersection in front of them. It was absolutely soundless; no tracks or rail lined the street; and in moments, it was just a speck in the distance.

Charlie pulled a pocket watch out of his waistcoat, glanced at it, tucked it back into his pocket, and then stepped into the now crowded street. “The way will be clear now.”

“Because a train passed?”

Charlie fixed him with a stare, and then looked at William. “Boy’s not too sharp, is he?”

William smiled, but not in any way that could be mistaken for friendliness. “I suspect he’s more than sharp enough to do the job better than I have. If you’re after picking a fight, Charles, we can do that after we talk.”

After a tense moment, Charlie laughed. “I’ll welcome you any day, old man. Maybe you’ll feel like lingering with us awhile.”

William shook his head. “I go to where Ann is, and I doubt that my wife is
here
.”

Charlie stopped at a glass door with the words
MR. D’S TIP-TOP TAVERN
painted on it. He reached out and grabbed the brass bar that served as a door handle, tugged it open, and gestured them inside. As William passed, Byron heard Charlie ask in a low voice, “What about your Graveminder?”

“Don’t.” William lifted a fist as if to strike Charlie.

“Relax, boy.” The menace in Charlie’s voice grew gravel thick. He didn’t flinch, but he grinned around his cigar. “Your Graveminder’s safe enough, but she can’t go on till
you
get here. Rules are rules.”

Byron stepped in front of his father, hoping to defuse the tension between them. “What’s a Graveminder?”

Between one step and the next, a blur of expressions crossed Charlie’s face—surprise, doubt, and then amusement. “You didn’t tell the boy
anything
, old man?” He paused and looked straight at William. “And the other one?”

At his side, William’s hand unclenched. “Maylene and I decided to let them have their peace while they could.”

“And now Maylene’s dead.” Charlie whistled.

Byron had just about reached the end of his patience. “Someone want to fill me in?”

“Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in your”—Charlie looked down—“ugly boots for love or money. I would, however, pay dearly to have a good seat for the show. It’s a real shame I’m stuck over here.”

Then he walked past Byron into the shadowed interior of the tavern. It looked well past its prime: faded wallpaper, tattered in places, lined the walls; exposed pipes ran the length of the ceiling; and more than a few of the velvet-covered sofas sagged. The front of the room was taken up by a low stage; on it sat a drum kit and a baby grand piano, the only things in the room that didn’t show signs of wear, age, or neglect. Throughout the room, linen-draped tables were surrounded by high-backed chairs. On each table, a small candle flickered. At the far side of the room were a long wooden bar and a curtained doorway. The curtain, like the tablecloths, was threadbare in places. The place had a sort of tired elegance that spoke of better days. What it didn’t have was a crowd: the entire room was empty save for one waitress and one bartender.

“Ahhh, there’s our table.” Charlie swept his arm forward, gesturing them to the front of the room.

When they reached the table, Byron noticed a placard in the center of the table. It read, in precise calligraphic letters:
RESERVED FOR MR. D AND GUESTS
.

William glanced at the waitress, who had followed them to the table. “Scotch. Three of them.”

She looked at Charlie. “Mr. D?”

Mr. D?
Byron looked at the man who’d escorted them to the club, at the placard in front of them, and at his father.

Charlie—
Mr. D
—nodded. “From my reserve.”

The waitress glided away.

“And keep them coming,” Charlie called after her. Then he clapped Byron on the shoulder. “You’re going to need them.”

Chapter 19

D
AISHA WAS STANDING OUTSIDE THE FUNERAL HOME WHEN SHE FELT AN
insistent pull. Inside that building was a yawning mouth stretching open; she hadn’t known it existed until that moment, but she felt it now. It wanted to swallow her whole, take her to wherever that place was that the not-walking dead went, and keep her there forever.

Make me
truly
dead.

Something like loneliness crept up on her as she stood there trying not to clutch the tree beside her. Once, she’d seen
him
, the Undertaker, scurry up the tree and shimmy onto one of the branches to get a kite that was all tangled up. He had been a teenager then, and he had dropped to the ground to give the kite back to the kids she was with, not looking at them like they were less because they didn’t have money like his family did, not looking at her like she was something disgusting. He had been a hero that day.

Not yet a monster.

Now he’d kill her if he knew what she was. Now he’d end everything.

Hours passed as she stood trying to ignore the temptation to go into the building, to find the mouth of the hungry abyss inside of it.

She needed something to keep from falling apart.
Food. Words. Drink.
The things she wanted since she woke up dead were weird, but weird or not, she needed them like she’d once needed air. The blood and flesh weren’t so hard to find, but stories were a little different. She’d never done too well talking to people before she’d died; doing it
now
was even harder.

There was a woman, though, a stranger. She walked purposefully, as if she knew exactly where to go, as if she knew things. She was only a few years older than Daisha, not even as old as the new Graveminder.

Daisha followed her for a few moments, watched her walk and pause. She stapled papers to poles, and as she went she listened to whatever music pulsed in her earbuds. Daisha could hear the bass, but nothing more.

She approached the woman, stepped in front of her, and said, “I think I’m lost.”

The woman let out a small squeak and yanked out one of her earbuds.

Startled, Daisha stepped away quickly.

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you come up.” The woman blushed. “I probably shouldn’t play the music so loud.”

“Why?”

The woman held up the stack of papers she clutched in one hand. “There’s a, um, wild animal roaming around.”

“Oh.” Daisha looked behind her. “I had no idea.”

“I’m on the town council. We’re trying to alert everyone, but it takes a while.” She smiled self-consciously. “I was going to wait, but I have plans later and ... Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear.” She broke off with a laugh. “I’m pitiful, aren’t I? Nerves.”

“I can help.” Daisha extended a hand. “If there’s an animal out here, I don’t want to be alone either.”

“Thank you.” The woman handed her a few flyers. “I’m Bonnie Jean.”

“I’ll put one on that pole.” Daisha started to walk toward a light pole.

“Hold up.” The woman followed. “You forgot the stapler.”

“Sorry.” Daisha kept walking until they were in the shadows, until they were farther away from the already empty street.

“It’s okay,” Bonnie Jean said. “If we hurry ... I have a date.”

It’s okay.
Daisha heard the words, the permission.
It’s okay. Like Maylene. She wants to help.

“Thank you,” Daisha whispered before she accepted Bonnie Jean’s help.

Afterward, Daisha walked through the peaceful streets, wishing that Maylene were still alive. She’d
tell me stories. Bonnie Jean didn’t tell me anything before she was empty.
After a few moments, she’d become motionless while Daisha ate. She didn’t share any words. She wasted her breath on whimpering noises, and then she stopping making any sounds.

Chapter 20

R
EBEKKAH SAT AT
M
AYLENE’S WRITING DESK.
S
EVERAL PAPERS WERE
stacked to the side of the blotter, and a note to “pick up oranges” was scrawled across the topmost paper. Absently, Rebekkah ran her fingertips over the wood of the desk. Maylene had refused to let anyone refinish it, arguing that the pattern of the scratches and wear marks earned from years of use made it uniquely hers.
Years leave stories written on every surface
, she’d said. The room, Maylene’s bedroom, was filled with stories. The tatting on the pillow shams and on the delicate doilies atop the chest of drawers had been done by Maylene’s great-grandmother. The noticeable chip at the foot of the Tudor four-poster bed was from when Jimmy threw a toy car at it when he was a toddler.

Family.

Sometimes it felt odd to know so much about her stepfather’s family tree and nothing about her biological father’s, but Jimmy had been a part of her life, and her bio-father was just a name on her birth certificate. Jimmy had been the only real father she’d had—even though he hadn’t been in her life more than a few years—and after he died, Maylene had been her closest family. Rebekkah and her mother were close: they talked and visited and got along well enough, but they’d never had the kind of bond Rebekkah and Maylene shared.

And now it’s gone. Maylene is gone.

Rebekkah ran her hand over the desktop. Stories hovered like ghosts in Maylene’s room, and Rebekkah wished she could hear them all one more time, that she could hear the ones Maylene hadn’t spoken yet, that she could hear Maylene’s voice.

Instead, she’d spent hours listening to people tell her that Maylene would be missed.
No shit.
She’d smiled while they told her how wonderful Maylene was.
As if I didn’t know that.
She’d tried not to scream while they assured her that they knew how hard it must be for her.
How could they?

After much badgering, Rebekkah had resorted to flat-out rudeness to get the last of the mourners out of the house. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the solicitousness of some of Maylene’s friends and neighbors—okay, maybe she
did
resent it a bit. Maylene had never been altogether accepted by the community. They’d all been kind enough, but they’d never simply stopped by for a cup of tea or piece of pie. For reasons Rebekkah never understood, the community was always slightly reserved where Maylene and her family were concerned.

Not that Maylene ever complained
. If anything, Maylene defended the peculiar distance the town kept from the Barrow family. “They have their reasons, lovie,” she’d murmured every time Rebekkah mentioned it. Rebekkah, however, wasn’t quite so willing to accept that there was any reason
not
to want to have Maylene at their tables.

The stillness of the house felt calming, despite everything. There was something right about Maylene’s home—
my home
—that had always soothed whatever upset Rebekkah felt. Even now, being in the old farmhouse eased the weight of Maylene’s loss more than Rebekkah could’ve anticipated. She stroked a hand over Maylene’s writing desk and opened the envelope Mr. Montgomery had handed her earlier.

April 1993

I can’t say that I’m liking writing this letter, Beks, any more than you’re liking reading it. I’m not sure I’ll be ready to talk about any of this stuff anytime soon. If that changes ... perhaps I’ll become a braver soul. If not, try to look kindly on me when I’m gone.

You’re the child of my heart as much as Ella Mae is was. You’re stronger, though. Never doubt that strength. There’s no shame in admitting it, no disrespect to Ella Mae. I love her, but I don’t pretend she was something she wasn’t. You can’t either. A day will come when you might hate her for the choice she made. A day might come when you’ll hate me. I hope you’ll forgive us all.

Everything I have, everything I am, and everything the women before me had—it’s all yours. The paperwork is all in order. Cissy and the girls have known for years. Your mother has, too. When Ella Mae died, you became my sole heir. The house, the contents, everything: it’s yours and yours alone now. The good and the bad, unfortunately, are both part and parcel of the deal. I’d ask your permission if I thought there were other options, but you’re my only choice now. Once I’d thought it would be Ella Mae and you both who could’ve made the decision for yourselves.

Someday you’ll read this, and God willing, you’ll be ready for it. I hope my dying wasn’t a surprise. If it was, the answers you’ll need are in the house. Trust the Montgomerys. Trust Father Ness. Look to the past. All those before you kept records. The journals are here in the house. Every question you’re having—I hope—will be answered between these ... except of course, why I’m too much a coward to tell you all of this in person. That one I’ll answer now: I am afraid, my dear. I am afraid that you will look at me the way Ella Mae did. I am afraid you will look at me the way I looked at my grandmother. I am afraid that you will abandon me, and I’m too selfish to lose you. I’d rather we go on as we are right now, with you loving me.

Forgive me, lovie, for all my mistakes, and think of me after I’m gone. The alternative is too horrible to bear.

All my love and hopes are with you.

Grandmama Maylene

The tight script of Maylene’s handwriting was as familiar as her own. The words, however, made little sense. Rebekkah could think of nothing that would change her love for Maylene, nothing that would turn her affection to hate.

The second item in the envelope was a copy of Maylene’s will, which Rebekkah gave a perfunctory read to verify what Maylene had said in her letter. Maylene had, indeed, left every item, every cent, and the house solely to Rebekkah.
Everything?
Rebekkah wondered how long Cissy had known.
Is this why she’s always hated me?
Rebekkah stopped herself from dwelling too long on that train of thought: Cecilia Barrow had taken up more than enough of her energy today.

Instead, she turned her thoughts toward the journals that were somewhere in the house; she also couldn’t figure how the answers to her grandmother’s murder would be found in journals—or where in the rambling farmhouse they would be. A cursory glance around the room revealed nothing so much as the fact that Maylene had lived a long time in one spot. Shelves were built close to the ceiling and above the door frames, and lined the perimeter of the room. They were packed full of books, some well worn from repeated readings or advanced age, none looking like journals. A wardrobe sat on either side of Maylene’s bed. At the foot of the bed sat a wooden chest. They were obvious storage spots, but neither the wardrobe nor the chest held any journals.

Rebekkah began looking through the three other bedrooms on the second floor—her own, Ella’s room, and the one Jimmy and her mother had shared. Although her own room wasn’t cluttered, the other two were packed. The third-floor attic was worse. It overflowed with Maylene’s accumulated possessions from decades of living—and decades of living by those who’d been here before Maylene. The downstairs was equally stuffed. The secret “cubbyhole” in one wall of the living room was crammed to the point that Rebekkah had closed it with a grimace almost instantly upon opening it, and the pantry had always been near overflowing—a topic Maylene had dismissed with vague words of “never knowing what a body might crave.” Nowhere in the morass of belongings in the house did Rebekkah see anything resembling journals. What she did see were reminders of the amazing woman whose life had been ended before Rebekkah had a chance to say good-bye. Death of a loved one hurt, that was a constant, but the suddenness and the violence made this death seem worse.

Jimmy’s was sudden. So was Ella’s.
Rebekkah could picture them all here in the house.
Never again.
She looked around her, and suddenly the memories were too much—and the memory that wasn’t hers, Maylene’s last memory, felt like it tainted everything.

Maylene was killed here.

The walls felt too close, and every sound made her skittish. The place she’d felt safe, the place she ran to when the world was too much, suddenly had shadows in it that stretched like threats looming around her. The fear wasn’t logical, but she couldn’t say it was foolishness either. Someone had murdered Maylene in their home.

Is it someone I know?

Is it someone who stood there at the grave?

Did he—or she—offer me words of comfort?

The wind set the swing to creaking on the porch. When she was a girl, that sound used to comfort her. As a grown woman alone in the house where her grandmother had been murdered, she found it a lot less comforting.

Rebekkah picked up Cherub, who was winding around her ankles, and went to the window. She pulled the sheer curtains aside and looked out. It was getting toward late afternoon, but the sun hadn’t set yet. The porch was empty.

Nothing but shadows and air.

“I’m going walking,” Rebekkah announced.

Cherub meowed.

“Shush, you. I’ll be back soon.” She kissed his head and lowered him to the floor.

She changed into something slightly less funereal—jeans, a dark gray pullover, boots, and a black jacket. Then she gathered up her wallet, keys, and a canister of pepper spray. Pepper spray wouldn’t be ideal against an animal, but it would buy her a moment if the person who’d hurt—
killed—
Maylene tried to hurt her.
A gun would be a lot better.
She’d grown up around guns, but the only one she knew of in the house was a shotgun, and even in Claysville, someone walking around town with a shotgun in hand would seem downright odd.
Pepper spray it is.
She shoved everything into her jacket pockets and slammed the door.

She had no destination in mind, other than being out of the house. Too much was changing too fast. She’d thought Cissy would inherit something.
Like she needed
another
reason to hate me.
Despite feeling slightly guilty that Cissy and the twins hadn’t been left anything, Rebekkah felt a relief that the house she’d come to think of as home was still hers.

Several times, Rebekkah thought she’d heard someone behind her, but when she turned, no one was there. She walked faster, staying along the well-lit sidewalks. Thoughts of the little girl’s injured arm made her pause: well-lit paths might be a deterrent to human “animals,” but she wasn’t sure that they’d be a concern to a wild animal. If there was someone or something following her, turning back seemed unwise.

Now what?

She started running; the thud of pavement under her boots had the illusion of echoing louder with each step. By the time she’d reached the familiar neon lights of Gallagher’s, her legs ached and sweat trickled down her spine. No one and nothing had grabbed her, and the run had made her feel better than she’d felt since she’d gotten the call yesterday.

That was only yesterday.
Rebekkah shook her head.
Too much change too soon.
She pulled open the door and stepped into the dim bar.

Faces, familiar and not, turned toward her. No one looked hostile, but their scrutiny wasn’t comfortable. People there knew her, knew more than she wanted them to know. She’d remembered that objectively, but the reality of being watched, being studied, was more unnerving than the memory had allowed her to expect—or maybe the pity rankled more than the studious stares.

“Beks?” Amity called. “Come sit up here.”

Rebekkah could’ve hugged Amity for the invitation. It was the bartender’s job to be friendly, but Rebekkah didn’t care. She smiled and went toward the bar.

Amity stood with her hands on her hips; a bar rag dangled from one hand. The look on her face wasn’t one of pity. “You looking for someone?”

Rebekkah shook her head. “Air and a drink. I ... I needed to be out.”

Amity gestured at a stool. “You want to talk?”

“No.” Rebekkah pulled the stool out and sat. “I’ve had more than enough talk.”

“Got it. No talking.” Amity slid a bowl of bar mix to her. “So ... beer, wine, or liquor?”

“Just wine. House white. Whatever.”

“We have—”

“I don’t care,” Rebekkah interrupted. “I just need to hold a glass of something so I can sit here not looking
quite
as pitiful.”

Amity stared at her for a moment, turned, and pulled a partially empty bottle of white wine out of a cooler. She twisted the cork out of the bottle. “You don’t want to drink or talk.”