Graveminder

  It all made a horrible sort of sense now: if they’d been buried, Maylene would’ve tended their graves, and they’d have rested. If they’d been able to come to the Graveminder when they awakened, they wouldn’t have become feral. Someone stopped me : that’s what Daisha had said. She stopped me , Troy had echoed. Cissy had stopped them. She’d intended for them to become more dangerous before they came to seek out the Graveminder.

  She used the dead to murder Maylene.

  They were partway up the stairs when Rebekkah announced, “I want to see if we can talk to Daisha. Troy couldn’t tell us much, and I need to know how many people Cissy’s killed, and where they are, and who all knows, and I want to know why. ”

  Byron was silent as they went upstairs and exited the building. As they stood at the side of the Triumph, he said, “ Daisha murdered Maylene.”

  “No,” she corrected. “Cissy used the dead as weapons. They were no more than tools to her. My dead, mine to protect, and my grandmother ... Cissy killed them.”

  His expression revealed nothing. “So you’re excusing Daisha?”

  Rebekkah paused. Am I? Daisha and Troy had both killed people; they’d injured people; they’d done so in ways that were both painful and grotesque. Do I forgive that? She wanted to. In some ways, she had: she’d hugged Troy and consoled him. Her reaction wasn’t what she would’ve expected a week ago. My dead. The words she’d said were the truth of it, though; these were her dead. They were her responsibility. Being the Graveminder had tempered her— normal —responses; it hadn’t negated them, merely blunted them.

  “No.” She reached out for Byron’s hand. “I took Troy where he needed to go. I stopped him. I’ll stop Daisha and as many of them as Cissy has made. I’m going to stop her, too. No matter what it takes. If that’s too cruel or—”

  “It’s not,” he interrupted with more than a little edge to his voice. “Let’s be clear, though: are you telling me you’re willing to kill Cissy?”

  “Just hand me a gun.” She picked up her helmet, put it on, and waited for him to climb onto the bike.

  “Shooting someone over here isn’t like it is in Charlie’s world, Bek. They don’t get back up.” Byron slung his leg over the bike and put his helmet on. “If you do this—”

  “If I don’t, Cissy is going to keep hurting people. She murdered Maylene.” Rebekkah felt a rage like she’d never known before. “She used the dead—my dead , Maylene’s dead—to kill. If we need to, we’ll take Cissy to Charles’ world. If there’s another answer, we try that, but we stop this.”

  Silently, she straddled the bike and wrapped her arms around him.

  The bike roared to life, and Byron said nothing more. It wasn’t like the last ride where he started out slow; this time he went through the gears, accelerating from stop to blur in what felt like a couple of heartbeats.

  Chapter 48

  B UT SHE HASN’T CALLED ME AT ALL THIS WEEK,” LIZ STRESSED. “TERESA never goes this long without calling or visiting.”

  “Your sister doesn’t consider how her actions affect others, Elizabeth.” Cissy Barrow snipped a dead rose from the bush she stood beside and tossed it into a nearby bucket. “She thinks her interests are more important than duty.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “We had a disagreement,” Cissy admitted.

  “About?”

  Cissy waved dismissively, garden shears in her hand. “The usual. She thinks only of herself. You’re not like that, are you, Elizabeth?”

  The inflexible self-righteousness of her mother’s voice made Liz tense. It wasn’t that her mother was heartless, but she didn’t believe in coddling anyone. Children are to be obedient and devoted. Young women should respect their mother. Purposelessness leads to complacency. Liz had heard her mother’s reminders often enough that she knew the deceptively mild questions for what they were: tests.

  Liz squared her shoulders and kept her voice even as she said, “No, Mama. I think of the family first.”

  Her mother nodded. “Good girl.”

  “Do you need me to do anything?” Liz offered tentatively. “I could talk to Teresa if you know where she is.”

  “Eventually, child. Right now, she’s not quite ready to talk. She will be in a few more weeks, but she’s confused right now.” Cissy’s gaze wandered over the garden that she had planned and cultivated in Liz’s yard. It wasn’t what Liz herself would’ve picked, but there were things worth defying her mother over and things easier to let slide. Floral placement fell in the latter category.

  “Soon I’ll have everything in place. Both of you will fulfill your roles.” Cissy clipped another dead rose.

  “Our roles?” Liz felt the fear inside of her growing by the moment. “What roles?”

  “One of you will be the Graveminder, Liz. I realized that it would need to be you. Teresa understands that now. First, though, we need to remove Becky from the equation.” Cissy stepped back to admire the rosebush. “Byron will do just fine if we can convince him. Better to work with known tools than start from scratch, right? He switched his loyalty from your cousin to that girl when Ella died. He’ll switch to you just as easily.” She tossed the shears into the bucket with the rose heads. “I’m going to wash up.”

  Liz stood in her tiny yard and watched her mother walk away. She’s talking about Rebekkah being dead. If I’m the next Graveminder, that would mean Rebekkah would be dead. Trickles of fear grew into full-fledged terror. What has she done? Teresa, where are you?

  Liz said that she didn’t believe in “twin-sense” anymore, but in a town where dead people could—and did—come back, believing in a connection with a womb-mate wasn’t that peculiar. I don’t want to believe it right now. If she did believe it, if she thought about the real reason for her fear, she’d have to ask herself just how capable of murder her mother really was.

  “Please be okay, Terry,” Liz whispered.

  Chapter 49

  B YRON KILLED THE ENGINE OUTSIDE THE TRAILER, WALKED OVER, AND jimmied the lock on the front door.

  Rebekkah gave him a bemused look. “Do I want to ask why you know how to do that?”

  “My father taught me.” Years ago, Byron had thought that the peculiar lessons were signs of his father’s laid-back nature, proof that having an older father was a better deal than the other kids had. In fanciful moments, he thought his father might even have some kind of secret life: lock picking, hot-wiring cars, and handgun proficiency were great preparation for a criminal. Byron smiled as he remembered how he used to imagine William as a comic-book villain training his son in his nefarious trade. I never would’ve guessed the truth. Now Byron saw these “hobbies” for what they were: preparation for the life he was now leading. It is a family trade.

  The lock gave, and he turned the doorknob. He and Rebekkah stepped into the bloodstained trailer.

  The dead girl sat on the end of the sofa where her mother’s corpse had been found. The bloodstained seat cushions had been flipped over, and a blanket was folded over the side where Daisha sat with her feet propped on the coffee table.

  She lowered the water-damaged paperback novel she was reading and looked at them. “You could’ve knocked.”

  “You knew we were here,” Byron said.

  “Stealthy you’re not, Undertaker.” Daisha dog-eared the page she’d been reading, closed the book, and set it to the side.

  Rebekkah stepped farther into the room. She didn’t sit, but she was close enough to Daisha that the dead girl could grab her without much effort.

  “Troy is gone. He’s been taken to where he needed to go,” Rebekkah said.

  “Thanks.” Daisha picked her book back up.

  The combination of stress and exhaustion pushed Byron to his limit. “Daisha!”

  The book fell, and Daisha lowered her feet to the floor with a thump. She leaned forward. The illusion of a normal, albeit peculiar, teen girl vanished. Her voice dropped to an inhuman gravel-laden tone. “You do not want to yell a
t me.” She stared directly at Byron. “Troy wasn’t alert yet. He hadn’t eaten enough or the right people. I did.”

  Rebekkah started, “The right—”

  “Gail. Paul. They made all the difference.” Daisha swept her arms out. “They talked to me. They gave me the food and drink I needed. I am myself, just ... different now.”

  Silently, Rebekkah stepped closer to Daisha. She sat on the edge of the chair that was angled to the side of the sofa. “We didn’t come to argue ... or hunt you.”

  The tension in the room decreased. Daisha pulled her gaze away from Byron and looked at Rebekkah. “So what do you want?”

  Rebekkah smiled at her. “I need to find Cissy ... the woman who killed you.”

  “ Troy killed me.”

  “Because she made him,” Rebekkah said gently. “I need to find Cissy. I was hoping that you could take us to her, to where you were held.” She spoke to Daisha calmly, just as she had spoken with Troy, as if their acts weren’t deplorable. “I can find you and other dead. I can try that. Feeling for them, if there are others—”

  “There are,” Daisha interrupted. Abruptly she stood and walked into the kitchen. She yanked open a drawer, upended it on the counter, and sifted through the tangle of items that fell out. Keys and pencils and papers were knocked to the floor and stuck in the congealed blood as she searched. She kept knocking things to the floor until she found what she apparently sought: a map.

  Byron watched with macabre fascination as the dead girl stepped into the blood and tracked it across the floor as she returned to the sofa.

  “Here.” Daisha spread out the map and stabbed a finger in an area against the farthest boundary of Claysville. “It was out here.”

  “Cissy doesn’t live there,” Byron pointed out.

  “I know what I know.” Daisha walked to the door and grabbed the doorknob. “Have a nice night, now.”

  “Daisha?” Rebekkah’s voice drew both of their gazes. “My aunt is killing people.”

  “So am I.”

  “Yes, but you’re doing it because of what she did to you.” Rebekkah walked over and took Daisha’s hand. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m okay with what you did. You killed my grandmother ...”

  No one spoke for a moment as Rebekkah’s voice faded; then Daisha whispered, “I didn’t want to. I couldn’t think. I just—” She stopped herself. “I did, though.”

  “You did,” Rebekkah agreed. “And now I need you to help me.”

  Daisha tilted her head. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know where Cissy is, because she’s already killed two people who then went out doing ... this.” Rebekkah pointed at the sofa where Gail had died. “She did this to you, and now I need your help. You warned me about Troy. I thought you might help me now. Help me find her?”

  “And stop her?”

  “Yes.” Rebekkah’s lips were pressed in a tight line, but she held the girl’s gaze.

  For several moments they simply looked at each other; then Byron pointed at the primer-gray truck parked outside the trailer. “Whose is that?”

  Daisha flashed her teeth at him in a feral smile. “Some guy I killed. I think you took him out of here, didn’t you?”

  “I can start the truck, so she can ride with us.”

  Both Rebekkah and Daisha turned to look at him.

  “I can start it, too ... without hot-wiring it.” Daisha scooped up a set of keys from the floor and tossed them at Byron.

  As they walked out to the truck and climbed in, Byron hoped they weren’t making a colossal mistake.

  Chapter 50

  T HE RIDE TO THE EDGE OF CLAYSVILLE WAS MOSTLY SILENT. THE TRUCK’S radio was stuck on a radio station that seemed to mostly involve angry preaching, and the only CDs in the vehicle were twangy country albums that Daisha tossed out the window with gleeful yells of “Screw you, Paul.”

  Rebekkah vacillated between the desire to protect Daisha and feeling anger toward her. Daisha was a victim, and Rebekkah’s job was to protect the dead. It didn’t matter whether they were in-the-grave dead, Hungry Dead, or those already in the land of the dead: they were hers to mind, to care for, and when necessary to take to the land of the dead.

  “That way.” The dead girl’s voice was barely a whisper. “To the right there.”

  Rebekkah wasn’t sure if it was fear or anger riding in the girl’s voice, but she reached out and squeezed Daisha’s hand. “What she did was wrong. She will answer for it.”

  The look Daisha gave her was too brief to interpret. “Turn onto that road.”

  On the other side of Rebekkah, Byron remained silent. He followed Daisha’s directions, but he offered no comments on them—or any response to Rebekkah’s remark.

  The hilt of the knife Byron wore on his thigh bumped into her, and she glanced down at the holstered gun that he’d handed her when they slid into the truck. Holding it didn’t make her uncomfortable. The idea of using it on her aunt, however, did.

  It’s not the first choice.

  Byron pulled the truck off the road and into a cover of trees. Given the wooded area and the hour, they were fairly well hidden.

  Byron got out of the truck and held out a hand. “I have a light.”

  “I can see fine,” Daisha murmured from right beside him and Rebekkah.

  Rebekkah hesitated before admitting, “I can, too, but if you ...”

  “No.” Byron’s voice was strained. “I didn’t think about it when we were following Troy, but ... I can see okay without a light.”

  Rebekkah glanced at him. To her, his eyes gleamed like an animal’s when any light glanced off them. She turned to Daisha. “Do his eyes—”

  “You glow from head to toe, and his eyes shine the same way.” Daisha shook her head. “I don’t know if ... live people see it, though. At the graveyard, no one else seemed to notice the way you shine, so it could be just people like me.”

  Rebekkah nodded, and then began to walk the rest of the way to the house. She didn’t feel that tendril guiding her toward the dead as she had previously. Maybe there aren’t any more. She glanced at Daisha. Or maybe she’s so close I can’t feel anyone else.

  As they walked, Byron stayed near enough that his mistrust for the dead girl was made quite clear. He didn’t say anything, but he watched Daisha with the sort of studious attention reserved for the dangerous or foolish. Rebekkah couldn’t blame him. Daisha was with them, but that didn’t make her tame.

  When we’re done I need to convince her to go to the land of the dead—or take her there by force.

  They arrived at the small one-story house. There were no lights on or vehicles in the drive. There was a garage, but the windows were blacked out.

  A thick white line cut across the ground in front of the garage doors. Rebekkah bent down to touch it. Her finger brushed it, but didn’t disturb the line.

  “Don’t!” Daisha grabbed Rebekkah’s left arm and pulled her away from the white line. “Step away.”

  Rebekkah straightened and looked at the white powder on her fingertip. It wasn’t chalk. It felt gritty. With her index finger still raised, she turned toward Daisha—who released her arm and stepped back.

  “I think it’s salt,” Byron said. “Alicia mentioned that it’s useful with them. ” He licked his finger, reached down, and dipped it into the powder. He tasted it and then nodded. “It is.”

  Rebekkah walked away to follow the line. It stretched unbroken in front of the garage and around both sides, stopping in a small pile that glittered in the sunlight.

  Returning to Byron and Daisha, she said, “It extends all the way across the garage. To keep something in or out.”

  “I can’t cross it, but”—Daisha smiled with such innocent glee that it was easy to forget that she was a monster—“if someone brushed it out of the way, I could go in.”

  Hoping that the barrier was intended to keep the dead out, Rebekkah stepped up to the door and brushed the white line away. If there were others inside, she??
?d need to stop them from leaving. And take them home. She frowned at the thought of the dead, the Hungry Dead who were supposed to seek the Graveminder, being trapped—and her inability to feel them because of the barrier Cissy had laid down.

  “Let’s go.” Rebekkah touched Daisha’s shoulder gently. It wasn’t the hug she suddenly felt compelled to offer, but it was a touch.

  Daisha gave Rebekkah a perplexed look and then shrugged. “Sure. You able to open the door from this side or you need me to do it from the other side?”

  “I can unlock the door.” Byron walked past them. He pulled a thin black leather case from the inside pocket of his jacket, but instead of opening it, he glanced back at Rebekkah and Daisha. “Out of curiosity, how would you open it?”

  Daisha vanished. The air where she’d stood was misty, as if a sudden fog bank had appeared there and only there.

  “Daisha?” Rebekkah called.

  The front door opened. Daisha leaned on the doorjamb. “Yeah?”

  Byron furrowed his brow. “How did you—”

  Daisha pointed to herself. “Dead girl.” Then she pointed at the door. “No weather stripping.” She fluttered her hand. “Whoosh. Like a breeze, I’m in.”

  “Whoosh?” Byron repeated.

  Daisha dissipated into vaporous form and then resolidified. “Whoosh.”

  Chapter 51

  A T THE THRESHOLD, BYRON GLARED AT DAISHA. REBEKKAH STEPPED past them and went toward the garage.

  She pulled open the door and stopped as five people turned their gazes on her in perfect sync. A man who looked to be Maylene’s age sat with a wood-handled cane beside him on the bare cement floor; a woman and a man who looked to be in their twenties were beside the older man. Each of the three was encircled by a ring of salt. Against the opposite wall a boy who was barely old enough to be called a teenager paced the perimeter of his salt circle. The fifth circle held a still, lifeless body: Cissy’s daughter Teresa.

  “What has she done?”

  Rebekkah walked into the room. As she looked at them, she realized that only Teresa, who was not yet awake, could be buried and given food, drink, and words. The others would need to be escorted to the land of the dead. Like Troy. Like Daisha. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This was an abomination.