“House?” She felt herself sway. “She was killed at the house ?”
He took her elbow again, steadying her. “That wasn’t a very good attempt at ‘breaking it to you gently,’ was it?”
Rebekkah sat down in the grass. “How could they not tell me? How could you not tell me?”
Byron sat down with her. His tone wasn’t cruel, but there was a bite to it as he asked, “And when should I have done that? When you were standing at the baggage carousel or when you were jet-lagged and needing to sleep or just now at the service?”
“No.” Rebekkah plucked at the grass. “I just ... why aren’t they telling me? I get the trying to be gentle. I really do. I might even appreciate it, but when someone is murdered , shouldn’t they tell me? Shouldn’t someone have called, or I don’t know, something ?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath, and then he told her that he’d come into her house and tried to find a clue, a hint, something—and had no luck. Then he added, “The laws on burial make everything happen so fast, and I’m an undertaker, not a detective.”
“Right.” She wiped her hands off on her dress. “Knowing isn’t going to bring her back to me. Let me get through today first, or at least the funeral breakfast.”
He stood and helped her to her feet. Still holding her hand in his, he looked directly at her and said, “Just say the word. I’m here ... despite your insistence on trying to shove me so far away that we aren’t even friends. I promised I’d always be here, and that hasn’t changed.”
Rebekkah stopped and looked at him. He had—when Ella died. He’d held her and promised exactly that. Those first few weeks after Ella died, he’d been her lifeline, and when her mother had decided they needed to move, Rebekkah had thought that losing Byron would tear her in two.
“That was a long time ago,” she said somewhat uselessly.
He let go of her hand. “I don’t remember it having a time limit, do you?”
Whatever I need.
“Ella would’ve appreciated it, too,” she murmured. She resumed walking.
Beside her, Byron shook his head. “I’m not doing it for Ella. I’m here for you. ”
For a moment, Rebekkah felt the weight of losing his friendship. In that one day, she’d lost both of them. She hadn’t known it at the time, but losing Ella had led to losing Byron. Not long after Ella died, her mom left Jimmy, and they’d moved away. Afterward, her mother had hated it when Rebekkah talked to Byron; she’d never tried to keep Rebekkah away from Maylene, but any mention of Claysville—or anyone there—was a source of conflict.
As if none of it had ever happened.
She glanced at Byron. “We are friends . I know that. Not like we were then, but ... a lot has changed.”
“It has,” he agreed in that neutral tone he adopted when they both suspected she was about to say something that would lead to an argument.
Not this time.
Softly she admitted, “Sometimes I think about then ... about all of us ... I think Maylene knew exactly what we did every time we thought we were so smart. Your mom was just as bad.”
“They were good people, Bek. That’s how I remember Mam. If you’d have told me I’d miss the sharp side of her as much as the rest ...” He shook his head, but he was smiling now. “That’s how I cope. I don’t stop missing her, but I remember her. The good and the bad—just like I remember Ella. She wasn’t the angel you want to remember her as.”
Rebekkah stopped. “I know that. I just thought you ... I figured that’s how you still thought of her. We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“I remember the bickering between you, and that she stole my cigarettes—and my stash—every time I left her alone in my room. That fight after school sophomore year? It was not her defending herself. I was there. She threw the first punch.” Byron laughed. “No one had a shorter temper. No one was going to outdrink, outsmoke, outcuss Ella Mae Barrow. I loved her, but I saw who she was, too. She couldn’t resist a dare, but she would refuse a party so she could plant flowers with my mother. She cussed enough that I probably blushed then, and she sang to herself, but mouthed the words in church because she wasn’t sure of her voice. There’s no sense in building a shrine, especially to an illusion.”
“She was so alive.” Rebekkah looked away, her gaze lingering on the stones that marked Ella and Jimmy’s graves. “I don’t understand how someone that alive could choose to die.”
“I don’t know either, but I do know that she—and Maylene and your dad—wouldn’t want you remembering them as anything other than who they really were.” Byron gestured for her to precede him toward the one remaining black car. “Loving someone means admitting the good and the bad.”
He opened the back door, and she slid into the car before he could see the panic in her eyes when he mentioned that topic.
Chapter 16
D AISHA STEPPED INTO THE BUILDING, CROSSING THE THRESHOLD WITH the assurance of one who knows she is safe. It was an unfamiliar feeling. After years of flinching at every sound, the security of her new life was heady.
She was in a cloakroom, an antechamber for the mourners who hadn’t yet readied themselves for the viewing. Even out here, beige carpet and leafy green plants were positioned for a calculatingly soothing atmosphere.
Beyond the doorway stood the man she needed to find. Mr. Montgomery knew she was different; she could tell by the cautious way he watched her. No one else in town— except Maylene —had looked at her that way.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
Her body had known she needed to come here, just as it had known she needed to find Maylene. She’d walked for days, not knowing where she was going or why, just that she was going to the place where things could be made better. Her body belonged here in Claysville.
“But I am here,” Daisha told Mr. Montgomery. She stepped into the viewing room, where he waited. Once she’d sat in this same room mourning an uncle who’d been in a wreck after too many drinks and who knows what else. The smell of it was the same as it had been then, a lingering perfume of flowers and something sweeter. Once she’d thought that this was the scent of death, an almost sickly sweet odor. Then she had died. Now she knew that sometimes death smells like copper and leaves.
“I can help you.” His voice was comforting, confident.
“How?”
“Help you get where you need to be,” William said. If not for the fine trembling in his hands, Daisha would think he was unaffected by her.
Daisha shook her head. “The other one that tried that ...”
“You killed Maylene.”
“She offered to feed me,” Daisha whispered.
William raised his voice then: “So you murdered her .”
She frowned. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. He wasn’t supposed to be so mean. Maylene hadn’t been.
“What else could I have done?” She wasn’t objecting; she was asking. William didn’t see that, though. Maylene would’ve. She did before she died.
Maylene offered Daisha a glass of whiskey and water.
“I’m not old enough to drink that.”
Maylene smiled. “You’re a bit beyond their rules now.”
Daisha paused. “Why?”
“You know why.” Maylene was gentle but firm. “Take it. It’ll help.”
Daisha took the glass and tossed it back. It didn’t burn like whiskey usually did; instead, it felt heavy, like some sort of syrup coating her throat all the way down to her stomach. “Nasty.” She tossed the glass at the wall.
Maylene poured another. This one she lifted in a toast. “You might finally have me, you old bastard.” She emptied the glass and then looked at Daisha. “Let me help you.”
“You are.”
“I need you to trust me. If I’d known you were ... gone, I would’ve minded your grave. We still can do that. Tell me where—”
“My grave.” Daisha stepped backward. The truth that hadn’t taken shape yet hit her. My grave. She loo
ked down at her hands. Her fingernails were dirty. She hadn’t crawled out of anything, though. She mightn’t remember everything, but she knew that. “I wasn’t in a grave.”
“I know.” Maylene poured another glass, tilting both the whiskey and the water bottles over the cup. “That’s why you’re so thirsty. The dead always are if they haven’t been minded properly.”
“I’m not ...” Daisha stared at her. “I’m not.”
Maylene cut a thick slice of bread, laid it on a plate, and poured honey over it. She slid the plate forward. Her fingertips were right next to the handle of the bread knife. “Eat.”
“I don’t ... how can I be dead if I’m hungry?” Daisha felt the truth in Maylene’s words, though. She knew.
Maylene nodded toward the glass and the plate. “Eat, child.”
“I don’t want to be dead.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be in a grave either.” Daisha pushed away from the table. The chair fell backward to the floor.
Maylene didn’t react.
“That’s what you want, though, isn’t it?” Daisha understood. She knew why she’d come here, knew why the old woman was giving her the whiskey and the bread.
“It’s what I do.” Maylene stood. “I keep the dead in their place and I send them back when they wake. You shouldn’t have been left outside Claysville. You shouldn’t have been ...”
“Killed. I shouldn’t’ve been killed.” Daisha was shaking. Her head felt like it was full of bees buzzing so loud her thoughts weren’t staying clear. “That’s what you want. You want to kill me.”
“You’re already dead.”
The next thing Daisha knew she was kneeling over Maylene, the floor hard under her knees. “I don’t want to be dead.”
“Me either.” Maylene smiled. Blood ran down a cut by her eye. “But you already are , child.”
“Why you? Why did I come to you? I couldn’t stop myself from coming,” Daisha whispered.
“I’m the Graveminder. It’s what I do. The dead come knocking, and I set things right.”
“Put us back.”
“Word, drink, and food,” Maylene murmured. “I gave you all three. If you’d been buried here ...”
Slowly Daisha walked farther into the room. All the while, she watched William. He didn’t seem like a threat, but she wasn’t sure.
“He doesn’t know what I am ... the other Undertaker. He doesn’t know any of this,” Daisha guessed. She took a step forward.
William didn’t back up, but the tension in his body said he wanted to. His gaze narrowed. “Leave them out of it.”
Daisha ran a hand over the back of a chair beside her. “I can’t. You know that, don’t you? Some things aren’t choices.”
“We can end this before anyone else gets hurt.” William held his hands out to the sides as if to show her he was unarmed. “You don’t want to hurt people, do you? You will if you don’t come away with me. You know that.”
“I’m not bad,” Daisha whispered.
“I believe you.” He held out a hand to her. He curled his fingers toward him in a beckoning gesture. “You can do the right thing here. Just come with me. We’ll go meet some people who can help us.”
“ Her. The new Graveminder . ”
“No, not her. You and I can fix this all on our own.” He took another step forward, hand outstretched. “Maylene gave you food and drink, didn’t she?”
Suspiciously Daisha said, “Yeah, but not enough. I’m so hungry.”
“Do you need me fix you something?” William’s breathing was ragged. “Would that help?”
Without meaning to, Daisha took his hand and pulled him to her. He was so close; it wasn’t as if she’d even meant to move, but she had. She was shaking her head. He trembled. Like Maylene did. Daisha sank her teeth into his wrist, and he made a sound, a hurt animal noise.
He pulled something out of his pocket and tried to stick it in her arm. A needle. He’d offered her hope, but he was trying to hurt her. Poison. She pushed him away. “That wasn’t nice.”
He clutched his bleeding arm to his chest. Little red drops fell to the floor; more sank into his shirt.
“Let me help,” he said. He reached for the needle, which had fallen from his hand. “Please, child. Let me help.”
Daisha couldn’t stop looking at his wrist. The skin was torn. “I did that,” she whispered.
“We can make it okay.” He picked up the needle. His face was pale, and he dropped to the floor so that he was half kneeling, half sitting in front of her. Despite his obvious pain, he reached out to grab her wrist. “Please. I can ... help you.”
“No.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her mind felt clearer now. Everything made more sense when she wasn’t so hungry. “I don’t think I want the help you have.”
He cradled his bloody arm and tried to stand. “This isn’t right. You aren’t right. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“But I am .” Daisha shoved him down. She was still hungry, but she was more afraid of him than she was hungry. He doesn’t understand. Afraid meant falling apart. She didn’t like that. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Daisha might not have chosen to be dead—or to be awake after dying—but she could make a few choices now.
Quietly Daisha left the room and closed the door behind her.
William didn’t follow.
She thought about visiting the woman who was humming in her office, but staying here seemed unwise. William might not be strong enough to stop her, but he knew things and people who might be able to hurt her.
Daisha slipped out the door.
Someone else would feed her, someone who didn’t make her afraid. She’d find them, and then she’d decide what to do next.
Chapter 17
R EBEKKAH WAS GRATEFUL FOR BYRON’S SILENCE AS THEY RODE THE short distance to Maylene’s house. Some part of her rebelled at how easy it always was to pick up where they’d left off. At the beginning, Byron had been her guilty secret. And Ella knew. Rebekkah didn’t mean for anything to happen; she’d loved her stepsister. One night. One kiss. That was it. She shouldn’t have, and she knew it then, but it was only once. It wouldn’t have happened again. We wouldn’t have ... It took years before she could even talk to Byron without feeling guilty. Then one night, too many drinks and years of wanting edged her across the line she swore she wouldn’t cross. Afterward, he’d become the one addiction she couldn’t shake, but every time she let him in she thought about her sister. Ella knew how I felt, how he felt, and she died knowing it.
The car stopped. Byron opened the door and got out.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
“No, not really.” Rebekkah took a deep breath and followed him to the front porch and into her grandmother’s home. My home. She didn’t want to know where in the house Maylene had died, but knowing that she had died there made it hard not to wonder. Later. She would ask questions later—of Byron, of Sheriff McInney, of William.
Cissy sat in Maylene’s chair, and by the look on her face, she wasn’t feeling the least bit friendly. She glared fixedly at Rebekkah and Byron as they entered the room.
“Aunt Cissy,” Rebekkah murmured.
“Becky.” Cisssy held a cup of tea in one hand and a saucer in the other. Her tone was scathing as she said, “I assume he told you.”
Rebekkah paused. This wasn’t the time or place. “Please don’t.”
“My mother was killed here in her home. My home ... Right there.” Cissy closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them to glare at Rebekkah. “They found her out there in the kitchen. Did he tell you that part?”
“Cecilia! Please, not now.” Daniel Greeley, one of the councilmen, had walked into the room. Rebekkah had met him a few times during her visits to Maylene, and she was grateful to see him today. He stood like a sentinel in front of Cissy.
“Oh, it’s fine for me to know? It’s okay for my daughters to know? But we have to protect her ???
? Cissy stood up so abruptly that the rocker clattered into the wall. She glared at Rebekkah. “You aren’t even family . You don’t need to be here. Just say you don’t want it, Rebekkah. That’s all you have to do.”
Everyone stopped talking. People were politely leaving the room or turning their backs as if they couldn’t hear the conversation. However, Cissy was loud enough that there was no way not to hear her.
“Mother.” Liz stepped up beside Cissy. “You’re upset, and—”
“If she had any morals, she’d leave.” Cissy glared at Rebekkah. “She’d let Maylene’s real family have what’s rightly theirs.”
For a moment, Rebekkah was too stunned to react. She was sickened by the idea that Cissy’s hostility was over something as petty as money and things. Had the years of anger toward Rebekkah and her mother been because of Cissy’s greed?
“Get out,” Rebekkah said softly. “Now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Get out.” Rebekkah stepped away from Byron, putting herself closer to Cissy, but not too close; she kept her arms at her sides to stop herself from grabbing hold of the woman and tossing her out. “I am not going to stand in Maylene’s home and have you do this. I get that you’re angry about the funeral, but you know what? I’ve watched Maylene do the exact same thing when you started caterwauling, but she’s not here now to tell you to stop making a spectacle of yourself.”
Both twins were now standing beside their mother. Teresa had taken Cissy’s arm in her hand in a gesture that could be either supportive or restrictive. Liz stood with her arms folded over her chest. The twins, like everyone else in the room, were silent.
Rebekkah didn’t move. “I never wanted you to hate me, and God knows I’ve tried to make nice with you, but right now, I don’t care. What I care about is that you are disrespecting Maylene in her own home. You have two choices: you can act civil, or you can get out.”
Cissy shook off Liz’s hold and stepped forward. Her voice was lower now as she said, “I’ll never bother you again if you release your claim on my mother’s bequests. Just walk away from here, Rebekkah.”