The Bone Artists

  “No, Micah, everything is not fine.” How could he be so nonchalant about this? Oliver ran both hands over his greasy hair, puffing out a sigh. “Look, man, she wants us to keep going with this and now she’s offering more money. A lot more money. So much money that I’m afraid I can’t turn it down.”

  His friend went silent, rubbing his palm slowly over his goatee, staring at Oliver all the while. “Huh. Uh-huh.”

  “Is that all you have to say about this? I just don’t get a good feeling about any of this. What are those creeps even doing? What are they using those bones for?” It came out like “using those bones fah” and it made him sound exactly like his father, with his deeper, occasionally impenetrable Southern drawl. Sabrina was always teasing him about it. She said it sounded cute, but to him it sounded trashy. Low. He was getting away from the family business, from the thing that had kept generations of his family trapped and going nowhere before. And thinking about his father just made him think of that damn text message waiting for him and for the conversation waiting for him, and how had this day gotten completely away from him to spin out of control?

  Five thousand dollars. Nothing would be easy for that kind of cash, and here Micah looked like he was actually considering it.

  “We can’t say yes,” Oliver said before his friend could respond. “We just can’t.”

  “How much?”

  He didn’t want to say it. “Five thousand,” he muttered.

  “Five grand? Are you shittin’ me?” Micah reeled back, rubbing his goatee faster now, his eyes all at once much brighter. Dancing.

  “Say no, Micah. We have to say no.”

  “You’re not interested in this? Not even a little bit?” He looked toward Diane, giddy almost, shaking his hands out like they had fallen asleep. “Five thousand is a lot. . . .”

  “I know it is.” Oliver turned away and took a fistful of his own hair, tugging. Maybe a little jolt of pain would set him to rights, put him back on the straight and reasonable path. “That shit we did is in the papers. Someone saw what we did. You have to say no,” he whispered.

  “Why me? Why do you keep saying that?”

  His friend was right behind him then, breathing down his neck.

  “Because if you say yes I’ll feel like I should, too.” Tired. So tired. He just wanted to sleep and wake up and for none of this to have happened. “Because I can’t let you do it alone, ya know? And because, God, I do need the money. I do. Damn it all, I don’t know what to do.”

  Micah’s hand fell solemnly on his shoulder and stayed there. “Don’t worry, man. I know what to do.”

  Ms. Marie Catherine Comtois lived in a white, ramshackle farmhouse set far back from the road on the route running between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Heavy, lush falls of moss dripped off the trees crowding the front lawn, concealing the house itself behind a fragrant green curtain. White seeds like snowflakes drifted through the windless day, floating with eerie slowness through the doldrums of hot, damp air.

  Oliver could practically taste the air, thick with honeysuckle from the garden that lined the front of the house and fanned out in a haphazard sprawl toward the overgrown, swampy forest encroaching on the property. It had obviously never been a great manor house, but at one time it was probably pretty and fresh, quaintly kept with green shutters on the windows and a turquoise blue door. Now the paint peeled off it like raw strips of sunburn, curling tight in the wet climate before scattering to join the tiny white seeds peppering the grass.

  Weeds had taken over the walk up to the house, but Micah didn’t seem to notice the disrepair. He certainly didn’t apologize for it.

  “Ms. Marie was like my aunt growing up,” he explained, leading Oliver to the faded turquoise door and its brass knocker. It was shaped like a mermaid. “If anyone in this damn world knows anything about these Bone Artist freaks, it would be her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she’s about eight hundred years old, that’s why.” Micah chuckled, winking. “And don’t let the old gal fool you. Back in the day she was a wild one. I’ve seen the pictures. Dance halls. Sailor boyfriends. The whole nine yards.”

  The trip felt like a waste of time to Oliver, who had already decided, firmly this time, that he was out. Briony had texted that morning, waking him out of a fog of heavy sleep to ask about the job. He had told her, in less than polite terms, to take her offer and shove it in a very specific place.

  Micah had knocked, and now, gradually, the door was opening. His friend sprang into action, holding open the screen and swiftly relieving the tiny old woman of the weight of the door. Her skin looked like water-stained paper, dark spots dotting her hands and neck in thick clusters. But her eyes were sharp, bright and searching as she looked Oliver up and down.

  “A’now who’s this handsome young swain come to my door?” she asked, giggling like a teenager, even if it did sound a little croaky on the end.

  “Ma’am, this is Oliver, Oliver Berkley. He’s a good friend of mine.”

  “You said so on the phone,” Ms. Marie said, reaching for the screen. Oliver grabbed it for her, joining them inside the house. It was stifling, a few overhead fans doing their level best to help but failing. Not even a fresh-baked pie could cover up the scent of decay and urine that drifted through the halls.

  Still, it wasn’t exactly dirty. The floors had been swept and the shelves in reach were dusted. The old lady had gone to the trouble of doing her iron gray hair in big, retro curls, clipping one piece back with a pink barrette. That was probably her best dress, too, a white sundress with a daisy motif.

  Oliver paused in the front hall, looking over the black-and-white photos of generations of family. The newest shots had been taken recently, hanging in a modern frame. Micah was in that one, standing with Ms. Marie and two women in their thirties, both with Marie’s wide, brown eyes. The older photos were cluttered with many more people, all of them glaring out at Oliver with that strange, vacant quality folks seemed to have in the past, as if the bad technology rendered them utterly lifeless.

  A few bunches of dried herbs hung above the pictures and a shelf with porcelain figures of Jesus, Mary, and a pair of hands clasped in a prayer pose. A cracked wooden placard swung from the front door behind him.

  BLESS THIS HOUSE. PROTECT THIS HOUSE.

  Trembling, shuffling, she brought them from the foyer to the sunroom on the left, motioning for them both to sit down. Cups of coffee and a cookie tray had been set out, and when Oliver went to sit down he found his cup lukewarm. She had probably set it out a half hour ago, fixing it whenever she had the energy.

  “You live here on your own?” Oliver asked, trying to make conversation.

  “Yes and no. My niece comes by every once in a while. Checks in on me and the like. Makes sure I ain’t fallen over in a flower bed to lie with the petunias.” She laughed at that and so did Micah. Oliver joined in, coaxed by her infectious smile. Marie settled into an overstuffed chair, leaving the two boys to wedge themselves together onto an ancient loveseat that would have comfortably fit one moderately sized girl.

  Oliver cradled the little saucer with his cookies in hands that felt clumsy and gigantic.

  Micah didn’t seem to notice the tiny china or the weird smells, perfectly at ease as he caught up with all the neighborhood gossip. A neighborhood that extended for some miles, Oliver guessed.

  “Now I know this ain’t a social call. Nobody brings theyselves out this far just to eat cookies.” Marie narrowed her milky-brown eyes at Micah, tipping her head to the side. “You bein’ good these days? You best not be in trouble or I’ll get Sy down the street to hide you raw.”

  “That’s just what I came to ask you about, ma’am,” Micah said, dusting his powder-sugared fingers off on his jeans. “Me and Oliver here been doing a little work for some folks down t’New Orleans,” he explained, his accent thickening by the minute, as if by passing through the door they had entered another segment of the state altogether.
r />   “What kind of folks?” she drawled, studying them.

  Oliver couldn’t help but shrink away from her shrewd staring.

  But Micah kept his tone light, cheerful even. “Some knuckleheads calling themselves the Bone Artists. Frauds, probably. Just nonsense, but Oliver got nervous so I thought it a good idea to check. . . .”

  He rambled on, but Ms. Marie was obviously no longer listening, but was recoiling, pressing herself tightly against the back of the chair. “Your family raised you better than this, boy.”

  “So . . . they’re not good, then,” Oliver prompted. They weren’t, of course, he knew that, but judging by her reaction it was worse than he’d anticipated. What tipped you off, genius, the grave robbing or the creepy hideouts?

  Marie flicked her gaze between the two of them, shaking her head over and over again. He couldn’t tell if she was shivering or just swiveling her head back and forth, back and forth. . . . “Back when I was a girl you didn’t say those words. You didn’t speak that name. You speak that name you get all that’s evil in t’world coming to you.”

  “Whatever they do with these bones—” Micah began.

  She was swift to cut him off, lifting a hand as if she could stopper his lips herself. “I won’t repeat it. I won’t say it, I won’t. These folk—these are evil folk. The Bone Artists, they steal, and then they leave—body snatchers. Body thieves. They take your bones for black magics. Witchcraft. Satan’s friend, that prince of they’s is, He curse you and you’re never right in the spirit again.” Her voice rose and then fell to a sudden hush. She shook her head one last time, frowning, on the edge of tears as she looked at them as though they had both been taken far, far away.

  “You won’t never be right in the spirit again.”

  “She’s a little on the religious side, if you couldn’t tell,” Micah had said, dropping Oliver back at the shop that afternoon. He had leaned over toward the passenger seat and the rolled-down window, gesturing at where Oliver stood on the sidewalk. “I wouldn’t take everything she says seriously, all right? We’re not talking a pinch of salt, here, we’re talking the whole shaker. I mean, come on . . . Princes? Satan? I might believe in some dark stuff but let’s not go crazy.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Oliver said, conjuring a thin smile. “But all the same . . .”

  “No, you’re right. Let’s cut and run while we’re ahead.” Micah gave him a salute and a wink, leaning back into the steering wheel. “You seeing Sabrina tonight?”

  “Maybe. It’s getting on to supper. You seeing Diane?” Over his shoulder, Oliver heard the distinctive sounds of a séance going on inside. He hated séance night at the shop but it always brought out a bunch of tourists.

  “Do you really have to ask?” He laughed, waggling his eyebrows. “Catch you later, man, we still need to do that big celebration. Don’t keep stalling!”

  “I’m not, I swear, just giving y’all time to plan the parade.”

  Micah snorted and honked the horn on his old Chrysler, pulling away from the curb and into the empty street.

  The voices inside the shop swelled to meet him, but he dodged the door, aiming instead for the family apartment. His pocket buzzed and he slipped out his phone, wincing as he read the display.

  The Dragon Lady.

  She had her answer, what more could she want from him?

  “Your answer is no? Is that your final decision?” it read.

  Oliver texted back furiously, lips pursed with aggravation. There was no doubt in his mind that he needed out. Now. She was poison and he refused to go back for another dose.

  The answer is and always will be: no. Leave me alone.

  He was just a few steps from their front door when her reply came, fast enough that Oliver hadn’t gotten his phone all the way inside his pocket. Just one word, and for some reason it chilled him more than her gaze or her sneer ever could.

  Pity.

  He jerked awake to Bon Jovi blaring into his pillow. Oliver flailed, grateful, for once, to be yanked out of his sleep. Out of dreams. A tall, dark shape had been watching him in his dreams, looming in the corner of his room, resolving into a human man but just the shadow of one. It watched him, it waited, getting closer to the bed whenever Oliver closed his eyes and opened them again.

  But now he was awake and the only long shadow in the room came from the coat stand in the corner.

  SHOT THROUGH THE HEART

  It was Micah’s ringtone. He scrambled for the phone with clumsy fingers, rubbing at his eyes, not believing them at first when he noticed the LED clock next to his bed read 3:26.

  AND YOU’RE TO BLAME

  He answered with a sigh, reasonably certain this was a butt dial and he’d just hear gross make-out noises on the other end. But no, it was his friend all right, and breathing hard into the receiver, so hard it distorted the sound, painfully loud to Oliver’s half-asleep ear.

  His friend’s voice was frantic on the other end of the line. Oliver had only heard him that upset one other time, when they had climbed a nasty old chain-link fence in Bywater and Micah had sliced his palm open on a jagged link at the top. The cut clearly needed stitches—there had been blood soaking Micah’s clothes, all down the front of his new Saints T-shirt. The blood was on Oliver, too, but somehow he remained calm, got Micah to pedal on his bike back through the neighborhood toward home. Then came Micah’s grandmother and a trip to the hospital, and it was all fixed.

  Oliver wasn’t so sure any phone call or hospital could fix this. He could hear something sizzling and popping in the background, and his friend could barely breathe as he wheezed into the cell phone.

  “Ollie? Ollie, oh shit, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. . . .”

  “Sorry? What do you mean? Slow down, man, what happened? Are you okay?”

  Tears. Actual tears. This was the first time Micah had cried, no, not just cried, sobbed. There were sirens in the distance, growing louder over the sound of his friend’s heaving, slobbery sobs into the phone.

  “Calm down, okay? Calm down and tell me what happened. Do you need me to do something? Is there . . . Shit, Micah, just tell me how I can help!”

  A long, shuddering breath. Another sob. A longer breath. The sirens were bearing down on him now, Oliver could tell, and that would mean soon Micah would have to go and deal with the police or the ambulance or whatever the hell that was.

  “It’s Diane,” he whispered. “She’s going to be okay, I think . . . I think . . . I hope . . . Oh, God, oh Jesus, please Oliver, please! The other driver—I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re okay. If they’re here. I can’t see anything. The hospital. I need a hospital.”

  The line went dead.

  “What!?” Oliver shrieked, slapping his own forehead. “No . . . no, no, no! Micah, you shithead. You ass! You can’t just hang up, you can’t do that.”

  He called back. No response. He called again. Nothing. Then he called Sabrina, shaking, knowing he would not like at all what he heard on the other end. But when she picked up there was a long, shuffling beat, the sound of bedsheets sliding around.

  “Mmfffgh . . . He-hello?”

  “Babe? Babe! Wake up. You have to get up now.” He could hear his voice going high and hoarse. Panicked. What the hell was he supposed to do? “There’s been an accident,” he said, stumbling out of bed and searching the dark for his jeans. “I’m coming to pick you up.”

  In the end, Oliver was too nervous to drive. His father woke up from the commotion, wrenching the keys out of Oliver’s hands and forcing him to wait while he got decent enough to drive to Sabrina’s and then the hospital.

  Oliver huddled in the passenger seat, on the phone with Sabrina until they reached her house, and then he joined her in the back, listening to Nick Berkley calmly call hospitals until he found Micah’s location.

  It was a blur. A haze. The only constant was the steady sound of his dad’s soothing voice and Sabrina’s clammy hand curled up in his. He wat
ched the back of his dad’s head as they jogged through the hospital halls, searching, searching. . . . How could his dad be this collected? Would he ever get that way? Did adults just wake up one day with that skill to keep a level head when everything else was going to hell?

  He hated the stark, white neon of the hospital and the sickly smell. He wanted to laugh, thinking of Micah clutching his hand when he had to get stitches, both of them telling jokes to try to keep Micah from freaking out at the sight of so much blood.

  There were no jokes this time.

  They found Micah in an empty waiting room, oddly calm as a whirlwind of activity went on down the hall in surgery. The doors were closed and nobody was let in, but from the way Micah stared intently, too intently, at the corridor, Oliver knew that something bad had happened. Sabrina broke away, racing to Micah’s side, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking.

  “Where is she?” she hissed, searching his face. “Where’s Dee?”

  “I couldn’t do anything,” Micah murmured, his eyes hollow. A bandage was taped across his forehead, big enough to conceal a large gash. Bruises had already begun forming along his cheekbones. The faint smell of whiskey hung around Micah, growing stronger whenever he gave another deep breath. “The driver . . . They came out of nowhere. I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t even going that fast, he just . . . He just came out of nowhere.”

  “Where. Is. She.”

  Sabrina slapped him, not hard, but enough to make both Oliver and his dad reach for her, coaxing her away from Micah. But the blow stirred something in him. Light danced back into his eyes, focusing quickly and pinpointing on Sabrina.

  “She’s hurt,” Micah murmured, scrunching up his face. It looked like he was going to cry again any second. “She’s hurt real bad.”

  Real bad was obviously not the whole story. They got it out of him in bits and pieces, nurses running back and forth behind them in the background. Oliver didn’t want to think about what that meant. Micah’s face was ashen. He had seen something, something terrible.