Eighth Grave After Dark

  “What’s down there, sweetheart?”

  Her gaze dropped to her saddle shoes, her hands wringing nervously.

  “Is it you?” I asked. Did the priest kill her and dump her body in a well?

  Without looking at me, she shook her head.

  It hit me then. I sat back on one leg. “Is it him?” I asked her. “Is it the priest?”

  She closed her eyes as shame consumed her. I had to admit, I didn’t expect that. Did she kill him? Or maybe he attacked her and she’d defended herself. It could have been any number of situations.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  She stepped forward and held out her hand. I took it, but wasn’t sure what she wanted until she nodded and closed her eyes. She was allowing me access to her memories.

  They catapulted me back to a moonless night slick with freezing rain. I saw her journey through her eyes as she ran. Fear thundered through her. As she climbed as high and as fast as she could, her shoes slipped in the mud. But someone caught her wrist. Someone else was with her. Another young novice like herself. One whom she loved with all her heart and soul. It was hard to see her clearly through the rain, but the nun had features similar to Beatrice’s. And she was just as scared.

  Beatrice’s fear paralyzed me. Her heart beat so hard, it hurt. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill them both. One of them, and he didn’t know which, had written to the bishop, accused him of forcing himself upon her. He’d been drunk, he said. He didn’t remember doing it, he said, let alone which girl it was. But he was not about to lose his entire career, his livelihood, over a whore. And since he didn’t know which one he’d accosted, he was going to kill them both. They saw it in his eyes when he asked them for help with a pen outside. They’d gone with him, feeling safe since there were two of them. They’d been wrong.

  He swung a hammer, hitting Beatrice’s friend on the temple, and they ran into the night. Holding hands, they found a spot and hid from him. But he was not about to give up the search easily. He kept at it for what seemed like hours. Eventually, he found them.

  The girl she was with motioned for her to run and then lunged at the priest. Beatrice couldn’t, though. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave her friend. Instead, she attacked the man from behind. He was choking her friend. She beat his head with her fists and scratched at his eyes, but he elbowed her in the face. The force knocked her back against a tree and she lost consciousness for a precious few seconds. When she came to, her friend lay motionless, his fingers so tight around her throat, she’d turned blue.

  He shook the girl, squeezing the last remnants of life out of her as hard as he could, then let her go and came after Beatrice. She no longer cared. She gaped at her friend, unable to process the fact that she was gone. The priest walked toward her slowly, suddenly interested in her again. He would have his way with her before he killed her. Or after. Either way, he would win.

  No, she thought. She brought out the knife she’d taken from the kitchen. The one she’d been carrying around since that night. To use on him. To protect herself. But she decided to use it on a part of him instead. The baby he’d left inside her body. He stopped and watched as she took the knife into both hands and plunged it into her abdomen.

  He watched for a while, surprised, then shrugged. She’d done the work for him. When she fell to her knees, a searing pain paralyzing her, he walked back to the girl and dragged her higher up the mountain. Beatrice watched as he pulled back a wooden cover of some kind and dropped her friend into a well. He turned to come back for her, but the rain had softened the ground. He slid, caught himself, then slid again and toppled over the side and into the well.

  She heard him groaning at first; then he came to and started yelling for her to get help. Instead, she crawled to the well, her hands and stomach covered in blood, and pushed the wooden cover with all her might until it canopied the entrance. His screams faded as the barrier slid into place, but they were still audible. So she worked for an hour, dragging dirt and grass and tree branches to cover the wood. To insulate the sound.

  Finally, his screams were barely a whisper on the wind. With grief consuming her, she walked farther into the woods until the sun came up and drenched her in its light. Dreaming that it was God. Dreaming that he would forgive her, that he would touch her face as gently as the sun and welcome her home. She took her last breath thinking only of one person. Her twin sister. The girl lying at the bottom of a well with a murderer.

  Her heart contracted for the last time, and then she was no longer cold.

  I jerked away from her, fought to catch my breath, struggled to keep at bay the wetness threatening to spill over my lashes. I lost. Fat, hot tears streaked down my face as I looked at her.

  “Beatrice, I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head. Pointed to herself, and finger-spelled, “Mo.”

  “Mo? That’s Beatrice in the well?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you Deaf?”

  She shook her head, curled one small hand into a fist and held it over her mouth.

  “You’re mute. And your sister?”

  Her signing was archaic and not really American Sign Language. It was a jumble of signs she’d probably done at home with her family, gestures, and ASL. I did understand that her sister could talk, but that night, she didn’t want the priest to know which girl he’d raped. So she’d refused to talk, refused to give away which sister was the threat. She’d given up her life for her twin, who had been mute most of her life. The priest knew that, and had believed that disability would keep her from speaking up for herself. He’d been wrong.

  “Mo, I’m so sorry.”

  She was crying, too. All the emotions I felt came straight from her. Her heart had been ripped out that night. Her life and her happiness stolen. But the worst part was the loss of her beloved sister.

  She signed to me again, and it took three times for me to figure out what she was asking. I felt stupid and inept for making her repeat herself so much. But I finally figured out she was asking me if God hated her because she let a man lie with her. Because she got her sister killed and then killed herself. Because she took away the life he’d given her.

  “Can he forgive me?” she asked. “If I do something good?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” I said, standing up, after some effort, and hugging her. “He doesn’t hate you. I promise with all my heart. You did do something good. You tried to save your sister.” I set her at arm’s length. “You can cross through me if—”

  I heard something before I could finish. A crack. A sharp crack. Like wood. And I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be crazy if—?

  Yep. The cover broke beneath my weight. My eyes wide, I gazed at Mo. She gazed back. Then I dropped.

  11

  GOD GIVES US ONLY WHAT WE CAN HANDLE.

  APPARENTLY, GOD THINKS I’M A BADASS.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  The wood didn’t exactly break cleanly. It scraped across my back and arms as I fell, but I managed to grab hold of a slat on the way down. I hung there, my legs dangling. A jagged point had torn into my face by my ear and up across my forehead. I didn’t realize it until my vision blurred due to the blood gushing from my head.

  Mo tried to pull me up, but there was simply no way. I weighed too much. It was Beep’s fault. Apparently, she weighed around eighty-seven pounds. My ribs burned and I had a difficult time breathing, but I took in a lungful of air and was just about to scream for my husband when the plank I held on to for dear life broke.

  I dropped longer than I thought I would have, falling into a deep pit of darkness. In that instant, I prayed there would be water at the bottom. My prayers were not answered. I hit hard. My legs crumpled beneath me. My hips exploded with pain as my femurs drove into the sockets by the force of the sudden stop. The drop knocked the air from my lungs, and I raised my arms over my head, trying to catch my breath. Both those tasks caused jolts of excruciating pain in my side. I’d cracked a rib. P
ossibly more.

  The ground was uneven beneath me, and in the back of my mind I knew I was sitting atop the bones of at least two people. I fell back against the side of the well. Most wells in the area weren’t dug so wide. They were just wide enough for small children or animals to fall in. This was a bona fide well with lots of elbow room. I was lucky. I could have been stuck in a pipeline. Beep could have died.

  Mo appeared beside me. My question was, why didn’t Reyes? He loved to pop in when I was in mortal peril. What the heck?

  There was just enough space for Mo to stand beside me. Had she been alive, it would have been terribly cramped. As it was, she could stand half inside the wall of the well.

  I glanced around and could see two things. The round top of the well, which reminded me of a horror movie I’d seen, and Mo. I could’ve seen Mo no matter how much light I had. Or didn’t have. But the light seemed to stop about halfway down the well.

  Tree roots zigzagged across the opening above me. That would explain some of the burning I felt on my back and arms. And I honestly didn’t know if I was sitting on more roots or bones. Either way, this was not a place I wanted to stay long.

  “Reyes,” I said weakly. Screaming for help was no longer an option.

  “I’ll go get help,” Mo signed, but before she could go, Reyes appeared at last, his incorporeal form shrouded in a massive undulating robe. It filled any leftover space.

  Mo fell back against the side of the well, her eyes wide.

  “It’s okay, hon,” I said through gritted teeth. “He’s with me.”

  His incorporeal form disappeared, and I heard someone running and then sliding to a halt above us. Dirt trickled down from overhead.

  “What the hell, Dutch?” Reyes asked.

  I was in too much pain to offer a smart-assed comeback. And though there was no water in the well, I was wet. Very wet. I closed my eyes, mortified. My water had broken. This could not be good.

  I heard Reyes whisper above me, the sound echoing around me, the walls like an amphitheater. “Osh’ekiel,” he said.

  Osh would be there soon. He’d probably bring Garrett as well if he was still at the house.

  I was safe. I knew I was safe. With that thought, I decided to drift off for a while. Regain my strength. Gather my thoughts.

  Reyes yelled at me, but I couldn’t stop my fall into oblivion. It certainly felt better there.

  * * *

  I heard arguing overhead. Every once in a while, a voice would drift down to me. Osh. Garrett. Uncle Bob. Poor Ubie. Reyes and Cookie argued with him. He wanted to risk it and have me medevaced to Albuquerque. He didn’t understand the consequences of such an action. It might take the hellhounds a while to find me, but find me they would.

  I didn’t care at that moment, though. If it would save Beep, then we needed to risk it. I tried to tell Reyes that, but no one was listening to me.

  “Charley!” Cookie called out to me. She was hysterical, racked with sobs. I felt bad that I was causing such uproar.

  “I’m okay,” I said, and looked over at Mo.

  “What can I do?” she asked. Either that or she said I needed to dye my hair. Maybe it was time. I was getting older now. Had a family and a kid. Almost. I needed to be more adultlike. Dye my hair. Get my nails done. Go to water aerobics.

  “What the fuck?” Osh asked me.

  He grinned down at me from up high. It actually wasn’t so deep as the fall that lasted forever would have me believe, but it was deep enough to make getting me out of there a problem.

  There it was again. A pain across my stomach and abdomen that crept around to my back. Crap on a cracker. I was in labor.

  “So, guys,” I said, looking up at heads in a circle. It would have been comical if— Who was I kidding? It was comical. “My water broke. I’m in labor, so if we could just hurry this along. Also, I think I broke a rib. Or two. And possibly my hips. And my ankle hurts.”

  “The way I see it,” Osh said, “you got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out of it.”

  Cookie whacked the back of his head.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Who’s the girl?” Quentin asked, his signs difficult to read from my vantage.

  I tried to sign back, to no avail. “Amber, can you tell Quentin this is Mo? She’s mute but uses mostly home signs. I need a Deaf interpreter.”

  She relayed my message and I could hear Artemis whimpering in the background. I was surprised she wasn’t down here with me. After a moment, Quentin nodded.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at Mo, “are there any neighbors close by with a rope of some kind?”

  “Yes,” she said, pointing repeatedly. I’d been at the convent all this time but had no way of visiting our neighbors. Even if I could have ventured out, we were trying to keep to ourselves, to allay any questions our new neighbors might have about why we were living there, so I had no idea what lay beyond our holy border. “Quentin, can you let her lead you to them? We need rope and boiling water.”

  “Why boiling water?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. They just always boil water when someone’s having a baby.”

  “Not the boiling water,” Reyes said to Quentin. “But we do need rope or ties or, better yet, mountain climbing gear, but that’s aiming high.”

  He nodded and Mo disappeared to lead them to the closest neighbors. Hopefully they’d have at least one item on our list.

  “Can you lift me out of here?” I asked Reyes, only half teasing.

  He didn’t smile. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. I need some ibuprofen. Or some morphine.”

  He nodded. “I’ve called Katherine.”

  “Katherine the Midwife. You have to say her full name.”

  “She’s on the way,” he continued without even cracking a smile. I was losing my touch. “But it’ll take her almost an hour to get here.”

  “Okay. I’ll wait,” I said, just as another spasm ripped through me. It made breathing impossible with the rib situation. I grabbed hold of a tree root—hopefully—nearby and squeezed.

  “Lower me down,” I heard someone say. “I was a pediatrics nurse, and I even helped deliver a few babies in my day. I need to check her.”

  No way. They were going to put me in an enclosed area with Denise?

  “This won’t hold,” Reyes said.

  “It won’t hold you, but it’ll hold me. We’re risking the baby’s life.”

  “If it doesn’t and you fall onto her—”

  “I won’t. I’m the smallest one here besides Amber, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t know what to look for.”

  I drifted away again, wondering how far under the dirt the bones were. Someone needed to know that they were here.

  I looked up to tell them, but found myself staring at a butt. A butt I’d recognize anywhere. It was Denise’s, and she was being lowered with sheets that had been tied together. She was so going to fall on me. I closed my eyes as dirt tumbled down on me, and it felt good and I fell into oblivion again until an excruciating pain jerked me out of it.

  “I hate labor!” I yelled, but it came out as a whisper.

  “Here,” I heard Denise say before feeling the rim of a water bottle at my mouth. She’d brought Katherine the Midwife’s case with her. “I called Gemma. She’s on the way, sweetheart. You just hang in there.”

  I pushed it away. “Were you possessed? Is that why you’re being nice to me?”

  She laughed softly. Like laughed. At something I said. Oh yeah. She was possessed. Bedeviled. Entangled in Satan’s snare.

  She lifted a bottle to my mouth again. “Just a tiny sip,” she said. “Once you go into hard labor, you can’t eat or drink anything. I need to see how far along you are, but it’s too cramped.”

  “I was fine until you showed up.”

  “Can you get onto your knees?”

  Now she was just expecting miracles. “My femurs have been shoved into my hip sockets.”

  “If
that were true, you would be screaming in agony. You may have pulled some tendons, though, so be very, very careful.”

  She was standing over me and slowly slid to her knees. Moving one of my legs, she parted it at the knee, and while it hurt, it wasn’t excruciating. She tried the other one, with the same results. “If I pull your arms, can you grab hold of my shoulders and get into a crouching position? It’ll help with delivery if it comes to that.”

  “Delivery?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than normal. “No way.”

  “Hon, we may not have a choice. We need to be prepared.”

  “Like the Boy Scouts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, I can try.”

  “First we’re going to have to get your pants off.”

  “Oh, hell no,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. “We have an audience.”

  “And we,” she said, smiling at me, “have a sheet. Several, in fact.”

  With Denise’s help, I got onto my knees and we managed to get my pants off me.

  “Can’t the guys just lift me out of here with the sheets?”

  “No, it’s too big of a risk. If you fall again—”

  “You could have fallen on me. Why was that not a risk?”

  “Charley, every risk has to be weighed. It was riskier for you and for the baby for me not to come down here and check you. But it’s riskier for you both if the sheets don’t hold and you fall again. What is that?”

  She pointed to my left. I’d been sitting on a skull. “So that’s what that was. Killed my tailbone.”

  “Is that—?”

  “A skull. Yes, we have to tell people. There are two bodies down here.”

  Even in the low light, Denise’s face paled visibly. It was awesome.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, We need to get a sheet under you, then I’m going to check you.”

  It took some creative thinking, but we managed to get the sheet mostly underneath me.

  She’d brought gloves from Katherine the Midwife’s stash and put them on. “Can you straighten up just a bit?”