Page 30 of Stay Buried

Chauncey, on the other hand, seeing me looking at her, caught my gaze and gave me a terrible smirk, the one he used to give when he’d spit on me, when he’d show me the dead duckling in the jar.

I swallowed the coppery blood in my mouth as I continued to gnaw the inside of my cheek.

“It’s like the horses, ain’t it?” Luther said. “He’s gone mad like the horses.”

“We don’t yet know that the two illnesses are related,” Uncle Thomas reasoned, his voice sounding thin, unconvincing.

“Will it be like the flu?” Michael asked, panic in his eyes. “Will we all be sick in a matter of days?”

“And how does a man who has died get up and go walking through town, naked in a snowstorm?” Emile asked.

“Witchcraft!” said Henry St. James. “Sorcery.”

“We should go see old Charlotte Albone,” said Emile. “She knows about these things, don’t she? Maybe she’ll have a potion or a charm or—”

“A blast of buckshot is the only charm I need,” Luther said.

“I think,” my uncle said with composure, “we must gather facts and do our best to remain calm.”

Luther stepped forward, so much liquor on his breath that I was sure if I’d lit a match, the man would breathe fire. “The problem is, we can’t do that, Doc. Not when there’s a dead madman loose in the woods, attacking our women.”

FOURTEENMINI

October 17, 2016

Mama came out at dawn, opened the front door, and looked down at the shattered plate, the ruined gifts strewn all over the yard. Then she turned, saw the mark on the door—the red horse like something from a nightmare—and screamed. It was more of a howl, which started low, then rose in volume and pitch until Mini was sure it was louder than the factory bell. So loud she knew that people all over town would hear it, would know just what it meant.

Mini was still in the lilac bushes. She’d been curled up there for hours in the darkness and cold, eyes on the door, unable to move, barely able to keep breathing. None of the stories she’d heard could have prepared her for this. The feeling of the red horse watching her.You, it seemed to say.Look what you’ve done.

The gold watch the knackerman had dropped was tucked into the pocket of her jeans. She could feel it ticking there like a tiny bomb. She shouldn’t have picked it up. She knew that, but it was too late now. Seeing him was bad enough. Bad enough to get the mark. But then she’d actually gone and taken something from the knackerman. Shewished, with all her might, that she could go back to last night and never leave her room, never sneak out and hide in the bushes. Then she’d be waking up now just like it was any other day.

Mama fell to her knees, crying. Mini rose up, her legs asleep, all pins and needles as she staggered toward Mama. Mini was crying now too.

“Mama?” she managed.

Mama looked up, saw Mini there, filthy, covered in dead leaves, twigs in her hair, her hands red with cold, her brother’s sweater tenting over her skinny frame.

“It’s all my fault,” Mini cried. “I wanted to see. I didn’t believe. I thought I could hide, that he’d never see me, never know I was there.”

The words continued to trickle out, but evaporated around them like a drying-up stream.

Mini’s mouth was dry as dust and she was half frozen. All she wanted to do was go inside, have a drink of water, some hot tea maybe, crawl under her thick quilt, and forget the whole terrible night.

Mama looked at her then, face contorted with disbelief and fear. But she did not speak.

Mini was more scared now than she was seeing the knackerman even.

Papa exploded through the open front door, Finn right behind him. Mama’s scream had woken them. They looked at the lawn and the broken plate with the spilled offerings scattered around it, at Mini in her jeans and sweater, Mama crouched on the ground crying and moaning and ripping up the grass with her pale hands.

Then they looked at the door. At the mark, the paint as red as fresh blood.

“No,” Finn wailed. “No! No! No!”

“What have you done?” Papa asked her, his voice as icy as it was when he got out the belt and spanked her good.

Mini opened her mouth to try to explain, but no words came. Only a strangled, choking sound.

“WHAT DO WEdo now?” Mini asked hours later when they were all back in the house, the door shut tight and locked. She was still in the filthy clothes she’d worn all night, Finn’s red sweater torn and full of tiny twigs and dried-up leaves. It was a Monday morning, but there was no going to school today. Papa and Finn should have gone in to work at the factory, but they didn’t. The morning bell rang and they only closed their curtains.