Page 89 of Jar of Hearts
Geo knew the area better than Calvin did; she grew up here, he didn’t. She directed to him to her street, and as he turned onto Briar Crescent, she said, “Cut the lights.”
He did, and they were cast into darkness. Briar Crescent had no streetlamps. The fog surrounded them like a cocoon.
“I can’t see anything,” he said.
She could smell the sweat coming off him. Like ripe onions and salt. “Keep driving straight. Go slow.”
He drove down the street until they reached the end of the cul-de-sac. Only then did he seem to realize where they were.
“This is your house,” he said. “You’re going home?”
She glanced through the window in the direction of the house, the one she’d lived in since she was born. Nobody was home. The porch light was on, and through the fog she could see the faint blue of the front door.
“Not yet,” she said.
They got out of the car and Calvin popped the trunk. Every noise seemed loud in the stillness of the night. They took Angela’s body out of the trunk, and Calvin once again hoisted it over his shoulder. He handed her the penlight on his keychain, but Geo didn’t need it. She knew where the path was, and it was nothing formal, just worn-out grass leading deep into the woods she used to play in when she was a small child. The light of the moon was just enough.
Geo knew that at any point, a neighbor coming home late from a party could have seen them pulling something long and heavy and wrapped in a blanket out of the trunk of Calvin’s car. At any point, a neighbor with a full bladder could wake up to use the bathroom, glance out the window, notice the Trans Am parked at the edge of the cul-de-sac, and feel compelled to come outside to investigate. At any point, a neighbor who couldn’t sleep might put her book down to go look out the window at the thick fog that had descended, to contemplate its secrets and wonder what it was hiding. At any point, any of the people living anywhere on Briar Crescent might catch a glimpse of shapes moving through the fog, at the end of the street, near the mouth of the woods, and decide to call 911 just to be on the safe side.
But nobody did.
Nobody saw or did a goddamned thing.
They stopped when they reached a small clearing about a hundred yards deep into the woods, the length of a football field. Geo hadn’t realized how much she was sweating until she swiped an errant hair out of her face, only to realize it was soaked with perspiration. She finally clicked on the penlight, the beam bright but small, using it to look around.
“This is the only place we can put her,” she said. “Everywhere else, there’s too many trees.”
He nodded his agreement. The shift was so subtle almost neither of them noticed it had happened. Geo was in control now. Though unspoken, it was clear.
“Go back to my house and go into the shed in the backyard. It’s not locked. Get both shovels and grab two pairs of gloves. My father isn’t home, but be quiet and be quick because the shed door rattles when you open and close it. Go.”
She handed him the penlight and stood with the body in the dark fog, feeling the cold air bounce off her hot sweat. She felt like she was steaming. The ground felt springy beneath her feet, and the smell was earthy, moist. The air tasted much the same, and she inhaled deeply. Somewhere beyond, there was a scuffle, a rustling of leaves, but the smallness of the sound told her it was a squirrel or a chipmunk. She didn’t panic. She didn’t move. It was almost like she was deep inside herself, away from the chaos, all the way into that place everyone has inside them but hardly ever taps into.
The place where you feel nothing.
Calvin was back with the shovels a few moments later, and they put the gloves on. They started digging. At first it was easy—the soil on the surface was dense, but soft. About a foot down, though, the earth felt hard. Rocky. It wasn’t long before Geo’s arms and hands were aching from the exertion. She paused to rest, letting Calvin continue for another few minutes until finally he had to stop, too. They had started digging two holes next to each other, separated by a foot of what felt like pure stone. There seemed to be no way to connect them to create the grave they were intending to dig.
“I’m three feet down, but I can’t seem to go any deeper or wider,” he said. “There’s too many rocks.”
“We have to keep digging,” Geo said calmly, and though she saidwe, they both knew she meantyou.
“I can’t. I’d need a bulldozer.”
“Go back to my house and go back to the shed. Get a saw. There are three hanging on the wall at the back. Bring back the big one. You’ll know it when you see it.” Even though Geo recognized her own voice, it felt like someone else was speaking. With the detached but direct tone of her voice, she could have been reading the news.
He was back again in a few moments, saw in hand, his T-shirt sticking to his skin. He’d been back and forth and back again. With every passing minute their risk of being found out grew.
But again, somehow, nobody saw.
He looked at her, awaiting instruction. It didn’t matter in that moment that he was the one who raped and killed Angela, that he was twenty-one and she was only sixteen. She was in charge. He needed her to tell him what to do.
“Cut her up,” Geo said.
“What?” Calvin said, staring at her. “I—”
“I’ll start digging another hole. If we can’t dig one big hole, we’ll have to dig a few. Cut her up.”
“No. Fuck that. No fucking way.” His face was a mask of disgust. “Are you out of your fucking mind? There’s no way I can do that.”
