The Bone Garden

by Heather Kassner

  The Hand.

  It tumbled to the grass by her feet, stunned by the blow and the fall. However, it soon recovered and began to sidle away. Before it could get very far, Guy bent down and snatched it into the air. He held it with the palm facing up. It wiggled like an overturned bug that could not right itself.

  White strands of hair were caught between the fingers. Irréelle rubbed her head where the hair had been ripped from her scalp.

  “It did not sneak away.” She scrunched up her face, thinking back to when the scuttling went quiet. And then she remembered something—that she had mistaken for the wind—had brushed against her leg as she climbed up the hollow tree, which was more than likely the Hand first taking hold. She cringed.

  “It must have decided to hitch a ride.” Guy adjusted his hold on the Hand. It squirmed and twitched, trying to claw him. “Keep still,” he said, but it did not listen.

  She swept her hands over her dress again even though there was nothing else there to cast away besides dirt. “Why did you lead us to the coffin?” As silly as it seemed to ask these questions of the Hand, she had the distinct feeling it understood each and every word. “Why are you now following us?”

  “It must be spying for Miss Vesper.” Guy held the Hand in front of him, and it took a swipe at his face. “It’ll do whatever she wants it to do. Even lead her to us so she can capture us once again.”

  The hairs on the back of Irréelle’s neck rose, as though Miss Vesper might appear at any moment.

  The Hand struggled for release and came much too close to Guy’s face. It pinched his nose. Guy yelped and dropped it fast.

  The Hand landed with a thump.

  “Quick, quick. Get it back!” Irréelle reached out, but the Hand slipped past, and all she grabbed was a fistful of grass. Guy stomped down, just missing the tips of its fingers with the heel of his boot.

  It fled back up the hill, barely visible in the tall grass, and they charged after it. Irréelle’s calves ached and Guy’s joints creaked. His knees locked up again and he stumbled on the incline. The Hand reached the top of the hill well ahead of them. It circled the dead oak and then scampered up the trunk as natural as a squirrel, crouching low on a thin black branch. With whatever strange senses it had, it observed them.

  Guy attempted to snatch the Hand from its perch, but missed. “Come down from there!” The Hand only proceeded to climb higher, digging in with its fingernails and leaving long scratches in the black bark.

  Fists on his hips, Guy watched its progress. It stopped halfway up the trunk and then inched out onto a thin branch.

  “Maybe we should just leave it be,” Irréelle said. “And maybe then it will leave us be.”

  “And let Miss Vesper find us? No way.”

  Guy snatched a stone from the ground. He glared up at the Hand, aimed, and chucked the rock straight for it. The rock sailed past, thrown too far left.

  “I don’t think you should do that,” she said, and rounded the oak, keeping her eyes on the Hand as it scurried higher.

  “I’ll get it down one way or the other.” Guy searched for another rock.

  She was about to scold him, a tug of guilt, perhaps, for breaking two of the Hand’s fingers, when she saw the gravestone. It fell in the shadow of the dead oak, narrow enough that the tree blocked it from view from the other side. But of course there should be a gravestone here. Even though the bones were quite curiously missing from the silk-lined casket, Irréelle and Guy stood directly above a grave after all.

  “Come over here,” she said.

  “Hold on.” He took aim again and lobbed a stone at the Hand. Instead of dodging out of the way, it caught the stone and hurled it back at Guy. It grazed his temple. Rubbing his head, Guy came up beside Irréelle. “That thing’s got better aim than I do.”

  His arm dropped to his side when he noticed the gravestone. It was rather plain, a simple slab of marble the color of slate, but it was perfectly carved. The edges were sharp. Someone had etched each letter of the epitaph precisely.

  “Whose bones were stolen, then?” Guy asked.

  Irréelle leaned forward to read the inscription in the weather-worn stone. And then she read it again. She lost her breath.

  “What? Who is it?” Guy came around and read the engraving. His mouth dropped open.

  Irréelle placed a hand to her heart and squeezed shut her eyes. But the name had already burned into her mind.

  Arden Mae Vesper

  In her head, Irréelle counted to ten, and then she opened her eyes. She took a step closer to the gravestone. There was more to the inscription than the name, and she read each lovely, sorrowful line.

  A sprig adorned with leaves and blossoms was etched beneath these words, every line so delicately carved the five-petaled flowers looked real enough to pluck.

  The air swirled cold around her ankles. Overhead, the oak’s black branches swayed and groaned. Irréelle shook her head and buttoned her lips. She did not want to say it aloud. She did not want it to be true.

  But Guy leaned forward and spoke the words Irréelle would not.

  “Miss Vesper is dead.”

  14

  Little Monsters

  The words sent a jolt down Irréelle’s crooked spine. “But she’s “not.” Even to her own ears, her protest sounded weak. “Miss Vesper can’t be dead,” she said more firmly, glaring at the tombstone that so clearly stated otherwise.

  Guy looked fascinated instead of horrified. “Maybe you ought to read that line again. ‘Holds my hand empty of yours.’” Guy tapped his foot on the ground. “Just like the empty casket beneath us.”

  She felt ill just thinking of it, the coffin’s closed lid and the pounds and pounds of dirt that must have been shoveled atop it, trapping Miss Vesper inside. Irréelle gulped, imagining the pinched air and the complete darkness. And the bugs worming their way through the wood. No wonder Miss Vesper never set foot in the underside of the graveyard. It would be like revisiting a nightmare.

  Irréelle looked at the sky through the oak’s gnarled branches. She pushed away thoughts of tight, cramped spaces. “How can she be dead when I saw her this morning?”

  “Well, she must have died. But I guess she’s not fully dead.” Guy’s gray eyes shone in the dark.

  “How did she … die?” The last word came out as a whisper.

  They exchanged a look. “I don’t know.” Guy’s lips twisted to the side as he thought about it. “Maybe she choked on a chicken bone. Maybe she drowned or was murdered in the night.”

  Irréelle flinched, each of his ideas more dreadful than the one before. “Stop, you’re being awful.”

  Guy grinned, as if he quite enjoyed being awful. “Maybe she was struck by lightning. Maybe she fell out of this very tree and broke her neck.” He sucked in a breath, probably ready to rattle off a hundred more tragedies, but Irréelle went still.

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh my goodness, how horrible.”

  “She choked on a chicken bone?”

  Irréelle’s hands went to her throat. “No. I think she snapped her neck.” All this time, the truth had been right in front of her. Miss Vesper had all but told her. “She must be the careless girl who fell down the spiral staircase.”

  They stood there a moment, letting it sink in.

  “Miss Vesper’s not a girl,” Guy said at last. “She’s old.”

  Irréelle looked at the dates on the tombstone. “It happened so very long ago. Perhaps, after all these years, she feels as if she were much younger then.” Like Miss Vesper had lived a whole other lifetime, one she had not meant to leave so soon. And now, the bone dust made her ageless.

  “Well, I suppose. But how is she walking around the house, dead but not dead?” Guy asked.

  Irréelle shivered. “Magic.”

  For what else could it be? Everything Miss Vesper did was laced with magic: wilting flowers with one touch, turning cinnamon to blood, altering the structure of hair so it grew into skin. She could move the very
soil of the earth and make it fly. She must have been filled with magic, enough to rosy dead cheeks and animate a corpse. Enough to imagine Irréelle alive, and when she tired of her, to imagine her away. Or maybe, just maybe, she could imagine her fully real.

  And after that, it would be up to Irréelle to design the rest of her life. The possibilities stretched before her, overwhelming and exhilarating. She might try her hand at painting, or ride wobbly on a bicycle; she might learn to swim, diving into the lake and kicking all the way to its sandy bottom. No matter what the adventure, she imagined a boy with a raspy laugh goofing off beside her.

  But first, what could Irréelle do to convince Miss Vesper?

  “It must have been dark magic, then, bound with bone dust.” Guy raised his arms like he was invoking a spell. “Look at all that bone dust can do. It brought Miss Vesper back from the dead. It allowed her to make little monsters.”

  “What little monsters?” Irréelle looked all around, as if the dirt-made bats might thunder up the hollow of the tree and find her and Guy huddled beside the grave.

  He smiled as if he had been hoping she would ask. “Us.”

  Her limbs went cold. Not because she disagreed, but because she agreed so completely. Perhaps in agreement as well, the Hand scuttled to a lower branch (almost in reach now, but Guy was too busy staring at the gravestone to realize).

  Just below the Hand, on the trunk of the tree, Irréelle’s eyes fell on a marking she had not previously seen. She stepped closer to get a better look.

  Guy continued. “But who used the bone dust to awaken Miss Vesper?”

  Irréelle touched the blackened oak. It was difficult to see in the dark, but something had been carved into the wood.

  “N.M.H.,” she said.

  Guy fell silent.

  “Look here.” She traced her finger over the bark and read aloud. “N.M.H. + A.M.V.”

  She was used to seeing the initials N.M.H. around the house (embossed on the stationery, stenciled on the bone china, embroidered on the hand towels), but she did not expect to see those letters engraved into a tree in the above side of the graveyard. Although, of course, it was not quite as shocking as seeing Miss Vesper’s grave when no more than a day ago Irréelle had seen her very much alive … or, she now supposed, very much undead.

  “A.M.V. is Miss Vesper, of course, but who is N.M.H.?” Guy asked.

  The letters were enclosed in an engraved heart. Just like the hearts leading through the tunnel to Miss Vesper’s grave. A path made by N.M.H. to retrieve the bones. “Someone who loved her.” The inscription on the grave said as much. Most dearly and forever more fair blooms my love.

  Guy did not look impressed with her response. “Well then, where is he?”

  That question she could not answer. But it might hold the key to getting back in Miss Vesper’s good graces.

  15

  The Other Task

  Irréelle touched the headstone.

  “How sad that Miss Vesper’s grave is marked with a dead tree. And that her headstone is all alone atop this hill,” she said. “How lonesome.” Like an echo of her own life.

  From this spot on the hill, she could see all of the cemetery below and each straight row and each crooked headstone, and beyond to the very edge of her neighborhood, where the rooftops and chimneys touched the night sky. The hill was an isolated spot when everything else crowded together. Miss Vesper’s grave rested apart from it all.

  “What does she care? She’s not buried here. It’s just an empty grave.” Guy kicked the tree trunk, and the branches shook.

  “I don’t know. It just matters.” She thought of the leafy trees shading the backyard of Miss Vesper’s house, in particular the hawthorn with its white blooms, and the flower garden outside the window of the study. “A grave should be marked with daffodils in summer and sprigs of holly in winter.”

  “And what about spring and autumn?” He smirked.

  Irréelle ignored the fact that he thought her silly. “Perhaps foxglove in spring, and I should think chrysanthemums in the fall would be appropriate.”

  Guy rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”

  And then, catching Irréelle quite off guard, the Hand slipped down the side of the tree. It jumped to the ground, landed deftly on its fingertips, and ran across the toes of Guy’s boots as if to taunt him. It charged off before either of them could move to grab it.

  “I’m not done with you yet,” Guy said, racing down the hill, away from Miss Vesper’s headstone and the empty grave beneath it. Irréelle sprinted after.

  As she flew down the slope, she pushed back thoughts of Miss Vesper. For a moment, she was not even thinking of the Hand, only of the wind on her face and the speed of her legs, which propelled her so fast she thought she would lose control. But she did not tame her runaway legs. She gave in to the moment, breaking free of herself.

  Her heart pounded, a fierce beat that woke all her nerve endings. This was what it meant to be human, to venture beyond the confines of a tiny room in a gloomy house, and to feel and see and breathe in the world.

  And then her ankle turned, and the sky and earth swapped places as she fell. Irréelle tumbled down the hill, laughing all the way.

  She rolled to a stop, bruised and grass-stained and smiling.

  Guy had abandoned his chase for the Hand and stood above Irréelle, grinning and snorting. “Have … to … be … quiet.” The words slipped out between chortles of laughter.

  Irréelle climbed to her feet, fizzy-headed and bubbling with joy. “The bones don’t mind.”

  “Probably not.” Guy’s laughter died. “But the night watchman does.”

  All those bubbles floating inside Irréelle went flat. She cast her eyes through the darkness.

  “Let’s get out of the open. The last thing we want is for the watchman to find us.”

  Irréelle slunk after Guy. “What would he do with us?”

  Guy looked at her sidelong, eyes glinting the way they always did before he said something terrible. Irréelle squirmed.

  Guy raised his hand. “I’ve heard his touch can turn you to stone. Some of the tombstones, like that one with the weeping girl atop it…” He pointed, waiting for Irréelle to turn her head. “She used to be alive.”

  Irréelle scooted away from the statue, as if the watchman might reach around it and place his hand to her skin.

  “Don’t you know anything about the watchman?” Guy glanced over his shoulder, as if mentioning the watchman might draw him. He grabbed Irréelle’s hand and tugged her toward a small wooden arbor dripping with wisteria. They ducked between the vines. “Has Miss Vesper never sent you on the other task?”

  “I don’t even know what the other task is. She said she did not trust me with it.” Irréelle pinched the top of her thigh to focus on that insignificant pain instead of the ache in her chest.

  “Why wouldn’t she trust you?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “She does not want others to see me.” Not her crooked spine nor her ghost-white hair. And certainly not her misaligned limbs and awful limp.

  He met her eyes, muddled though they were. “I was happy to see you.”

  “You’re only saying that because you would have been happy to see anyone if they got you out.”

  “Not anyone.” Guy looked at his hands. “I would still be buried in the tunnels if it weren’t for you, and I’m grateful. I’d do almost anything to help you.”

  When he paused, she finished his sentence for him. “Except come back with me.”

  He frowned regretfully but did not disagree. “Sorry.” He ground the heel of his boot into the dirt.

  “But why?” His refusal tugged something loose in her chest. A space she had thought only Miss Vesper could fill.

  “She left me there,” he said simply, a world of hurt in those few words.

  Despite the sharpness of her disappointment, she did not want to make him feel worse. “I’m sorry.” She placed one hand on his arm.

  “It�
�s not your fault,” he said. “Only Miss Vesper is to blame for sending us on these tasks in the first place.”

  His words sparked something inside her, the ember of an idea. “What’s the other task? If I complete it, maybe.…” But Irréelle could say no more. It was too much to voice—the idea that Miss Vesper might magic her real, that Irréelle would never again have to worry about being imagined away. She could live a normal life, able to exist outside the shadows, no matter what she looked like or who might see her.

  She looked at Guy expectantly and lowered her voice. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  It knotted in her stomach, the pull of some invisible thread. The tether that connected her to Miss Vesper and allowed her to command Irréelle’s bones when they were near. The binding that would never allow Guy to run off, even though he desperately wanted to. “Like there is a string tugging you back.”

  “No,” he said, but she did not believe him.

  “We only exist because she allows it.”

  Guy touched the scrape on his temple. “You think she can snap her fingers and disappear you? That’s ridiculous.” But she heard the doubt in his voice.

  “Please tell me what the other task is.” He mumbled something under his breath that referred to Irréelle being more and more stubborn. “I heard that,” she said, and hid the smile that had started to form behind her hand. While she knew it was a trait Miss Vesper would despise (for she had once told Irréelle, You have no will of your own, nor any thoughts worth thinking), she liked the idea of herself as someone different. Someone separate from Miss Vesper’s ties.

  “Fine then, but the task is impossible.” He released a great sigh. “You’ll need to find the unmarked grave that is very clearly marked.”

  16

  An Unmarked Grave

  Irréelle hoped she had heard him incorrectly. “An unmarked grave that is very clearly marked? But that makes no sense at all.” No matter which way she turned it around in her mind, it remained contradictory.