The air vibrated with its shuddering boom. Guy stumbled. Irréelle covered her ears. Only it was not the thunder that had startled her but the slap of wings on air. She tipped her face to the sky.
A cloud of bats circled above them.
18
The Girl with Dark, Dark Eyes
Irréelle stared up at the dirt-made bats, which hardly looked like bats at all. They loomed above, somehow even more misshapen, as if they had smooshed themselves together when fighting their way from the underside of the graveyard. They each had four wings instead of two. And two hideous heads instead of one. They glared at Irréelle with hollow eyes.
“Miss Vesper’s creatures,” she said. Dread coiled in her stomach.
The bats dove, mouths likes gashes as they poured from the sky. Irréelle stumbled backward. Guy held his ground, grabbing a rock from the grass and heaving it at the bats. It sailed right past.
“Come on.” Irréelle tugged his arm. He tossed one more stone, for all the good it did, and then they ran.
Legs pounding, they twisted back and forth between the gravestones. But with nothing to impede their progress, the bats drew closer and closer until they were upon Irréelle and Guy. Their double wings grazed her hair. She swatted and slapped, but the bats dodged her fists. They dug their claws into the sleeves of her dress, and next to her, they reached for Guy.
Her feet lifted an inch off the ground and then another. She squirmed, punching at their earthen bodies. Dirt broke off in chunks, but the bats held on.
Guy kicked his legs and thrashed all about. He made such a fuss, and his shirt was so threadbare, the bats lost their grip, and he tumbled to the ground.
“Irréelle!” he called as the bats dragged her along. He snatched up pebbles from the walkway and chucked them overhanded, but the stones bounced off Irréelle’s shins and her boots rather than striking the bats. She winced as a rock glanced off her knee.
Guy scowled. He took aim again, and Irréelle shut her eyes, tensing, but this time the stone thudded into dirt. She opened her eyes in time to see a bat spiral to the ground.
And then another and another crashed through the air, splattering on the gravestones.
Only, Guy’s hands hung by his sides. His head swiveled as a flurry of stones arced over their heads. They struck the bats right between the eyes, and the creatures lost their hold on Irréelle.
She landed in a heap, careful not to smash the Hand in her pocket. Dirt dropped onto her shoulders as more stones met their mark. The bats broke apart, their bodies crumbling. Guy ran to her side and pulled her to her feet.
A bolt of lightning split the sky in two. It illuminated the gleaming gravestones and a girl standing among them. With one arm tucked tight to her side and the other raised for battle, she looked like a mighty soldier facing a vast army. Her arm shot out, knocking another bat from the sky, and then she turned toward them, staring straight at Irréelle with dark, dark eyes.
“Are you going to help me or do I have to do it all myself?” the girl asked, a grin wide on her face.
Irréelle and Guy ran to her side and grabbed a few stones piled by the girl’s feet. Standing all in a row, they faced off against the bats as it began to rain. It soaked them in seconds.
Irréelle hurled a pebble, nicking the wings of a charging bat. Guy threw stone after stone, each one flying more wild than the one before. And the girl who had come from nowhere raised her whip-fast arm over and over, never missing her target.
Guy clenched his jaw and side-eyed the girl. “Who are you?”
The girl’s tongue poked out of her mouth as she aimed. “I’m Lass.” Another bat plummeted to the grass.
The ones that remained circled warily and clumsily. They flew for shelter, but too late. Bit by bit the wind and rain washed them from the sky. They slopped to the ground, dirt turned to mud. Their remains clotted the grass.
The water running down Irréelle’s face could not diminish her smile. “Thank you.”
Exactly matched to her dark, dark eyes, the girl’s short, curly hair was as black as the raven’s feather under Irréelle’s bed. It glistened in the rain. She wore a long navy coat that fell to her knees with sleeves hanging well past her fingertips. Skinny legs stuck out from the bottom of her coat, and a pair of boots, much like Irréelle’s own (except without all the scuff marks), were laced up her ankles.
“You sure needed the help.”
Rain dripped off the end of Guy’s nose. He glowered. “Did not.”
Lass was cleaner than Irréelle and much, much cleaner than Guy. Although she was just as wet, there was hardly a speck of dirt on her coat or face. She did not look like a girl who would visit a cemetery in the middle of the night. Irréelle could not say the same for herself, or for Guy, who looked more like the undead, crawled out of their graves.
“Oh, I should have let those sky-rodents devour you!” the girl said.
“As if they could have.” Guy puffed up his chest.
“As if they would have.” The girl looked Guy up and down. “You don’t have any meat on those skinny bones.”
Irréelle smoothed her wet hair as best she could, folded her arms across her stomach (the left beneath the right), and wedged herself into the conversation before they said anything worse. “I’m Irréelle, and this is Guy.”
The girl nodded, tilting her face to the sky and letting rain splash her cheeks. “Are you the two who’ve gone missing? You don’t appear to be missing, since I’ve just found you. Or are you someone else?”
“Slow down,” Guy said, still snippy. “What are you talking about? What are you doing here?”
Irréelle elbowed him. She did not know why he was acting so rude. Unless he was upset he could not throw as true as the girl.
Lass ignored Guy and spoke directly to Irréelle. “She said you were gone for good.”
Irréelle glanced at the girl’s boots again, identical to her own, and wondered at their similarity. But Irréelle also noticed the subtle things about the girl, the smallest imbalance in her posture, bones that cracked when she moved, and a trace scent of cinnamon rising from her skin. “You know Miss Vesper.”
“That’s right.” The girl gave another satisfied nod. “So it is you.”
“Miss Vesper sent you after us?” Hands on his hips, Guy placed himself between Irréelle and the girl. His boots slid on the slick grass.
Irréelle pushed past him.
Lass shook her head. “No, she sent me—”
“After the unmarked grave,” Irréelle finished for her. Everything felt more and more curious.
You are not the first; nor will you be the last, Miss Vesper had told her, so very recently. And who could this girl be but someone intended as a replacement for Irréelle, just as Irréelle replaced Guy (duly noted, never to Miss Vesper’s satisfaction)? Though the girl looked nothing like her, Irréelle knew inside they were made of the same dust and bone.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“We’re going to find it first,” Guy said.
Lass folded her arms, and the long sleeves of her coat flopped to the side. “I doubt that very much.”
“You interrupted us.”
“I saved you,” Lass reminded him.
Guy opened his mouth, but before he could snarl out a reply, Irréelle jumped in. “We should work together, shouldn’t we?”
“Of course we should,” Lass said at once. A smile blazed across her face.
Guy spoke out of the side of his mouth. “How do we know she isn’t spying for Miss Vesper?”
“Be nice,” Irréelle said.
“Funny how she arrives just as the bats attack us,” Guy muttered.
“I can hear you.” A dark look crossed Lass’s face. “And I’m not going to tell Miss Vesper about you.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Guy asked. “You’re already performing her tasks like a good little puppet.”
“That’s only because I have to.” Lass frowned. “Like there’s a thread inside m
y belly, connecting me to her.” Irréelle trembled. “But my bones don’t trust Miss Vesper, so I don’t trust Miss Vesper. Not from my first breath.”
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Guy said. “And you shouldn’t return to her. Get as far away from her as you can.”
Thunder shuddered in the distance. The storm moved away from them, but the way Guy and Lass argued, Irréelle felt like she stood in the middle of it.
“I can’t. She made me a promise—”
“What sort?”
Lass fidgeted. “To give back something I’ve lost.”
“You don’t think she’ll actually keep the promise, do you?”
Irréelle was so unused to the chatter she could barely keep up with them, but she jumped in before they lost their focus entirely. She blinked raindrops from her lashes. “We need to show you something.”
“Show me what?”
“The truth about Miss Vesper.”
19
Reunions and Resurrections
Irréelle led them around the dead oak, showing Lass the initials encircled in the heart first. Then they solemnly turned to Miss Vesper’s headstone. Raindrops slid down its gray surface, as if it wept.
“Goodness,” Lass said. “You think whoever N.M.H. is raised her from the grave?”
“Yes,” Irréelle said.
“But who is it?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“Oh my.” Lass looked from the headstone to the engraving and back again. “She wants to be reunited with him.”
Of course, Lass must be right. A love unbroken by death. Most dearly and forever more. “How tragic,” Irréelle said.
“More like creepy.” Lass crinkled her nose.
Guy stood off to the side, under a thick branch that partially blocked the rain. “Can’t you see what she really must want to do?”
“I just told you what she means to do,” Lass said. But perhaps she was as curious as Irréelle, for she said (rather huffily), “What do you think she wants?”
Guy paused, and Irréelle had the impression he enjoyed drawing it out. He squeezed water from the end of his shirt. “Isn’t it obvious?” He offered them a crooked smile. “She wants to resurrect him.”
Irréelle shivered. She had watched Miss Vesper bring the Hand to life. Irréelle and Guy and Lass existed only because of the bone dust and Miss Vesper’s imaginings. Maybe she could bring back her true love too. If only she knew where he lay buried.
“Then we should help her do so,” Irréelle said.
“What?” Guy’s head snapped up. “No way.”
“Why?” Lass asked at the same time. “Bad idea.”
They side-eyed each other, as if they did not trust this moment of agreement between them.
Irréelle rushed on. “I don’t mean we should call him from the grave. But—”
Thunder rattled around them and then Guy lowered his raspy voice. “Maybe we already woke him when we started snooping around. Maybe he’s slowly, slowly rising.”
Irréelle’s eyes flicked over her shoulder as if N.M.H.’s hand might be pushing up from the softened earth.
“Right now, he’s tugging his soul away from his bones.”
A line of white lightning zigzagged across the sky. Irréelle ducked her head so Guy would not see her mouth pinch tight.
“He’s slipping through the night, untouched by the rain. He’s coming to find us.” Guy drew out each word.
“Well, good,” Lass said, without so much as a tremor in her voice. “Then he can lead us right back to his coffin and we’ll know exactly where the unmarked grave is located.”
“Oh, you’re spoiling my fun,” Guy said, but for the first time, he grinned at Lass.
However, the grin quickly drooped on his face when Lass whacked his arm with the sleeve of her oversized coat. She looked at Irréelle. “That’s what you think we should do, right?”
Irréelle wanted to be as carefree as Guy and as brave as Lass, but right then she settled for being hopeful. “Just think, if we find where he’s buried, we can ask her for whatever we like.” She pressed her hands together. “And she will have to give it to us. A trade of sorts.”
Guy longed for freedom and Lass wanted Miss Vesper to fulfill some sort of promise to return something she had lost, so Irréelle would do all she could to help them. And she would help herself as well. Once, Irréelle may have hoped for Miss Vesper’s love, but it could not be bartered or traded. She would ask for magic, enough of it to make her fully real. Maybe then she would be worthy of love. Her heart beating at a pace all its own.
Guy laughed. “You want us to trick her.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Irréelle said, but Guy was not listening, and she supposed he was right in a way.
“It’s perfect,” Lass said. “The hunt for the grave is on.”
“If only we had Miss Vesper’s notebook. It might contain some clue.” Irréelle did not know what secrets or ideas Miss Vesper might have scratched onto its pages.
“I will get it,” Lass said.
“But she always has it with her,” Guy pointed out. “You won’t be able to.”
“Oh yes I will.” Lass said it as if she had accepted a challenge.
Lass sounded so absolutely confident, but Irréelle had known Miss Vesper much longer, how watchful she was, how vengeful. “You must be careful.”
“No, I must be daring,” Lass said. “And very, very sneaky.” She smiled, and Irréelle could not help but return it.
Clouds rolled across the sky, chasing the storm and revealing the moon. Pale light sprinkled the cemetery instead of rain. The night had been washed clean and it shimmered with possibility.
Irréelle thought of the hearts in the tunnel and the one marking the tree. They had to mean something. “We think he’s resting close to her grave.”
Guy lifted a blackened stick from the ground, broken off in the storm. He poked the muddy ground around the tombstone. “He might be right beneath our feet.”
“Or maybe near the base of the hill.” At the very least, they knew he was not directly beside Miss Vesper’s headstone, for the grave lay empty.
“Yeah,” Guy said. “That’s what I meant.”
Irréelle and Guy slipped and slid their way down the slope. Lass seemed to have no trouble at all and reached the bottom first.
She lifted the hood on her coat, which was as dark as midnight shadows. “I’ll scout ahead.”
As fast as Irréelle could blink, Lass disappeared into the maze of tombstones. Irréelle would never be able to blend in so easily. She tugged on a strand of her hair, still very bright despite the mud laced within the strands.
And then she flicked it over her shoulder, following Guy. They were so close to finding the unmarked grave.
It was strange to think that locating these long-dead bones might be the very thing that would convince Miss Vesper to give Irréelle life.
Guy stopped midstride. “Do you hear that?”
Irréelle tilted her head, listening. In her pocket, the Hand twitched, awoken from its slumbering.
Something creaked in the night. Irréelle thought of caskets opening and crypt doors gasping, but nothing moved in the graveyard except branches swaying in the wind. Still, something was out there.
It came on the breeze, a whistle that tinkled like a music box winding down. Only it did not wind down but repeated the same eight notes again and again, a lullaby that would bring nightmares instead of pleasant dreams.
Guy stole behind the closest grave marker and pulled Irréelle beside him. They peeked over the very top of it. A beam of light slid between the headstones. It did not reach the one they hid behind, but they ducked anyway.
“The watchman,” Irréelle said. They had practically stumbled across his path. He must have seen the bats across the cemetery and come to investigate once the rain stopped. “We have to find Lass.”
They huddled side by side. The light swept to the left of the headstone, and Gu
y edged back so he was behind Irréelle. The whistling sounded no closer, but neither did it retreat.
And then silence fell.
Irréelle strained to listen. A footstep, a sniffle, even the nightmare-inducing whistle would help to pinpoint where the watchman stood. She rose up and peeped over the top of the headstone.
“Who’s there?” The voice came out of the darkness. The watchman had extinguished his light. “Who’s there? Who’s there, with the ghost-white hair?” he said, sounding eager and giddy, as if they were playing hide-and-seek. He began to whistle again.
She hunched down, heart beating wild (like a burning coal spitting sparks), unsure what they should do next. “Guy?” she whispered. He did not respond.
Irréelle glanced over her shoulder. He was no longer there. Down the row behind her, she saw movement. Without once looking back, Guy streaked between the gravestones.
He had abandoned her.
20
The Watchman
A small breath escaped between her lips.
It could not have been any louder than the rustling of leaves blowing in a breeze or a bird’s wing striking the air, but the watchman spoke just after, as if he had heard her. “Who’s there? Come out, come out.”
The Hand darted from her pocket and up the front of her dress. Then it jumped, not down to the ground but straight for her face. It covered her mouth, fingers spread chin to cheek. She looked at it cross-eyed and latched on to it with both of her hands. She pried and pulled, but it refused to budge.
The watchman’s voice came closer, each syllable drawn out. “I’ll find you.” There was a note of certainty—and horrid delight—in his tone.
“Find you I will,” he sang.
The Hand pressed down against her mouth, but she was glad for it now that she knew it only wanted her quiet. Without it, she might have shouted a warning for Lass or called out for Guy, which would not have helped any of them in the least.
Although she did not understand why he had abandoned her, she tried to believe he had good reason. So long as he gets away, she thought, determined to cast off disappointment, far away, just as he wished it.
The Bone Garden Page 9
