The Bone Garden

by Heather Kassner

  But worse scribblings followed.

  Heads filled with cobwebs. I must brush them away, wipe clean their will, and capture it for my own. One command and they are done for. *Simple creatures.

  It seemed to confirm all Irréelle had feared—how little effort it would take for Miss Vesper to turn bones to dust.

  But the magic itself eluded Irréelle.

  Deflated, she reached the last page. The words ran across the paper upside down. She flipped the notebook around. Whereas the other pages ran thick with ink, here there were only a few brief lines, written in a hand other than Miss Vesper’s.

  It must have been the poem Lass had mentioned, for Irréelle had seen formulas and ingredients and a great many ramblings in the rest of the notebook, but never anything resembling a poem.

  She skimmed the neatly penned words. Irréelle could not be sure, as she had only ever glimpsed the pages when Miss Vesper referred to the journals, but she thought it was written by N.M.H.

  Irréelle read it again, searching the words for a clue.

  Breathe of the wind

  & with it soar

  fair skies

  Hush still the night

  & rest evermore

  thine eyes

  It had the same tone as the words on Miss Vesper’s headstone but otherwise made little sense to Irréelle. She had never seen Miss Vesper fly, of that she was certain. Maybe it was meant as a lullaby, as Miss Vesper had such trouble sleeping. Or perhaps it was some sort of goodbye.

  She closed the journal and thought over what next to do.

  After all she had read, she was more certain than ever that Miss Vesper would not honor their agreement. Irréelle would have to find a way into the attic and uncover the original source of magic.

  She needed to read N.M.H.’s journals.

  * * *

  Much later, in the darkest part of the night, long after Guy and Lass had left for the cemetery on some false hunt and after Miss Vesper retired to her room (hopefully with serum-infused tea), Irréelle reached under her bed. She was not sure if she would find her box or if Miss Vesper had thrown it away, so when her fingers brushed its edge, she smiled.

  With both hands, she dragged the box toward her and pulled off the lid. Inside, the feather lay where she had left it. She plucked it with her fingertips and stood, but tonight she would not use it to measure her height.

  Instead, Irréelle slipped it into the keyhole, jiggling it about until the lock, amazingly and wonderfully, clicked. She peeked out the door and looked both ways down the darkened hallway. At the far end, Miss Vesper’s door stood closed. Irréelle tiptoed in the opposite direction, stopping at the base of the spiral staircase.

  Nothing looked different, but everything felt different, as if Miss Vesper breathed beside her, a pulse in the air where she had fallen to her death all those years ago. Irréelle swept her hand through the air to calm it and skirted around the floorboards.

  But she could not leave behind the lingering, creeping feeling that Miss Vesper would awaken, aware that something was amiss. She did not even want to think Miss Vesper’s name, fearful that thoughts alone might summon her.

  Step by step, Irréelle wound up the staircase, imagining she could walk as swiftly as Lass and go unnoticed. She placed her feet lightly so the soles made almost no sound on the metal.

  At the top, she glanced the long way down and listened. Everything remained quiet.

  Irréelle turned to the attic door and twisted the knob. The lock rattled, and the springs twanged in protest, refusing to open. Lifting the feather, she fitted it in the keyhole. The sharp spine did not bend or break, but rubbed against the lock’s internal workings. For many minutes, she poked and prodded. The old lock, larger and sturdier and more complex than the one fitted to her bedroom door, groaned, but it would not budge.

  Her shoulders sagged, and she slumped against the railing at the top of the staircase. All the answers she needed lay on the other side of the door, but they may as well have been across the world, for Irréelle could not reach them.

  The feather fell from her hand, drifting to the floor far below. It made no sound, but Irréelle alighted down the stairs, as if its gentle landing might rouse Miss Vesper from her slumber.

  At the bottom of the staircase, she snatched up the feather, eyes darting toward Miss Vesper’s door again.

  Still closed. Still quiet.

  And the feather in her hand, still useless.

  There had to be another way. One that did not involve sneaking into Miss Vesper’s room and stealing the key to the attic. The very thought of it froze Irréelle in place. Her bones would not let her do something so foolish.

  She did not want to admit defeat but could think of no way into the attic, just as there had been no way out of the watchman’s shed. Except he had taunted them, had he not? By alluding to a skeleton key, able to finesse any lock.

  But she did not even know if such a thing existed.

  Unless.

  Unless it was a different sort of key, true to its name—not crafted from iron or brass, but instead, forged from the bones of a skeleton.

  Tucked in the shadows under the spiral staircase, Irréelle grinned.

  She knew where to find a good many bones.

  27

  The Skeleton Key

  The bone garden awaited Irréelle’s return.

  Candle in hand, she slipped down the darkened passageways, taking careful steps so as not to wake some dormant magic and alert the dirt-made bats to her presence. A few of them must have remained, lost in the tunnels or keeping watch for Miss Vesper. She heard the whisper of their wings around every corner. A hushed murmuring that grew louder the deeper she ventured into the underside of the graveyard.

  She edged away from the strange echo of their movements, intent on finding a skeleton key and willing to let the bats be.

  But the sounds drifted closer, as if the little beasts sought her out.

  Irréelle’s heart sped in her chest. She turned and she ran.

  Not away, but straight toward them, gathering up a rock as she tore down the passageway. Oh, those bats were asking for trouble.

  Ahead, shapes shifted in the shadows. A light flickered. Irréelle cranked back her arm and then let the rock fly.

  It landed with a thud.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted.

  “Guy?” Irréelle crept forward, holding out her candle. “What are you doing down here?”

  Lass stepped around the corner, swinging an oil lamp turned down so low it cast more shadow than light. “We’re looking for clues.”

  “Did Miss Vesper let you out?” Guy asked, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Not exactly,” Irréelle said. “But never mind all that. I’ve thought of what we must do.”

  And then she told them her plan.

  “A skeleton key,” Lass said, striding ahead of them, the long sleeves of her coat swishing at her sides. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “How will we find one?” Guy dragged his feet, eyes on the ceiling, as if he imagined it collapsing on him again.

  Not just any bone would do, but Irréelle had little idea how to find the right one. “I don’t know.”

  “We’ll ask the bones, of course,” Lass said. “There must be a locksmith among them.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’ll ask the bones’? They aren’t going to sit up and have a conversation with us.” Guy stalked forward, seeming to push past his fear of the tunnels in favor of bickering with Lass. “You probably want to invite them to the study for tea too.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Skeletons don’t drink tea.”

  But Irréelle was still focused on Lass’s first comment, thinking back to her time in the above side of the graveyard. “I saw a headstone.” They turned back, too far ahead of the candlelight for her to see more than their shadowed outlines in the glow of the lantern. “For a locksmith.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Lass grinned. “Which
way?”

  Irréelle tried to orient herself. “That way?” she said uncertainly, pointing toward a tunnel strung with cobwebs.

  Lass closed her eyes for a moment, face twisted in concentration, and then they flashed open. “Yes!” She tugged Irréelle down the narrow passageway, swiping spiderwebs out of the way with the sleeve of her coat. Guy came grumbling after them. “Feel that?” Lass asked.

  Irréelle listened to the bones. She heard their familiar hum and their unique rhythms, but she could not distinguish them clearly enough to know a locksmith from any of the others. “I don’t—”

  “Think of silver keys and sturdy locks,” Lass said.

  “How about a rusted lock and a long-lost key?” Guy crept up from behind. “And a body wasting away in a dungeon.”

  “No, no,” Lass said. “That won’t work at all.”

  “Heavy chains and iron locks?” Guy went on. “To weight a body thrown into the ocean.”

  “No more nonsense.” Lass slashed her arm through the air as if to wipe away his words. “Focus on the locksmith and his tools. Think of who he might have been.” She glared at Guy.

  “Someone crafty and smart—” His mouth hung open as if he intended to say more, but Lass interrupted.

  “Stop there, before you ruin it.” Guy clenched his jaw and Lass continued. “Someone quiet and patient, who understood the language of locks.”

  “Someone with nimble fingers,” Irréelle said, remembering the inscription on the tombstone.

  “Yes!” Lass exclaimed.

  Irréelle tuned in to the bones, sifting through their different tones. And then she felt everything click ever so gently. “I feel something,” she said.

  She looked at Guy expectantly. He shrugged, probably too stubborn to admit Lass was right. “I guess.”

  “So noisy and impatient.” Lass passed the lantern to Guy and sped up. “We’re coming, we’re coming.”

  They took a few more turns, jogging to keep up with Lass, and then she slipped out of sight. “Bring the light.” Her voice came from the darkness.

  Irréelle walked forward, and Guy wedged into the small alcove beside her. Before them lay a wooden coffin engraved with tiny keys, and within it rested the locksmith.

  Guy sucked in a deep breath, as if the enclosed space was much too small for his liking. Irréelle handed him the candle. The flame cast a shaky shadow on the wall as she knelt in the dirt before the casket. “Hello,” she said to the skeleton. “Will you allow us to borrow a bone?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t mind. Take a finger bone,” Lass said.

  “Are you sure?” Guy asked, frowning at the lantern and candle he had been forced to carry.

  “I know what my bones know,” Lass said. “I’m sure.”

  And Irréelle felt it too. The locksmith’s nimble fingers would have crafted countless keys and bypassed the most intricate of locks.

  She reached out, her hand hovering over the skeleton. She let the gentle tugging in her palm guide her and plucked up a pinkie bone. It was a grayish white, knobby at the ends, and skinny as could be. The perfect size for a keyhole.

  * * *

  Once they returned to the house, they wound their way up the spiral staircase. Lass tiptoed as quiet as a shadow. Behind her, Irréelle clutched the skeleton key. And Guy climbed up after them, all the better to keep watch for Miss Vesper (or so he said).

  For the first time, Irréelle was no longer facing the world on her own. Her loneliness, which she had always held so close, crept away.

  “What are you waiting for?” Lass asked, bouncing on her toes and somehow managing not to make a sound. “Open it, open it, open it.”

  Irréelle turned to the door. Lass squeezed in close on her right and Guy pressed in from the left. She slid the bone into the keyhole and twisted.

  The lock clicked open. Irréelle said a silent thank-you to the bone.

  She nodded at Guy and Lass. Together, they would search for the secrets to magic. And together, they might change their fates.

  One hand to the door, Irréelle pushed, cracking it just wide enough for them to pass through. Once Guy shut the door behind them, they grinned at each other, and then their eyes swept around the attic.

  “Look how high up we are.” Lass gazed out the octagonal window that faced the backyard.

  Irréelle came up beside her, pushing to her toes and looking down. She had never seen the yard from this angle before. They peered at the treetops and the path of stepping stones evenly spaced through the overgrown grass between them. Something about the misshapen stones reminded Irréelle of the underside of the graveyard. She squinted, but it was simply too dark to make out more than their vague outline, so she turned, pushing away thoughts of those dark passageways.

  Moonlight filtered through the skylights and fell in pale lines across the worktable. The jars and vials, the mortar and pestle, the spoons and scalpel, all sat in their proper places. Irréelle set Miss Vesper’s journal in the middle of the table, where it was caught in a moonbeam.

  She could not rightfully keep what did not belong to her, and she felt a smidge guilty for reading it at all (especially when it revealed so little). But bit by bit, the guilt faded as she crossed the room and ran her fingers across the notebooks in the bookcases.

  There were so many.

  Irréelle set down the skeleton key and pulled out the first volume. Guy and Lass came closer.

  “Go ahead,” Lass said.

  Irréelle took a deep breath and then turned to the opening page.

  Dr. Nicholas Montgomery Hauser.

  A shiver ran through her. N.M.H. After all this time, at last she knew what the initials stood for, who Miss Vesper longed for.

  “What does it say?” Guy asked.

  She whispered the name aloud, wondering if Dr. Hauser could hear her. If he tossed in his grave, thinking of Miss Vesper.

  “Did you say doctor?”

  “Like a mad scientist?” Lass asked.

  Irréelle looked down at the notebook in her hands. She could not understand the shorthand, but certain words she knew quite well. Cranium. Tibia. Radius. “I think he was a bone doctor.”

  Lass sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled a different journal into her lap. “I wonder what he has to say about bone dust.”

  “We should look at one of his final journals,” Guy suggested, pulling the very last notebook from the shelf. “Everyone knows the end of a story is the very best part.” He set it on the table and opened it randomly.

  Irréelle’s mouth dropped open. The same hand must have written the looping script, but whereas each entry in the first notebook fit neatly on the page, in this book, ink marked the margins and dark lines slashed through huge sections. Cramped words squished above them.

  “I can’t understand a thing. Can you?” Guy said, tilting his head from side to side. “Maybe he did go a little mad.”

  Irréelle frowned at the page. “Not mad. Heartsick.” Most of the terms and language confused her as well, and she could not read the crossed-out portions, but here and there, underlined notations jumped out at her. “It’s a record of his experiments.” Irréelle touched her fingertips to the words. “His formulas for bringing Miss Vesper to life.”

  Guy’s eyes widened. “Let’s see if we can figure them out.”

  “Okay,” Irréelle said cautiously. Her pulse skipped expectant and fast. All the answers she needed might rest in these words. If only she could interpret them.

  She flipped a page and then another, flattening a corner that had folded over. Peeking out from beneath her finger, marked in fresher ink, someone had jotted two words. She slid her hand away.

  *Simple creatures?

  It was the same notation Irréelle had seen in Miss Vesper’s journal. In fact, it very much looked as if it had been written by Miss Vesper here too, set right beside Dr. Hauser’s findings.

  A heart that beats and a brain that thinks, such is life complete.

  Irréelle wished she k
new what it was that prompted Miss Vesper to ponder on simple creatures next to this line when they contrasted each other so completely. Irréelle was about to refer to the little black journal again for comparison when she recalled one of Miss Vesper’s notations.

  One command and they are done for.

  Miss Vesper must have wanted to create something less complex than Dr. Hauser, something she could better control. Like the Hand, a simpler creature without heart or brain. Be still, all Miss Vesper had to say for it to collapse. Could it be that Miss Vesper was unable to control Irréelle and her friends in this manner? A tremulous hope surrounded her, too fragile to voice.

  “Is there anything about the unmarked grave?” Guy asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Not that I have seen,” Irréelle said. In truth, she had not been thinking of the unmarked grave at all, only of finding the source of the magic.

  “Let me have a look.” Guy angled Dr. Hauser’s journal in his direction.

  “It’s like reading a book of nonsense,” Lass said from the floor. She licked a finger and turned the page. “That mushy poem is in here again. And listen to this. ‘Recited by a true heart, love blooms welcome and love gentles farewell.’” She repeated the final word, drawing it out soft and ghostlike. “Farewell.”

  “Be cautious,” Irréelle warned, unsure what might call forth the magic. She did not want Lass to disappear before her eyes.

  But nothing at all happened.

  “No, no, this is better,” Guy said. He poked his finger to the script. “‘Red, red blood transforms bones and from the dirt new life groans.’”

  “Gross,” Lass muttered.

  “See what else you can find,” Irréelle said.

  They all bent their heads over separate journals, reading silently for many minutes. Irréelle memorized all she could, the words like a lifeline.

  Cinnamon quickens the pulse. And five pages later: Love sparks the heart.

  Dr. Hauser wrote frequently of love. As if it might be the most important element of magic. She found the word again, on the next page.