The Bone Garden

by Heather Kassner

  “Look,” Irréelle said, and then read aloud so Lass, still seated on the floor, could hear as well. “‘I will rest, unmarked by regret or grave—’”

  The floorboards creaked. Irréelle lifted her eyes from the notebook.

  Miss Vesper stood in the doorway. Her blue eyes pierced the moonlit room, as bright as distant stars.

  “Oh, do not stop there,” she said, words spiking the night.

  Irréelle could not speak. Her throat closed up. Beside her, Guy froze, and at her feet, Lass pinched Irréelle’s leg.

  “Have you lost your voice? Then I shall finish it for you.” Miss Vesper closed her eyes and recited the lines from the journal. “‘I will rest, unmarked by regret or grave, very clearly marked by love.’”

  Irréelle hung on the words. Yes, of course, she thought, as the pieces of a complicated puzzle began to come together in her mind. But in the next moment, her thoughts scattered.

  Miss Vesper’s eyes flashed open and she took a slow step forward.

  28

  The Shape of Things

  The air quivered with energy. All the bones in Irréelle’s body tingled and they ached to move forward.

  “Did you think you would go undiscovered? Try as you might to be quiet, I can always hear the cracking of your bones.” Miss Vesper held up her hand and tugged on invisible strings, calling Irréelle to her. “You have tested my patience.”

  Irréelle resisted, straining to hold still bones that no longer wanted to obey. “We were only trying to help.”

  Miss Vesper’s face darkened. At her back, vials clattered in the racks and lines splintered their length. She bowed her head, jaw clenched tight. The vials shattered all at once. Bone dust and glass burst forth.

  Uncontrolled, it swirled around Miss Vesper, faster and faster. Her hair flapped behind her. Shards of glass nicked her skin.

  Tempering her rage, she sucked in a breath. When she released it, everything crashed down, shuddering with such force that pieces of broken glass gouged the floor.

  “Come.” A jolt thudded in Irréelle’s chest, as if Miss Vesper had snatched hold of her ribs and pulled.

  Guy lurched around the side of the table. He must have felt it too, the most delicate thread tugging him toward Miss Vesper. His boots crunched over the glass. And sitting at Irréelle’s feet, Lass began to rise.

  Irréelle struggled against the tether and managed to regain control just long enough to press her hand to Lass’s shoulder, holding her there in the shadows. “Keep down,” Irréelle hissed between clenched teeth. If Miss Vesper had not seen her and was not tugging her forth, there was no reason for Lass to expose herself.

  Lass frowned but remained huddled out of sight. At least one of them would be safe.

  Another twinge rocked through Irréelle. She staggered around the table like her body was not her own. I am something more than a simple creature, she reminded herself. I have a heart that beats wild and a brain full of thoughts. If only her body could rebel as much as her heart.

  Her feet clomped unevenly, more so than usual. All the while, Miss Vesper stared her down, pupils dark as pits. Purple circles formed under her eyes as she commanded Irréelle closer.

  Irréelle tensed her limbs, slowing but not stopping her progression. Guy jerked forward, grumbling and sour-faced. In this manner Miss Vesper led them out of the attic and down, down, down the stairs.

  When they reached the first-floor landing, Miss Vesper turned to them. Her face caught both light and shadow, giving her features a strange imbalance. “If you only came when I asked, I would not have to impose my will.” She fanned her face with her hand. “But I rather enjoyed it.”

  A dimple dotted her cheek when she smiled. However, every other aspect of her perfect visage had come undone with her efforts, like a once pretty doll with its seams unstitched and its fillings ripped out. Her hair no longer fell in neat waves. It tangled wild around her face, uncontrolled in a way she never would have approved or allowed but now seemed quite unconcerned with. Not a finger went to fix the errant strands or to straighten the collar of her dress.

  Her face was flushed and splotchy, and at her temple, a vein pulsed. Broken capillaries had burst on the apples of her cheeks. Thin and red, they spread out beneath her skin like cracks in the earth.

  A thin trail of blood trickled from her nostril.

  She dabbed at her nose, and her fingers came away dripping and red. “I have not had to strain myself in this manner in such a long time.” Her gaze shifted to Guy. “Not since the day you entered the underside of the graveyard without intending to return. I had to move ever so much dirt for the passageway to collapse.”

  Guy blanched. “You did that? You collapsed the tunnel on me?” His hoarse voice was no more than a whisper.

  “How could you?” Irréelle cried. “How could you do such a thing?”

  “Because he was going to run away. He would have exposed me!” Miss Vesper slipped a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the blood from her fingers and face. She sniffed. “Besides, I can do whatever I like. He is no more than an extension of my imagination tied to old bones.”

  “He is real,” Irréelle said with a rush of heat in her belly. The words came fast and fierce and unexpectedly. But that was how she thought of him, or at least wanted to think of him, even though it conflicted with how she thought of herself.

  “He is not.” Miss Vesper folded the handkerchief with still-shaking hands and tucked it out of sight, but Irréelle did not miss the embroidered initials.

  Guy must have seen them as well, for he said, “We know your secret. We know what you are and will stuff you back in your coffin.”

  Miss Vesper’s nostrils flared, but instead of looking angry, she looked terrified. Her hand lashed out like a claw, diamond ring glinting, and she snatched hold of Guy by the forearm. Her fingernails, so inappropriately pink, tore through his sleeve. “Never,” she said, her face only inches from his. Fast breaths wheezed in her throat, as if the very thought of the casket’s utter darkness and airless confinement was enough to suffocate her.

  He pressed on. “We’ll tell everyone you’re a ghoul risen from the grave and drag you back to it.”

  “No more,” she said, and whirled toward the hall, dragging Guy with her.

  Irréelle staggered after, but took only a few steps. Without warning, Miss Vesper turned back. Her face was calm, her mouth curved into a dangerous smile. She let go of Guy and shoved Irréelle, knocking her into the wall, and then shoved her again, right into the closet beneath the staircase.

  Irréelle crashed to her knees among the boots and boxes and the umbrella. She floundered on the floor, twisting toward the doorway.

  Miss Vesper blocked the way. “Stay,” she said.

  The door slammed shut. The lock clicked into place. Irréelle found herself wrapped in darkness once again. Only a fine line of light edged under the door.

  Guy shouted her name. She called back to him, but her voice bounced off the walls, a too-loud sound in a too-small space. From the hall, something clattered on the floor. Something else hit the door. Footsteps shuffled by and then receded.

  “Guy,” she said again, frantic. “Guy!” He made no response, and she could not help but think of the very worst. The thought was too awful, Guy too brave and whole, but all the same, Miss Vesper might do away with him.

  With shaking hands, Irréelle brushed off her knees. Reaching up in the dark, she pushed at the coats hanging from the rod above and scrambled to her feet. Narrow and low-ceilinged, the space was tight even for someone as small as Irréelle. Her head smacked into the underside of the staircase. She yelped, bending her knees and hunching her shoulders to avoid hitting her head again.

  Although she had heard them walk away, she pressed her ear to the door. On the other side, she heard nothing. No footsteps. No voices.

  Miss Vesper could have been leading Guy back to the tunnels. She could have been calling the dirt to bury him again. And after, Miss Vesper
would come for Irréelle. And Lass too. If not tonight, one day.

  With both hands out, she fumbled in the dark for the doorknob. She twisted it this way and that. It would not open. If only she still had the skeleton key.

  She threw herself at the door and banged her fists against it, hoping Lass would hear her. Again and again, she struck the wood. She and Guy had dug through a tree and into its hollow; it did not seem impossible that she could dig right through the door.

  But no matter if she kicked or pounded or scratched, her assault left it undamaged. When she had worn herself out, her hands dropped to her sides. They throbbed.

  She fell still. The quiet was smothering.

  All was lost.

  And then came a familiar scuttling sound. A burst of hope.

  Something scratched against the wood. The door shook in its frame and the doorknob rattled.

  “Quick, quick,” she said.

  The lock snapped and the door cracked open. A sliver of light fell into the closet. Irréelle pushed back the door and slipped into the hall, peering each way to ensure Miss Vesper was not waiting there, ready to pounce. The Hand dropped from the doorknob to the ground.

  “Aren’t you clever? I feared you’d met your end.” Irréelle looked down at the Hand. “Now, where has Miss Vesper taken Guy?”

  The Hand darted down the hall and into the study. Irréelle hurried after, but when she entered the room, her face fell. It was empty. At first, she did not see the Hand, but she heard it scuffling on the other side of the desk. A scattering of papers shot into the air.

  She crossed the room and rounded the desk. The top drawer gaped open. The Hand rifled through the contents, hurling out whatever it did not want.

  “What are you doing? We can’t waste time.” Although the Hand seemed purposeful, Irréelle could only think of finding Guy, and he very clearly was not here. She turned to go, but the Hand reached out and caught the hem of her dress. It tugged her back. “Hurry, then,” she said.

  The Hand dug down to the bottom of the drawer and emerged with a small book of poetry, which it heaved onto the desk. Where the binding creased, the book fell open. Pressed between the pages was a faded newspaper clipping, yellowed at the edges.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  The Hand stabbed its finger to the page. One corner was folded, and Irréelle smoothed it flat to reveal the entirety of a black-and-white photograph. She bent her head for a better look.

  Miss Vesper gazed up at her from the newsprint, standing in a sapling’s dappled shade that took up the whole of the picture. A wide smile lit up her face. A warm smile. Her hair was neither perfect nor untamed, but arranged in a simple style that fell somewhere in between. Beside her stood a man in a fine suit and tie. He did not look toward the camera; his eyes, his body, his hands all angled toward Miss Vesper. The tree’s long, leafy branches framed their forms, entwined as neatly as the engraving inside Miss Vesper’s ring and on her tombstone.

  Below the photograph there was a single line.

  Miss Arden Mae Vesper and Dr. Nicholas Montgomery Hauser announce their engagement.

  “You spy on everyone, it seems,” Irréelle said. “Miss Vesper should not have put you in her drawer if she did not want you going through her things.” Or, she realized for the very first time, maybe the Hand had never been spying for Miss Vesper. Maybe it had always been trying to help Irréelle. After all, it led her and Guy to Miss Vesper’s casket and later to her grave.

  The Hand poked the old clipping again, tap, tap, tapping at the image of the scrawny tree, as if to make its point. She pushed the Hand aside gently, mindful of how fragile the paper was, soft at the edges as if Miss Vesper had handled it many times.

  “Yes, I see.” Or at least she was beginning to see, but she could not smooth everything out in her mind as she had smoothed the piece of paper. She was missing something, like looking backward in time at a faded memory, recognizing the shape of things but missing the details. She would have to think on it later. “We need to find Guy.”

  “I know where he is,” said a familiar voice.

  Irréelle’s head snapped up. In the doorway stood Lass.

  29

  Fire

  Irréelle jumped. “Oh, thank goodness.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I was tearing through Dr. Hauser’s journals to see if I could find something to stop Miss Vesper. But then…” She paused, as if she did not want to voice her next thought, and then skipped over it entirely. “We need to hurry.” Lass did not wait to see if Irréelle would follow and turned from the room, shoving a journal into the pocket of her coat.

  Irréelle grabbed the Hand, which had crawled back into the drawer, and stuffed it into her pocket. She ran for the door and caught up to Lass in the hallway. “Where is he? What has Miss Vesper done with Guy?”

  “They’re outside.”

  Hearing this news, relief rushed through Irréelle’s limbs, an unwinding of her muscles. There was nothing threatening outside. If Miss Vesper had taken Guy to the underside of the graveyard, they could have gone down any number of passageways, and Irréelle may not have found him until it was too late. Whatever Miss Vesper was doing in the backyard, it could not be as horrible as Irréelle had feared.

  But then she caught the look on Lass’s face and the grim set to her mouth.

  They charged into the kitchen. Lass dashed to the back door, but instead of opening it, she pressed her back to it, arms out and barring the way. Her too-long sleeves drooped. “Don’t panic, okay?”

  Irréelle nodded. She was not the type to panic; at least, not the type to show it outwardly. Lass stepped to the side. Irréelle stared through the door’s small window.

  Outside, in the center of the patio, a massive fire roared in the stone pit. Flames licked the air, as if they were eager to be fed.

  Irréelle could not see Guy, but the firelight threw shadows into the corners of the yard and he might have been anywhere in the darkness. Miss Vesper tossed wood into the fire’s core and sparks rose into the sky. Leaking between the door and its frame came the scent of ash.

  Irréelle pulled back from the window. Each time she blinked, the image of the fire blazed against her eyelids, and Miss Vesper’s words ran through her head. “She threatened to burn my bones.”

  Lass’s expression remained neutral, her voice numb and flat. “She threatened to cut off my limbs. That is, more of my limbs.”

  “More?” To Irréelle, it appeared they all were accounted for. A sense of foreboding wiggled its way down her spine.

  “She promised to mend my limbs if I found the unmarked grave.” Lass pushed up the sleeves of her coat. Her left hand was small and well shaped.

  But her right hand was missing, the skin smooth where it poked out the end of the sleeve.

  Irréelle’s mouth dropped open, and Lass shoved her sleeves back down. She frowned. “It’s a strange sight, I know. That is why I never showed you before.”

  “No, it’s not that at all.” Irréelle was the last person to think someone else strange. “But I’ll have to explain later, as we need to stop Miss Vesper from throwing Guy to the flames.” She glanced out the window again. The fire blazed higher.

  “Follow me,” Lass said, and tugged Irréelle away.

  They could not go out the back door without Miss Vesper immediately seeing them, so they slipped out the front and sneaked around the side of the house, walking through the grass instead of along the path to mask the sound of their boots. They poked their heads around the corner.

  Miss Vesper stood very still in front of the fire, so close she could tip into the flames. Guy sat on the patio by her feet.

  “Why doesn’t he just push her in?” Lass said.

  Irréelle fell back to the side of the house, pulling Lass out of sight with her. “Quiet,” she whispered.

  “Well, he should.” Lass folded her arms, the big sleeves flopping. “Before she does it to him.”

  “Guy would never d
o that,” Irréelle said, even though it sounded exactly like something he might do, and then added, “I don’t know if it would do any good anyway. N.M.H. awakened Miss Vesper from the dead. Can she die twice?”

  Lass shrugged. “Worth a try, isn’t it?”

  Irréelle went hot all over, imagining her own bones aflame.

  “I know, I know.” Lass grew serious and leaned closer. It felt quite nice, Lass’s cool touch, how she whispered close to Irréelle’s ear as if they were fast friends. “But what do we do?”

  “We distract her. She still thinks I’m locked in the closet and she does not know you were with us in the attic.”

  “So she won’t expect us,” Lass said.

  “Exactly.” Irréelle lowered her voice. “And we have some other help as well.”

  “We do?”

  Irréelle reached into her pocket. “I don’t want to startle you, but I think I have something that belongs to you.” The Hand crawled out of the pocket and up her arm.

  This time Lass’s mouth fell open. She looked at the Hand. Besides the scratch the owl had slashed across its knuckles, the Hand’s color, shape, and size were an exact match to her left hand. “I can’t believe it,” she gasped. She plucked the Hand from Irréelle’s arm and hugged it tight. “How do you suppose I’m to reattach it?”

  “Not without considerable bone dust.” At least that was what Irréelle imagined, if it was even possible at all. Perhaps they could find something in the journal Lass had taken from the attic. “But that will have to wait.”

  “Yes, of course it will.” The Hand squirmed, feisty as always. “What is your idea?”

  Once Irréelle laid out the plan, she and Lass pressed into the shadows, remaining on the side of the house. Lass squeezed the Hand to her chest again and then released it. As soon as it touched the ground, it scampered away, circling back to the front porch.

  “Be careful,” Lass said, staring after it, as if she could not bear to part with it so soon after being reunited.

  Irréelle patted Lass’s shoulder. “It will be okay.” If the Hand listened to Irréelle’s instructions, it would soon be opening the back door and leading Miss Vesper on a chase through the house.