As Jack had only just pointed out to me that morning, science had never been my strongest subject, and my knowledge of what a human skeleton was supposed to look like was more than a bit limited. As I ran my eyes up the legs and continued up the vertebrae, however, it became clear that even without doing well in my preliminary anatomy course at Bickerby, there was something very wrong with Tommy Perenna's skull.
“What happened to his head?”
Jack raised his eyebrows and peered over the corpse to see what I was talking about.
“Jesus,” he said. “That can't be good.”
The boy's skull – or what was left of it – was all but shattered. Fragments of bone had been laid where the cranium was supposed to have been, and only a piece of his jaw was recognizable on the pillowed surface.
“Someone had bad aim,” he commented.
I frowned as I continued to stare at the body, something odd scratching at the back of my mind.
“And they were grouse-hunting?”
“Yes, Nim, they were grouse-hunting,” Jack said tiredly. “I don't know what your obsession is with that bird, but it's probably not healthy.”
Ignoring him, I continued to frown down at the body.
“How tall do you think he is?”
“Excuse me?”
“His height,” I repeated, running my eyes up and down the bones as I tried to estimate it myself.
“Are you serious?” Jack asked. Taking my silence as an answer, he let out a humorless laugh. “Do you want me to lay down beside it so we can compare?”
“Better you than me.”
“Nim, why does his height matter?”
“Because he was grouse-hunting,” I replied. “So how tall do you think he was?”
Jack shook his head wearily.
“I don't know,” he said, looking over the bones as well. “Taller than either of us, I'd say. Maybe … six-one? Six-two?”
“Yeah, that's what I'd guess, too.”
“And why does it matter again?” Jack persisted. “And don't say grouse-hunting.”
“I won't say it, but that's the reason.”
Jack gave me a look.
“Really?” he said pettishly. “That's the best you can come up with?”
I rolled my eyes and shifted Mea in my arms.
“I'm being serious, Jack. What was the first thing you said when you saw his skull?”
“'Jesus.'”
“Right, I meant the second thing.”
Jack lolled his head from side to side as he thought back a moment or so.
“I said that someone had bad aim,” he said. “And then you went off about his height, and I lost track of the conversation.”
“Right, you said someone had bad aim,” I repeated. “But if they were grouse-hunting, and he's six-foot-two, how bad of aim would the guy who shot him have had to have had?”
Jack gave me a confused look.
“You lost me somewhere between the third and fourth 'have,'” he said. “And I still don't get why you care that he was grouse-hunting.”
I sighed.
“Grouse are like partridges, right?”
“Right. And?”
“And so they're ground birds,” I said. “They've got those big floppy tails and short wings – they don't fly.”
“I'm failing to see your point.”
“If you were trying to shoot something on the ground, how could you possibly miss by shooting six feet higher than you intended?”
“Maybe it was flying.”
“We just established that they don't fly,” I said, wondering if the horrific smell had somehow damaged his hearing. “At least not well, that is, and definitely not when they're being hunted. You're supposed to shoot them on the ground.”
“Are you sure, though?” Jack said thoughtfully. “What about that Christmas song – 'partridge in a pear tree?'”
“Are you really going to dispute what I read in a birding book by quoting a Christmas carol?”
“I'm just saying,” he said, but then seemed to agree. “Alright, so someone really did have bad aim.”
“Or very good aim,” I countered darkly.
Jack ran his tongue over his teeth, which seemed to be chattering. When the sound of them clinking together finally stopped, he paused and looked up at me.
“Wicked, Nim,” he said lowly. “You really are good.”
“At getting myself into ridiculous situations,” I muttered irritably.
The phone in my hand suddenly went out, leaving us in a spray of blackness that no amount of blinking allowed our eyes to grow accustomed to.
“Did I press the wrong button?” I asked Jack through the dark.
“Maybe. Here, hand it over.”
I fumbled to find his outstretched hand to drop the phone into, but then a clattering sound came as it fell between his fingers.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. “Don't tell me that landed where I think it did.”
“Have fun finding it.”
“You dropped it – you should find it.”
“I'm holding Mea. Sorry.”
With a noise as though he was regurgitating something fermented, he reached his hand down to pat inside of the coffin in search of our only source of light.
“Ugh – I think it fell into his ribcage,” he said in disgust.
“Aw, don't worry, Jack,” I said in mock sympathy. “It's the live ones you've got to worry about.”
“This is disgusting,” he murmured, finally finding it and pulling it out.
“Alright, well, switch it on so we can put the coffin back and get out of here.”
He didn't answer.
“Jack? Switch it on – I can't see anything.”
“Right, here's the thing, Nim: it doesn't seem to be working.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“My phone battery might have died,” he admitted.
“Jack,” I said warningly, “don't tell me that.”
“What?” he asked, feigning innocence all too well. “I plugged it in at work – the cord must be defective or something.”
“It's not the cord that's defective,” I shot back.
“Okay, this is no big deal,” he said, ignoring my comment. “We'll just slide Tommy back into his chamber, and then we'll follow the lights in the church back through the graveyard.”
Something sounded from the ground above us and we both startled and stared up at the ceiling.
“Don't tell me the roof's caving in,” I said.
“No, I don't think that's it.”
“Don't tell me it's a ghost, either,” I snapped.
He seemed to shake his head, though it was impossible to know for certain without seeing him.
“It might be the groundskeeper,” he said.
“The what?”
“The groundskeeper. You know, the guy who takes care of the cemetery plots.”
I waited for him to continue his explanation, but his silence told me enough.
“Jack, I thought you said that it wasn't illegal to be down here.”
“Here's the thing, Nim: I said it wasn't illegal for me to be down here when I worked here. Truth be told, I'm not entirely certain what the rules are for civilians.”
“And?” I said, knowing that there was more.
“Well, if you really want to know, there might be a rule or something about cemetery visiting hours,” he went on.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just that – you know – it might be illegal to be here between ten at night and five in the morning.” He noted the sound of disapproval that escaped my throat and quickly added, “Don't worry: we'll just sneak back to the church and hope that the groundskeeper doesn't catch us.”
“And if he does?”
“And if he does … well, let's just say that the police probably won't be so lenient the second time around.”
I raised my eyes to the ceiling again, though this time it was out of self-pity.
&nb
sp; “This might be the worst night of my life,” I said dully.
“Nah, it's nowhere close.”
He shoved the coffin back into the wall and shut the door, and we fumbled our way up the steps and into the graveyard. As he shut the door behind us and we carefully stepped out into the snow, I put Mea down so that she could walk alongside me.
The night was far too still, and the remaining light that had been left on in the church seemed much too far away. As I stared at it and wished that I had worn warmer shoes, Jack's fingers wrapped around the middle of my arm in a tight, pinching grip.
“Jack – what the fuck? Let go of my arm,” I said, annoyed that he would choose that moment to try and frighten me half to death.
There was a long moment of silence, and then his voice appeared uneasily from my other side.
“I'm not touching your arm.”
“Fuck.”
I ripped myself away from the grip with such force that my shoulder rotated wrongly in its socket. Not bothering to note the pain, I stumbled back from the figure to my right and collided with where Jack was actually standing, and we both set off at a run without needing to utter any sort of indication as to why or where we were going. Halfway towards the light in the distance, I collided horribly with a headstone and fell back clutching my stomach, and Mea barked aggressively at it as though it had been the one to attack me.
“Nim?”
Jack circled back to me and heaved me up before I could answer. My stomach was throbbing horribly and I could barely catch my breath.
“Come on – let's go.”
He pulled me around the stone and continued through the graveyard at a hastened pace regardless of the fact that I could barely keep up. When we reached the fence leading to the churchyard, my lungs were fighting so drastically for air that my cheeks had hollowed and my chest was aching with the effort to breathe.
“Jack – just – wait –” I choked, doubling over before I could get through the gate.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he said, dragging me up as I clawed at the ground. My fingers were raw from cold and even in the darkness I could feel that my vision was going in and out of black.
He managed to get me into the yard and heaved me up the steps to the church, and we collapsed just inside the door that propelled snow all over the floorboards. Turning onto my side, I continued to clutch at my stomach while trying to regain my breath, and Jack ran a hand through his hair before kicking the door shut behind us.
The church was quiet and blocked out the majority of noise coming from the wind outside, and the dim lights cast a warm glow down on us that seemed to ease some of the chill from my skin. As I laid staring at the font where holy water was kept in the entrance way to the main room, my initial fear edged away to make room for another type of worry.
“What are the chances of the groundskeeper calling the police on us?” I asked once I was able to speak properly again.
Jack shook his head.
“I don't know. I don't think it matters too much, though.”
When I looked over at him questioningly, I could see that his face had taken on a dark expression.
“Why not?” I asked cautiously.
“Because – whoever that was, it definitely wasn't the groundskeeper.”
Ch. 9
We resolved not to speak any more about what had happened until the morning. Climbing up the stairs to Jack's room, we both collapsed upon his bed and buried ourselves beneath the comforter and numerous sweatshirts in order to get warm. When my limbs had finally stopped shaking enough, Mea crawled into my lap and I patted her fur to get the last of the cold from my fingers, and Jack lit a cigarette despite being inside the church.
“Okay, so maybe it's a contender for the worst night of your life,” he said, half-serious and half-joking.
“Told you so.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes. Despite being shaken, I was surprised at how oddly calm I felt: it was as though we were back at Bickerby evading Sanders before he could write us up for detention, and I found myself sitting with the familiar longing that I could somehow revert back to the time before everyone and anyone I had cared about had left the earth, and before I had any indication that something as horrible as the diagnosis had entered my mind.
“So it's definite, then, right?” Jack said after a moment. “Tommy was murdered?”
“More than likely,” I said.
“So you believe me now?”
I rolled my head along the plaster so that I was facing him and gave him a look.
“I believe that there's something weird about the Perennas,” I said tiredly. “So in that sense, at least, you were right.”
He grinned.
“I usually am.”
When we were standing in the churchyard the next morning with Mea, Jack pointed out the real groundskeeper in the distance who was clearing out the frozen flowers from the the funeral two days beforehand. It wasn't difficult to tell that he was not, indeed, the same person who had grabbed my arm the night before: whereas the one who had chased us had been tall and thin, the groundskeeper rivaled the size of the former Bickerby headmaster, Mr. Barker. I watched him make his way through the snow at a slow pace before shaking my head and turning back to Jack.
“So who do you think chased us, then?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Hard to say – especially since I didn't see him.”
“Not at all?”
He gave me a look.
“Sorry, but after you freaked, I wasn't about to stop and try to get a good look at his face.” He reached for his lighter and lit a cigarette, still staring off into the cemetery. “I just knew that it couldn't've been Joe, if you know what I mean.”
He nodded again at the groundskeeper, who had barely gone ten feet since we had begun watching him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Plus, if he'd grabbed my arm, I doubt I would've been able to pull it away.”
“Maybe it was a ghost,” Jack said wickedly, a grin lighting up his face. “Do you know there are rumors of them in town? People swear they've seen them down near the butcher's – which is an appropriate place for evil spirits, if you ask me.”
“I hope you're joking.”
“Not even a little. Old Mrs. Vandernorff swears she heard her dead husband calling her when she was buying stew meat on their wedding anniversary – not that she has all her wits about her anymore, mind you.”
“And yet I'm the only one who's been diagnosed with schizophrenia?” I muttered unhappily.
“People around here don't get diagnosed with schizophrenia, Nim – or anything for that matter. There's not even a town doctor, let alone a psychiatrist.”
“What if someone gets hurt, then?”
“You put them in the truck and drive them south to the nearest hospital. Look at what happened to Tommy.”
“Not sure a hospital would have done him much good.”
“No, that's true. But maybe the psychiatrist would've, given what I've heard about his family and all.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, though I wasn't sure that psychiatrists were capable of doing anyone much good if their minds were already warped beyond repair.
Jack finished his cigarette and started off for work, but I opted to stay behind. The church was rather silent during the week, and I preferred it to the bookshop where customers could come in and gawk at me while inquiring about what I was doing in the town. Tugging at Mea's leash, I brought her back inside and made my way through the main room, thinking that I might play the organ some more. Father Taggart was in his office working on a sermon, though, and as I didn't want to give him any reason to come out and speak to me, I resigned to let the music simply follow me as I walked beneath the high ceilings.
“Come on, Mea,” I said, tugging again at the leash when she stopped walking alongside me. She had taken an interest in something behind us, her head bent low to the ground as she looked beneath the pews, and her ea
rs had perked up in curiosity. “Let's go.”
Despite the fact that I looked so much like Karl, though, she paid my command no mind and continued to stare across the room. Sighing, I stepped backwards and scooped her up in my arms before taking a seat in the first row of the pew. Running my hand over her head, I looked up to where the white winter light was hitting the stained-glass windows to turn into an array of colors casting over the floorboards and my feet.
“What do you think, Mea?” I asked her softly. “Who would've killed Tommy and Anna Perenna? The parents? The brother? Someone in town?”
She whimpered quietly in return as though disapproving of the question.
“I know: probably best not to think about it,” I said dully, giving her another pat. But I had to think about it – it was impossible not to. Just as the riddle that my mother had repeatedly asked me to solve about the ending to Turandot had haunted me for years, and wanting to find Jack after his departure from Bickerby had spurred me on through France regardless of the consequences, the answer to the initial question had wedged itself into my mind and I knew that no amount of prodding or shaking would dislodge it until I found the answer.
And I rather thought that Jack had known that when he asked me for my help. He knew everything else about me, after all, and this was something no different that I had even attempted to hide from him. He knew that I always eventually got sucked into his plans and conspiracies, and that I was every bit – if not more – adamant than he had ever been to begin with. It was for that reason that he had asked me to help him, I knew, not so much because I saw things or interpreted things differently, but because he could be certain that no matter how much time stretched on or whatever else happened in the world outside of the small, shut-off one that we had created for ourselves, I wouldn't stop until it was over.
I rubbed my hands over my eyes tiredly, suddenly feeling drained. The juxtaposition of the excitement that I felt when we were in the midst of our adventures and the slowness that the world took on in the moments when I had time to think pressed against me sharply, and I knew that the latter wouldn't leave me alone, either. Just as the need for the answer spurred me on, the knowledge of what I should have been doing at that precise moment was every bit as strong. I had spent years proving that I could be normal again and secluding myself with nothing but actualities and coping mechanisms for company in order to ensure that nothing unsightly crept into my mind to make a home there again, and now it would all go to waste. The time that Karl had invested in making people believe that I could be different would be wiped away again, and the loneliness that I had kept at bay with reminders of all of my faults and firm statements that I had always been better off on my own would all become useless again, and it was all for no better reason than a dead girl whom I felt nothing for and my own selfish need for providing answers to things that had never – and would never – matter.
When I Am Laid in Earth (Damnatio Memoriae Book 3) Page 12
