Ashtown Burials

by N. D. Wilson

  In the courtyard, a door was cracked open. Behind it, sprawling sideways across a queen bed, Cyrus and Antigone were sleeping.

  Cyrus’s hair was singed in places, and his skin glistened with a mixture of soot and sweat. A patterned ring of tiny blisters stood out around his neck.

  Antigone slept with her filthy arms around a small mound of film tins and photo albums. Two cameras, both minus their glass lenses, were perched on top. Her projector, now little better than a pile of melted black plastic, sat on the floor beside the bed.

  The door swung open. A little man with tired eyes, half-moon glasses, and a rumpled gray suit stepped into the room. He coughed loudly. “Excuse me. Pardon. Become wakeful!” He thumped his fist on the wall.

  Cyrus stretched slowly, groaning. His eyes fluttered open and rested on the little man in the doorway. He blinked, slowly processing what he was seeing, and then he sat up quickly. He shouldn’t have. Someone had inflated his head and filled his lungs with ashtrays. His eyebrows were going to explode, his eyes felt like they’d been replaced with steel wool, and his mouth was overflowing with the taste of burnt tire.

  “Sorry,” the little man said. “My condolences on the motel. You were insured?”

  Cyrus shoved his knuckles into his eyes and then grabbed on to his eyebrows to keep his forehead on. He snorted, he hacked, he roared, scraping at the smoked phlegm inside him. Dropping his hands, he spat on the carpet and opened his eyes. The walls bent and wobbled. Why was he in Dan’s room? He shouldn’t have spat. Not on the floor. Dan would yell. He looked around for a tissue. No tissue. No Dan. Just the little man from last night and Antigone curled up like a snail shell.

  Last night.

  The firemen had been angry with him. Dan had been angry. He couldn’t remember how it had ended, but Antigone’s arms were full of pictures. He must have made it into her room. Or she had. He dug his hand into his pockets. Key ring in one. A thick, misshapen square of glass in the other. The glass sent a buzz into his fingertips. Lightning bug. The paper card was gone.

  Squinting, Cyrus looked up. “Where’s Dan?”

  “Ah,” said the little man. “I couldn’t say. I’m here in my official capacity. In fact …” He tugged at his sleeves, adjusted his glasses, and pulled a sheet of paper out of his jacket. “I regret to inform you that a guest of this motel, one William Skelton, died early this morning, a fatality resulting from the conflagration.”

  Cyrus blinked. “Confla—? The fire? Yeah,” he said. “I know. I was there.”

  “Mr. Skelton was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival at the hospital, may his soul find peace.” He glanced at Cyrus over his glasses. “Though I wouldn’t wager any large sums on that happening.” Lowering his paper, the little man suddenly bent at the waist to examine Antigone’s sleeping face. “Miss Antigone. Excuse me. It would be more ideal if you joined us.”

  Cyrus stood up, wobbling. Antigone opened her eyes and yawned.

  “We spoke but were not formally introduced last night. I am John Horace Lawney the seventh, Mr. Skelton’s solicitor,” the little man said. He looked into Cyrus’s eyes. “His lawyer.”

  “Yeah,” said Cyrus. “I know.”

  “And what I have to say concerns you both.”

  “Oh, sick.” Half coughing, half gagging, Antigone sat up and scratched at her matted black hair. “I feel like I ate a box of burnt crayons.” She looked at the little lawyer and licked her teeth. “You’re back? What are you doing here? Where’s Dan?”

  “Allow me to continue,” the lawyer said. He straightened, sniffed, and looked back down at the paper in his hand. “Mr. William Skelton, Keeper in the Order of Brendan, is survived only by his goddaughter and godson, both recently declared as his chosen Acolytes, and, thereby, heirs to whatsoever of his estate and property may be deeded through said Order.” He folded his paper, tucked it into his jacket, and sighed. “There. We’ve all had an eventful night, and I, for one, am glad to have survived it. I should, of course, be wearing black to deliver such news, but I haven’t been out of this suit since we last met. And have I offered you, the bereaved, official condolences on the death of your godfather?”

  Cyrus looked at his sister. She was blinking slowly, her mouth half-open.

  “Heirs?” Antigone asked. “That’s what that little card was about?”

  Cyrus coughed up another shot of char. The skin around his neck felt badly sunburned. He touched it tenderly, tracing a band of tiny blisters all the way around, remembering the burning necklace from the night before.

  John Horace Lawney VII pulled off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Could I interest the two of you in breakfast? We have much to discuss and not much time for discussing.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “Thanks, but no. We have breakfast stuff here.”

  Antigone laughed. “Who wants waffles?” She turned to the little man. “Breakfast, like restaurant breakfast?”

  “There’s a little diner not far from here, if I understand correctly.” The man raised his eyebrows. “I’ve heard it recommended by several discerning truckers.”

  “Dan!” Antigone yelled, and she limped toward the door. Cyrus followed her out into the puddled and ashen courtyard. Together, barefoot, they walked into the parking lot and stopped.

  The blackened carcass of the Archer loomed in front of them.

  Cyrus stared at it, his throat tightening, his already-singed tongue drying. This was bad. Where would they go? They didn’t have any insurance. Antigone grabbed his hand. She was covering her mouth. Greasy, soot-clumped strands of hair were clinging to her forehead, and tears were piling up in her eyes. He couldn’t do that. No crying. Not again. He’d been ten when they lost the California house. He could do better this time.

  “Dan!” Antigone yelled. “Dan, where are you?”

  five

  HELLO, MAXI

  CYRUS PEERED INTO the charred remains of his old room. Behind him, Antigone was still yelling for Dan. They had both lapped the motel and had looked inside the Red Baron and in every burnt and unburnt room that they could get into. Without the walkway, a lot of the second story wasn’t an option.

  Cyrus was dizzy with heat and hunger and nervousness. Dan wouldn’t just go away. He could be with the police. It was possible. But he would have left a note.

  Memories from the night before were jumbled, but clear enough when it came to Dan. He’d been there. Alive. Angry. And sorry. He’d even apologized for giving Cyrus’s room to Skelton.

  The image of a burnt body tucked beneath a slumping wall slid into Cyrus’s mind, and he quickly forced it away. He shook his head. They wouldn’t find a body because Dan wasn’t dead. He hadn’t been in the fire.

  Cyrus stepped back from his doorway. Throwing up was a very real possibility, but stomach acid and ash were all he had inside him. Breathing slowly, trying to calm his gut, he turned around.

  Horace was leaning against the yellow truck, checking his watch. “He’s not here,” the lawyer said. “I told you already. I made a thorough search before waking you. As he was your legal guardian, I had hoped to speak with him.”

  “Not was,” Antigone said. “Is. He is our legal guardian.” She was angry, flushed beneath the soot, which meant that she was worried. Cyrus watched his sister tuck back her hair and cross her arms. “We have to eat, Cy. He’s probably talking to the police. Let’s leave him a note and go.”

  Chewing his lip, Cyrus scanned the ruin. Unless they wanted to eat waffle batter and drink from puddles, they needed to go somewhere. The waffle batter wouldn’t even be an option soon.

  He turned back to the lawyer, pieces of the previous night shuffling in his head. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

  Horace raised his brows. “No. I knew something was going to happen. I knew Skelton’s old brotherhood was on his trail, and I knew that he intended to die. That is what I knew. I did not know that there would be a fire or such damage done to your property. As for what I know now, I
know that Skelton has given you an object that some very dangerous gentlemen would like to possess for themselves, that we three are desperately hungry, and that there are legal matters that will require my—and your—attention immediately. Time, as I have already said, is short.”

  Cyrus spat a gray glop into the rubble.

  Horace checked his watch again and tucked it back into his pocket. “And after speaking with police and hospital administrators early this morning, I know that there were three fatalities in addition to William Skelton, and none of them was your brother. I know what the thugs were after, but not how many of them there were or which ones were in attendance.”

  “I only saw four,” Antigone said. “One was called Pug.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Horace. “Pug. Thanks to his own terrible life choices, he has passed on. I wish I could pity him.”

  Cyrus looked at his sister. He could hear the first explosion and see the tongues of fire, the evaporating glass, the slender man who’d trapped them beside Skelton’s body. “They talked about a doctor. And there was one called Maxi.”

  “Maxi?” Horace blinked slowly, looking from Cyrus to Antigone. “How much did Daniel know?”

  Antigone shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you tell him what Skelton had done? Did he know what you’d been given?”

  Cyrus reached for his pocket. “You mean the keys? No. I don’t think so.”

  Horace sighed. “Well, his ignorance may be some little protection.”

  Antigone looked at her brother, cocked her head, and turned back to Horace. “This is about keys? They burned down the motel and killed Skelton for a key ring?”

  “Yes,” Horace said. “They did. And for what is on that ring. Although I’m sure an overarching mean-spiritedness played into their motivation as well. And forgive me if I point out the terribly obvious, but as they didn’t actually get the keys, we can expect them to make further efforts.”

  “Keys!” Antigone yelled. She walked toward her brother. “Cy! I told you to give them back. What were you thinking?”

  Cyrus stepped backward, raising both hands. He didn’t want his sister angry. Especially not now. “Hold on! I tried, Tigs. I did!”

  Antigone stopped in front of him and raised a pair of vicious eyebrows.

  “He didn’t want them,” Cyrus said. “He made me keep them.”

  Horace snorted loudly. “Mr. Cyrus, I may be a lawyer, but I was a witness to the event, and I know the truth.” Again pulling out his watch, he flipped open its face and pressed down a small knob. “Mr. Skelton offered you the keys. He did not force them on you.” The watch went back into his pocket. “And the gift was, if I recall—and I do—accompanied by a string of rather morbid admonitions and dark metaphysical threats.” He glanced back at the road.

  “Why didn’t you take the keys?” Antigone asked the lawyer. “You knew they were dangerous, and you let a kid take them?”

  Horace nodded. “Yes. Another reason why I am grateful to your brother for his rashness. I prefer this circumstance to that one.”

  He looked at Cyrus and smiled grimly.

  “Now, I’ve called my car, and it’s just around the corner. I have stretched and torn the boundaries of professional courtesy in this rather unusual situation, but I cannot remain in this place any longer than I have already. As Skelton’s lawyer, I am an obvious target at this point, as I am bound to have information about the location of the keys. I must move to safer territory. You come with me to a brief explanatory breakfast, or you do not.” Turning, he looked back at the road. “If you come, I can explain more to you about the nature of what you have been given, and who will be coming to collect it. If you do not, it is unlikely that we will ever see each other again, and I will consider your inheritance null and void.”

  A very low and extremely wide black sedan swooped around the corner and bounced into the parking lot.

  Horace hurried toward it. “Leave a note if you like,” he called. “But come now.”

  Antigone glared at Cyrus. “I’m leaving a note. Don’t get in that car until I’m back. Got me?” She poked him in the chest and began jogging toward the courtyard.

  Cyrus watched his sister leave. He watched a tall, lean driver in a black suit open the rear door for Horace and the stout little lawyer slide himself in. And he waited, leaning against the old wooden camper on the back of the yellow truck.

  The camper.

  Cyrus’s heart skipped, and he straightened. The wooden planks ran horizontally above the truck’s bed. Some sort of earwax-colored sealant was flaking off around the seams and above every knot in the wood. He’d seen the same stuff on old sailboats. There were no windows. Dragging his fingers down the side, Cyrus moved to the rear of the truck and stopped in front of a narrow door. A small T-shaped knob with a center keyhole had been snapped down and was dangling from a crushed spring.

  Holding his breath, Cyrus tugged open the door and looked into the dim light of a dank and stale cave.

  The floor and wheel wells were covered in a heavy carpet, which was in turn covered with filthy blankets, cardboard boxes, empty whiskey bottles, a cracked milk crate, tattered books, a stained pillow, and used tissues. Glass from a small skylight had melted out and rehardened in the carpet. The space smelled like wet dog.

  He leaned in.

  Photos lined one side of the camper. They were hung neatly, in two parallel rows of ten. Most of them were black-and-white. All of them were of faces, and over the top of each face, drawn crudely in blue ink, there was a skull. Just beneath the ceiling, the whole wall had been labeled with black sticker lettering:

  GUILT

  “Okay.” Cyrus exhaled slowly. “This is creepy.” He looked back over his shoulder. The black sedan was idling. Horace wasn’t visible.

  Cyrus climbed into the camper and knelt in front of the photos. Men. Women. Happy. Serious. Young. Old. All hidden behind skeletal scribbling. But there was a woman’s face near the end of the second row with only half a blue skull. White hair spread out on a starched hospital pillow. Eyes were closed in sleep.

  Catherine Smith.

  “No.” Cyrus tried to swallow, but his throat slammed shut. That was his mother’s halo of hair. Those were her closed eyes. Gulping, he snatched the picture off the wall. He wanted to crumple it, but he couldn’t do that to her. He looked up, eyes racing over the others. Top left. Second from the end. Blond hair in one of the few color shots. Eyes smiling behind a mask of ink, barely visible teeth and a prominent nose. The ocean and its cliffs were visible over his father’s shoulder.

  Antigone had the same picture in one of her albums.

  Cyrus reached for it and stopped. Something else was tucked behind it, another photo. Pinching the white corner of a Polaroid, he slid it out.

  The picture had been taken in the camper. Daniel’s head was lolling against the bottom row of skull photos. Blood had dried on his forehead.

  Slowly, stunned, Cyrus turned the image over in his hands. Someone had scrawled on the back.

  Ashes, ashes, you all fall down.

  “Cy!” Antigone’s voice jerked at him. Tugging down his father’s picture, he slid out of the dim camper and into the sunlight, eyes watering in the brightness. Antigone was storming toward him, fists clenched, mouth open.

  “Jeepers, Cy!” Flustered, relieved, Antigone brushed back her hair and then hit Cyrus in the chest. “No disappearing!” Blinking, he stepped backward. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. “If you disappear, too, I’ll take your scalp.”

  The sky seemed to slip out of place as Cyrus looked up, fighting to breathe, fighting to keep hot, angry eyes from overflowing. Fear, with all its enormous weight, pressed down on his chest and slid through his ribs, filling him, stifling his lungs. In his hands, the three photos felt as heavy as tombstones. His sister took them.

  “What?” Antigone asked. “What are these supposed—” She stopped. Cyrus turned away, numb, unwilling to watch his sister’s face. H
is legs somehow carried him to the waiting car.

  The drive was hardly quiet. It was a big car, with two backseats facing each other. Even though the seats were wider than some couches, Antigone was right next to Cyrus and she couldn’t hold still. She yelled at Horace. She demanded a phone. She demanded the police. But by the time the Archer had disappeared around a bend, Cyrus heard none of it and he ignored her thumping. His forehead was resting against his window, bouncing with the road. While his fingertips mindlessly tracked the blistered braille around his neck, his eyes were racing through the drainage ditch, skimming over gravel, faded soda cans, plastic jugs, and cattails and grass and scum-spotted puddles. Just like his life. He had no answers. He had no control. He couldn’t make anything happen, and he couldn’t stop anything from happening. And only one kind of anything ever happened. He was a paper cup in the surf, a bulb of kelp torn up and thrown onto the beach, thrown all the way to Wisconsin.

  Dan was gone. Why? There were people who would happily kill for the keys in Cyrus’s pocket. An old man—his godfather?—had been murdered for them in Cyrus’s room. Did those killers think Dan had them? That he knew where they were?

  Another home was gone.

  Lifting his head slightly, Cyrus let his skull thump back against the window. He shouldn’t have taken the keys. Skelton would be just as dead either way. The Archer would be just as burnt. But Dan would be stressing out about the motel and food and clothes and showers. He would be here, coming to breakfast.

  Straightening his leg, Cyrus dug the key ring out of his pocket. Antigone grew quiet. Horace, perched on his broad leather seat with his back to the driver, adjusted his glasses.

  Cyrus slid his finger through the center ring and let the weight dangle from his hand.

  “If these are what they want, who do I give them to?” he asked. “The guy called Maxi? Do you know how to find him?”