Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

“He’s gone,” she said. “Detective Ferrigno shot him and he fell down the hole.”

  “They never found him.”

  “He’s gone,” said Finley. She squeezed Eliza’s hands hard. “I swear he’ll never hurt you or anyone ever again.”

  “And Bobo?”

  “He’s in the hospital,” said Finley. “He won’t be coming out. Not anytime soon.”

  The girl’s mouth was just a thin line, her eyes a gray field of sadness. But she’d be happy again one day. Eloise had promised that, and she had never been wrong once.

  “I’m sorry you lost her,” said Eliza again.

  “She’s with me,” Finley said, just to make the girl feel better. But as the words passed her lips, she knew it was true. She felt stronger than she had in weeks.

  “You gave me my daughter back,” Betty said at the door when they left. Her eyes brimmed wet with happiness. “I don’t know how you did it, but you found her. We’ve lost so much—but there are no words for my gratitude.”

  “Just honor her,” said Finley. “Honor who she is and what she is. Listen to her, so that she can learn to listen to herself.”

  “I will,” said Betty, the words clearly resonating. “I will.”

  *

  Finley didn’t make it to class. Instead, Alfie, Amanda, and Finley tended Eloise’s garden. They cleared the overgrowth and trimmed the healthy perennials. Eloise had neglected to clear the annuals, which Finley took to mean that she hadn’t had the energy to do it. Why hadn’t she asked Finley? Because if she had, then Finley would have known that Eloise was sick. And Eloise hadn’t wanted her to know that.

  Dear Finley,

  Don’t be angry. I know you are. You’re just like your Aunt Emily that way. You’d rather be angry than sad. There’s so much more power in that, or so it seems. Remember it’s okay to be sad, to feel it and then move through.

  Their breath came out in clouds as they raked the beds and pulled the weeds, which were withered and brown from the cold. It hadn’t snowed again since that first snowfall, but the ground was hard and the sky was a persistent gray.

  “This is what I hate about the Northeast,” said Amanda, who also hated gardening. “You don’t see the goddamn sky from November through March.”

  “It’s not that bad,” said Finley, seeking just one patch of blue to point at. But there was nothing. Amanda blew out a breath but didn’t argue. She still had that hollowed look that grief gave a person, that sinking under the eyes, that thinness to the mouth. It had made her quieter, less eager to take up an argument.

  “I’m going in to make some hot chocolate,” Amanda said after a while. She leaned her shovel against the house and peeled off her gloves.

  “Sweet,” said Alfie. He dropped his rake and rubbed his hands together. It was his last weekend. On Monday, he was going back to Seattle. “I’ll help.”

  “You coming?” said Amanda to Finley, who was still raking.

  “Call me when it’s ready,” she said with a smile. “I’m going to bag up the mess.”

  We all have our time and season in this life. And I have had mine. Now I can do what I think has been expected of me all along. I just wasn’t ready to let go until now.

  Finley bagged up the clippings and the weeds. She liked the work, just like Eloise had, the tending, the cutting and clearing away of dead things, making room for the fresh green buds of new life. Finley trimmed away a few brown branches on the Devil’s Walking Stick.

  For years Eloise had tried to get rid of the plant, she’d told Finley, only to find it coming back year after year. Finally, she just let be the native plant that she had thought was just a weed. She discovered that its flowers and berries were a valuable nutrition source for butterflies, wasps, and bees. That its fruit drew robins, bluebirds, towhees, thrushes, and rusty blackbirds to her yard. It wasn’t a plant that she had chosen for her garden, but there it was nonetheless. Ralph Waldo Emerson thought of weeds as plants “whose virtues had not yet been discovered.” Eloise decided that she would take the same position. She let the plant grow, only to discover that it flowered in autumn, enjoying a final color show before winter fell.

  You have been a joy to me, Finley. You are so much more native, so much more in charge of your gifts than I ever was. The road you walk will be easier and more fulfilling than mine, I’m sure. And I will always be here for you. My great love for you does not end with my passing. You, better than anyone, must know that. So hold that love in your heart and let me go.

  Finley heard her mother calling, but she wasn’t ready to go inside, even though the sun was dropping and the air growing colder. When the bag was full, she tied it and sat on the little bench, spent. Her body ached from the work, reminding her that she was horribly out of shape. She took a deep breath and surveyed her work, as the sun dropped lower.

  “Finley!” Her mother’s voice carried on the air, faint and beckoning.

  “Coming, Mom!”

  She was about to go inside when something caught her eye, a glitter, a rush of shadow. When she turned back, Eloise and her grandfather Alfie stood over by the garden gate, looking as bright and giddy as a pair of lovebirds. Finley half expected to see a robin come down and land on Eloise’s finger as they approached.

  Finley wanted to be angry, to rage, to cling to her sadness, but instead she felt the energy of a smile. Finley never realized how much she looked like Eloise when her grandmother was younger and happier with everything before her.

  “Are you ready to let me go?” asked Eloise.

  Eloise told Finley long ago that a haunting was a relationship, that the dead clung to the living only as much as the living clung to the dead.

  Finley felt a fresh wash of tears, a desire to run toward Eloise, to cling and to hold on. But she didn’t. She had already learned the most important lesson Eloise had to teach, though it still hurt like hell: Fear holds on. Love lets go.

  “Yes, Mimi,” said Finley. “I’m ready.”

  Eloise offered that slow, considering nod, that warm, loving smile Finley so adored. Then she looped her arm through Alfie’s, and together they walked through the gate and disappeared into the gloaming as if they’d never been there at all.

  “Who were you talking to?” Amanda had come to sit beside Finley.

  Finley thought about lying. That was her instinct, to pretend for Amanda that she was something other than what she was.

  “I was talking to Mimi,” said Finley. “She’s with Grandpa, and she’s happy. She wants me to let her go.”

  A rainbow of micro-expressions flashed across Amanda’s face—fear, sadness, worry. She put a strong arm around Finley’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “Can you do that?” asked Amanda.

  Finley stood and reached out a hand to her mother, helping her up off the bench.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “I don’t suppose you do,” said Amanda, sounding very much like Eloise.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The next day, Alfie offered to drive her to school, but Finley wanted to take her bike. She needed the air, the roar, the vibration of the engine. When she took off down the road, it felt like she had wings.

  She arrived late at class, earning an understanding nod from her professor who was talking about Jung’s break from Freud.

  “Rumors abound from hints of homosexual tension, to Jung’s disagreement with Freud’s theories that sex was at the root of all human behavior. But most people agree that it was Jung’s Psychology of the Unconscious published in 1912 that was the final nail in the coffin. Jung’s fascination with the paranormal and his beliefs that psychic phenomenon could be brought into the purview of psychology were unacceptable to Freud.”

  But almost as soon as she sat, Finley tuned out, spent the rest of the class doodling only to find after the hour had passed that she’d drawn the church and graveyard, overrun with wildflowers.

  “Not much of a note taker.”

  She looked up to see Jason standing beside her and t
he rest of the classroom empty.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Don’t mind me saying,” he said. “But you look a little worse for wear. You okay?”

  “Death in the family,” she said.

  He lifted his chin and nodded. “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “My condolences.”

  She stood and gathered up her things, wondering why she’d even bothered to come to class and if she would ever really return to the living. When she turned to leave, Jason was still there looking at her with concern.

  “Can I walk you to your bike?”

  “Sure,” she said. There was something about him, something calming. They walked down the hall and exited the building. The air had grown colder, and the sky had taken on a flat black-gray color again. The blue of earlier was gone.

  “I’ve lost people, too,” he said. “I feel you.”

  “Need a ride?” she said when they got to her bike.

  “No. I’m good.” He nodded over toward a beat-up Toyota. “Another time.”

  “Hey,” she said, digging into her bag for her phone. “Can I get your email? Would you mind sharing your notes from the last couple of weeks?”

  But when she looked up, he was gone. Not walking off to his car, not heading back to class. Gone. The Toyota he’d nodded at was likewise not there. Other people from class were lingering in front of the building, climbing into their vehicles. But Jason was not among them. It took her a second to get it. He’d never been there at all.

  *

  Finley rode her bike from Sacred Heart College back into town. She drove past the precious town square, and turned off Main Street onto Jones Cooper’s block. She parked on the street and walked up his driveway, turning onto the path that led to his office. She knocked on the door, and he opened it for her as if he’d been expecting her.

  He offered her coffee, which she accepted, and then sat on his couch while he lowered himself into the chair behind his desk.

  “How are you holding up, kiddo?” he asked gently.

  “Eh,” she said. “You?”

  “I miss her,” he said, looking down at his nails. “She was a special lady. I learned things from her—which she would have been surprised to hear me admit.”

  He laughed a little.

  “She respected you and considered you a friend,” said Finley.

  “A high compliment indeed,” he said. “Not necessarily deserved.”

  They sat a moment, each lost in thought. Then, “I have a check for you.”

  “I don’t want it,” she said. She assumed it was from the Gleason case.

  “I refused payment from the Gleasons,” he said. “But Mr. Gleason sent money anyway, said we spared them a lifetime of wondering and waiting. I want you to have it.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Well, it’s yours,” he said, tone brooking no further discussion. “You earned it. Lord knows I was no help.”

  He took an envelope from the drawer and put it on the corner of his desk. Her name was written in a careful printed hand. She let it sit there. Anyway, she hadn’t come to talk about that.

  “You know, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “I don’t remember what happened that night. I mean, what really happened after we followed Mimi into the tunnel.”

  “It’s kind of a blur,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “And it was dark.”

  “But you made a statement,” she said.

  “I did,” he said. “Best I could.”

  He had a habit of running his hand over the top of his head, of looking at you when he was listening—looking through you. He also tended to turn his eyes away when he was talking about himself, as if he wasn’t as interested in your reaction as he was in choosing the right words.

  “Could you share it with me?”

  He also had this way of releasing a breath before doing something he didn’t want to do but thought he should.

  “Are you sure? Because maybe you remember just exactly what you need to remember. Maybe what you saw is all you want to see.”

  She’d told him about the graveyard and the doorway, the things Eloise had said and how she’d looked. She did so not because she expected him to believe her, or because she needed him to. She did so to give him comfort when he’d broken down driving Finley home that night, when he’d pulled the car over and began to weep, big unapologetic sobs. She’d sat stone still for a time, afraid to move, not wanting to touch him, big tears falling down her own face. It was good to see an oak like Jones Cooper bend with sorrow; he’d been dealt a hard blow, they both had. Bend or break in the storm of this life, Eloise always said.

  Now, in the light of Jones’s office, she felt stronger. Not strong. But strong enough to hear what really happened the night she lost Eloise.

  “I followed you into the tunnel, with Chuck right behind me. We had our flashlights, but you were quickly out of sight. Running in the dark. I could hear you up ahead, feeling your way, yelling for your grandmother. I kept calling for you, asking you to slow down. But you were in your own zone, not hearing me or ignoring me.”

  He cleared his throat, leaned forward in his chair.

  “For a little while we lost you altogether, but then Chuck heard the sound of your voice, and we found our way back to the cavern, the seat of that mine shaft, or whatever it is. The hole where they—” He paused a moment, folded his hands, and looked down. “Found all the bodies.”

  Put her with the others, Bobo. She could still hear Poppa’s voice, that unearthly growl. The horror of what he did was almost too much for Finley; she felt herself shutting it away, turning from it.

  “Crawley had her at the edge. There was already a standoff underway because the tunnels were full of cops. It was a crime scene. A young officer had his gun drawn, pointing it at Crawley, who had your grandmother across the chest, holding her in front of him. And you were standing there, screaming at him to let her go.”

  He stopped a minute and stared up the ceiling.

  “She looked at me with that expression she always wore. You know what I mean, right? That sad half smile like she already knew how everything was going to be and she was just waiting for me to figure out.”

  “Yeah,” said Finley. “I know what you mean.”

  “I knew she was sick,” Jones said. “She was sick when we first met. But she got better. She never told me about it; I could just tell. Just like I could tell when she wasn’t well again. I asked her about it, but she waved me off—you know how she is.”

  Outside, Finley heard a woodpecker tapping on the oak tree, cars going by, a school bus letting out a pack of laughing boys.

  “But that night when I locked eyes with her, I felt this tremendous wash of peace. I can’t explain it. She gave me something, some kind of gift. That’s Eloise, always giving but never allowing you to give back.”

  Jones was stringing more words together than Finley had ever heard him utter. He’s one of the few who only talk when absolutely necessary. Jones Cooper does not rush to fill a silence.

  “Then he just—jumped, taking Eloise with him.” His eyes took on an unfocused quality, like he was staring at something he didn’t want to see. “It was just like that. One minute she was there, all Eloise. The next minute she was gone. She never even uttered a sound.”

  She wondered if he’d cry again, but he stayed steely eyed. She figured he only cried about once a decade, if that. He’d probably used up his supply of tears.

  “Chuck fired his gun, just as you dove for them. I dove to grab hold of you and caught you by the ankles before you went in after them.”

  “You should have let me go,” she said blackly.

  He shook his head grimly.

  “Are you kidding? And have your grandmother haunting me for all eternity, complaining about how I didn’t save you. No.”

  She smiled a little, just a little.

  “All the best things are before you, Finley,” he said softly. “Don’t let that darkness lure you away from that. It’s a false pro
mise. Stay in the light as long as you can.”

  He sounded old and tired, and she wondered not for the first time what kind of dark secrets Jones Cooper had.

  “Have you been up there?” she asked. “Since that night.”

  “A couple times,” he said. “So far only one body has been recovered. They think it’s Abbey Gleason, but DNA matching is underway.”

  He rubbed at his eyes. “We went through the cold cases, to see if we could connect other missing persons to Abel Crawley. There are two more missing girls—Jessie Holmes since 1995, Annie Taylor from 2003. They were local, girls from the hills. Jessie was not even reported missing until a year after she’d been gone; her mother died about ten years ago. And there’s no other family. Annie was an assumed runaway. Her father still runs a farm outside The Hollows now. I had the feeling he’d rather have kept thinking she ran away.”

  He put a hand on files on his desk, kept his eyes there a minute, flicked at the oak tag with his thumb. Finley wanted to stop thinking about the girls, imagining their pain and fear. But she couldn’t so she didn’t stop him from going on.

  “How long he had them up there, what he did to them, and when he finally killed them we may never know. His son Arthur, the only one who might have some idea, is virtually catatonic, can barely even feed himself at this point.”

  “He was as much Abel Crawley’s victim as anyone,” said Finley. Inhabiting him, she’d felt all his anger and sadness, his pain. She couldn’t see him as an accomplice, though, of course, he was.

  Jones dipped his head to the side. “Maybe.”

  “Then Eliza, and eighteen months later Abbey Gleason,” she said. “If not for Abbey, we would never have found Eliza. If not for them, who knows how many others.”

  She wanted to be like Eloise, who let go of anger, who didn’t judge. But she wasn’t there, might never be.

  “It’s a horror show,” said Jones. “And there’s another whole network of tunnels down there. If they’re down there, we may never find any remains.”

  Finley stood and paced the office a little. She tried to push it back, the horror of it, the terrible sadness. But it wrapped itself around her, a cloak she feared she’d have to carry. She’d seen them, those angels in the snow. The only comfort she had was that Eloise had helped them find their way home.