by Gaby Triana
“What was that?” I sit up and peek into the seven-foot hole Bram has dug.
“That,” he says between gulps of air, “is the sound of the shit I’d do for you.”
“You found something?” I gather up my dress and jump into the hole, using my hands and nails to remove dirt away from the spot where the shovel made contact. Bram scrapes away more earth and pulls out his phone to shed a tiny bit of light on it. Something silver—a box protrudes from one side of the hole. If Bram would’ve dug slightly to the left, we never would’ve seen it. “You found it.”
He leans back against the wall of the trench and wipes soil and sweat from his brow. “Thank God. I was about to tell you that I don’t care how much I love you, I’m not digging anymore.”
“Glad you believed in me.” I stand and face him, taking in the sight of his soaked, filthy form in the shadow. I take his face into my dirty hands and kiss him, not caring about his sweaty face or the stubble that seems to have grown since the night began. I never would’ve been able to do this without him.
He sweeps a limp ringlet of hair from my eyes. “Open that thing already,” he says, pointing at the box. Together, we work to dig it free, scraping and scraping, until I finally yank it loose. It’s a flat metal container no bigger than a shirt box with a small lock caked in dirt. I pry the soil loose with my nails until the lock hangs freely. Are there cremated remains inside?
The double creation, I hear Mary’s voice.
“Yes. Now promise me you’ll move on,” I mumble. Go toward the light and free yourself.
“Who are you talking to?” Bram eyes me sideways.
I set the box down on the most level part of the ground and move aside. “Break it, please.” He grabs the shovel again, lunges at the lock, and bangs on it several times until it cracks and falls away. With the sharp edge of the shovel, he flips up the rusted latch.
I fall to my knees. “Please…” Whatever is in here, let it be worth it. To my mother…my family…
“Shh, what was that?”
“What was what?” I gaze up at Bram. Billions of stars hover over him.
“Somebody’s out there. Hurry.”
“On the grounds?”
“Somewhere. Just open it. I’m dying to know what’s in there.”
“Me, too.” I loosen the corners with my nails and lift the lid to find a dark brown leather satchel cinched on one end with rawhide. Carefully, I insert my index fingers and wiggle the rawhide apart, lifting the satchel out of the box. Whatever it is, it’s nothing like the bag of bones or dried flesh I imagined. I reach in and try sliding out the contents, but there’s another leather satchel, and together, the two pieces create a sturdy bind that’s difficult to separate.
“What is it?” Bram asks.
“I don’t know.” I grab the inner bag, which feels about two inches thick, and tug, wiggling side to side, until it finally slides out of the outer satchel. This one, lighter in color than the outer one, also has rawhide strips cinching one end, and as soon as I peek into it, I pause, remembering my dream. The last one, where papers fluttered around the room, sucked out of the open window by a rogue gust of wind.
Important papers. Written by important people. Two important people. I widen the opening. “It’s a book.” I pull out a thick stack of decaying paper, its outer edges rank with dead, black mold.
“You dreamed about this book,” Bram says.
I run my forefinger along the edges. “How did you know?”
“The first night you woke up screaming at my apartment, remember? You said there was a book. Turn it over.”
“That’s right, I did.” I flip over the stack of pages as Bram illuminates it with his phone screen again.
It’s a manuscript. Typeset in the middle of the page reads:
“The Double Creation”
by
Washington Irving and Mary Shelley
1825 – 1826
No…freakin’…way. Two of the world’s most famous weavers of words, lovers whose paths got tangled in a nasty web of rules and expectations. They worked together to create something unique, beautiful, untouched by daylight—a legacy unseen by even the most devoted readers of romantic literature.
This thing has traveled from its London birthplace to Spain, across the ocean to a new home underground in the Hudson Valley, buried by one of its very creators and unearthed by me, his awestruck descendant.
And sure to be worth millions. If only Dane could be here to see this.
“You gotta be shittin’ me.” Bram runs his fingers along the top page. “How did you know this was here? How did you figure this out?”
I take it back and feel its weight in my hands. “I don’t know, but Dane would flip if he could see this!” I clap my hands in delight and lift the valuable collaboration to my chest, hugging it carefully. I got it, Mary. I’ll keep it safe, I promise.
When I look over at Bram, he’s staring at me, jaw clenched. “Why do you say things like that?” He shrugs and shakes his head. “Why do you care what Boracich thinks? The dude is gone, Mica.”
“I was just thinking aloud. I mean, it’s what he talked about in class that day. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I can feel his resentment through the silence like poison spreading through blood. It doesn’t matter anyway. Dane Boracich is gone. I shouldn’t have said anything. Bram reaches up and hoists himself out of the hole. He grabs the shovel, readying himself to clear the area of evidence, reaching a hand down to me. “Here, give it to me, then give me your hands.”
As I reach up and begin handing Bram the papers and satchel all askew, a fleeting, morose thought occurs to me—a shovel slamming down, knocking me unconscious, the way he—or my father—or whoever was in my dream did.
No. He wouldn’t.
“Hurry, Mica.”
He’s the only one I can trust. He and Betty Anne.
With trembling hands, I lift the bundle up to him. It only takes a moment. One hesitant breath to let it out of my hands. My prize, my reason for coming back to this forsaken valley. My mother’s reason for losing everything she had—even her life.
Carefully, Bram wraps a hand around it, eyes gleaming even in darkness, and places it on the ground next to him. I reach up for his hands, and then…
A flash of disappointment flickers across his face. “You were always gullible, Princess.” For a moment, his gaze holds mine. Familiar but dark, different. This isn’t happening. A fraction of a second later, the time it takes for a house of cards to come crashing down, for one heart to shatter into billions of splintering shards, his shovel comes flying at me so hard, I feel the rush of air preceding it.
“No!” Without a moment to think, I lift an arm to block the blow, and the dull metal bites into my flesh. There’s an awful cracking of bone, and I stumble to the bottom of the earthy pit, crying in pain. Pain and confusion. Dull lights inside my eyelids, a tornado of thoughts attacking me.
What is happening?
Bram’s voice is somewhere above me. “Sorry, Mica, but you made this more difficult than it needed to be. Believe me, I’m not enjoying this.” Shovelfuls of dirt rain onto my head, shoulders, all around me. I can’t move. Can’t speak. “Then that Boracich dickhead didn’t know when to stop meddling.”
Bastard.
Bastard.
Derant bastard.
“It’s our families—our families…” Blinding, searing pain radiates from my arm. My chest heaves underneath me. “…who’ve guarded that journal for sixty years. If the money it fetches belongs to anyone, it’s us. Us. Got that?”
He dumps more dirt into the hole that’s going to become my grave if I don’t scream soon, don’t try to move. Yet all I can do is crouch, clutching my arm, listening to sounds of dirt and shoveling, footsteps, and something else.
Bastards.
Derants. Engers.
How did I let this happen?
Another voice. A voice accompanied by a familiar sound, but I can’t
place it, can’t… Say something, Mica!
“Did you deal with her?” A voice, not Bram’s.
Jonathan’s. Deal with her?
A bike chain. The other sound was a bike chain.
My stomach rises into my throat, and I empty its contents right into the dirt. I lean over and lie next to the mess. Double the dirt now hails onto my head and all around me. Move, Lela, move. I force my face to turn upward and look at the inevitable. At Bram Derant and Jonathan Enger peering over the edge, working together to fill the hole a hundred times faster than it took to dig it. “Nice capture, buddy.”
Nice capture.
“Shut up,” Bram bites back.
“Who are you texting?” Jonathan asks.
“Shh…” Bram says then mumbles something I can’t hear.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the secrecy and betrayal, but there’s no time to dwell. If I don’t at least try to do something, they’re going to bury me now that there’s two of them. And even if they don’t bury me, if they just leave me here, who will care? Not one person in this town gives a shit about me, except for a lady—one lady—too far to help me, and a man—a friend, I now realize—who I stupidly drove away.
“Please don’t,” I manage to say.
“What?” Jonathan sounds surprised.
“Don’t do this.” I glance up at him. Clearly, I see what’s in his hands. Long, wooden, and twirling. Baseball bat. The same one that came spinning at me in the woods, the same one that crushed Coco’s skull. I grit my teeth, rage building inside of me.
I can imagine him smiling at Bram during all this. I can’t be sure, since they fall out of my range of vision every time he scoops a shovelful of dirt. “Dude, wasn’t that the exact same thing her mom said?” Jonathan asks.
I feel sick to my stomach. My mom?
“Yes,” Bram says coldly. Calmly. “But don’t talk about that.”
“Why not?”
“I said shut up.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. What I’m seeing. Everything I thought I knew. The words coming out of their mouths. This has to be one long, insane nightmare.
Only it’s real and much worse than I could ever imagine. Against my will, the pressure inside my head forces tears into my eyes. Stupid, weak tears. All I can do is lie here and cry, tears and dirt-filled air choking me. Meanwhile, a storm brews inside of me, but I can’t let it out.
My mother’s last breath, stolen by the boy I loved. The boy I believed loved me.
“Bastard.”
“What? What’s that, Micaela?” Jonathan chides.
It hurts to talk, hurts to think. Maybe I should just let them finish me. Finish me like they finished Mami. But I can’t. I let go of every ounce of hatred bubbling through me right now. I tilt my chin back and scream, “You bastards!” That hurt my side like a bitch.
“What?” Jonathan laughs. I hate him. God, I hate him.
“You bastards,” I hiss. I can’t look at them.
Jonathan clucks his tongue. “I think she’s upset, Bram.”
“Leave her alone.” Bram, even as he works diligently to bury me alive, keeps defending me. “I hit her pretty hard. I was pissed. She’s not going anywhere.”
“What? You feel bad about this?” Jonathan quips. “Then forget it. Let’s just go. What’d you find down there anyway?”
There’s a moment of no talking as I imagine Bram gesturing to the leather pouch containing the manuscript on the ground and Jonathan picking it up and examining it. Together, they’ll take it back to their elders, claim they found it, and get a ton of money for it, while I only got to hold it for a second. They’ll probably tell everyone I left town again when they ask where I am. Meanwhile, I’m slowly asphyxiating six feet under the ground. Make that seven.
A dark haze sweeps over me then, my pulse ringing in my ears. Can I scream? Or did I use all my energy just now? Will anyone find me here?
“What was that noise?” Bram asks.
“It came from over there.”
If my orientation is right, Jonathan is pointing to the thicket of trees joining Sunnyside with Lindhurst, the neighboring property.
“No, man, it’s coming from that way.” Bram glances up at the bluff, atop which sits the Sunnyside parking lot.
“We gotta go,” Jonathan says, peering back at me. My heart sinks. They’re going to leave me here half buried in this ditch. I force my eyes open and examine the side of the hole. There are crevices I could place my hands and feet in to climb if I weren’t in so much pain.
“No, dude,” Bram whispers. “It’s probably him.”
Jonathan fusses and fumes. “Here? You couldn’t have told him to meet us somewhere else? Come on, dude.” He scoffs.
“What’s wrong with here? Where the fuck did you want me to tell him?” Bram argues in a hushed tone.
“I don’t know, someplace without a guard who might come back?” Jonathan replies.
“I didn’t know she was going to lead me here, you idiot!” Bram snaps, and I hear the sound of gravel crunching under their feet as they leave me behind and head up the path. Nearby, Bram’s horse protests their departure with a snort.
Someone is up on the bluff. Who? Then comes another voice, low but clear from the parking lot. “Okay, you guys called me here. Now where is she?”
“Dad?” I cry, my voice cracked and weak. I have to get out of this hole to warn him. I stand, a little bit at a time, wincing in pain, ignoring the blinding ache in my arm and shoulder. I burrow a bare foot into the tightly packed soil. I feel bone rubbing against bone. “Rrrgghh.” I keep my teeth clenched.
Vaguely, the voices mix and argue above me. “Money first, then your daughter.”
“Daddy,” I call again. My voice is lost in the breeze. Bram’s horse neighs quietly.
“I’m not playing games with you two.”
“…not playing either…” Bram trails off. I know he’s speaking through a tight jaw. I saw him do it in my dream, the dream where I believed my father was the one holding the shovel. “She’s hurt, but Jonathan will hurt her more if you want. So, money first, old man. Everything you owe. All of it.”
“Hurting her was never part of the deal.”
I grip chunks of soil with my free hand and try pulling myself up, getting so far as a few inches from the level ground. “Daddy.” Not good enough. Ugh!
“The whole thing…” Jonathan is saying. “Everything you owe. No more bullshit.”
I stop, two feet in the soil, one hand above me, and my arm tight against my chest. The pain is too much. But I have to. Push through it. “Daddy!” I yell louder. He has to hear me. “Dad!” I yell again. “Owwww!”
No answer. From any of them. The arguing continues. The chunk of earth I’m holding comes apart in my hand, and I fall back against the other side of the hole. “Shit,” I mutter.
One more time. I reach up and grab a new spot, bring my foot up, and manage to reach the ground. Carefully, I reposition my other foot against a rocky spot in the hole’s wall and, fighting back excruciating pain, use one arm and shoulder to hoist myself slowly until my chest barely balances on the dirt patch next to the hole.
“Fine…” I hear my father saying, trailing off. Where is he going?
“Daddy…” I drag myself one last time, pulling the length of my dress along the ground, beads scraping dirt, until I’m finally out. Bram’s horse eyes me from his post and whinnies. I stand and limp over to the bluff’s access ladder instead of the footpath, dirt and rocks and grass falling off me as I lumber along.
The voices are right above me. “Dude, why’d you let him go back to his car? What if he’s packing?” Jonathan whines. Slowly, I climb the ladder, but it really hurts.
Bram spins the shovel in his hands. “Then we’re packing, too.”
“Dude…” Jonathan says. Something about a shovel and a bat being no match for my father’s bullets.
I’m almost to the top, five more rungs, but I save my energy t
o cry out. Or should I? What if my father really is going back to his car to get his gun? Should I foil his plan right as he’s about to execute it like I foiled Dane’s back at Kingsland Point Park?
Four more… I press my body against the ladder to keep balance every time I reach my good arm up again. One rung at a time. I know I’m making the damage in my shoulder worse, but I have to do it. When I finally reach the top, I peer over the edge and see my dad leaning into a car about ten feet in front of Bram and Jonathan, who are a few feet in front of me. By Bram’s shoes, the packaged manuscript lies on the asphalt.
“No tricks, old man.” Bram replaced his sword back into its scabbard at some point while I was in the hole. His hand covers the hilt protectively.
Jonathan stands feet apart, bat ready. Their focus is all on my dad. Maybe I can run when they’re not looking. My father is taking a long time. What are you doing back there, Daddy? Please don’t do anything stupid.
Bram nudges his chin at Jonathan, as if asking the same. What is he doing?
Jonathan shapes his hand like a gun and shrugs nervously. He mouths something I can’t hear, and together they make signals to move toward the car.
“I told you he’s packing. Let’s go,” Jonathan whispers, and he and Bram approach my father’s car with slow, deliberate steps.
Daddy, Daddy!
If only I could lift myself off the access ladder without crying out, I could scurry over to the thicket of trees on the edge of the property and hide.
“Did you hear me?” Bram warns, stepping closer. “I said no tricks.”
Dad mumbles something like, “No, no tricks, I’m getting it together.” And before I can completely pull myself to my feet, my father turns around. In his hands is proof that Bram and Jonathan were right. “Move, and I win,” my father says calmly. A small pistol gleams in his hands, its aim somewhere between Bram and Jonathan.
“Dad!” I yell without thinking. In the moment my father looks past the boys at me, Bram and Jonathan move into action. Bram pulls out his sword and charges straight for my father. At his side, Jonathan brings his bat.
“Don’t.” My dad tightens his grip on the gun.
