Page 19 of We Already Dug the Grave

Until now, it seemed.

I focused my thoughts on Frances, on our good times: Running barefoot down the path to Aunt Hattie-May’s greenhouse, the soles of our feet tough as leather and our shins littered with bugbites. Hiking down the wooded path to the small creek. We’d dig in the dirt and splash in the water and chase frogs and water beetles. Skipping rope, chanting rhymes about the hungry old willow that haunted our dreams.

I thought of our bad times too. Of overhearing whispers about Mama, of living in a town that visited our home on Saturday and preached us into hell on Sunday.

Of sitting with Frances on the hard bench outside our principal’s office at St. Mary’s and whispering that I’d always protect her. Of collapsing together in a teary heap, our cheeks sticky with blood, in the moment not sure if I’d kept or broken that promise.

The tea was bitter, but I drained every last drop, then peered into the dregs settled in the cup. At first, nothing. I focused, reaching for the internal door, dipping my fingers into the well of power, begging it to help. For intuition to pour out.

Nothing.

Of course nothing. Always nothing.

Tears stung my eyes as I walked to the kitchen to drop my mug into the sink, angry at myself for allowing so much hope, when I felt it. Faint and sluggish. An atrophied muscle. I coaxed the door open, caressed that skittish thing inside until everything else fell away.

Finally. I could see again. But peering into my sister’s fate was like squinting through a grimy window, something both familiar and distorted. And then a certainty.

A menacing laugh, a blooming tear of skin, and a cold metal weighing all too familiar in my hand.

I gasped, the teacup clattering into the sink.

I wasn’t sure what this meant, except for one thing.

Frances, my once-upon-a-time baby bird, needed me.

Chapter 6

Then

The Rust Bucket bounced down the country lane past the service station where Ruth worked part-time. I honked at the old men who sat on the bench in front of the ramshackle store with its ancient gas pumps and a sign that hadn’t been updated since I’d been old enough to notice. Most of them waved without looking up from their conversations, identical in their trucker hats and overalls and paunches.

The corkboard full of faded photographs that hung over the old men’s bench had been the first place I’d laid eyes on Aunt Ruth, though at the time, I hadn’t known it. The social worker who delivered us to our new lives had stopped for gas, and from the back seat of her sedan, I’d studied the images. Men holding fish as if presenting an award. A dead hog that had made me sad. Deer and turkeys and men in camo with crossbows and shotguns. Some of the photos were faded to nothing.

Ruth had stood out as one of the only women on the board. She’d clutched the antlers of a deer, its black eyes blank and tongue lolling from a mouth that trickled blood, while she grimaced into the camera as if daring someone to tell her to smile. I’d never seen anything like it and couldn’t decide if the woman terrified me or if I wanted to be just like her.

Honestly, that was still a pretty accurate description of my feelings for Aunt Ruth.

I punched the gas, Frances doggedly silent beside me, as we sailed over the short bridge near our place before sliding into our driveway. The fence posts marking our property were adorned with bones, appearing like giant tusks sprouting from the ground. Ruth changed them out regularly, and if there was a rhyme or reason, I didn’t understand it. Rib cages that once belonged to small animals were now split open and tethered to the femur of something larger, all held in place by fishing line. Sometimes a spine. Always a skull. Never antlers, because people would actually pay money for them.

Maybe the bone-laden posts should’ve given me the creeps, but it’s funny what can feel like home given enough time.

Once, when I was little and still frightened of the posts, teased relentlessly at school about how creepy they were, Ruth had told me the bones were there for protection. Wards against the uninvited. And the way she said it made me feel a little better, even if I didn’t fully believe her.

I pestered her, asking what she meant by protection. How could some old bones keep bad people out? Aunt Ruth never had patience for our questioning her methods. It didn’t matter how those methods affected me. As a little girl, a favorite playground taunt had been Witchy Milly, all alone, living in a house of bone! Never mind I’d never been alone in my life or that there were no bones on the actual house. It was catchy, it rhymed, and it hurt.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I’d whined one too many times.

When Ruth threatened, “If you don’t leave me alone about those goddang bones I’ll make you come with me to change them out each month!” I’d finally snapped my mouth shut and moved on to Hattie-May for answers.

“Well. I’ll tell it to you plainly, honey. We have no control over the people who are hell-bent on hating us. But if they’re determined to hate us, then by God, let them fear us too.”

I’d understood, then. Why the aunts never fought back against the rumors. Why they never tried to ingratiate themselves to the small town, instead leaning into what everyone had already determined they were, despite the good deeds they performed.

Why Ruth hung the bones.

Those bones had no magic for us, but in their own way, they kept us safe. Because only witches would dare decorate their property like that, and no one messed with witches.

I pulled the truck into the front yard just as Bunny was getting out of her prized powder blue Camaro, a bucket of chicken tucked under her arm.