Page 58 of We Already Dug the Grave

Mr. Fortenberry was at least six three and had the body of a former college athlete gone soft. “I don’t think we can move him.”

“We have to try.” Her eyes widened. “I won’t let you get in trouble for this. I won’t get in trouble for this. Come on.”

My mind couldn’t cobble together a better plan, so I grabbed my dead teacher’s legs and heaved. We managed to get him a few inches from the ground and walked two steps before Frances lost her grip.

“Shit.” She bent forward, examining her sneakers. “Okay, good.”

“What?”

“My shoes. They’re new. I had to save up my own money to buy them, and I’ve only worn them a week.” She dusted herself off, as if this were the most normal reasoning on earth. Can’t get this dead man’s blood on my new yellow Converse!

My heart thudded.

Everything about this was wrong. I knew what we had to do.

“We have to tell the aunts,” I said, dropping Mr. Fortenberry’s legs.

“What?” Frances shook her head. “No. They’ll be so angry, so ashamed of me. I don’t want them to know that I…that he…” She gestured to the corpse.

“We have to, Frances.”

“What if they want to call the police? What then?”

I thought of Mrs. Earline sitting in our kitchen with a purple handprint on her cheek. Of her husband’s obituary a week later. Of Hattie-May helping women with their pest problems.

“They won’t.” Nervous tears sprung to my eyes because I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not.

Frances blinked. “They’re going to be so upset with me.”

“No, they’re not.” Somewhere an owl screeched. The evening had grown darker, and all this blood reminded of the bedtime stories we used to whisper to each other in the dark. The ones about the Hattie-May’s tree, the rotting willow. I wanted out of the forest. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Without a word, I looped an arm around Frances’s waist and we clung together as we walked across the clearing, toward the overgrown path, back to the truck.

As we drove home, I stole a glance at my sister, who stared straight ahead, through the windshield. There was faint bruising around her neck.

If I hadn’t been in the back of the truck. If I hadn’t followed my sister into the clearing…

“I was so wrong,” Frances said quietly as I drove us down the back roads. “I thought Shane cared about me. I thought he was my person. He wasn’t.” She shook her head. “Milly,promise me you’ll never leave me.”

“Of course I’ll never leave you,” I said.

I reached for Frances’s hand as the Rust Bucket bounced past the bones and down the driveway. It wasn’t until I pulled to a stop in the yard and shifted to park that I thought of the leaves.

They’d been right.

Death had come.

Chapter 22

Now

Frances settled herself on the lone barstool as I filled the kettle. A bridal magazine sat on the counter in a stack of mail. My sister’s nose wrinkled as she picked it up and thumbed its pages. “Are congratulations in order?”

“What? No. Never.” I popped the kettle onto the stove and cranked the burner to high. “That’s my roommate’s. I think she’s expecting her boyfriend to pop the question soon.” I pulled a saucer and mug from the cupboard and scooped tea into it, then slid them in from of Frances.

A moment later, the kettle whistled, and I filled the mug with water. Across the small counter, we held hands.

Anticipation crackled like static across my skin as I centered my mind on Frances. Burt. Moss Grove.