Page 95 of We Already Dug the Grave

His dirt bike.

I need my aunts.

No.

Ashes to ashes

Nourish and live

How many years

Will my corpse give?

What to do what to do what to do first…

Bury him or move his bike?

Casey was hidden from view, but if Aunt Hattie woke up and saw the bike, I’d have to explain. I can’t I can’t can’t.

She’d think something was wrong with me. Maybe she’d send me away.

Something is wrong with me. I should be sent away.

I raced to the yard. To his bike.

The sky still glowed a hazy pink. What time is it?

I pushed it down our long, twisting driveway, past Ruth’s wards. Useless wards. Useless bones.

Useless death.

One of the bones—a tiny femur, maybe?—had come loose and fallen to the ground. Without thinking, I bent and scooped it up, shoving it in my pocket.

I pushed the bike to the bend in our road, not far from the house. There was a drop-off where kudzu devoured everything below. As I shoved the bike over the edge and watched it get swallowed up, there was a blink of clarity. Oh, how Casey loves that bike! He’d worked so hard that summer at the feedstore. Saved every penny, hid his money in a jar at my house so no one at his could drink it away.

Now it’s gone.

The front door was shut tight when I made it back to the house: No Hattie-May sitting on the porch with her morning coffee. No Ruth walking to her truck to go to work at the gas station. Would they do those normal things?

Will they come make potions at the creek? Will Frances?

Will Casey join?

No. Casey is asleep, asleep, asleep.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve and kept going.

A shovel was propped against Ruth’s shed. Dark, rust-colored stains covered its tip and part of the handle.

I grabbed it, ignoring the dried blood. Ignoring the familiar way it fit in my hand and the phantom pain that shot up my arm.

The memory of that unnerving zap of power shocked me back into myself.

Then, excruciating, painful lucidity.

Oh God, what had I done? A scream pushed against my ribs, and I thought for a moment that if I didn’t let it out it would burst through me. I couldn’t, though. Couldn’t draw attention. I shoved my fist against my mouth and bit down, swallowing the eruption of pain.

Tears slid down my cheek as I buried my best friend in a shallow, unmarked grave in the woods behind my house. When I was done, I put the shovel back where I’d found it and knew I was completely alone.