Chapter Nineteen
Fetch the Bones
Raelean’s windshield wipers work overtime the entire drive home. Once we round the bend to my house, she lets up off the gas as multiple sheriff cars clog our driveway.
“Are you absolutely certain you want to do this...?” Her voice is extra twangy. That cocked eyebrow of hers lecturing me.
There’s a half second where I want to tell her to floor it and get us the hell out of there. But parked alongside the sheriff’s car is a coroner’s van. Raelean eases forward, seeing it, too.
“I’m not so sure this is about you,” she says, stretching her neck to see what the fuss is all about. The backyard comes into view and she stops.
A small backhoe slams its massive digging bucket into the rain-soaked ground behind our house.
“What the hell?” I hop out of her car, apprehension ticking in my chest as I walk up the driveway.
The backhoe’s hydraulic arm swings to the side and dumps the dirt out of the bucket. Then back to the hole for another scoop.
The wrongness of it loosens my knees. The rain, the trees—the world is closing in around me; the air is suffocatingly tight.
Sheets of rain pour off our tin roof as I slip onto the porch. A deathly stillness lies there as the mechanical monster claws at the yard.
I stand silently next to Grandmama and watch the unimaginable—they’re digging up Papaw.
Sheriff Johns hands me some folded papers. I take the official-looking documents and scan the pages.
“Search warrant from the judge,” he says as I read just that. “Read it in its entirety to your grandmother. Let me know if you have any questions.” He crosses his beefy arms, and we keep watching. I pass the papers for Raelean to see.
Digging up the dead feels wrong, unholy even. Especially on a Sunday morning. You lay someone in the ground, you expect them to stay there. But with Papaw, it downright pisses me off. I can feel my jaw locking up as the tension spreads through my body.
I want it to stop.
My feet are swifter than my judgment, and I march right past the sheriff to the porch steps and—Raelean catches ahold of my arm.
“It’s gonna happen,” she says. A lump gets hung in my throat. “Nothing any of us can do now.” I want to tell her she’s wrong, that I can stop all this, right here and now.
But somewhere inside me, I know she’s right. It’s enough that I step back.
I scowl over at my grandmother. As powerful as she claims to be, she can’t stop them, either. Maybe she was never powerful to begin with. Maybe it was just my inflated fear as a child that she warped and manipulated for years. It makes me hate her all the more.
Whatever killed Stone Rutledge, they think Sin Eater Oil played a part. Doesn’t matter to the sheriff that Papaw went septic from the way it built up in his body from years of the death-talking. To them, it looks the same. Two men from very different socioeconomic worlds. The most obvious link...me.
We huddle together in the shelter of the porch as the sky weeps. I’d do anything to go back to that cave with Rook. Crawl up in his arms and pretend this world doesn’t exist. Just him and me, and that tiny piece of happiness we carved out for ourselves.
That backhoe keeps hollowing out my soul—dig, dump.
Dig.
Dump.
Dig—the man operating the backhoe stops mid-scoop and waves an arm at the sheriff.
They’ve hit the pine box. The blood drains from my face in a cold flush.
With the flick of his fingers, Sheriff Johns directs two men already out in the yard with rain slickers and shovels, ready to finish the job.
Seems like, if anyone should be doing the digging, it should be Bone Layer. He put Papaw in the ground, he ought to take him out. I look around, realizing neither he nor the truck are here.
It takes time, but eventually they uncover the pine box, wrap straps around it, and haul it from the earth. The thick pine, coated in a heavy protective layer of shellac and oil, hasn’t degraded too much—Bone knows how to make a proper death box.
An angry burst of thunder cracks, followed by a zipper of lightning across the sky.
Papaw’s not happy about this.
A man jabs a crowbar at the edge of the lid—I gasp and turn my back to it. Like a tree in the storm, my roots are being ripped out from underneath me. Raelean wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders.
My heart is a heavy lump in my chest, dreading the tiniest bit of evidence they might find. That they could use my gift against me. Might now have a reason to send me away for good.
Because I am the Devil’s Seed Child. This town damned me and my soul a long time ago.
Grandmama just stands there in her oversized white dress shirt, dingy from age and farm work since it was once Papaw’s. Her brown skirt a sack with an elastic waistband. An emotionless bag of bones bundled in fabric, that’s what she is. Her heart a cold lifeless rock, unfazed by the depravity of what’s happening here. I turn to face her.
“Do something,” my voice pleads. “Don’t let them take him.”
“Quiet!” she snaps back. “Won’t no good come of it. You’ve done quite enough already.” And as she inclines her head my direction, I notice the brass chain to the bone-tooth key back around her neck. Probably knows what I’ve been up to if she realizes which recipe I stole. What do I care? Not like she’d go out of her way to help with the sheriff, anyway.
Anger penetrates my chest. Stuffs itself under my bones. Pries beneath the very core of me. I push past Grandmama and the other deputies on the porch and escape inside the house.
Raelean rushes behind to follow me inside. “Sweetie, maybe you should just—”
“Go home.” I swivel around, hard and fast. Shock widens her eyes until they frown with hurt. I clamp down on the rage that’s bubbling inside me, realizing I shouldn’t have swung it at her. But right now I can barely breathe, much less carry on a conversation. I gather the last bit of kindness left in me. “I appreciate you, I truly do. I just need a little...a little bit of breathing room.”
God love her, her eyes soften with that unspoken understanding. She reaches out and gently squeezes my hand. “You call me later.”
I nod. The screen door quietly claps shut behind her.
Water trickles from the kitchen faucet as I fill a glass. I down it, then another. Neither extinguishes the anger, the frustration, the sadness, the everything that’s eating me up right now.
I take a little bit of comfort in knowing the most damning evidence is back at Raelean’s—the perfume bottle.
I reach for the faucet to fill a third glass when I notice what’s missing from the kitchen windowsill. There’s a spot now, void of dust where the familiar recipe box usually sits. There are plenty of recipes in there that can incriminate both of us, and for more than just Stone Rutledge’s death.
Frantic, I scan the counter. Comb the kitchen shelves. Ransack the cabinets. Everywhere I search, I come up with nothing.
It’s gone.
A half second of confusion muddles my thoughts. Why on earth would Grandmama hide the recipe box—to protect me?
I huff a laugh to myself. She wouldn’t. She’s protecting herself.
A squeak from the unoiled screen door turns me around. Grandmama shuffles inside the house. Her age and stature makes her seem frail and innocent, you wouldn’t suspect she could even kill a fly.
“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?” Her voice a heavy ragged thing that scrapes the earth. That definitive note of blame always lingers in her tone. It points its ugly dog finger at me, as if everything is my fault. “Or do I have to ask you twice?”
Her scornful blind eyes stare right at me. That hardened heart of hers is always looking for a reason to cut me down. I want to drill her with all the questions I have, but now ain’t the time; not with the law as thick as they are out front. There is no doubt in my mind that if they pressure her in any way, she would turn me over, if it meant saving her own ass. That recipe box she would swear on the Bible was mine.
“I don’t know where you’ve hidden the recipe box—” I drop my voice threateningly low “—but if you think for one second I won’t tell the sheriff how you’ve used my Sin Eater Oil, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Grandmama’s face slips smooth, almost ashen, as her mind registers what I’m saying. Her cloudy eyes dart straight to the windowsill, where the box should be sitting. For her ailing eyes, it’s a rectangle of light. The black square that usually sits there is gone.
Her gnarled arthritic knuckles clutch the brass chain of her bone-tooth key like a fretting priest holding his rosary. She’s scared. Holy shit, she’s scared.
I ease back against the kitchen sink, realizing it’s not Grandmama who’s hidden the recipes. The only other person who’s ever in this house is—
Out front, I see Bone Layer has returned and more deputies have arrived as well. That asshole has gone and hidden it to protect her.
I storm out into the backyard to confront Bone. The rain less angry than it was a bit ago, but still stubborn about sticking around.
“Excuse me, Deputy,” I say to the officer who waits on the tiny porch of the smokehouse with Bone’s shotgun in hand. The officer doesn’t stop me as I burst into Bone Layer’s sleeping quarters.
He looks up from putting on his church coat.
I don’t remember the last time I came into Bone Layer’s room—years, maybe. Only six shirts hang in a single rusty red armoire, a piece of furniture that’s older than him and me. Made from Appalachian pine and painted with homemade milk paint tinted with red clay. Folded on a shelf are four pairs of work pants and a couple of undershirts. A single oil lamp rests next to his bed, along with his Bible. A pitcher and water basin for washing up nestle on a table next to the small woodburning stove. Just the bare minimum of life’s necessities. No modern amenities. Doesn’t have to be that way. He chooses this life. This is Bone’s own personal atonement, but for what, I don’t know.
“Nice of you to join us,” I smart off. Then, remembering my purpose, I add, “Where have you hidden it?” through gritted teeth. He knows what I’m talking about, too. I can see it in his eyes.
Usual Bone Layer–style, he doesn’t say a word. He just sits down on his tiny bed, the covers stripped from the thin mattress and folded up as if they won’t be used for a while. He swaps out his work boots for his church boots. The difference: scuffed versus not.
Bone Layer seems ageless at times, but now that I’m getting a good look at him, crow’s-feet are scratched around his eyes. Gray peppers the fluffy tufts of his sideburns. Even his leathery hands are hardened and wrinkled from years of manual labor.
“Where are you going?” I ask at the sight of a small duffel bag sitting on the floor.
“Bone, you ready?” the deputy waiting outside the door asks.
Bone Layer nods, then his dark eyes turn to me. “I promised your mother I’d do anything to protect you” is all he says. These simple words knock me back a step. He walks out onto the porch of his one-room smokehouse and places his hands behind his back.
“Jonesy Elijah Hayworth,” the deputy says, calling out Bone Layer’s full name. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”
“Wait? What’s happening?” I ask Oscar, though I’m not sure when he arrived.
Another deputy interrupts us. “Coroner thinks it could be the same poison. Take the pine box, too? It’s not rotted,” he says to Oscar, who nods yes.
“And have the boys search the premises and collect anything that could be considered poisonous. Bag and tag everything.”
The sheriff instructs them to load the coffin into the coroner’s van. They haul Bone to the deputy’s car, where he’s placed in the back. People are searching through things and taking stuff—our things.
Oscar rests a hand on my arm to refocus my attention on him. “Bone came into the station after they arrived to dig up your grandfather,” Oscar says, then pauses to make sure I’m listening. “We have two bodies...infants.” So they did find them—and that’s how Gabby got the blankets, they must have been left behind. “They have the same marks from the black poison that killed Stone Rutledge. Same as your grandfather. Bone Layer claims he buried those infants. We suspect these aren’t the only victims he’s poisoned.”
“He didn’t kill them!” I blurt, even though the truth wouldn’t be any easier to explain.
“He hasn’t denied it, either, Weatherly.”
“What’s Papaw got to do with any of this? You trying to pin his death on Bone Layer, too? Bone Layer loved my Papaw more than anyone. You know that. He would never have poisoned him. Besides, the coroner already determined sepsis killed Papaw. Are we just inventing crimes now?” Desperation and guilt thin my voice. Tell him, tell him the truth about the babies! Fear locks my mouth shut.
“In light of the new evidence, the medical examiner is reconsidering your grandfather’s initial cause of death.”
“I killed them,” I blurt it out, ready to take whatever is coming to me. Oscar flinches back at my abrupt confession. I shove my wrists at him so he can lock me up instead.
He rolls this over in his head. Then his scrunched brow softens. Those tender eyes of his brush over me as if he’s regarding a child.
“Look, I know Bone feels like family to you. This isn’t going to be easy on y’all, but I promise you... I’ll make sure he’s well taken care of as we sort this all out—”
“You’re not hearing what I’m telling you. It wasn’t Bone Layer. I’m the reason they’re dead,” I say, loud enough one of the deputies looks our way.
Oscar pushes me back into the smokehouse a little farther. “Enough.” I’ve never heard him speak so harshly. “It’s not possible. It happened a long time ago, you would have been a child yourself. Don’t go stepping your way in front of this to protect Bone Layer. I said we’ll sort it out. Trust me to do my job. Jesus, how many times do I have to ask you this?”
I promised your mother I’d do anything to protect you.It’s hard enough for me to fathom Bone Layer was close enough with my mother to make such a promise, much less follow through with the vow. But that’s exactly what he’s doing right now.
“It wasn’t Bone.” My words so quiet, I’m not sure Oscar hears me. Or maybe I didn’t even speak them out loud. My head is circling, and I feel like I’m going to drop from the dizzy spin of my thoughts.
“Now listen, we’ll need your grandmother to come down to fill out some paperwork,” Oscar continues. “We have a warrant to search the entire property, so if you know where there’s poison—any type of poison at all...” Oscar pauses and raises a knowing brow. “You should tell us now.”
“Um,” I say distractedly. “There’s rat poison in the barn I think. But no, nothing else I can recall.”
More deputies flood the property, pulling barrels and boxes out of the barn. Someone squeezes past us into the one-room smokehouse, and I step out of the way. He starts to tear apart Bone Layer’s room.
“No, you can’t take that.” I grab Bone Layer’s cigar box of miniature taxidermy birds he hasn’t finished yet. It’s bad enough they have him; they can’t have his stuff, too.
Oscar nods to the deputy to let me have the box. He instructs him to give me a minute and search elsewhere.
“This is a lot to take in.” Oscar sits me down on Bone’s bed as he kneels in front of me. “Just let us do our job. When you feel more on your feet, you’ll need to drive your grandmother down to the station.”
He tells me to pack some clothes for a night or two, as we’re not allowed to stay here while they complete their search. I don’t know where we can go, since Grandmama hates Aunt Violet.
Oscar leaves me there.
Sitting on Bone Layer’s bed.
Swimming in my thoughts.
Along the inside of the rusty red armoire’s door, a full-length mirror. Gray lines from its age wrinkle over the face. Sometimes if you stare at yourself long enough, you don’t recognize the person staring back anymore.
I grab the armoire’s thin door to close it and pause. A dark shadow of a box hides under Bone’s bed. Squared edges, quietly tucked away in the recess of the corner. Nothing special about it, but a sweet hum warms my chest. It nudges me off the bed, onto my knees. I reach back until my fingers catch the corner of the box and slide it on out.
An old wooden chest. Hand-forged metal straps wrapped around it, with an unusual keyhole on the front.
For a bone-tooth key.
“Holy shit.” I run a knowing hand over it. This is the box my mother propped her foot on in that photo the sheriff showed me.
I pat where the necklace lays under my shirt and pull it out. My hand shakes as I slide the toothy bits perfectly into the hole. Energy from the magic thrums through my body as I flip my wrist with a turn, and the lid pops as it releases.
The hinges creak in protest as I tilt the lid open, and I peer down inside and find one lone item.
A tiny red suitcase.
My heart skips. I can hear my mama whispering, a twangy, insecure sound, promising to take me to see that ocean. The tiny seashell she gave me sealing that promise. Why give the suitcase to Bone Layer?
Careful to keep an eye toward the door for deputies, I reach inside and pull it out.
On the front, a cartoon image of a little blond girl in a hooded yellow cape, carrying a basket of goodies. The metal locks spring open under the pressure of my thumbs. I begin to crack open the suitcase—
The sound of footsteps growing closer to the smokehouse stops me. Quickly, I slap the metal latches shut and stand. I dart past him out the door and head straight for the pickup truck.
“Ma’am, that’s evidence,” the deputy calls to me as I’m about to slip the suitcase inside Bone Layer’s truck.
Quickly, I glance to Oscar, who’s instructing another man to search under the house.
“You said we can’t stay here tonight. Since when are my panties evidence?” I show Oscar the suitcase that isn’t much bigger than two shoeboxes. I hope like hell he was too busy to notice I didn’t get this from my room.
There’s a slight hesitation, where he might ask me to show him the contents. Fear ices over me. I glare at the deputy who’s edging up in my space a bit too close.
“Rodney, go search the smokehouse.” Oscar points where the deputy needs to get going.
I drop the suitcase into the truck bed with a defiant thud.