18. Charlie #2
I stepped into the salt circle, shovel raised, and jabbed it into the ground.
The cursed earth didn’t seem to affect me through the metal shovels.
Or perhaps Brad’s salt nullified whatever malevolent energy radiated from the grave.
Either way, I managed to dig without that horrible sensation of wrongness crawling up my arms.
Immediately, Brad stopped. “No, not like that. You’ll strain your back. Here—” He demonstrated, foot on the edge of the shovel blade, using his body weight to drive it deep into the soil. “See? Let gravity do the work.”
The next thirty minutes passed in a blur of corrections and increasingly creative swearing. Apparently I held the shovel wrong, lifted wrong, turned wrong, and deposited the dirt in entirely the wrong place.
“Not there! We need clear piles, Charlie. Organised. Otherwise we’ll just be shovelling the same dirt twice.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“And bend your knees more. You’re going to wreck your lower back.”
“Got it.”
“Are you even trying?”
Small mercies.
After what felt like hours but was probably only thirty minutes, I straightened, wiping sweat from my forehead. My shirt stuck to my back and blisters threatened to form on my palms.
“I’m getting water for us,” I announced.
Brad grunted, not looking up from his digging.
I climbed out of the deepening hole—already almost waist-deep, courtesy of Brad’s relentless pace—and headed towards the manor.
Bat floated backwards in front of me, studying my face. “You look knackered.”
“Cheers.”
We reached the kitchen. I filled two glasses with water from the tap, downing both of them back to back, the cool liquid soothing my parched throat. Then I carried them back through the garden at a slower pace. No rush to return to manual labour.
The apple tree came into view. Shockingly, Brad seemed to be taking a break—he stood by the hole, stretching his arms above his head in a vaguely professional manner.
Sunlight caught the sweat on his shoulders.
Muscles moved beneath skin as he stretched out his right leg.
His thighs flexed with each movement, the tight navy shorts revealing a truly impressive amount of bare skin, tanned a golden brown.
I slowed further, my eyes stubbornly refusing to look anywhere else.
“Admiring the view?”
My head snapped to Bat’s to find his lips pursed like he’d sucked something sour.
“What? No. I’m just—I’m tired. Catching my breath.”
“Sure. Nothing to do with Brad’s ass.”
“It’s not—I wasn’t—”
“His thighs, then. Can’t really miss them, can you?” Bat’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Shall I give you and his rugby thighs some privacy?”
“Stop being ridiculous. You know I hate Brad.”
“You seemed pretty into him the other day!”
“What?!” I spluttered. “Yeah, when you were possessing him! You know how much I hate him!”
“You know…” Bat drifted closer, voice dropping. “I could possess him again. If you like that body of his so much. We could have some fun with it.”
I nearly dropped both water glasses. “What? No. Bat—”
“Come on. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about me falling through floors. Or losing my grip on reality mid-thrust.”
The joke didn’t land. His voice carried something horribly sharp underneath.
“Hey.” I softened my voice. “I don’t want Brad’s hideous body. I want you.”
“Yeah, but I come with complications—”
“So? Who doesn’t?” I gestured at myself with one of the glasses, water sloshing. “I’m currently digging up a ghost’s corpse because my life choices are spectacular. Trust me, complications don’t scare me off.”
Bat’s gaze flicked between me and Brad.
“Besides,” I added, “it’s still Brad’s body. That would be wrong. And also—imagine if you suddenly lost your grip on him halfway through and he came around to find my naked ass under his.”
“He’d punch your lights out,” Bat finished, lips twitching.
“Exactly. And listen. In case it wasn’t explicitly clear, I find your body very hot. And your face. Your hair. Your… everything. So let’s stick with your body, yeah? The one I actually want to touch.”
“Oi!” Brad’s voice cut across the garden. “Stop dawdling! I’m doing all the bloody work here!”
I rushed forward, crossing the salt circle with both glasses. Brad climbed out of the hole, took the offered water, and downed it in three massive gulps. Water spilled down his chin, his throat, disappearing beneath the neck of his tank top.
“Right. Back to it.”
Time lost all meaning after that. Shovel. Lift. Turn. Deposit. Repeat. The hole deepened. My arms screamed. Those blisters formed, burning with each movement.
Bat floated nearby us, silent and brooding.
Shovel. Lift. Turn. Deposit.
Who knew how long it actually took to dig up a grave? Not me. Not before today. A life skill Gerald had gifted me.
Shovel. Lift—
“Stop!”
My shovel had connected with something. Not stone. Not root. Something that gave slightly under the blade’s edge, then tore.
I froze.
“What is it?” Brad scrambled over, peering down at where my shovel rested.
I tilted the blade, revealing a piece of fabric. Tattered. Stained. Dirty brown and grey, falling apart even as I lifted it into the light.
Brad leaned closer, eyes narrowed. “This could be her.”
The fabric disintegrated further, crumbling into fragments that scattered across the disturbed earth.
From somewhere deep below, something shifted.
The air grew cold.
My shovel scraped against something harder. Something that didn’t crumble or tear.
Bone.
I jerked backwards, nearly losing my footing in the cramped hole.
Brad’s eyes lit up. “Brilliant! Put the shovel down now. Spirits don’t like it when you break their bones. Makes them absolutely mental.”
“I’m not touching bones without gloves on.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“We could get arrested for this! What if Dave actually contacts the police, and they arrive to find us like this? ‘Yes, officer, we were just digging up a three-hundred-year-old witch because my colleague thought it would be a laugh.’”
Brad rolled his eyes. “Stop being a baby.”
“I’m being sensible!”
“You’re being precious. Just use your sleeve if you’re that bothered.”
I tugged my sleeve over my hand, crouched down, and tried to shift the earth around what was possibly a femur, but what did I know.
The fabric caught on its edges. Dirt ground into the material.
After thirty seconds of awkward fumbling, I gave up and just grabbed the bloody thing with my bare hands.
It felt exactly as horrible as expected. Rough. Cold. Wrong.
“There we go,” Brad said cheerfully. “Not so bad, is it?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
We worked in silence after that, unearthing bone after bone. Ribs. Vertebrae. The delicate bones of fingers that crumbled slightly as I lifted them. Brad directed me to place everything in a pile outside the salt circle, organised by general body region.
Skull. Pelvis. Long bones. Small bones. Everything that remained of Margery Darke, laid out on the grass beside her violated grave.
The collection looked pathetic. Stained brown and grey, misshapen, cracked in places. Some pieces missing entirely. Time and earth had not been kind.
Brad wiped his hands on his shorts, surveying our work. “Right. Now we need to reform her.”
“Reform her?”
“Yeah. Lay the bones out properly. Skeleton shape. Can’t summon a spirit without giving it something to anchor to.”
I stared at the pile. Then at Brad. “How exactly are we supposed to do that? They’re ancient. Half of them don’t even look like bones anymore.”
“It’ll be easy. Go make us sandwiches and I’ll have it done by the time you get back.”
It was not easy.
And it was not done by the time I got back.
I returned with a tray of ham and cheese sandwiches to find Brad on his hands and knees, turning a vertebra in his hands, squinting at it like it might suddenly reveal its secrets.
“Thought you said this would be easy.”
“Shut up.”
I set the tray down and crouched beside him. The partial skeleton spread across the grass looked less like a human and more like an abstract art installation. The skull sat approximately where a skull should go. Everything else appeared to be placed at random.
“This is like a jigsaw puzzle,” I muttered. “Except all the pieces are the same colour and half of them are missing.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“The ribs are upside down.”
Brad glared at me.
Movement caught my eye. Molly drifted across the lawn, Thomas trailing behind her. They stopped at the edge of the salt circle, peering down at our work.
“Oh my,” Molly said. “Is that a spine?”
“Attempting to be,” I muttered.
“Thomas, dear, doesn’t that bit look wrong to you?”
Thomas scratched his chin. “Aye. Pelvis is backwards.”
“That’s clearly not how a body goes together,” Molly said primly.
I bit back a laugh.
For the next hour, we became archaeologists, anatomists, and increasingly frustrated puzzle-solvers. Molly hovered nearby, offering observational commentary. Thomas occasionally pointed out which way various bones should face. Even Bat stopped sulking long enough to drift over and observe.
Spirit Extraction Specialist was already going on my CV. Maybe I could add Amateur Grave Robber underneath it. Really complete the picture.
“There.” Brad sat back on his heels, breathing hard. “Done.”
The skeleton sprawled across the grass in something approximating human shape. Skull. Spine. Ribs. Arms. Legs. Wonky in places, missing bits in others, but recognisable.
By that point, even Bat looked impressed. “Huh. Actually thought you two would bollocks that up completely.”
I glared at him, mouthing, “Wanker.”
Brad lifted the PolterPulse, aiming it at the skull. The weapon hummed, charging up.
“What are you—”
Zap.
A beam of neon blue light hit the skull. Nothing happened. Brad frowned, adjusted his aim, and fired again. This time at the ribcage.
Zap.
Still nothing.
“Bloody hell,” Bat muttered. “What’s he doing, playing laser tag with a corpse?”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh.
Brad moved methodically down the skeleton, zapping each major bone cluster. Pelvis. Zap. Collarbone. Zap.