Chapter 2 A Justified Breaking and Entering
I’M AT THE CEMETERY, SCOPING out the dark, grimly manicured lawn riddled with tombstones and bent-over, judgy trees.
So far, I think I’ve done a decent job of clearing the graveyard perimeter.
I wouldn’t usually be caught dead in a place like this.
Right now, I’m mostly concerned about being caught, period.
Being forced to return to Salem has been enough of a prison sentence. I don’t want to get locked up for real.
I tuck away the pair of heavy-duty scissors I bought to cut the security camera wiring, then launch myself up the stabby-topped iron gate. The duffel on my shoulder gets jostled as I ascend.
“Oof,” says a voice in the bag. Which I ignore, appropriately.
I know I’m doing the right thing by not turning this severed head in to the Salem Police Department.
The town’s reputation notwithstanding, the Salem homicide department has zero experience with magical murder cases. Trust me, I looked it up.
Besides, dead people and dead things in general belong in graveyards. It’s science.
I finally topple over the iron gate onto grass, the duffel bouncing a bit until it stops against a grave marker—more annoyed sound effects ensue—and I scope out my path.
“Please don’t do this,” the head whines. “I don’t want to be buried again. It’s so dark and wormy down there!”
I scowl. This brings up so many questions, and I literally do not want to know.
“My name is Bulan, by the way,” adds the head.
So is that what was going on with the labeled bucket in Grandma’s living room? Was she keeping this head as a freaky pet? Either way…
“I don’t care,” I mutter under my breath.
I shoulder the bag again and retrace my steps to my destination: Grandma’s grave.
It was hardly ten hours ago we laid her to rest. The only ones gathered for it were me, Grandma’s witch cabal, the probate lawyer, the undertaker, and some unhinged tourists who claimed to be LARPing and wanted in on the fun.
“Oh, come on,” says the head. “You have to care a little, Sabby. You’re a nice girl. I can see it in you. I also heard you singing karaoke before you found me. No one who sings BTS that passionately is heartless.”
I’ll show him heartless. “You can sing to the worms.”
“They’re a terrible audience. Even the beetles—”
“Listen. With the exceptions you just mentioned, dead things go in the ground,” I say.
It seems safest to assume that despite the talking, the attitude, and the fact that he has a name, Bulan the head is dead.
“I’m selling Grandma’s house, and I’m not letting the inspector find any part of a corpse in there. ”
The head harrumphs. I harrumph back. Mine’s grumpier, and it settles our argument for the moment.
“If it makes a difference,” Bulan says, “you only found me because I wanted to get caught by you! I’ll hide better next time, I promise!”
He says more after that, but I tune him out.
Filtered light of the full hunter’s moon guides me through the graveyard, illuminating tombstones in patchwork states of disrepair.
When I get to Grandma’s over-the-top resting place, I drop the duffel bag and step back to observe the spectacle of her magnum opus.
I’m talking a black marble gravestone, with an oversize skull and crossbones over her name, Rosamund Spük, scrawled in a decadent swirly font.
What is this, the Constitution? Of course there’s more.
A fresh wreath of black-dyed roses and black dahlias crowns the top of the tombstone.
A low iron fence stabs at the sky. And lastly, black irises lie strewn across the dirt shoveled atop her coffin.
If I were still the little girl who adored her grandma, I’d clap in awestruck appreciation.
Maybe I’d clasp my pointed hat to my chest and recite some Edgar Allan Poe.
These days, I’d do practically anything before being caught dressed like Grandma, in a witch hat and intentionally mismatched socks.
But my chest twinges with unexpected sadness to think she won’t be traipsing through Salem in her funky outfits anymore.
I guess even a thorn in your side can get familiar enough that you don’t want it gone.
Anyway, don’t worry, Grandma—I won’t mess with your macabre memorial. In fact, I’ll clear off the chipper yellow ash leaves that fell over your flowers, ruining your perfect Gothic vibe. That’ll be our compromise for me desecrating your burial site with your unknown victim.
I unzip the duffel, ignoring the head’s doleful, pleading eyes while I search for the gardening trowel.
“Hello?”
I whip around.
There’s a guy standing a stone’s throw away.
He’s come out of nowhere, a tall, solid-looking guy, rocking a fade haircut and a jawline that’s gift wrapped in either shadow or stubble.
His face places him somewhere near my age, early twenties, but his shoulders could rival the wingspan of an eagle’s.
Yes, I’ll admit it: graveyard boy is hot.
He’s got a great body and “sensitive man” eyebrows, the kind that are currently drawing together with empathetic, masculine whimsy.
But what’s he doing hanging out here in the middle of the night, like me?
Oh god, what if he’s a security officer?
In a denim button-down and rolled-up jeans?
Hmm.
“Hey!” I say casually. As if I’m not in the process of committing multiple well-reasoned crimes. “What’s up?”
He gestures to his bespoke leather knapsack. “I’m collecting pine cones.”
Wow, okay.
I feel my shoulders drop with relief at the revelation that he isn’t a security officer in woodsy camouflage.
It’s possible he’s a groundskeeper or maybe a lumberjack model-in-training.
Yeah, that could be it. Too bad his Vermont Magazine cover-boy body is wasted potential, because I’m 1,000 percent sure “pine cones” is some kind of slang for magic mushrooms.
“Pine cones, huh?” I say. “What are you, a squirrel?”
“Ha. Funny. You out foraging too?” As he closes the bag, he smiles at me the way people do when they’re smiling back at someone.
Fun fact: I’m definitely not smiling. I’m offended to my core at the suggestion I might have such a crunchy hobby.
Which I don’t, because I’m 100 percent normal and boring. I’ve been working on it for years.
“No,” I say through clenched teeth. “Nothing like that.”
“Uh,” says something behind me. The head?
I push my duffel back, hoping that’ll keep the head from sight—and more importantly, quiet—so naturally the scissors wedge themselves out of the duffel at my rough handling.
Okay, technically, they’re a pair of wire cutters.
Still not great. I can’t let this guy think I’m the most suspicious person on the planet.
Desperately, I explain: “I was arranging the flowers on this grave.”
“Huh. I did think they looked messy earlier.” He nods. “Nice work.”
Wait a second. What kind of person even notices that about a grave? Maybe a grave robber. If this guy’s a criminal, he definitely won’t report me for deviant behavior. But then again: that would mean he’s a criminal. And that means it’s time to nip our conversation in the bud.
“Thanks,” I say. I get down on my knees and hum to myself, gathering the yellow leaves and roses and laying them out in the shape of an inverted pentagram. It’s what Grandma Rose would’ve wanted.
The guy bends to investigate my work. “Is that your job?” he asks. “To arrange flowers?”
Oh my god. Why won’t he just walk away? And why does he smell so good?
“Yeah,” I laugh as I shuffle over to the tombstone. “I’m a florist.”
“A florist? For funerals?”
Why not? I nod. “And other events.”
“Do you do weddings?”
“Oof,” says a voice behind me. A voice from within my duffel bag, presumably, because of course the head won’t let me flirt OR bury him in peace.
The guy cranes his neck, searching for the source of the sound. “Oof?”
I laugh tinnily. “Oof course I do weddings! Ha ha. Ha. It was a joke.”
The guy’s confused smile makes my heart beat faster.
I feel light and fluttery, like whipped sugar and butter flying out of a hyperactive stand mixer, which is ridiculous.
He’s at best a forager, most likely a magic mushroom addict, and at worst a grave robber.
Yet all I want is for him to keep taking an interest in me.
Sometimes I really, deeply, truly resent myself.
“So tell me,” Graveyard Guy says. “What kind of weddings do you—”
“Agh!” says the head behind us, louder now.
“Agh!” I echo. In desperation, I grasp onto Grandma’s death-wreath and cough. “Keh, kleh. Something caught in my throat!”
“Are you okay?”
The guy looks like he wants to help. I kind of want that too, but I throw out a hand to keep him at bay while I replace the wreath on the tomb.
“Yeah, ahem, agh-s it happens, I plan lots of weddings. It’s like that show Chopped, but for events: give me four weird ingredients, and I can pull off anything. That’s me, that’s my brand.”
Why am I talking about wedding planning? I thought I was a florist. Oh well, doesn’t matter. Amazingly, the guy doesn’t notice my slipup or hear the bag rustling again behind me.
“I knew our meeting was lucky!” He snaps his fingers. “I have some friends getting married next weekend.”
I feel like I missed something. “Umm… okay?”
“And they’re in a real bind,” he continues. “They’re looking for last-minute help. But none of the planners in town have the unique vibe they’re going for, you know?”
Oh no. No. This cannot be happening. I cannot be actually kneeling six feet above my dead grandmother’s body, in the process of covering up a murder in the middle of the night, getting recruited to help some random guy’s friends’ wedding.
Except it is happening, obviously. This good-looking, late-night lumberjack wasn’t flirting with me; he was interviewing me for a job.
Well done, Sabby. You let your lumber-lust lead you into a weirdly embellished cover-up story. And now you’ve tied yourself to an anchor that’s sinking you into a nightmare.
“Cool,” I manage out loud.
The guy seems pleased. “I think they’ll like your style. I’ll be in touch soon. See you!”
Whoa, wait. Absolutely not.
“Hey!” I interrupt his attempted exit. “You can’t do that. You don’t even know my name.”
“You’re Samantha Spük,” he answers. I follow his gaze to my duffel—where my name is monogrammed, courtesy of EFG’s HR department. Before I can make a snappy comeback, the guy shoots me one last sensitively eyebrowed smile.
“See you soon,” he says.
“But,” I try in vain. He’s already sauntering off to the entry gates, as chill and hot as ever. Well, I’m not. Chill, at least. Listening to the callously enthusiastic graveyard crickets, I realize:
Someone has seen me in the middle of the night messing with Grandma’s grave. And,
Said someone knows my name.
Shit. There’s no way I can bury the head here now.
With a groan, I toss the wire cutters back into the bag and zip it up. Then I slip the duffel back over my shoulder far too easily.
My breath stutters in my chest. When I drop the bag again, there’s no bounciness or muffled protests. The fabric merely sags emptily, horrifically, in front of my feet.
“Hey!” I whisper-shout. “Head! I mean Bulan! Where’d you go?”
A wind tickles the ash tree over Grandma’s grave, and its dead leaves seem to giggle.
At me, at my predicament. I have no idea how this is possible, but Bulan the head is gone.
Could he have rolled away, maybe, while I was talking with that guy?
Is this why there’d been so much grunting?
But how could a head unzip a duffel and escape on its own?
I search the grave mound, kicking up flowers. It’s no good. I can’t find the head anywhere.
Maybe it’s just me—or maybe it’s Grandma’s frozen pesto lasagna, threatening to climb back up my esophagus—but I’m pretty sure having a severed head go missing is even worse than walking around with a severed talking head on your person.
Cool cool cool cool cooooool.