Graveminder

Abruptly, Charlie stood. “Feel free to stay and enjoy the show.” He nodded at them both and put his hat on his head. “Be seeing you soon, William.”

As soon as Charlie left, the bar started filling up. Whatever privacy they’d had before vanished as dead men and women sat down at the tables. Many of them nodded to William.

Byron turned to his father. “I have questions.”

“I don’t know that I have answers you’ll like.” William motioned to the waitress. “The bottle.”

After she was gone, Byron stared at his father. “Did Mom know?”

“She did.”

“But what about Maylene? If Graveminders and Undertakers are together , and each job’s passed on in families ...” He paused, thinking. “It doesn’t work after one generation.”

“Love doesn’t mean marriage, son. If they choose to be together, one of them has to pick a new family to pass his or her duty on to. The son or the daughter is spared. That’s the benefit of the contract. You pick one of the children to let free of it.” William laughed, but there was only bitterness in the sound. “If I’d married Maylene, one of our children would have been chosen, and the other role would’ve moved to another family in town—someone we chose. If we had no children, or if we had no blood-heirs we deemed worthy and capable, we could pick a successor. That’s the loophole that Maylene was clever enough to use to choose Rebekkah: she decided that the choice to be Graveminder was part of being worthy, so she decided to give Ella and Rebekkah both the choice, but Ella made a different choice before Maylene even told Rebekkah.”

“So you could’ve ...”

“Only if you were a wastrel. Only if you couldn’t handle it. Only if it was— in my heart’s truth —better for the town. There’s no one I’d trust more with the duty; you’ve always been meant to be the new Undertaker.” William accepted the bottle from the waitress before she had a chance to set it on the table. Silently, he poured Scotch into their glasses.

When Byron realized that the waitress was still beside the table, he looked up at her.

She bent down and whispered, “If you want”—she flicked her tongue along the curve of his ear—“Mr. D says you can have a full night on the house.” She straightened up and gestured around the room. “ Anyone. Anything. No kink too bizarre.”

Most of the club’s occupants were staring at him. Amused smiles, parted lips, heavy-lidded eyes, disdainful glares, and raw hunger—there was no continuity in expression. Byron felt curiously exposed and uncertain of how to react.

The waitress pressed an envelope into his hand. “Here’s a chit. It’s got no expiration date ... unless you die, of course. As long as you’re alive, though, we’re available.”

“Thank you,” he said, not because he was truly grateful, but because she looked at him expectantly. “I’m just not ... I don’t know what to say.”

She bent closer and brushed her lips over his cheek, quickly tucking a book of matches into his hand as she did so. “Welcome to our world, Undertaker.”

Chapter 22

DAISHA LIFTED HER HAND TO KNOCK ON THE TRAILER DOOR. SHE FELT odd knocking, but the alternative was walking in unannounced and that didn’t feel comfortable either. Nothing felt quite right: being here wasn’t right, but not-being-here was wrong. So she knocked.

The door opened, and her mother stood in front of her. She wore a clingy T-shirt and too-tight jeans. Makeup hid some of the splotchiness of her skin, but it couldn’t do anything for her bloodshot eyes. She had both a cigarette and a beer bottle in her hand. For a moment, she simply stared at her daughter.

“You’re gone. You left.” Behind her, the light from the television flickered and cast blue-tinged shadows on the wall.

“Well, I’m back.” Daisha thought about shoving her mother aside and going into the trailer, but the idea of touching Gail made her hesitate.

“How come?” Gail leaned again the doorjamb and studied Daisha. “I don’t have the time to be bailing you out if you’re in some sort of trouble, you hear?”

“Where’s Paul?”

Gail narrowed her gaze. “He’s at work.”

“Good.” Daisha stepped past her mother.

“I didn’t say you could come in.” Gail let the door slam closed even as she said the words. Absently she flicked the ash from her barely smoked cigarette in the general direction of one of the overfull ashtrays on the scarred coffee table.

“Why?”

“I’m not running a motel. You left and—”

“No. I didn’t leave. You sent me away.” Daisha didn’t feel the confusion she’d been feeling since she’d woken up. The walls had the dirty tinge of too much smoke trapped in a small space; the carpet had the burn marks and stains of too many drunken nights; and the furniture had the cracks and tears that told of fights and poverty. As she stood in the tiny structure that had once been her home, she understood more than she had so far: this was where she belonged. It was hers, her home, her space.

“He said he’d be good to you, and it’s not like I was sending you off to some stranger.” Gail lit another cigarette and then flopped back onto the sagging sofa with the same bottle of beer and the cigarette in hand. “Paul said he was good people.”

Daisha stayed standing. “You knew better, though, didn’t you, Mom ?”

Gail lifted the beer bottle to her lips and drank. Then, with a vague up-and-down gesture, she motioned at Daisha. “You look fine, so what are you bitching about?”

“For starters? I’m dead.”

“You’re what?”

Daisha stepped across the small room to stand at the edge of the sofa. She looked down at her mother and hoped to see some sort of emotion, some hint that Gail was relieved to see her. There was nothing. Daisha repeated, “I’m dead.”

“Right.” Gail snorted. “And I’m the fucking queen of Rome.”

“Rome doesn’t have a queen. It’s a city, but”—Daisha sat down beside her mother—“I am dead.”

The words felt unnatural, admitting them felt impossible, but they were right. Her body didn’t live. Her heart didn’t beat in her chest; her breath didn’t fill her lungs. The things that made a person alive had stopped—because her mother had let someone make her dead.

“Dead,” Daisha whispered. “I am dead, not alive, not right, and you’re the reason why.”

“You think that’s funny?” Gail started to stand, but Daisha shoved her back before she was all the way upright.

“No,” Daisha said. “It’s not funny at all.”

Gail raised a hand, the one holding the cigarette, as if to slap her daughter. The cherry of the cigarette was almost pretty.

For a tense moment, Gail’s hand stayed upraised and open, but she didn’t touch Daisha. Instead, she took a drag off the cigarette and exhaled noisily. “I’m not laughing.”

“Good. It’s not funny.” Daisha took her mother’s wrist and forced her arm back down. The bones under her mother’s skin felt like brittle twigs wrapped in sweet flesh and warm blood. It was hard to believe she’d ever thought her mother was strong.

Daisha kept hold of Gail’s stick-thin wrist and scooted closer. She pressed her knee hard into Gail’s leg, pinning her. “Tell me. Did you honestly think—even for a moment—that I would be safe?”

Gail’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say any of the words that would help. Instead, she shoved ineffectually at Daisha with the hand that held the bottle and muttered, “You look fine to me.” She shoved again, harder this time.