Graveminder

“Let me up.”

“No.” Daisha took the beer bottle and tossed it at the opposite wall, hard enough that it shattered. The glass shards fell to the carpet like glitter. “Did you know what he was going to do?”

“Paul said—”

“No,” Daisha repeated. She pinched the cherry off the tip of the cigarette and dropped it on her mother’s lap.

Gail shrieked and tried to swat it out. “You little bitch. How dare you?”

“You sent me away with someone you didn’t know, and you didn’t expect me to come back.” Daisha squashed the smoldering ember before it did any real damage. “You knew.”

“Paul said that a lot of countries still do arranged marriages and bride prices, and it’s not like you were making a contribution. Food and electricity and ... kids are expensive. We can’t afford another baby if you’re here.” Gail’s chin jutted out. “If you were gone, we’d jump to the front of the wait to have a baby. Paul wants a baby, and I’m getting old.”

“So you were just recouping your losses, right?” Daisha stared into her mother’s eyes. This woman had given her life. All she saw was irritation. “He hurt me, and then he left me in the woods like trash ... He left me there bleeding, and when I thought I’d found help, when I thought the people from here who found me were going to help, they killed me. All because you wanted rid of me. All because Paul wants a baby.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” Daisha whispered, “but the longer I’m awake, the more I do understand. Seeing you here, it helps. Being here helps. You’re helping me now, Gail, but you know how you can help me more?”

“I can’t let you stay here, but I can ... I can not tell Paul you were here. Maybe I could get you some money or something.”

“No.” Daisha leaned her forehead against Gail’s and whispered, “I need more than that from you.”

“I don’t have anything else to give you.” Gail squirmed and batted at Daisha. “I can’t let Paul know you’re back.”

When her mother’s hand made contact with her cheek, Daisha caught both wrists and held them with one hand; she pressed harder on her mother’s leg. “Paul will figure it out when he gets here.”

Daisha covered her mother’s mouth with her hand, squeezing to make sure that the sound was muffled. She leaned forward and bit a hole in the side of her mother’s throat. It was messy, the way the blood came pouring out too fast. By the time Daisha had swallowed the first bite, Gail’s shirt was soaked.

But Daisha’s mind felt increasingly clear, and her mood was improved now that her hunger was silenced. The more she ate and drank, the clearer her mind became. Hunger made her get confused, just like fear made her drift away.

I am safe here. Now.

Eating helped; drinking helped; words helped. Gail had given her all three.

Chapter 23

AS THEY WALKED BACK TOWARD THE TUNNEL, BYRON TRIED TO TAKE IN as many details as he could. He wondered if the city itself shifted, because the streets they traversed didn’t look at all like the ones he thought they’d come in on. The area around him was definitely not modern, but he could see what looked to be a 1950s suburb at one intersection. Some blocks belonged to eras he couldn’t identify, but the residents didn’t always fit the landscape: flappers and apron-clad women were accompanied by miners from another century and modern businessmen.

“I’m going to need a map or a guide or something,” he muttered. “Otherwise, how will I ever find my way around here?”

“It gets easier,” William assured him.

“After how long? How long have you been coming here? How often ?” Byron stopped at an intersection. Two women riding late-nineteenth-century high-wheeled bicycles passed. The first woman smiled at them, but the second seemed not to see them at all.

“I’ve been coming for most of my life.” William rubbed a hand over his face. “I was eighteen. My grandfather was the last Undertaker.”

“Not your father?”

“No,” William said. “He was too old, or maybe it was that I was old enough. It’s hard to say.”

Byron saw the mouth of the tunnel ahead of them. Within it, flickers of red and blue blinked at him like the eyes of some great beast. In a world of gray, the brightness of the tunnel was a beacon.

“Your mother and I thought about not marrying, not having children, not passing this to our own child. If I’d married young, I might’ve been old enough that you would be spared, but then my grandson would need to be next in line, and I couldn’t stand the thought of my grandson dealing with this so young ... and your mother and I wanted a child, wanted you .” William shook his head, looking more than a bit sorrowful.

Not sure what to say, Byron stepped into the tunnel. William followed. Unlike when they had entered the land of the dead, the tunnel now stretched quite a ways in front of them.

“Take the light,” William instructed. “You lead.”

Byron lifted the torch from the wall. It flared to life in his hand.

“Your touch will light the way. Her touch will not. You light the way; you open the gate. Without you, she cannot enter their world.”

“Why?”

“To keep her safe. She’s drawn to the dead.” William gave him a rueful smile. “And you are drawn to her. You’d give your life for your Graveminder, to keep her apart from death, yet some part of her wants desperately to hurtle toward it. She can choose not to be with you, but you and you alone will be able to tempt her as the dead can.” He shook his head. “Ella felt the call of the dead far sooner than anyone expected. Maylene brought her over. Charlie agreed to it; the old bastard never liked saying no to Mae. She was going to bring both of the girls, and let them make the choice over the next few years, but after Ella came over ... We didn’t expect her to do that, but when she did, we decided not to tell you and Rebekkah. I don’t know if it was the right choice, but that world is a temptation I don’t understand for Graveminders ... and I never did much better at telling Mae no than the old bastard did.”

William looked at Byron, waiting for something—forgiveness or questions or Byron wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t say that he was all right with everything or that he even understood everything. He didn’t even know if he was angry. Later he might be all of those things; later they’d have to talk; but just then Byron was still to trying to make sense of the enormity of the secrets that his father—and mother and Maylene and Ella—had kept from him.

And from Bek.

For another ten minutes, Byron and his father walked in silence, but the entrance appeared no closer. Byron looked over at his father and noticed that he was no longer cradling his arm. “Is it feeling better? Your arm, I mean.”

“It doesn’t hurt at all,” William assured him.

“It looked like it was bleeding pretty badly.” Byron frowned. “Whether it hurts or not, you’re getting stitches. Can you still feel it? I mean—”

“I don’t need stitches.”

“Shots, too,” Byron continued. “Did you clean it? Was there rust on whatever you cut it on? What did you cut it on? Was it sterile? What—”

“Byron, stop.” William unwound the bandage and dropped it to the floor on the tunnel.

As Byron watched, the bandage disintegrated and drifted away like smoke.

“The dead did this.” William held out his arm. A piece of skin was missing like it had been peeled back. Muscles were exposed and ravaged. “Shots don’t help. Bites from the dead can heal. The