KnockOut

Ethan took a single step back. Blessed pulled Autumn with him as he dropped to his knees beside his dead brother. He touched Grace’s face, closed his staring eyes. “I’m sorry, Grace. This is gonna kill Mama, and she’s gonna blame me even though it was what you wanted. I couldn’t take you to a doctor, and you knew it.” He leaned down and kissed his brother’s tear-streaked face. Blessed straightened, swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, then turned to Ethan. “You killed my brother.”

Autumn hit him with her fists, yelled in his face, “Don’t you dare hurt Ethan or Mama! You monster, don’t you dare!”

Blessed controlled his killing rage. He stared down in shock at the little girl, his own flesh and blood. “I’m not a monster. That’s not a nice thing to say to your uncle.”

“I hate you. I wish you weren’t my uncle. I wish you were in hell. That’s where you should be.”

“I am your uncle and I love you.” Autumn was hiccupping, tears streaming down her face. He thought for a moment and said slowly, “If you promise to come with me willingly, I won’t kill them even though the sheriff did murder my brother. If you promise to let me and Mama teach you how to use your gift, I won’t. Do you promise?”

Autumn looked at Grace and thought, You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead. But Blessed wasn’t dead. He wasn’t like her, that was a lie, he was a monster, and monsters could look like anybody they wanted to when they snuck into your dreams or crashed into your face. Autumn knew death was the end of things, like her father had gone away forever, and now Grace wasn’t here anymore either, and that meant sometimes death was good. But Blessed—what should she do?

She looked at Ethan, then at her mother, both of their faces blank, as if they weren’t there.

She heard his rough old voice saying again, “I promise I won’t kill them, Autumn, I won’t, if you do what I want.”

Blessed’s words fluttered over her. Autumn wanted to run to her mother, to shake her until she was back into herself again, and she jerked her arm to try to get away from him, but Blessed tightened his hold. She wanted her mother, she wanted her laughing and holding her, telling her everything would be all right. She nodded up at the old man whose eyes were hard and soft at the same time.

“Say it. Say, ‘I promise, Uncle Blessed.’”

It was hard to get the words out, but she did, finally. “I-I promise.” She tried to say his name, but she simply couldn’t. She hated his name, it scared her. Autumn lowered her head and cried. Through her hiccups, she whispered, “I want my mama back.”

“You will have her, but just not yet,” Blessed said. “Sheriff, you will dig a grave for my brother.”

Ethan said, “I don’t have a shovel.”

Autumn’s head snapped up. Ethan sounded like himself, it was his voice, but in a way it wasn’t. His voice sounded dead, uncaring, flat as the strawberry pancakes she’d tried to make for her mother on her birthday.

Blessed said, “Then you will dig with sticks and your bare hands. Woman, you will help him. Both of you.”

He loosened his hold on Autumn’s arm. She ran to her mother, but Joanna ignored her, dropped to her knees beside Ethan, and began to dig, pulling up clumps of dirt and grass, tossing them as far as she could.

“Mama.” Autumn pulled on her sleeve, but Joanna paid her no attention. Autumn grabbed Ethan’s jacket, but, like her mother, it was as if he wasn’t even there. “Come back, come back,” she whispered, and couldn’t even whisper anymore because her throat was clogged with tears. She drew back her fist and hit Ethan as hard as she could He didn’t flinch, he didn’t react at all, he continued digging up dirt, big handfuls of it, throwing it over his shoulder. It was horrible what she was seeing, but Autumn couldn’t do anything to stop it. She listened to the thuds of earth strike the ground. She didn’t look at Grace; she couldn’t. She fell to her knees and began to dig up clots of earth.

“Stop that! Come here, Autumn,” Blessed said, and pulled her away.

“I’ll help them. Let me help them. Let me dig too.”

“No.”

Blessed pulled Autumn down to the ground beside him and held her there. She sat beside the monster for what seemed like hours, watching her mother and Ethan dig a grave for Grace, and finally, so exhausted her brain finally closed down, she fell asleep.

When the grave was deep enough, Blessed wrapped Grace in a sleeping bag and told the sheriff to lay him at the bottom of the four-foot hole. He did.

“Now come out.”

Ethan climbed out of the hole and stood silently beside Grace’s grave.

Autumn slept, her face against her cupped hands. Blessed had taken off his jacket, covered her with it.

He said, “Now, both of you, fill the grave.”

Throwing handfuls of dirt over Grace’s body didn’t take as long as digging his grave. When it was done to Blessed’s satisfaction, he told them to stand respectfully on each side of Grace’s grave. “Sheriff, you and the—” He took a quick look at Autumn, saw that she was sleeping soundly, and said, “You and the bitch will pray for my brother.”

Ethan said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want....”After a moment, Joanna joined him.

Blessed thought of his mother, at the awful soul-tearing grief she’d feel, and felt his throat clog. He prayed she’d understand. She had to. He’d had no choice. He listened to the smooth, even cadence, a monotone really, no feeling to the words at all. At least they knew all the words. It was good.

Blessed slapped his hands against his arms. He was getting cold without his jacket, but that was all right, Autumn needed warmth more than he did. She was only a little girl, after all, so small and fragile, and she was his niece. She was important. He wished she understood. But it was too soon and the child was too young, too dependent on her mother, the bitch who controlled her. She would come to understand, to know he’d done the right thing. Blessed tucked his jacket more closely around her. He didn’t want her to get sick. Autumn still slept—a blessing, Blessed thought, and smiled at the irony of it—a blessing, and that’s what he was, that’s what both his mother and his father had told him. His smile fell away. How was he to tell Mama the story hadn’t ended right, that another one of her sons was dead, dead because of the sheriff?

My fault, Grace had said. No, it wasn’t Grace’s fault, Blessed would never accept that. Grace had a gift, he was good, his soul was in heaven with Martin. Was Martin in heaven? He hoped so, but he’d been away from his family for so many years, nearly half his life, and Mama had finally said, Let him go, let him go, he’ll come back, on his own. But Martin had been corrupted, all her fault, and then the bitch had brought him home in an urn.

And now Grace was dead too, and he’d rot inside that sleeping bad covered with a mound of heavy black dirt because he’d been doing what he had to do. It hadn’t turned out right. It had all gone wrong and Grace was dead. He’d lie out here forever.

It wasn’t right.

Blessed felt his rage build until he shook from the inside out. It was so strong, his need to kill both of them, to wipe them away as if they’d never existed. It would be hard with Autumn, though, if he broke his word to her. He didn’t know what she’d do, and Mama said he had to get her back. She had to have Martin’s daughter. He looked at them. They were filthy, covered with Grace’s grave dirt. He supposed he couldn’t leave the wilderness with them looking like this.

“Take us to the nearest stream, Sheriff.”

Blessed picked Autumn up in his arms and followed Ethan and Joanna. Thankfully, she still slept because those two had exhausted the poor child, dragging her through the wilderness, probably not giving her enough to eat or drink in their rush to get her away from him and Grace. The sheriff seemed to know where he was going, even in the dark. Blessed was impressed.

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