”Then come
“Okay,” she said meekly. “I’m coming.”
A few yards farther, the woods suddenly opened up into a clearing. She saw an old stone foundation, all that remained of a long-gone farmhouse. Elijah glanced back at her, his face dappled by afternoon light.
“It’s right here,” he said.
“What is?”
He bent down and pulled aside two wooden boards, revealing a deep hole. “Take a look in there,” he said. “I spent three weeks digging that.”
Slowly she approached the pit and stared inside. The afternoon light was slanting low behind the trees, and the bottom of the hole was in shadow. She could make out a layer of dead leaves, which had accumulated at the bottom. A rope was curled over the side.
“Is this to trap a bear, or something?”
“It could. If I laid some branches over it, to hide the opening, I could catch a lot of things. Even a deer.” He pointed into the hole. “Look, you see it?”
She leaned in closer. Something gleamed faintly in the shadows below; chips of white that peeked out from beneath the scattering of leaves.
“What is it?”
“That’s my project.” He reached for the rope and pulled.
At the bottom of the pit, leaves rustled, boiled up. Alice stared as the rope went taut, as Elijah hauled up something from the shadows. A basket. He pulled it out of the hole and set it on the ground. Brushing aside the leaves, he revealed what had gleamed white at the pit’s bottom.
It was a small skull.
As he picked off the leaves, she saw clumps of black fur and spindly ribs. A knobby chain of spine. Leg bones as delicate as twigs.
“Isn’t that something? It doesn’t even smell anymore,” he said. “Been down there almost seven months now. Last time I checked it, there was still some meat on it. Neat how even that disappears. It started to rot real fast after it got warm, back in May.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“No.”
Picking up the skull, he gave it a little twist, pulling it off the spine. She flinched as he thrust it toward her.
“Don’t!” she squealed.
“Meow!”
“Elijah!”
“Well, you did ask what it was.”
She stared at hollow eye sockets. “It’s a cat?”
He pulled a grocery sack out of his book bag and began placing the bones in the sack.
“What are you going to do with the skeleton?”
“It’s my science project. From kitty to skeleton in seven months.”
“Where did you get the cat?”
“Found it.”
“You just
He looked up. His blue eyes were smiling. But these were no longer Tony Curtis eyes anymore; these eyes scared her. “Who said it was dead?”
Her heart was suddenly pounding. She took a step back. “You know, I think I have to go home now.”
“Why?”
“Homework. I’ve got homework.”
He was on his feet now, had sprung there effortlessly. The smile was gone, replaced by a look of quiet expectation.
“I’ll… see you at school,” she said. She backed away, glancing left and right at woods that looked the same in every direction. Which way had they come from? Which way should she go?
“But you just got here, Alice,” he said. He was holding something in his hand. Only as he raised it over his head did she see what it was.
A rock.
The blow sent her to her knees. She crouched in the dirt, her vision almost black, her limbs numb. She felt no pain, just dumb disbelief that he had hit her. She started to crawl, but could not see where she was going. Then he grabbed her ankles and yanked her backward. Her face scraped against the ground as he dragged her by her feet. She tried to kick free, tried to scream, but her mouth filled with dirt and twigs as he pulled her toward the pit. Just as her feet dropped over the edge, she grabbed a sapling and held on, her legs dangling into the hole.
“Let go, Alice,” he said.
“Pull me up! Pull me up!”
“I said, let
She shrieked and lost her grip. Slid feetfirst into the hole, landing on a bed of dead leaves.
“ Alice. Alice.”
Stunned by the fall, she looked up at the circle of sky above, and saw the silhouette of his head, leaning forward, peering down at her.
“Why are you doing this?” she sobbed.
“It’s nothing personal. I just want to see how long it takes. Seven months for a kitty. How long do you think it’ll take you?”
“You can’t do this to me!”
“Bye-bye, Alice.”
“Elijah!
The wooden boards slid across the opening, eclipsing the circle of light. Her last glimpse of sky vanished. This isn’t real, she thought. This is a joke. He’s just trying to scare me. He’ll leave me down here for a few minutes, and then he’ll come back and let me out. Of course he’ll come back.
Then she heard something thud onto the well cover.
She stood up and tried to climb out of the hole. Found a dry wisp of vine that immediately disintegrated in her hands. She clawed at the dirt, but could not find a handhold, could not pull herself even a few inches without sliding back. Her screams pierced the darkness.
“Elijah!” she shrieked.
Her only answer was stones thudding onto wood.
ONE
Be aware every morning that you may not last the day,
And every evening that you may not last the night.
– ENGRAVED PLAQUE IN THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS
A ROW OF SKULLS glared from atop a wall of intricately stacked femurs and tibias. Though it was June, and she knew the sun was shining on the streets of Paris sixty feet above her, Dr. Maura Isles felt chilled as she walked down the dim passageway, its walls lined almost to the ceiling with human remains. She was familiar, even intimate, with death, and had confronted its face countless times on her autopsy table, but she was stunned by the scale of this display, by the sheer number of bones stored in this network of tunnels beneath the City of
