Comes the Night by Norah Wilson
Chapter 37
Digging up Bones
Brooke
Brooke paused a moment, arching her back to ease the ache.
Maryanne had just started her turn in the pit, which was inching close to three feet deep now. They’d both dug for a while, but it soon became obvious one of them was going to have to move the displaced soil away from the edge of the hole, as it was quickly becoming too hard to lift each new shovelful clear of the last. So they’d started taking turns, one in the pit, one beside the pit moving the soil back a few feet.
Another load of dirt hit the pile, some of it tricking down to land on Brooke’s runners. Break time’s over. She drove her shovel into the unearthed soil, hefted it, and tipped its contents several feet to the left. Then repeated the process, again and again and again.
They’d kept up a conversation of sorts for the first fifteen minutes, but they really didn’t have a lot to say to each other. They were all talked out, after last night in the motel.
Brooke and Maryanne had been the last of the students to leave for the American Thanksgiving weekend. Mrs. Betts had ushered them out to Brooke’s car, suitcases in hand, with obvious relief. After the assault on Alex, absolutely no one was being permitted to stay back this year. Nobody wanted to.
So they’d gone to the motel as planned. Not the low rent spot she’d invited Seth to before school had started, but the nice new motel out by the highway. Her mother had sent her plenty of extra money to see herself through this holiday alone.
Initially, after hearing about the attack on a student at Harvell House, her mother had wanted her to come home for the break, offering to cancel her vacation plans. Talk about irony! Her mother finally putting her first and she couldn’t go home. Not with what she and Maryanne had to do. So Brooke had reassured her mother that security—at the school, at the residence and in the town—had been tightened to the point of ridiculousness. When her mother persisted with the protests, Brooke had said she’d made friends here in Mansbridge and no offence, but she wanted to spend the holiday with them. There was enough truth in the words that her mother bought it. With Brooke’s blessing, she’d gone back to anticipating her getaway with Herr Kommandant.
But the whole motel thing, which Brooke had so been looking forward to when she originally hatched the idea, was a bust. Predictably. With Alex still lying comatose in a hospital bed, neither of them had felt much like partying. Nevertheless, Brooke had drunk half a bottle of Grey Goose vodka just on principal. They’d been so busy with the casting, she hardly ever managed to get drunk these days. Even Maryanne had had a drink last night—a very weak screwdriver—joining Brooke in a toast to Alex. And then another to Connie. And then they’d talked. And talked and talked.
So this morning, the conversation dried up pretty quick. As they fell into a rhythm, they let their shovels do the talking.
The pit work was the worst, of course. The digging was hard, and the shovel had to be lifted so high. Even the sound of the shovel driving into the compacted earth was different. It made a very solid thunk sound when it bit in, compared to the lighter scritch sound the same implement made when it plunged into the loose soil. But no matter whether you were in the pit or up above, the sound of a shovelful of soil hitting the ground was the same. Plop.
On and on they shoveled. Thunk-plop. Scritch-plop. After a while, the sound sort of drove out thought. Thunk-plop. Scritch-plop. Thunk-plop. Scritch-plop.
Thud.
At the new sound, Maryanne dropped the shovel and scrambled out of the pit.
“So, switch off again, I guess?” Brooke said dryly. They’d just switched five minutes ago.
“I’m sorry, Brooke. I just... can’t.”
Of course she couldn’t. Brooke was surprised she’d lasted this long. Given the way Maryanne felt the cellar’s vibes, just coming down here was enough to set her nerves on edge. And the deeper the pit grew, the grimmer Maryanne looked. Fortunately, Brooke suffered from no such sensitivity. Squeamishness, yes. She really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with bones. But at least she didn’t feel them the same way Maryanne seemed to.
“Don’t sweat it.” Brooke lowered herself carefully into the pit and picked up Maryanne’s shovel. “Okay, let’s see what it is you hit.”
A few scrapes of the shovel and she had her answer. Wood. A rough, unfinished plank.
They’d actually improvised some kind of coffin for Connie. Given all the awful things they’d done to her, Brooke would not have been surprised to find the girl’s remains without so much as a burlap sack between her and the soil.
“Is that a casket?”
Brooke glanced up at Maryanne, who’d crept close enough to peer into the pit. “Effectively, I guess,” she said. “Though don’t be expecting any satin lining.”
“Oh, thank God! I was worried about our shovels smashing into her bones.”
Brooke had thought about that too, but what the hell? It wasn’t like anyone could hurt the girl anymore.
“Step back,” Brooke said. “We’re on the homestretch, and the dirt is gonna fly.”
Within eight minutes, Brooke had entirely exposed the lid of the crate—now that she’d seen it, she refused to dignify that mean little box by calling it a casket. Face flushed from exertion, heart pounding from grim anticipation, she looked up at Maryanne. “Ready?”
“No,” Maryanne said. “But I don’t suppose I’ll ever be. Go ahead.”
Brooke moved to one side, wedged the point of her shovel between two planks and pried. The wood, surprisingly vital after all those years in the ground, protested against the nails that held it in place. She withdrew the shovel’s point, repositioned it closer to one end and pried again. This time, it came loose. Or rather, one end of it did.
Okay, Brooke. Showtime.
Heart thudding so hard she could hear it in her own ears, she propped the shovel up, grasped the board with both hands and wrenched the other end free. She pushed the plank aside, and peered in.
“Oh, God, I can see her!” came Maryanne’s voice from up above. “She’s really in there.”
“Well, duh. Of course she’s in there.” On the words, Brooke expelled the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding, but when she inhaled again, she drew a very shallow breath, half expecting to be assaulted by the hideous odor of decay. But there was very little of that. At least, nothing that wasn’t overpowered by the earthy smell of the soil they’d been digging.
She’d also expected that after all these years, there’d be nothing left but a bare skeleton, but she was wrong. While the gleam of white bone was very evident, the body still appeared to retain some mummified tissue, especially around the joints. Ligaments, she supposed. They’d be tougher than other tissue, wouldn’t they?
“Okay, we found her. Get up out of there, Brooke! Let’s go get Connie.”
“Just give me a sec,” Brooke said. “I’m going to take the rest of this lid off.”
“I can’t watch.” The words came out thick, and Brooke knew Maryanne was battling nausea.
“It’s okay. Just move back. It’ll only take me a minute.”
It took a couple of minutes, actually. The last board was hard to raise, since there wasn’t much to leverage her shovel for prying. She had to resort to hooking the top edge of the shovel under the board and yanking upward. A couple of grunting reefs and the nails gave up their grip. Repeating the process on the other end of the plank, she pulled it free and stacked it on top of the others.
“Done,” she announced. Tossing her shovel up onto the soil pile, she levered herself out of the grave. She removed her gloves too, tossing them down beside the shovel as she peered into the pit. “God, that’s sad. She was just a kid.”
“Almost exactly our age, according to the diary,” Maryanne said.
“Well, guess we better go fetch Connie’s cast, huh?”
Maryanne bit her lip. “One of us should probably stay here, with the remains.”
Brooke slant
“We could draw straws,” she said gamely.
“Forget it. You go and I’ll stay here. I’ll just go up and make myself an instant coffee and wait for you in the attic,” Brooke said.
“Oh, no! I meant someone should stay down here, with the bones.”
“Screw that. I don’t mind staying, but I’m not gonna do it down here. Those are just bones, Maryanne. They don’t need me hanging around for company.”
Maryanne’s lips thinned. “I’ll stay, then. You go get Connie.”
Brooke’s eyes shot open. “You’re volunteering to stay down here?”
“Someone should be here,” she said pointedly.
Brooke shrugged. “Suit yourself. Can I get you anything before I go?”
“No,” she said. “Just bring Connie back. Fast.”
“That I can do.”
Within minutes, Brooke stood in the attic, peering out the stained glass window. It was early yet—barely 5:30 p.m. The snow from two days ago had gone with the rain, so the ground was dark, and there was no moon to speak of as yet. Nevertheless, there was still a lot of diffused light in the overcast sky, as though the cloud cover caught all sources of light and bounced it back. Her black cast would stand out against the bruised, dull grey sky if any residents of the town were to look up as she soared past.
“Let them look,” she murmured.
Let them all look. And then let them run for the safety of their well-lit houses. The night was hers.
Smiling, she tapped on the window. “I want out, I want out, I want out!”
And then she was out, soaring off toward the tree by the river to retrieve a copper bracelet.