Melissa Marr: Graveminder

“Whoosh?” Byron repeated.

Daisha dissipated into vaporous form and then resolidified. “Whoosh.”

AT THE THRESHOLD, BYRON GLARED AT DAISHA. REBEKKAH STEPPED past them and went toward the garage.

She pulled open the door and stopped as five people turned their gazes on her in perfect sync. A man who looked to be Maylene’s age sat with a wood-handled cane beside him on the bare cement floor; a woman and a man who looked to be in their twenties were beside the older man. Each of the three was encircled by a ring of salt. Against the opposite wall a boy who was barely old enough to be called a teenager paced the perimeter of his salt circle. The fifth circle held a still, lifeless body: Cissy’s daughter Teresa.

“What has she done?”

Rebekkah walked into the room. As she looked at them, she realized that only Teresa, who was not yet awake, could be buried and given food, drink, and words. The others would need to be escorted to the land of the dead. Like Troy. Like Daisha. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This was an abomination.

The young boy seemed to be the one who had been awake the longest: he clearly wanted out of his prison. The couple came to their feet as Rebekkah walked by. With arms outstretched over their heads as if they were reaching for handholds, they both leaned on the air that formed a boundary around them. The old man simply stared at her. He didn’t move, but he tracked her.

“Bek?”

She turned. “She did this. This is what she did to Daisha, to Troy.”

Tears were slipping down Rebekkah’s cheeks; she felt them with the objective awareness that she was crying. In the presence of the dead she hadn’t been able to protect, she was lost. They were hers , and she’d been unaware of their passing.

Because Cissy killed them.

“We won’t let her do this to anyone else.” Byron stood by her side, gazing at the dead, neither flinching from, nor oblivious to, their suffering.

“I need to get them out of here.” Rebekkah couldn’t touch or console them. Not here. She could take them to the land of the dead, however; she could break each salt circle, and one by one, she could lead them to where they would be themselves again. “I’m going to free them. I can take them ... not Teresa. She needs to be buried. You can take her and—”

“And when Cissy comes back, she’ll know she’s been exposed. Think, Bek.”

“I can’t leave them like this.” Rebekkah stepped toward the last circle, where her cousin Teresa lay. “Teresa’s recently dead. I will mind her grave, and she’ll never have to suffer, never know . The others ... I need to take them home.”

“Not yet.” Behind her, Byron stood. He didn’t touch her, but he was near enough to stop her if she tried to enter the salt circles.

Instead of looking at Byron, Rebekkah turned her attention to the old man. “He’s recently awakened. It might still be possible to give him what he needs; he might not need to walk through the tunnel. I can take him to the house, give him food and drink.”

Byron put a hand on her shoulder and spun her to face him. “And if we do that, Cissy will run. If you take Teresa’s body, if you take Mr. Sheckly, Cissy will know. Do you want to tell me that you’re willing to save these at the expense of those she’ll kill next?”

“No.” Rebekkah forced herself not to argue, but instinct vied with logic. The dead were trapped, and she needed to get them to their rightful places.

Byron’s voice was firm as he said, “We can’t free them yet.”

She nodded and took his hand in hers as she looked at them. My dead. Mine to protect. The salt circles blocked the threads that should be calling her to them, and them to her, but she’d found them nonetheless. She whispered, “Tonight you’ll go home. This is almost over for you.”

Byron squeezed her hand, and together they went into the house.

Knowing the dead were here— suffering —and she couldn’t help them yet made her feel physically ill. The threads that she should be feeling toward them were blocked by the salt, but seeing them and not being able to feel them hurt her in a way she couldn’t express. She needed to get away, to step outside, where she couldn’t see them, to put some distance between herself and them so she wouldn’t ignore the logic in Byron’s words.

She looked at Byron and asked, “Can you stay with Daisha? I’ll be back inside, but I need a minute first.”

“Do you want—”

“Stay with her, please.” Rebekkah begged, and then she fled out the back door before she rushed forward and pushed away the salt that kept her from feeling her connection to the dead.

DAISHA HEARD THE VEHICLE IN THE DISTANCE. WITH HIS LIVING HUMAN hearing, the Undertaker had no idea that Cissy was approaching. Daisha, on the other hand, heard the engine stop, knew that the woman was getting closer. She was walking toward the house, presumably because she had seen their truck.

“Are you listening?” Byron asked.

“I am. Rebekkah needs a minute, so I stay with you,” Daisha said. She considered and rejected the idea of telling him that she heard Cissy walking toward the house. Give her a minute. Rebekkah hadn’t gone out to confront Cissy, but she had the right to do so. Like the dead inside the garage, like Daisha, like Troy, and like Maylene, Rebekkah had the right to confront the monster who had stolen so much from so many. She is the Graveminder. Daisha would give Rebekkah her chance to talk to the woman, and then she’d go outside and do what she’d come here to do.

Daisha tried to keep her features placid, not to reveal what she could hear outside, to let Cissy approach. Buy the Graveminder some time. The Undertaker wasn’t a bad sort, not really. She couldn’t blame him for his reaction to her. His job was to care for the grieving living and the truly dead. Unlike Rebekkah. The Graveminder cared for the truly dead and the Hungry Dead.

Byron narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “What gives?”

“Nothing. I wish Rebekkah hadn’t seen that.” Daisha motioned toward the garage. “The woman is cruel, and I wish Rebekkah hadn’t been hurt.”

Byron gave her a puzzled glance. “Why?”

“She cares for the dead. Like the last one. She would protect us from the woman. From you. From everything.”

“I don’t trust you,” he said. “When this is over, you need to go to the land—”

“That, Undertaker, is not yours to decide.”

“BECKY.” CISSY STILL HAD HER HAND INSIDE HER HANDBAG, BUT SHE lifted her gaze to Rebekkah. “What a lovely surprise. Did you come to tell me that you’ve decided to give me my inheritance? Leave the house and everything else to the rightful heirs?”

“No.” Rebekkah stepped closer. “How could you do this? Your own daughter, your mother ... You killed them.”

Cissy pulled a black semiautomatic pistol out of her handbag. “Do you think you’ll come back different? I’ve wondered what would happen if a Graveminder became one of the Hungry Dead.”

For a moment, Rebekkah paused. She’d hoped that there was some explanation, some truth, to lessen the ugliness of the things that Cissy had done. “Why?”

“The Graveminder is supposed to be a Barrow woman . You are not.” Cissy leveled the gun at her. “You’re not a part of my family, yet here you are, the next Graveminder.”

“You’re going to kill me because I’m not Jimmy’s biological daughter?” Rebekkah gaped at her. “Would you have killed Ella?”