What the Dead Want(39)

After a while the funeral director asked, “Were you planning a service?”

“Uh . . .” Gretchen shrugged. “Not for anytime soon.” Hawk squeezed her hand.

“Very well,” he said. “Any of these beautiful urns would honor your aunt’s remains.”

Gretchen thought about what a strange idea it was to honor the remains of someone. Esther was reduced to a pile of ash and bone. All that truly remained of her were her photographs; whatever could be put in an urn had nothing to do with who she was. There was no need to be sentimental. Esther had left her mark on the world and now was gone, like she would be one day, like everything would be. Gretchen looked around the room and was again dying for a cigarette.

“What is she being kept in now?” Gretchen asked, and her voice sounding strangely raspy in her ears.

“Well . . . ,” he said.

“We’ll take her in whatever she’s in now,” Gretchen said. She took out her wallet. And he went into the back room to get Esther.

Back on the sidewalk holding yet another cardboard box, this one containing a clear plastic bag full of chunky gray dust, Gretchen and Hawk walked somberly to the car.

Hope looked at the box in surprise, then shook her head and started the car.

“He said they’re closed tomorrow for the anniversary,” Hawk told his sister.

“They all act like it’s not real and they all believe in it,” Hope said. “Just keeping up appearances. The whole town puts up those signs saying closed for renovations or be back in fifteen minutes, but they won’t be back until it’s over.”

“If the ghosts are just out wandering around the Axton place, why would anyone here be worried about it?”

They sat in silence for a long time while Hope drove. The car felt weighted down. Journals and books in the trunk, the box of Esther’s war photographs in the back—and this brown cardboard box in Gretchen’s lap.

“They’re not just wandering the Axton property,” Hope said. “The day after tomorrow we’ll be reading about people accidentally falling out of windows while washing them, house fires because of irons left on, bricks falling from construction sites. The anniversary has become a day where people sit at home, even afraid of a slip in the shower or a drive to the grocery store.”

“It used to be the anniversary of the fire,” Hawk said. “Now it’s the anniversary of more deaths than people want to count.”

“Like our parents’ death,” Hope said. “And maybe your mother’s too.”





TWENTY


WHEN GRETCHEN GOT BACK TO THE GREENS’ HOUSE her cell phone, which had been plugged in and charging near the television, was ringing. She quickly grabbed it, saw Simon’s face, swiped the screen, and heard his exasperated tone.

“Thank GOD, I have only been calling you like every three hours for a million years!”

“Simon!” she shouted, relieved to hear his voice.

“How’s the life of the heiress?” he asked.

“Uh . . .”

“How’s your aunt? Tell me everything!”

“She’s . . .”

“Weird? Does she drive around in a Rolls Royce smoking with a gold cigarette holder? Does she have an expensive little dog that wears a bow and goes everywhere with her?”

“She’s . . . she’s dead,” Gretchen said quietly. “She killed herself.”

Simon didn’t say anything for a full ten seconds. Then he said, “I’m coming there. Give me the address.”

“No, Simon. It’s crazy here right now . . . there’s no bus and there’s . . . I think my mother . . . there’s some kind of thing with accidents happening. . . .”

“Give me the address,” he said again, and with great relief she did.

They were a team. If anyone was going to help them get that mirror out of the house, if anyone was going to help them figure out what was going on, it was Simon.

She could hear him already scrolling through car services on his phone. “I’ll be there by tonight,” he said and hung up.

Gretchen checked her other messages—apart from the dozen from Simon, there were two from Janine and one from her dad. Her father was calling from a café near the village where he was working; the connection was fuzzy and she could hear people talking in the background and loud music playing. He said he hoped she was having fun and would call again in three weeks. Gretchen’s heart sank at having missed his call. She knew that he would be so absorbed in his work she’d be lucky if he really did call back in three weeks. Last she knew he was on assignment in South America. There was no Wi-Fi where he was working, and he couldn’t just take trips into the village whenever he wanted. Sometimes, if he was on a very tough assignment, treating dengue fever or Rotavirus, she went months without hearing from him. He said “I love you” twice. And she whispered it back into the silent phone.

Janine’s message made her smile; she could tell she was eating ice cream and the TV was on in the background. “How’s life in the big country?” she’d asked. How could Gretchen possibly explain how much her life had changed in just a matter of days? It was a question she couldn’t have answered if she tried. And when she called back no one answered.