“Why take bodies?” he asked.
I blinked for a moment before he rushed to add, “Instead of just… killing people themselves, I mean.”
It was a fair question for someone who didn’t know the history like I did. The Judgment happened before Penny was even born, and it had been far enough from Eastcliff that I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was unfamiliar with what the cult considered their darkest day.
“Twenty-four years ago, theywereperforming human sacrifices,” I said. “The Vessel was almost complete, but there were too few bodies left buried. They needed bones faster than people were dying, so they started taking them.”
Penny’s face washed pale as I continued.
“That drew the attention of the wards around them, obviously. People were bound to notice when their neighbors went missing. So, it wasn’t long before the combined might of militia forces from several outposts swept through the original camp and razed the entire place. They burned everything and destroyed the Vessel.”
I was too young to remember the direct fallout of the raid, but my father had joined up not long after. Some of my earliest memories were of watching the remnants of the cult build their new settlement from the ground up, and their numbers slowly beginning to swell.
“There weren’t many who got away, but those who did agreed never to resort to sacrifices again,” I said. Not that they always kept to that agreement. “It would put the entire organization at risk if they did. They weren’t willing to let the Bone Men die out. Which is why they’restillworking on the Vessel, and why they haunt the province in search of unattended bones.”
Penny cast his eyes over the gravesite. After several moments of chewing his lip, he spoke again.
“What exactly do they do with the bodies when they take them?”
It was a subject I’d been dreading. For a man who had so many questions, Penny rarely asked the right ones. Inthat moment, all the lies I’d come up with back in Forstford for when he finally wondered weighed heavy in my mind, but I knew there was no way I could keep the truth from him any longer.
It was probably for the best. He was home now. I could be on my way the next day and be out of his life forever, and he could settle back into his role on the farm. I’d seen beyond the stories about cows and idle chatter explaining what vegetables grew best during which seasons; the farm was in a state of struggle. Fields had been left fallow, and patches of fence were poorly mended or fallen down completely. Penny was needed here, more than I needed him to smooth my return to the Bone Men. I’d figure out how to manage without him.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I confessed. I hadn’t been privy to the entire process before I left, just small pieces. “When a body’s brought in, they strip the flesh from the bones and dry them.”
Penny’s expression shifted from disgust to confusion as he puzzled through what I said.
“Then what?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Then they’re given to Eeus.”
“Given how?”
“I don’t know. I never got that far.”
There was a brief silence while he took that information on board. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “How will we know which bones are my father’s?”
That was the crux of it: all men looked the same when reduced to their most essential parts. Discerning one dismantled skeleton from another was next to impossible.
“We may not be able to,” I said. “I don’t know how they’re stored.”
Based on things my father had told me, I had my suspicions about what happened to the dry bones and howquickly it occurred. Given the weeks since the body had been stolen, it was likely Penny’s father’s bones were already gone. I’d told him as much back in Forstford.
With a sigh, I rubbed a hand over my face. “I know you want to bring your father home, but don’t you think it’s more pressing that you stay here?” I gestured toward the farm. “You’re needed here. Your family needs you.”
“What my familyneeds,” Penny said sharply, “is not to languish under a curse that could ruin them faster than I ever could.”
“There’s no curse, Penny. It’s a baseless superstition.”
“You may think that, but Mother believes it. And I can’t…” His eyes swept over the grave. “I can’t tell her that he’s gone. If I stay here, I won’t be able to keep it from her. I’m no kind of liar.”
“And what if youcan’tbring him back?” I wasn’t sure how much clearer I could be that this was the reality he was facing. “What then?”
He met my eyes again, squaring his shoulders and letting out a rush of breath. “At least I can say I tried. That I didn’t accept the curse without a fight.” A strained smile curled his lips. “Besides, you said you don’t know what actually happens to the bones. If there’s a chance, it’s a chance I have to take.”
He was an adult, at least as far as age was concerned, but there had been plenty of times over the last few days when I wondered at how naïve he was. What a novelty it must have been to grow up somewhere things were as straightforward as he thought they should be, to be sure that stealing a body back from a cult would be a simple task. If it weren’t for the burn scars on his hands and arms and the fact that we were standing at the foot of his father’s empty grave, I’d have thought he never knew hardship a day in his life.
A deep breath swelled in my chest, and I held it for a long moment before shrugging again. “It’s your decision. I’m going either way.”
