Ella can witness it all from her spot inside her urn. I brought her ashes out here the other day. It didn’t seem fair to keep her in the house with me.
“Over there.” I point at the spot of dirt right in front of our promise.
Lynx nods and sets my corpse to the side, right beside the two figurines. Then I watch, festering on the inside as the demon digs my grave. He keeps shoveling the hard dirt, cutting through roots older than I am, but in the end, two feet deep is all the tree is willing to offer.
He gently lowers my body into the ground then stands back, letting me have my moment. I swallow and put all my focus into picking up the urn with her ashes. This is the last time I’ll get to hold her.
A lone tear trickles down my cheek as I set her beside me in the grave. We’re together forever now, buried right in the earth like Grandma wanted.
Wordlessly, I nod, and Lynx fills the hole with dirt until my sister and I are nothing more than a mound beneath the willow tree. I always thought I’d fly out to the ocean to set her free, but I don’t think Ella would want to be alone either.
This way, we’ll always be there for each other. We’ll have each other’s back and be the sisters we were always meant to be.
“Why am I still here?” I ask, breaking the silence.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he does, he speaks low and… solemnly. “My division dealt very little withspirits. We had one task, and knowledge of the inner workings of mortality and immortality wasn’t required.”
I don’t respond. What could I say? I’m stuck here. That’s the next thing I’ll need to come to terms with.
My gaze flicks away from my grave up to him when he offers, “I’ve heard people say in Hell that spirits stay on Earth when they have unfinished business.”
I purse my lips. I suppose this means I’ll never get out of here unless I want to try summoning every demon in Hell in the hopes I might come across my sister’s ghost. Even if I wanted to try it again, Lynx has rubbed out the chalk circle and hidden the grimoire again.
Even if I had it, there’s no way for me to translate its contents. My phone is dead, and I failed Latin in high school. Plus, it’s too big of a risk, since every time I’ve tried to do anything with that book, I’ve summoned demons.
It’s almost laughable that my ghostly “unfinished business” is to do with another dead person.
“Tell me everything about the night you called me.”
For once, his order isn’t imbued with aggression. It’s softer than I’m used to, but being ordered around prickles something in me.
“My personal life is none of your concern.”
Lynx scowls. “Humor me, or else we’re both stuck here.”
I suck in a sharp breath. He knows the answer to this already. I don’t know how rehashing it will help, but he’s right. The last thing I want is to be trapped here with a demon.
“I was trying to summon my sister.”
“How? Walk me through it, step by step.”
We’ve been over this before—several times, in fact. “You saw the spell book. You read what it said. I did exactly as it told me. Nothing more, nothing less.” Unless you factor in my inebriation. “I drew the circles and the symbols, lit the candles,got her ashes and an object that matters to her, then said the incantation. But you appeared.”
“Then Tony.”
“Then Tony,” I confirm. The newest wrinkle in all this, and still, I didn’t get the outcome I wanted. “All I wanted was to speak to my sister.” I can’t hold back the frustration in my voice.
My eyes dart to the mound of dirt, remembering the white, plasticky urn beside my wrapped form, and everything I never said to her comes rushing up my throat and choking me.
It’s all my fucking fault that she’s dead. I’m a murderer just like Lynx.
“Is that even possible?” I wince at the hoarse words.
Lynx sighs heavily, staring at my grave. “It better be.”
My forehead wrinkles. “Shouldn’t you be an expert in all things occult?”
He meets my gaze, and once again, he looks human. Like he’s just another tortured man who’s seen too much shit too soon. “Like I said, I tortured souls and guarded Hell’s perimeter.”
