“We’re literally sneaking into a crypt in the dead of night. If we get caught, no one’s gonna care how we label it,” Eustace retorted.By now, they’d reached the stair hall and were making their way to the dining room and kitchen.
“It’s technicallyourcrypt. We’re allowed inside,” Cordelia reasoned.
“It’s no one’s at the moment,” Eustace countered, “if you want to get technical about it. We haven’t signed anything yet.”
“You know what I mean,” Cordelia said with a huff. “It has our name on it. That’s got to count for something.” She paused at the pantry door and Eustace bumped into her from behind, giving an audibleoof.“Shhh…” she insisted with an angry swat, turning the handle carefully.
Eustace looked annoyed. “What are we shushing for? There’s nobody in here but us.”
Cordelia doubted that. She hoped the restless spirits of the house were tucked away in their respective corners till morning. She had no intention of alerting them to what she and her sister were about to do. In the pantry, she fumbled around in the dark until she came out clutching a butcher knife and a steel spatula.
Eustace gave her a flat look. “What are we gonna do with those? Flip her over and check to see if she’s done?”
“No,” Cordelia replied defensively. “I don’t know. We might need tools.”
Eustace narrowed her eyes. “What exactly are you planning?”
She shrugged. “Who knows what we’ll encounter in there.”
“They’re not zombies, Cordy.”
“I know that,” Cordelia snapped, starting toward the solarium.
They trekked through the overgrown plants and across the slick tiles in silence, and as they stepped out into the night air, a noticeable chill crept along the ground, swirling around their bare feet and up Cordelia’s nightgown. The moon hung like a broken ornament in the sky, silvery and waning. It coated the branches of the trees in white light so that they crackled across the darklike disjointed phalanges. The grass was velveteen against her feet. Even with the chill, the skeletal trees, she liked the feeling of nothing between her and the property, the connection she made with the earth her family had walked for generations, the sense of being anchored.
When they reached the front of the crypt, its towering hill stern and shadowy, a vault of riddles, they both stopped. The roses bloomed ever brighter, devoid of all respect for time of day or season. Cordelia took a deep inhale and gave her sister a solemn look. “What Bennett Togers doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Eustace nodded, handing her the lantern before moving up the steps and reaching for the heavy chain around the doors.
“I was hoping they hadn’t locked up after the stonemason,” Cordelia complained.
Eustace gripped the padlock tight and pulled the skeleton key from her pocket, but it was too large to slide into the keyhole. Frustrated, she yanked, but the lock didn’t budge. It looked to be about a hundred years old, made of dark metal and heart-shaped.
“Let me see,” Cordelia said, stepping up beside her sister. She set the lantern down and reached for the lock, still in her sister’s hand. Her palm warmed at the touch of the metal despite the night air, and the shackle parted easily from the padlock body, swinging open on the chain.
“What did you do?” Eustace asked as they both let go.
She shrugged, baffled. “I—I don’t know. I just touched it. You were already holding it. It came undone on its own.” She pulled the chain from the doors. “The lock must be faulty.”
She was about to set the chain on the ground when Eustace said, “Let me see that.”
Cordelia passed it to her, and Eustace pulled the lock from it, tossing it into the woods. “No one is going to keep us out of this place anymore. Not Mom, not Bennett Togers, not anyone.”
Cordelia nodded silently, and they each pulled an iron door back from the mouth of the crypt. A rush of stale air greeted them.
Inside, Eustace held the lantern high as they turned slowly in place. Thick, rough-cut stones blocked the burial shelves, some of which were marked with oxidized metal plaques bearing names. Others, however, had either lost their plaque or simply never been fitted with one, rendering the inhabitants a mystery. Here and there, a stone jutted from the wall, a natural shelf where personal effects had been left, mementos of the dead. An empty vase stood sentinel on one, on another a beaded necklace, heavy with dust. A favored blade. An old timepiece. A child’s doll. Striking hallmarks of the humanity that was.
The interior cavity was deceptively large, bigger than any private mausoleum Cordelia had seen in a cemetery. A handful of stone pillars held up the heavy slab of roof. Altogether, she counted twenty-one burial shelves.
Whatever shadows she’d seen pass here before were still now. The driving hum that brought her to the gates that first day lay quiet. Cordelia set the knife and spatula down as she walked to the back wall, tracing her fingers over the rock. Between the burial shelves a section of blank stone stretched to the ceiling, wider than she was, like a sheet of unused paper. Odd that they chose not to bury anyone there, but her eyes were soon drawn to the plaques on either side.
She stopped before two set atop one another, as if the people had been buried together in one slot. “Agate Lula Bone,” she read aloud when Eustace held the lantern close for her to see. “And Briony Mae Bone. The dates are the same.”
“The birth dates or the death dates?” Eustace asked.
“Both,” Cordelia said, turning to her.
Eustace swallowed. “The twins.”
