“Be careful,” I warn.
They pull off and I drive the ATV back into the woods and park it just out of view. The sight of my sister digging in agraveyard is one I’m never going to forget. “Lee!” she shouts and barrels into me, sobbing into my chest. I squeeze her tight. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
She pulls back and stares at me through her tears. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to know about any of this. About what I’ve done.”
“I knew you were a vigilante before, Lee. I didn’t think you threw foam darts and confetti at the bad guys. But I can’t believe that Isla…” She trails off.
I can’t get into that. “I know. You don’t have to do this,” I tell her, then look up at Silver. “Either of you. Go back to the house.”
“No, we want to help,” Lacey insists. Silver continues to shovel in a second hole, only glancing over at us before going back to work. Calli’s right. This is going to take a while, even with the ground being soft. Thank fuck for the mild winter.
“Go help Silver and I’ll take over here. We’ll talk about all this later, okay?”
We get back to it. It feels like I’m running on autopilot as the dirt piles around me and the hole grows deeper. We need them deep if we’re going to put two bodies in each. I only pause a few hours later when Calli and Arlow return. They assure me Xavier’s truck has been sunk in a reservoir more than an hour away, along with the guns and phones.
The hole I’ve dug is deep enough but Silver and Lacey’s isn’t quite done. “I’ll finish this,” I tell Lacey. “I don’t want you here for the rest of it.”
She glances at Calli who nods. “Let’s go back to the house.Leave them to it. I stopped by your apartment and got you some clothes and stuff.”
For the first time since I arrived, Silver turns to me. “Lee.”
All I can do is shake my head. I can’t look at her. I can’t face any of it right now.
She picks up her shovel and starts walking back through the graveyard. It wasn’t that long ago that she was afraid of this place, not that long ago I carried her across it to the shed, but it feels like an eternity.
Arlow retrieves the bodies and bags of lye while I finish digging. We coat the first hole with lye, deposit Xavier and his security guy inside, add another layer of lye, and start to fill it in. Calli returns and insists on helping.
“Lacey and Silver are getting cleaned up,” she says, taking a shovel from Arlow’s hand with an expression that dares him to argue.
“Help me with Trinity,” I tell him. Calli continues filling in the first grave while we get the next ready. After Trinity is inside, it’s time for Isla.
“I can do it,” Arlow offers. “You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.” It’s the last thing I’ll ever do for her. The last time I’ll see her face.
Calli looks over at him. “It’s almost dawn. We need a fire. And there’s blood in the bed of Lee’s truck, and the trailer.” This isn’t her first time faced with such a task, and it shows.
He looks at the horizon where the faintest light begins to glow, then nods, and drives away in the ATV. Calli continues to shovel. The soft drop of earth on earth becomes acomforting background noise as I slowly unwrap the cloth from Isla.
Her face doesn’t look much different, paler maybe, but her body is already becoming stiff. It isn’t her anymore, I know that. Whatever existed of Isla and whatever answers she could’ve given me are long gone. I don’t suffer any delusions of an afterlife. She’s gone.
I brush her hair back off her cold forehead and notice a small line of ink that disappears under the neckline of her sweatshirt. Isla didn’t have any tattoos. I pull the material down to display her collarbone and find a bird inked there. The shrike is perched on a thorny vine which forms a heart withXavierwritten in the center.
My head spins and nausea turns my stomach. A memory invades of Isla calling me into the room to watch a nature show with her, excited to show me a cool bird. She called it a murder bird. I’m not sure what I expected the tattoo to show. Something a pimp would use to claim his ownership. Property of Xavier, possibly. Not something I know she admired.
“Lee.” Calli’s soft voice cuts through my internal meltdown. “Can I help?”
I’m not sure there’s any help for me anymore, but I nod. She joins me and we maneuver Isla into the grave with Trinity. When I stand at the edge, she hands me a shovel. “Trade with me. I’ll finish here.”
On autopilot, I move over to work on the first grave. I can see Calli in my peripheral vision, putting down the layer of lye and then shoveling. By the time I finish the first grave and move over to help her, neither Isla nor Trinity are visible.
I’ll never see her again, and among the devastation of that thought I’m surprised to find a shred of relief.
Arlow returns after cleaning out the bed of my truck to retrieve the landscaping cloth to burn, along with the ropes and chair. Once the graves are filled, Calli heads back home while I join Arlow at the bonfire on his hill.
He glances over at me in the early dawn light. “I got everything. There’s nothing we need to worry about. And I’m going to hold onto your gun for a while.”
