I zip the duffel bag shut, step back, and ponder it—along with my options. My spooky, non-magical options.
“Please don’t do this,” the head moans from within my bag. He presses its face against the fabric, creating a woeful indentation. I wince, because ugh, I liked that bag once. “Let me go. I’ll be good. A good doggy. Arf.”
“Sorry, Head,” I say. “Grandma made me an offer I can’t refuse. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t. Whatdoesthat mean?” replies the head, muffled.
That I’m not sorry about what I’m planning to do, obviously. If I’m going to sell off Grandma’s house and return to my New York City life, I need to get this head out of here posthaste. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes.
Even if that means briefly dabbling in criminal activity.
2A JUSTIFIED BREAKING AND ENTERING
I’M AT THE CEMETERY, SCOPINGout the dark, grimly manicured lawn riddled with tombstones and bent-over, judgy trees. So far, I think I’ve done a decent job of clearing the graveyard perimeter. I wouldn’t usually be caught dead in a place like this. Right now, I’m mostly concerned about being caught, period. Being forced to return to Salem has been enough of a prison sentence. I don’t want to get locked up for real.
I tuck away the pair of heavy-duty scissors I bought to cut the security camera wiring, then launch myself up the stabby-topped iron gate. The duffel on my shoulder gets jostled as I ascend.
“Oof,” says a voice in the bag. Which I ignore, appropriately. I know I’m doing the right thing by not turning this severed head in to the Salem Police Department. The town’s reputation notwithstanding, the Salem homicide department has zero experience with magical murder cases. Trust me, I looked it up.
Besides, dead people and dead things in general belong in graveyards. It’s science.
I finally topple over the iron gate onto grass, the duffel bouncing a bit until it stops against a grave marker—more annoyed sound effects ensue—and I scope out my path.
“Please don’t do this,” the head whines. “I don’t want to be buried again. It’s so dark and wormy down there!”
I scowl. This brings up so many questions, and I literally do not want to know.
“My name is Bulan, by the way,” adds the head.
So is that what was going on with the labeled bucket in Grandma’s living room? Was she keeping this head as a freaky pet? Either way…
“I don’t care,” I mutter under my breath. I shoulder the bag again and retrace my steps to my destination: Grandma’s grave. It was hardly ten hours ago we laid her to rest. The only ones gathered for it were me, Grandma’s witch cabal, the probate lawyer, the undertaker, and some unhinged tourists who claimed to be LARPing and wanted in on the fun.
“Oh, come on,” says the head. “You have to care a little, Sabby. You’re a nice girl. I can see it in you. I also heard you singing karaoke before you found me. No one who sings BTS that passionately is heartless.”
I’ll show him heartless. “You can sing to the worms.”
“They’re a terrible audience. Even the beetles—”
“Listen. With the exceptions you just mentioned, dead things go in the ground,” I say. It seems safest to assume that despite the talking, the attitude, and the fact that he has a name, Bulan the head is dead. “I’m selling Grandma’s house, and I’m not letting the inspector find any part of a corpse in there.”
The head harrumphs. I harrumph back. Mine’s grumpier, and it settles our argument for the moment.
“If it makes a difference,” Bulan says, “you only found me because I wanted to get caught by you! I’ll hide better next time, I promise!”
He says more after that, but I tune him out.
Filtered light of the full hunter’s moon guides me through the graveyard, illuminating tombstones in patchwork states of disrepair. When I get to Grandma’s over-the-top resting place, I drop the duffel bag and step back to observe the spectacle of her magnum opus. I’m talking a black marble gravestone, with an oversize skull and crossbones over her name,Rosamund Spük, scrawled in a decadent swirly font. What is this, the Constitution? Of course there’s more. A fresh wreath of black-dyed roses and black dahlias crowns the top of the tombstone. Alow iron fence stabs at the sky. And lastly, black irises lie strewn across the dirt shoveled atop her coffin.
If I were still the little girl who adored her grandma, I’d clap in awestruck appreciation. Maybe I’d clasp my pointed hat to my chest and recite some Edgar Allan Poe. These days, I’d do practically anything before being caught dressed like Grandma, in a witch hat and intentionally mismatched socks. But my chest twinges with unexpected sadness to think she won’t be traipsing through Salem in her funky outfits anymore. I guess even a thorn in your side can get familiar enough that you don’t want it gone.
Anyway, don’t worry, Grandma—I won’t mess with your macabre memorial. In fact, I’ll clear off the chipper yellow ash leaves that fell over your flowers, ruining your perfect Gothic vibe. That’ll be our compromise for me desecrating your burial site with your unknown victim.
I unzip the duffel, ignoring the head’s doleful, pleading eyes while I search for the gardening trowel.
“Hello?”
I whip around.
