Page 9 of To the Grave

The wild grass was drying, the autumn sun tipping it with gold, and the trees were at peak fall color, their leaves painted in brilliant shades of orange, yellow, and red. It looked like a painting, and I ran my hand over the long grass as I walked, letting the sound of the falls soothe my heavy heart.

Did Jace’s spirit linger here? Sometimes I was sure it did.

I opened the rusting iron gate that surrounded the tiny cemetery and walked past a series of old markers etched with the last name Mercer, my mother’s maiden name.

My mom wasn’t buried here. My dad hadn’t wanted it, and I’d been too young to insist. Now I felt a pang of regret. I hadn’t known her as a woman — she’d just been my mom — but I felt sure she wouldn’t have wanted to be buried in the newer cemetery in Blackwell Falls where the landscaping was spare, the grass clipped short, the markers clean and polished.

Here the grass grew untamed, interspersed with purple and yellow wildflowers in the summer. Goldfinches, robins, and bluebirds flitted from branch to branch, singing their cheerful songs while a mourning dove called from the trees. The markers were aged with wind and rain, some of them marred by time, the names etched on their surfaces harkening to a bygone era: Clara and Winifred, Truman and Wallace.

And always in the background was the sound of the falls, the Blackwell River tipping over the edge of the cliff and spilling into the pool below the house.

I knew more about my mom now. Knew she hadn’t liked being locked up in my dad’s modern mansion.

Like me.

She’d wanted to be free, had been in love with Mac back before he’d been president of the Blackwell Blades MC, back when he’d just been a guy, not much older than I was now, who liked to ride motorcycles.

I felt sure she would have wanted to be buried here.

Jace’s marker was cleaner than the rest, the granite smooth and unmarked.

Jace Kane

Beloved.

I tried not to think about the time when Jace’s marker would be worn like the rest. I couldn’t think about all the years ahead when I — whenwe— would have to live without him.

I lay in front of the marker like I almost always did. I knew his body wasn’t in the ground, it had been consumed by the fire at the Blades compound, but it made me feel closer to him. I’d done it all through the summer, looking up into the aged trees — oak and maple and hickory — that sheltered the cemetery.

Now I was looking up through a kaleidoscope of color, the October sky a vibrant shade of blue that it only ever was this time of year. In a couple months I’d have to wear a coat and boots to visit Jace, the ground covered with snow. The future stretched ahead, an interminable cycle of seasons I would have to live without him.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I said I’d make them pay.”

I waited because sometimes Jace answered. I mean, he didn’t actually answer. I wasn’t that far gone. But sometimes Icould hear him in my mind as clearly as if we were having a conversation.

“Not in the mood to talk huh?” I said as the silence stretched. “You’re probably pissed.” I laughed even though tears had started leaking down my temples and into my hair. “You were probably telling me to get off my fucking ass all that time. I just… I don’t know how to do this without you.”

By “this” I meant figuring out who was behind the kidnapping of the girls, who had killed Jace. I meant life with Wolf and Otis. Would we always feel just a little bit incomplete?

Just keep moving, princess. Just keep moving.

“Now you want to talk,” I said.

A breeze blew through the trees over my head. Even the wind sounded different in fall, rustling the papery leaves, tossing more and more of them to the ground. I almost swore I caught Jace’s scent on the breeze, remnants of the expensive cologne he wore when we went out mingled with wood smoke and the subtle tang of his sweat.

“I know I need to get my shit together,” I said. “Stop sleeping. Start fighting.”

Start avenging.

A black crow circled above, then swooped down to land on Jace’s gravestone. I was almost positive it was the same one I’d seen the day of his wake, the same one I saw all the time when I came to visit Jace.

“I guess what I’m saying is, I might not be able to come every day for a while,” I said. “I’ll try, but…” I didn’t know how to tell him that coming here was making me sick. When I came to the cemetery I felt myself slipping into another world, one where the veil between life and death was too thin. A world where the dead weren’t really dead. To find out what had happened to Jace — and the girls — I needed to live in the real world. “You’re right. I need to keep moving.”

I got to my feet and brushed off the leaves that clung to my workout clothes. I needed to shower. Then I needed to sit down and make some notes, catalog everything we knew. Not just about the girls and the stalker who’d been warning me off but about the Blades compound and Mac and my mom too.

Because somehow it was all connected. I didn’t know how I knew. I just did.

The crow was still on Jace’s gravestone. That was something I’d learned about it, one of the reasons I was sure it was the same one: it was unbothered by my movements. It came when it wanted and stayed until it was ready to leave.

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