Page 28 of Heart, Haunt, Havoc
Bishop hiccupped on a quiet laugh and closed their eyes.
Colin studied their plush, pink mouth. He didn’t remember falling asleep.
Chapter nine
Mistslitheredbetweenheadstonesand frost clung to wilted bouquets at the Gold Hill cemetery, settled in an abandoned lot behind a recently demolished trailer park. Far enough from the road to conceal their efforts; close enough to send the pair skittering toward the ground whenever distant headlights crossed the trees.
Colin smacked the bottom of his shoe against a rusted shovel, scooping thawed dirt into the metal mouth. Hours ago, he’d woken on the living room floor with Bishop tucked beneath his chin. Their breath had warmed the ugly, hand-shaped scab on his throat, while his fingers sought their skin as they slept, slipping along their spine to settle over their neatly clasped bra. Colin had stayed awake, quietly breathing, devouring an intimate mishap. When Bishop had stirred, he’d pretended to be asleep again. Felt their fingers on his cheek and heard the floor wheeze as they’d tip-toed to the bathroom.
The two of them had dressed separately. Colin gathered supplies, Bishop fixed sandwiches, and neither of them talked about Tehlor’s spirit jars, or Lincoln’s presence, or the dreamless nap they’d shared by the fireplace.
Under a waxing gibbous moon, Colin turned graveyard earth while Bishop stole heat from a candle and used their magic to defrost the ground.
“I realize I’ve never asked,” he said, tossing another pile of cold dirt over his shoulder. “How did… I mean,” he paused, considering his next words carefully. “What did Lincoln’s autopsy report say?”
“How’d I get away with it,” Bishop said. They framed the question as a statement and their tired sigh fogged the air. “I used one spell to unstitch a valve in his heart, another to close the wound. Made it look like an aortic aneurysm.”
Smart. “I see.”
They pulled their wool coat tighter and adjusted the thick beanie covering their shorn hair. Switched a flickering candle from one hand to the other, encased in cylindrical glass wrapped in a vibrant rendition of the Blessed Mother. After another bout of warmth sank into the grave-pit, Bishop set the candle atop the headstone—Lincoln Stone – Cherished Husband, Respected Veteran, Eternally Missed. They tossed the second shovel into the hole and hopped inside.
Colin wiped his brow. “I understand you’ve probably prepared for this, but hewillbe a corpse.”
“Will he?” Bishop mock-gasped, propping their arms on the handle of the shovel.
“Yes, it could be quite alarming.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ll be fine. It’s not like you’ve exhumed many bodies, either. I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s a religious law about grave-robbing, isn’t there?”
“Federal law, yes. Religious law…” Colin waggled his hand back and forth. “The Catholic church has absolutely put a corpse on trial before. 897, the Vatican versus Pope Formosus. The court dressed him in holy robes, propped him in a chair, and accused him of perjury.” He pushed his hair off his forehead. “And no—I haven’t exhumed many bodies, but IamCatholic.”
“So, this isn’t your first time?”
“Third or fourth, I believe.”
Bishop snorted. “Comforting.”
The two of them continued digging, panting hard, lifting heavy piles, slamming metal through the dirt. Evening air cooled the sweat beading on Colin’s face, and Bishop stopped to unfasten the silver clasps on their coat.
Finally, a loudthumpfilled the pit. Colin’s shovel connected with the casket and sent tremors rattling through his arms. He scraped the residual dirt away and pointed to the hunting tarp folded in the corner of the grave-pit. “Are you ready?”
Bishop leaned their shovel against the dirt wall. “I have to be.”
There was a way to package desperation like this. The kind early in healing, late in making. But Colin had never been one to compartmentalize his pain. In his own desperation, he’d found himself tearing at the edges of a bandaged box, unable to rectify his loss with Isabelle’s freedom. She hadn’t left him, yet he’d lost her. Watching Bishop in his peripheral, he recognized the same uncaged feeling: a wounded animal reluctant to be contained. Yes, there was a way to package desperation, but Bishop Martínez was not the type to shelve their sorrow or bury their grief or smother their anger, and even though he’d found a way past his own trauma, Colin understood why Bishop stared at Lincoln’s mahogany casket, why they refused to look away.
Colin waited for Bishop to unfasten the metal bracket attached to the casket’s lid, and then curled his fingers around the wooden edge. He glanced at Bishop, waiting forstopordon’t, but they didn’t make a sound. Their chest stilled. They planted their hands next to Colin’s and shoved the lid upward.
Dirty hinges snapped apart, loose earth fell onto his shoes, and sulfurous rot permeated the pit. Lichen grew in thatches along the left side of Lincoln’s face. Teal moss webbed in his eyebrow, but the embalming fluid deposited into his carotid and mid-section had kept his body intact. Besides his blotchy, ashen complexion and straw-like hair, Lincoln was the same man he’d been in the polaroid. Square-jawed, knife-sharp, and deadly handsome.
Bishop inhaled shakily. “I thought he’d look worse.”
“Formaldehyde is a miracle-worker,” Colin said. He flattened the edge of the tarp with his shoe. “I can do this part alone, Bishop. I’ll just need help lifting—”
“I’m… I’m fine,” they said under their breath, then again, snappish and angry, “I’mfine.”
Guilt withered in Colin’s chest. He nodded. Dipped his hands underneath Lincoln’s arms, ignoring the scratchy fabric of his service uniform, and tugged his stiffened body out of the casket. Bishop caught the corpse’s pelvis, shuffled backward over the tarp, and dropped his legs. They blew out a breath and pursed their wobbling lips. Shook out their hands. Cracked their neck.
Lincoln Stone, ripened by death, human and empty, rolled lifelessly inside the olive tarp. Colin breathed easier once the tarp had been zip-tied around Lincoln’s ankles and above his head. He pushed the lower half of the body while Bishop stood aboveground and hauled the bloated bundle onto flat ground. Bishop didn’t speak, they hardly lifted their gaze, and Colin didn’t know whether to reach for them or keep his distance. A part of him wanted to sayI understand, but he didn’t; another part of him wanted to sayit will get better, but he knew it wouldn’t. Grief, and betrayal, and fine-tuned desperation were learned, lived, and endured. People got better from a burst cyst, from an undercooked porkchop, from an impromptu break-up. But no one fully recovered from loss like this. They simply adapted to the sound of it, calloused to the feel of it.
