Page 37 of Together We Rot

I can hardly form coherent sentences, much less pull anything of substance from my scattered mind. It’s as big of a mess as my room, all fractured glass and broken thoughts. It physically hurts to examine my past.

Everything is sharpened from this new revelation, made twice as jagged. All the times my parents never tucked me in at night as a child, the bedtime stories lost, grim-faced Christmas mornings, the pride I so desperately craved from my father. Just once I wanted to earn something real. To be worthy of love.

I thought I’d earned it for once, but I’d been wrong. Standing beside my father as he opened the tabernacle, pushed past the folded yellow page inside for the chalice—

“I know where it is.” I struggle against the bob of my throat. “My father has it hidden with the sacrament. I saw a torn-out page in there.”

Veronica waves her phone and the flashlight shines across the table. “We could go at night.”

Lucas massages the bridge of his nose. “Oh yeah, because nothing screams ‘Christmas Eve’ like breaking into a church,” he mocks.

Kevin’s the first to look over at him. His eyes spark. “Actually, you know, a peek wouldn’t hurt. We’ll never be a hundred percent sure unless we look.”

“That wasn’t an actual suggestion.” Lucas’s jaw drops. “Do not look at each other like that. We are not breaking into a church.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WIL

“Is this the right type of crowbar for this?”

Kevin walks with his chin on the curved handle like he’s some sort of tap-dancing showman. Well, he would be if I could think of any Broadway performance as morbid as this one. The five of us have gathered here under nightfall fully prepared to break into the church of a potentially murderous cult. The only musical coming to my mind is Grease, and I’m pretty sure Sandy and Danny didn’t sing about ritualistic sacrifice.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, though.

“Did they drop some new version of a crowbar while I wasn’t looking?” I ask, wedging my hands deeper in my pockets with every chattering word. It’s hard to stay warm when Lucas has us walking this far, his car “safe” and hidden in the Morguewood. “I didn’t realize it was like the iPhone. Yeah, I’m sure it’ll work.”

“There’s tons of different types, Wil,” Lucas says because he gets off on not only making us walk forever but being a know-it-all, too.

“I didn’t realize I was in the presence of the God of Crowbars. Please do share your infinite wisdom with the rest of us ignorant fools.”

I shiver and the surrounding trees do the same. With their skeletal trunks and barren branches, they look an awful lot like hands breaking from grave soil.

He bites out his words. “Listen, I don’t even want to be here.”

“Then do us all a favor and leave.” My frustration does the talking for me. It lashes out before my brain has the chance to catch up.

“I’m here for Elwood, not you.” He curls his lip and shoots a look at Elwood like he’s his dutiful little golden retriever. One measly year and I’m no longer the most important one to Elwood. He’s strayed to this asshole.

Everything with him has changed. The baby fat has all but disappeared and left him hollow and oversharp. Beneath his green eyes, the skin has purpled with sleepless nights. I’m not the only one who’s become a shadow of myself. I try to meet his eyes, but he’s decided a much better use of his time is staring abjectly at the ground and worry-picking at his skin.

“Elwood doesn’t need you.” It’s a childish thing to say. But too late; it’s already out of my mouth.

Elwood freezes at the sound of his own name and I can feel his eyes burn on my skin. I can’t look. Can’t meet his eyes with my cheeks this hot. “Wil.”

Lucas’s voice is loud enough to drown him out before he even begins. “Oh, and he needs you? He survived a year without you just fine.”

Yeah, that’s what I was worried he’d say. Now I’ve got to grind my teeth and hope my exhaustion doesn’t douse my heart in lighter fluid.

“Is this what custody battles are like?” Ronnie wedges her gloved hands beneath the pits of her jacket. She’s always been the worst with cold weather, and it shows in the freezing back-and-forth shuffle of her feet and the ruddy red of her nose. “Wil, you get Elwood on alternate weekends and—”

“Guys, we’re here!” Kevin hisses. “Shut up before we all get caught.”

That breaks whatever that was and allows us to think clearly. We are all very much outside in a blizzard and in enemy territory to boot, so it would do us well to zip it, like he said. The rest of the world is silent, too. The only noise comes in the way of stray ice gusts as they rack past the sides of the church. They skirt around the wooden beams, the white paint tinged gray in the shadows.

We’re suddenly conscious of every step, the crunch of ice and frozen dirt beneath our heels as we cross from the cemetery to the back church door. I’m trying my damnedest not to freak out—though I’d sooner die than admit that to anyone here. With the moon overhead and the fact that there’s literal graves surrounding us, it’s hard not to get the creeps. I sneak a worried glance over my shoulder.

Pine Point Cemetery is written in iron right behind our heads. The dusky charcoal letters hang high to signify the shift in the air. The possession of this land passed from the living to the dead. Snow gusts rack past the headstones, burying them to the very top. The tree line encroaches on the gate, inching nearer with the years. With a forest full of dead things, perhaps it feels entitled to our dead, too.

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