Truly Elemental: And Other Retro Faerie Tales

Over Your Grave

She turns the radio up and keeps the headlights on. The beams sparkle in the night, fanning at the edges and fading against skewed headstones that slump between small hills. An ever-growing hole in the green sod at her feet is in bright focus, belching fresh soil onto her blue shoes with each snick, snick of the shovel. She steps back to avoid the next fling. Under the high whine of an Elvis Presley song, the engine growls. Discontent. Pink panels bent into smooth curves, vibrate. Chrome trim wicks moonlight to the tailfins.

A bitter wind breathes mist through the rolled down window, damp ghosts seeking escape.

"Why are we doing this, baby?" Castor asks. He straightens, chucking another load of black dirt up onto higher ground. The headlights smatter his shadow over the etched headstone marking the grave. Age spots and scalloped lichen clutch the pitted stone, encroaching the broken script:

HERE LIES BURIED

PERMALIA OAKS

HANGED

JULY 19, 1692

Maebean unties her beaded purse and coaxes a teacup from its silk lining. The headlights shine through the fragile shell as she holds it between thumb and forefinger: salt-glazed porcelain, thin as wax paper and wreathed in hand-fostered flowers. The high karat gold rim is scratched in places, imperfect, old.

She rests it carefully atop the thick headstone, above an embossed skull with no wings. "Granmére will expect a gift. We must not go to her empty handed. Not for this."

The shovel thunks on a hollow plain. Castor tosses the shovel aside and crouches to smear away the earth. He stops scraping when the moist clods give into wooden boards irreparably stained. Maebean watches from the lip of the open grave, arms folded. One hand tends a cigarette. The tip glows like a blue star in the dark.

Castor raises a foot and plunges a heel into the coffin lid. His boot cracks the rotten ribs, punching through the dank chrysalis.

"Jesus," he whispers, crossing his chest. Up. Down. Left. Right. Maebean extends a hand in a fluid motion, fingers cocked gracefully like a Princess on the silver screen. Castor takes it, and helps her climb into the trough beside him.

She pauses to lick her thumb and fix several oily curls that have frayed his slick ducktail. "Thank you, Cat." Maebean presses the V of two fingers to his lips, offering him a drag for his efforts. He inhales the sweet smoke deep, his breath chasing it into his chest and out again. A spirit in the ether.

Her lipstick bleeds the edges raw. His mouth leaves pinches in the paper.

Maebean stamps the ember out on the back of her hand and lets the butt fall wherever. This is not consecrated ground, which means she can walk here unscathed. It also means no one cares if she uses it as an ashtray. The buried dead know their place, and it's not in Heaven.

It's not in Hell, either.

Flouncing down on the coffin—a puff of ivory and thread roses—Maebean surveys the uncovered remains. Her face is childish; soft angles and curved cheeks, feathered eyebrows and emerald eyes framed with khol lines like ravens wings. Golden hair caresses her bare shoulders in tired ringlets. Inside the coffin, a dead girl lies. Her face is shriveled leather, sucked lifeless by decay; the skin taut canvas on jutting bones. Brittle knots of long red hair overflow her dry scalp, filling the coffin with wiry down.

Her clothes are stitched midnight. Black cloth and rows of pale, antler buttons.

"Magic may live in a mortal's tome, but Death can always send her home." Maebean recites aloud.