DEAD WINTER: A CRYPTIC Anthology

Merry Old Saint Morte • Robyn Marie

St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowerie

New York City, Christmas Eve, 1895

In the Before

MY SHOVEL broke on the last chunk of dirt, and I chucked it out of the hole, tossing my coat up after it. My undershirt was black at the cuffs, faded to yellow from hours of the sweaty work I'd agreed to do for a thoughtless twenty dollars. (A sum I'd since reconsidered—somewhere between my first jab at the rock-hard plot, and the consequent snap of my only gerddamn shovel.) Snow flurried. Drifting in matted clumps, oblivious, through the glow of the lantern above me; colliding with the freshly turned dirt piles and my over-warm skin; blanketing one surface and melting on the other. The air was sharp. Each inhale stabbed my chest and gutted my lungs like a hunting knife. Old boots, wilted flowers, and a hint of the tobacco tangled in my stretched scarf—That's how the fusty air smelled as I breathed it. And without my methodic digging, the winter silence it dwelt on chewed in my ear.

I cleared my throat.

Every joint popped as I squatted where I stood. My burrowing had uncovered a coffin, and I swept the remaining dirt crumbs away under the oxblood gloves protecting my hands. The wood beneath was frozen mid-decay. One more damp summer and the lumber would tear completely, easy as cheesecloth, but now it needed a good bootheel to buckle, and I kicked, welcoming the chance to stretch my sore legs. A person still existed inside the coffin. I was expecting bones, and it disturbed my focus long enough for my breath to escape—catching in the lamplight like wandering ciggie smoke—and then I was back at work, breaking into the last bed of a dead boy.

Snowflakes touched his face, too, and stayed; nestling in his empty eye sockets, collecting, unspoiled, on his shriveled skin. I fished him loose, folding him in half with a crack (for my broken shovel). His stale body swelled my burlap bag like I was Old Saint Nicholas bearing gifts, and I prepared to hoist him up and out of the hole when a wink of light stopped me. Across the burial ground, a red spark bobbed at a walker's pace, between rows of headstones and crude markers that blended into the night the farther they stood from me. My chest tightened. I dropped the bag. Grabbing my lantern I lifted the latch, snuffed the flame, and ducked; dragging my coat in after me.

The farmer searched for the fox, and here I hid inside the hen house.

Utterly cold now, I hunkered. Lying on my side in an opened grave, beside the bagged corpse. The coffin's soiled-silk lining was damp. I could feel it, breathing, through my clothes. And I waited. The copper's footsteps crunched in the steady silence, thunderous in my strained ears. I held my breath and counted:

One.

Crunch

Two.

Crunch

Three.

The frozen grass shattered under hobnails and leather. I imagined the candle's flame beneath the red-coated glass of the police lantern, its long fingers of light creeping to find me. I crossed myself—Father. Son. Holy. Spirit—and buried my face in my patched coat. Were I caught tonight; my real father would carve his disappointment into me with whatever he had on hand. My brother wouldn't stop him, either. No, he'd watch. And if they both discovered my business—if they knew about the money I'd earned, stashed under my ticking mattress at the flophouse—

The footsteps moved off, and I took my chance. Hurling my belongings out first, I scrambled onto higher ground and scooped up the bag and my coat, aiming wildly for the iron fence. A shout followed, and I catapulted from the churchyard as a gunshot punctuated the broken silence. The bullet chipped a fleur-de-lis on the gate's arch as I flew passed. The spark imprinted in the corner of my eye, coloring my vision. My vessels bloated. In my head, I could see the granules of life, like orange germs under a microscope, running, crazed, through the maze of my body.