Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil — Chapter no 36

II

Alice wakes after dark to an empty suite and a group text telling her the girls are all headed out to Colin’s vigil, and she’s welcome to join them if

she’s feeling up to it.

Which, of course, she’s not.

Instead, she’s sitting in a cocoon of sheets, staring at the laptop balanced on her knees, the Post-it tacked in the corner of the screen.

Goodbye, Alice. xo Lottie

Her fingers hover over the keys like she’s waiting for them to take charge.

The cursor blinks in the search bar, willing her to use the word, the one she doesn’t want to type, or think, because it feels like taking a step out of the world of the sane and the grounded and the human, as if the taste of blood isn’t echoing behind her teeth.

Alice takes a breath—she knows she doesn’t need to, but it helps—and then she forces her fingers to the keys, spelling out the word.

She hits Search, and sure enough the first two pages of results are filled with costumes, notices for parties being hosted round the city, despite the fact that Halloween is still a month away. Creatures of the night, rejoice, announces one site, featuring figures in high-collared capes, red contacts.

Another offers a variety, shrink-wrapped or slutty or sparkly. A third, capsules of fake blood that break between fake teeth.

Alice runs her hands through her hair, and adds the word real, and for the next hour, her econ reading and her problem sets both sit neglected on her desk as her search history fills with the stuff of bad fiction, and she’s all too aware that she’s sitting in the dark with her screen’s light turned as low as it will go, searching for monsters.

Or more specifically, places they might meet.

Eventually she ends up on a subreddit that leads her to a forum that leads

to some kind of off-brand Yelp page for clubs in the Boston area, and it’s pretty impressive, considering there was so little in the way of culture back in Hoxburn, let alone subculture, just the rugby boys and a handful of punks who carpooled to the nearest concerts, which were usually in Glasgow, but a city this size seems to have something for everyone, from BDSM meetups to dungeons to goth clubs, every site rife with disclaimers that what happens is roleplay between consenting adults.

Only two of the places listed show a shred of promise. Neither uses the word, but both talk about alternative fare, the language just cagey enough to make her think she may be onto something. After all, she thinks, the real thing probably doesn’t announce itself. Hiding in plain sight and all of that.

One of the places doesn’t even have a website, only a handful of photos uploaded over the last few months. Moody shots taken in a darkened club.

The other is full of vague promises, declarations for the lost and the damned, which admittedly is a bit dramatic, but what else is she supposed to do?

She can’t just sit there, going to class and killing men in cars.

She needs to find answers.

Needs to find Lottie.

So Alice gets up, and gets dressed.

Which is harder than it sounds. She doesn’t know what look she should be going for, only knows she feels absurd aiming for true goth—she doesn’t own any leather or lace, and a quick look through Lizbeth’s drawers confirms that she doesn’t, either—so ends up opting for dark-wash jeans and a vintage black hoodie nicked from Catty’s closet and never returned, the front emblazoned with a crow, the graphic faded to a pair of ghostly wings by years of washing.

She notices as she heads for the door that the volume on the hunger is creeping up again, which feels mortally unfair, given what that last meal cost her. The nearest of the two clubs is way over in the North End, and Alice doesn’t trust herself in the closed chambers of the T so she orders a ride, using the cash she swiped from the man in the sedan.

She slips through the nearest gate and into the back seat of the waiting car.

Which turns out to be a bad idea. The driver is blaring eighties shout rock, refuses to turn the radio down, and she can taste his cologne on the back of her tongue as if he bathed in it. She digs her nails into her knees, ends up

riding with the windows open, the sounds of the street surrounding her until it makes a kind of white noise in her head.

The car finally spits her out on a road she doesn’t know, and drives off before she even finds the entrance to The Dark Side (yes, that’s really what it’s called). It turns out to be a black door studding a black wall, no sign, nothing but a hammered approximation of a handprint dented in the steel.

She fits her hand into the mark, as if the door might open like a secret, but it doesn’t, the door is locked, and there’s no bouncer, no crowd, no sounds of life within, and Alice pulls the place up on her phone again, and sees the vital detail that she missed the first time round.

The Dark Side isn’t open on Mondays.

Alice groans, and knocks her head against the cold steel door.

She kicks the metal, not hard, or at least, not hard enough to hurt her foot, is shocked when it leaves a noticeable dent. She kicks the door a second time, puts some real force behind it, and the metal actually bends. Alice marvels at the damage before it occurs to her that there are probably security cameras, and then she backs away, and turns, hurrying down the block.

When she’s a safe distance from the dented door, she slows and pulls out her phone, glares at the out-of-focus picture of Lottie for a few seconds before swiping over to the map.

It’s a solid mile to the second club (which is definitely open) but Alice can’t bear the thought of calling another car, and besides, the night air feels good; not just good, but the exact opposite of the way she felt all day, the limb-shaking wooziness of the sun, and people talk about the way a place changes depending on the weather, but she’s always felt the same way about day and night. Like they’re two entirely separate worlds.

A different smell, a different taste, a different energy.

Now, in the dark, her mind calms and her body uncoils.

Her head is clear and her legs feel strong, so she decides to walk.

Never walk alone at night, they tell you, if you’re a girl.

And it isn’t fair.

Because the night is when the world is quiet.

The night is when the air is clear. The night is wild and welcoming and Alice lets her head fall back, until all she sees is the sky, not black, as it should be, given the time, but a twisting tapestry of blue.

A color that will always make her think—

Of summer days— And wedding bells—

The day Eloise Martin marries Dad, everything is blue.

From El in her azure sundress, to Dad in his twilight suit, Catty and Alice both in robin’s egg, and baby Finn, perched on Granddad’s lap, in a onesie the same shade as Catty’s eyes (minus the anger). Outside the church, even Hoxburn is showing off one of those rare summer days where the rain comes and goes before noon, taking all the clouds with it.

“We are gathered here . . .” says the priest in the church beside the graveyard where Mum is buried, and here’s the thing, it’s a hard day, it

was always going to be a hard day.

But maybe it will be a good one, too.

Or maybe Alice is a fool for ever hoping, because Catty’s been spinning for a fight since El first walked into their lives, and even though they waited years—till after Finn was born, till El has been around almost as long as Mum was, for Alice at least—to tie the knot, and Catty’s fifteen now to Alice’s twelve, it turns out there’s no expiration date on pain. (And it breaks Alice’s heart that Dad’s happiness and her sister’s hurt go hand in hand, or worse, that they are angled at each other, like pistols, or blades, and all she can do is put herself between them.) And Catty did make a scene, three months ago when Dad made the announcement. She scoffed and said she didn’t see why they bothered with white dresses and rings, since they clearly hadn’t waited to do the deed, and Dad had raised his hand like he might lay it on her, but he’d never been that kind of man, so it had come back down again, and he’d chided her for being crass, said her mother would be ashamed, and that was enough to send Catty fleeing to Granddad’s for a week. (And Alice knows why she goes, because Granddad never shouts back, doesn’t treat fights like a contest, or a challenge to see who can make the most noise, which probably comes with running a pub as long as he has, and dealing with his fair share of the drunk and the mad.) But even after all of that, Alice keeps thinking, keeps hoping that maybe it will be okay, especially after they get through the Do yous and I dos and Catty glares at the ground but doesn’t object (though Alice sees her fingers tighten on the small bouquet they’ve each been given,

and she’s just glad the rose stems had their thorns snipped off), and afterward her dad relaxes visibly, smiles and kisses his new wife, and even then Catty holds her tongue, and she might have kept on holding it, gotten through the rest of the day in stoic protest.

If not for the gift.

It’s after the vows and before the reception, and they’re in the little room at the back of the church, just Alice and Catty and El.

“A moment, just for the girls,” El said to Dad before closing the door gently in his face, and when he’s gone, she takes out a pair of small blue velvet boxes—this blue so deep it’s almost black—hands one to each of them. Inside, Alice finds a gold bauble on a chain. Not a charm or a locket, but a small cylinder.

And her first thought is that it looks like a gilded bullet.

But her second thought is that it’s beautiful. The surface is stamped with little flowers, and there’s a lightness to it, as if the chamber’s hollow. Catty’s frowning as she lifts her pendant from its box, and Alice didn’t know it could be opened until Catty finds the lid, thin fingers twisting, the contents spilling into her palm.

At first, it looks like dirt. Fine as sand, but twice as dark, and Alice doesn’t understand, even as El tells them for the hundredth time that she’s not trying to replace their mum.

It’s not until she says, “This way, wherever you go, she’ll be with you.”

The hammer falls. Alice realizes what it is.

Catty’s fist slams shut over the grave dirt, her face contorting with disdain.

Catty, who could never take anything without bending it. Who could turn any olive branch into a sharpened stick.

“That’s nae me mum,” she seethes, her accent going thick with hate.

“She’s not out there, rotting in the ground.” She knocks her fist against her chest. “She’s not a fucking bit of glaur to wear around my neck.”

Catty flings the golden vial down, flecks of dirt raining in its wake, and storms out of the room, and maybe it’s the swell of grief on El’s face, or maybe it’s the fact her legs, her heart, her bones are tired of being pulled both ways, but for the first time since the first time, Alice

watches Catty go.

And doesn’t follow.

She stays, glued to the spot. Swallows around the rocks in her throat as she cradles her own small pendant in her palms, as if the precious thing might fly away.

“Thanks, El,” she says, her voice full of cracks. “It’s really nice.”

It’s not even a lie. Alice loves the little talisman. It’s not her mum, of course it’s not, but she likes the weight. The object, filling the space of memory.

She looks up and meets her stepmum’s eyes, soft and brown and full of pain, and she just wants to make it go away.

“Would you help me put it on?” she asks, holding out the golden chain, and El dashes the tears from her cheeks, and nods.

“Of course,” she says.

Alice lifts her hair out of the way, and El’s touch is light as feathers as she slides the chain around her neck, fastens the clasp, kisses the back of Alice’s head before she pulls away.

Alice touches the pendant again, then tucks it under the hem of her dress, where Catty won’t see, the gold warming there against her heart.

And by the time she’s turned toward Eloise, the color’s back in her cheeks.

When they step out of the little room, Alice is shocked to find Catty standing in the hall, next to Dad, his hand on her shoulder and her arms crossed tight.

Alice will never know what he said to get her to stay, whether he threatened or begged, but you can see it, in the wedding photos taken

after.

The emptiness in her eyes—

Like a house packed up— The tenants already gone.

Alice reaches for the necklace as she walks, turns the gold vial between her fingertips, brings it to her lips the way she does sometimes when home feels too far away.

Then she turns the corner, and the second club comes into sight.

At the very least, it isn’t closed.

The entrance is halfway down an alley, the door propped open, spilling darkroom red light onto the road, and the guy outside has more studs than an upholstered chair.

He looks Alice up and down. “You in the right place?”

“No idea,” she says, holding up the phone. “I’m looking for this girl?”

The bouncer doesn’t even give the screen a proper look, just shrugs and says, “Maybe you’ll find her,” nods his head toward the open door, but when Alice starts forward, his arm swings up to block her way.

“You got ID?”

She does, but there’s no point in showing it, since she’s nearly three years shy of twenty-one. The moment seems to stretch, his expectation warring with her need. And this is the part where Old Alice would fumble, and fall over herself with sorrys, apologize and walk away, but New Alice is on a mission.

New Alice isn’t going back to campus, not until she has a lead.

She remembers the way her hold settled over Hannah, how it only faltered after Alice herself did, so she meets the bouncer’s gaze, holds it, as if it is a pool, something she could dive right into, as she says, “I’m old enough.”

The world doesn’t shiver with her voice. There’s no ripple, no vibration, no way to know the difference between a simple statement and something stronger. The words hang between them, and all Alice can do is wait and see what happens next.

“Are you?” he asks, but there’s no attitude, no leering look, only the smallest furrow in his brow, as if he’s trying to listen to his mind as well as

hers. Alice holds his gaze and nods.

“I am. Now let me in.”

He blinks, then shrugs. “Go on, then,” he says, and Alice wants to preen, to crow, to pump her fist because it worked, it worked, but she’s afraid it will somehow break the spell, and maybe there was no spell, maybe he just didn’t care, but either way, she heads in.

Only she’s halfway through the door when he blocks her way again.

“Wait,” he says, and Alice grits her teeth, expecting trouble, but he’s just holding up a pair of paper wristbands, one red, the other white.

“What’s that?”

“Everyone is either predator,” he says, waving the red one, “or prey,” he adds, then snaps the white one round her wrist without asking which she is,

which she wants to be.

Alice rolls her eyes, and goes inside.

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