Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil — Chapter no 43

Alice follows the music.

It’s a brittle strand of notes amid the city’s crowded symphony, and she moves with cautious strides, afraid that one wrong turn will cut the cord, send the melody skittering away. But with every block it grows a little brighter, a little louder, rising by degrees, one meager decibel at a time, until she turns onto a narrow street in Beacon Hill and finds a set of short brick steps, leading down to a sublevel door.

Not the steel door of an alley club, but a wood one, painted green.

A ribbon of fairy lights wraps along the iron rail, and a small sign mounted on the brick wall by the door reads WHITE THORN BLACK ROAST.

And standing there, halfway down the steps, the hope goes right out of Alice’s sails, because it’s obvious that this is another dead end. It’s a coffee shop—she can smell the beans roasting from the street—and she wants to sit down on the stoop and cry, but she can’t even do that now without causing a scene. She should probably just turn around and walk the three miles back to campus, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Her legs are stuck, not the way they were back in the graveyard, but leaden, as if they’ve simply lost the will to listen to her. Maybe it’s the fact she’s come this far, and she has no other leads, or that this place feels familiar in a simple, human way, a nod to the girl she was before, the one who constantly found refuge in café corners, fingers curled around a mug of tea, or the fact she can still hear the music, spilling softly through the door.

But Alice goes forward instead of back. She reaches the bottom of the steps, and the cheerful green door, and goes in.

A little bell chimes above her when the door swings open, and she steps into a place that feels more like a cluttered living room than a public café.

It’s cozy, a mishmash of furniture, sofas and chairs circled up around low tables, interspersed with four-tops, a handful of booths, and between the

bearded guys in beanie hats, and the girl sipping a latte and scrolling on her phone, Alice feels like she’s back on campus.

Like she’s just ended up here on a study break, in the midst of a long night.

She looks around, some small but desperate part of her still hoping for a sign, a back curtain, the promise of a second hidden space, but there’s only the counter, and the barista behind it—a middle-aged woman with a short brown bob and a pair of pink librarian glasses.

The woman is saying something, low, under her breath, either chatting with someone Alice can’t see or maybe just talking to herself. Either way, Alice feels like she’s interrupting, so even though there’s no one else in line, she waits, until the woman’s attention finally cuts toward her, a bemused look as if she’s the strange one for just standing there.

“You want to order something?”

Alice hesitates—the barista’s gaze flicks away, and back—but the bell has chimed again, and there are two people in line behind her now, and in the end, she asks for a menu, feels like an idiot when the woman points up at the hand-drawn board over her head. Just the usual fare, and her dad always says there’s nothing a strong cup of tea won’t fix, whether it’s a cold or a pair of wet shoes or a bad day at school, so that is what Alice orders, and the woman makes it right, at least, with a boiling kettle and a healthy scoop of leaves, even if it comes in a mug instead of a pot. She carries it to a corner table and sinks into a cushioned chair, wraps her fingers round the mug for a warmth she doesn’t need, but habit is its own kind of comfort.

The tea smells earthy and bitter and right enough that Alice thinks, just maybe, this is the place her old life and her new will meet, this small allowance, that it will taste like home instead of rot, but the illusion crumbles as soon as the liquid crosses her lips, her throat vising closed against the sip.

She spits the tea back into the cup, then folds her arms and lays her head down on the wood and decides this is a good enough place to give up. She wills the table to reach up and swallow her the way the graveyard tried to

do, but the wood holds firm.

“That bad, huh?”

She drags her head up to find a guy, perhaps a little older than she is, but not by much. He’s lean, verging on thin, dirty-blond hair just long enough he has it tucked behind his ears. His fingers are dotted with silver rings, and

he’s cradling an espresso cup in one hand, a notebook in the other, and she’s about to tell him that she’s really not in the mood for small talk right now when he asks, “What did you hear?”

Alice stiffens, frowns, uncertain. “What?”

“You followed the music, right?” he says, as if it’s not a secret at all, and the air contracts around her, tight with warning and hope. She is sitting upright now, so thrown by the easy way he asks the question, and also by the thought that she might have actually done something right, that maybe, just maybe, she’s actually found what she was looking for.

“Um, yeah,” she manages.

“Well?” he asks, lifting the espresso to his lips. “What did you hear?”

Alice blinks, and looks around the café. It’s fainter here, inside the shop, but it’s still there, the piano rising and falling like a tide. “I don’t know.

Bach?”

The guy shakes his head. “Kids these days,” he says. “Not everything good is old as well.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on the back of the chair, and smiles, as if to himself, but she sees them—the tips of two teeth, sharper than the rest—and Alice wants to fling her arms around his shoulders out of sheer relief that she is not alone.

But her head is still spinning and she doesn’t exactly know the etiquette

for things like this, and—

“For your information, it’s Einaudi.”

She drags her thoughts back. “Huh?”

“The composer.” He nudges her tea aside, setting the espresso in its place.

“Go on. Try this.”

Her stomach turns at the sight of the dark sludge, the memory of the over- sugared coffee in the econ hall, but she watched him take a sip, and it didn’t seem to hurt him, so Alice lifts the small cup to her lips, and as she does, she catches the scent of iron beneath the coffee’s edge. She drinks, feels her throat tighten once, and then unlock as the unmistakable taste of blood hits

her tongue, and it’s— —weird.

There’s no pulse, no bloom inside her chest, but it still goes down, warmth trailing in its wake, the trapdoor inside her falling open onto nothing but empty space, as if she never drank from that girl back at Chalice, or the creep in the nice car, or the guy on the Yard. She gulps it down, the contents little more than a swallow, and for a moment, the floor beneath her steadies

and her mind goes clear—but then the cup is empty, and Alice feels wrung out, that sudden urge to cry again, though in frustration, fatigue, or hunger, she honestly doesn’t know.

“Still thirsty?” he asks, then offers her a wan smile, a soft chuckle escaping like a sigh. “Silly question, isn’t it? Black and red,” he adds, and he doesn’t raise his voice, but she can tell, somehow, he’s not talking to her now, and sure enough the barista glances over, and he holds up two fingers, and she nods and gets to work.

Alice looks into the empty cup, her mind racing till it feels like it will trip itself. “Then this place really is . . .”

“Oh, it’s just a front,” he says, voice dropping at last. “We keep the bodies in the back. Blood orgies on Sunday nights. The password this month is

pineapple.”

Alice stares.

The guy stares back.

And then, after a painfully slow moment, one corner of his mouth goes up. He’s mocking her. Gently, but still. Alice isn’t in the mood.

“Ha ha,” she offers dryly, and it must sound even sorrier coming out, because his expression softens as he takes the seat across from her. The barista drifts over, sets two espressos down, and wanders off again, her lips still moving as she talks to herself.

“The vast majority of the customers are, in fact, ordinary people,” he says, “but it’s true, my doors are open to all kinds.”

Alice wonders what that means as she takes up the cup.

“Angel, demons, psychics.”

She nearly chokes on the drink, but when she looks up, there it is again, that little, teasing smirk. Like this is all a game, a joke. As if she hasn’t spent the whole night searching for proof, and going slowly mad. He seems to feel the annoyance wicking off her, because the smile drops away,

leaving something earnest in its wake.

“Ezra,” he says, holding out a hand.

“Alice.” She slides her fingers into his, and the touch feels both right, and wrong, and it takes her a moment to figure out why—there is no pulse beneath his skin, no warmth, and nothing of him on the air, no emotions or desires clouding up the room like smoke. He is a pool of silence, a small oasis in the chaos, and when she meets his gaze, she sees his eyes are pale, and steady, like flecks of frosted glass, but there is a kindness in them.

“What are you doing here, Alice?” he asks gently.

She blinks, remembering her night, her search. She drags the phone from her pocket and swipes over to the photo.

“I’m looking for a girl,” she says, nudging the screen toward him, and even now, she’s braced for disappointment, for him to take a passing glance and shrug and say sorry, but he’s never seen her.

But that’s not what Ezra does.

He stares down at the screen, a small crease taking shape between his brows.

“Lottie,” he murmurs, half to himself, and the way he says it, so full of knowing, makes Alice’s hands begin to shake, her own voice trembling as she says, through gritted teeth, “You know her?”

Ezra drags his gaze back up. “I do,” he says. “I have, for quite a long time.”

“Where is she?” demands Alice, but the venom in the question makes him frown, and cross his arms.

“Why?” he asks—and that right there, the wall he puts up, protecting her —it’s the final fucking straw.

“Why?” she snarls. “Because she did this to me.” Alice’s throat tightens around the words. “She ruined my life. She made me this way. And then she just left.”

Ezra frowns and shakes his head. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

Alice stares at him, aghast, anger rising like bile in her throat. She wants to sweep the cups from the table, to say it doesn’t fucking matter if it sounds like something she would do, because she did, she stole Alice’s life, right when it was starting.

But before she can lash out, Ezra holds up a hand.

“Tell me what happened.”

The anger in her does a strange thing then. It hardens.

Catty always burned hot. But now, Alice feels herself go cold. Cold enough it hurts her skin, her bones, her throat as she forces the words out, tells him about the party, and the aftermath, the Post-it Note, and the bottomless hole in place of answers, or explanation.

Alice tells him everything, And Ezra listens, arms folded and eyes cast down, until she’s done, or at least until the story catches up with where she is, right here and now, and there’s nothing left to say.

Then he runs a hand through his hair. “Something doesn’t add up,” he

says, “but it’s not your story.” He shakes his head. “The Lottie I knew would never do something like this.”

“Yeah, well,” mutters Alice. “People change.”

“They do,” he says, his voice dipping as he adds, half to himself, “all things wither in the end.” He sighs and sits forward. “We need to find Lottie.”

“Great.” Alice is already on her feet. “Let’s go.”

He cocks a brow. “Where exactly?”

“You know her. Lottie. Charlotte. So then, you know where to find her.

Lead the way.”

Ezra shakes his head. “I don’t know where she is.”

Alice feels her spirit start to buckle again. Until he raps his knuckles on the table and stands, adding, “But I know someone who might.”

Alice follows Ezra across the coffee shop, picking past sofas and chairs to a back corner, where a Black girl in a BU sweatshirt sits cross-legged in a booth, large pink headphones clamped over her ears, blasting hard rock loud enough for Alice to hear the reverb. She’s typing furiously, empty espresso cups and a small pile of philosophy textbooks spread in a half circle across the table, like a barrier that says Keep out.

Ezra leans his arms on the side of the booth.

“Melody,” he says in a singsong voice.

“Studying,” she singsongs back, her fingers never slowing on the keys.

“I need a favor.”

“I need good grades.”

“I haven’t charged you for the last three—” He glances back toward the counter, and the barista holds up four fingers. “—four espressos. And I’m feeling generous enough to clear your tab. For the week.”

The girl—Melody—sighs, fingers hovering until one twitches and taps a key. The music cuts off in her ears, and she plucks the headphones off, and settles them around her neck. “What do you want?”

Ezra smiles. “I’m looking for someone.”

“I take it they don’t have a phone?”

Ezra shakes his head. “Afraid not.”

Alice watches them volley, wondering how the hell this girl is going to help them find Lottie—this girl, who smells like cinnamon and soda bread, whose heart is a steady rhythm in her chest, who is undeniably,

unmistakably human, until she rolls her neck and cracks her knuckles and says, “I’ll need something she’s touched.”

At which point, Ezra nudges Alice forward.

Melody studies her. “I see.”

“I don’t,” says Alice.

“I told you,” says Ezra. “White Thorn Black Roast caters to a varied clientele. My favorite customer, Melody, in addition to being a reliable patron, has certain sensitivities.”

She rolls her eyes and shoots a look at Alice. “He means I’m psychic.”

Alice stares, unsure if this is another joke. In her defense, it’s been a long few days, and the girl doesn’t exactly look like she spends her free time staring at a crystal ball.

“Yeah, well,” says Melody, with a withering stare. “You don’t look like a vampire.”

Alice recoils as if struck. The girl’s mouth twitches in amusement. “Take a seat.” She glances at Ezra. “I’ll need a large coffee. Black. And a plate.”

He gives a small salute and strides away, one hand in his pocket, as Melody starts to clear the semicircle of cups and books out of the way.

“Philosophy?” asks Alice, trying to fill the awkward silence.

“I wanted to go into law,” she says. “But it’s hard when you already know who’s innocent and who’s guilty.”

“So you read minds? See the future? Speak to the dead?”

“I’m not a medium,” says Melody, nodding toward the barista, whose lips are still moving, pausing now and then as if listening. “I don’t speak to the dead—present company excluded.”

That word rings through Alice like a bell.

“I’m not—” she stammers.

“Sorry,” Melody says quickly, “didn’t mean to offend.”

Then Ezra is back, depositing the cup of coffee and the plate on the cleared space between them.

Melody takes a sip, then promptly upends the rest onto the dish. The dark liquid spreads, running edge to edge, but doesn’t go over the sides. It settles into a shining black pool.

“All right,” she says, as if steeling herself. “Give me your hands.”

Alice hesitates.

It’s not just the fact that, an hour ago, she didn’t know psychics were real, or that two days ago, she was a first-year student whose biggest concerns

were keeping up with coursework and trying to make friends. It’s that the last time she let a stranger in, she woke up dying (Dead.) and now her life has been turned upside down, and she’s sitting in a coffee shop she found by following a song too soft for human ears with some girl who can read her mind, and Ezra made jokes about angels and demons, too, and how is Alice supposed to know what’s real, what’s right, what’s happening to her, when every door that should have answers opens onto questions and who knows what anyone would even see if Alice let them look into her mind and — “Alice.” Melody’s voice is steady, but kind, somehow in the booth and in her head at once, calling her back into her body. “Trust me,” she says. “I’m not looking for anything I don’t need.” And then, in a lower voice, “And don’t listen to Ezra, he’s full of shit.”

“I heard that,” he mutters, leaning against a nearby post.

Alice manages a brittle smile, then swallows, and reaches out, and lays her hands on top of Melody’s. Cold on warm, and she can feel the heartbeat through the other girl’s skin, and she clenches her jaw as the hunger stirs again, like a beast waking from a shallow sleep, and forces her gaze to the still, black surface of the coffee on the plate where Melody is staring, too.

“Okay,” says the psychic. “Think of the last time you were with her.”

Alice tries to meet Melody’s gaze, but her brown eyes have taken on a kind of fog, pale wisps curling over the irises, and it makes her think of standing in the yard back home, when the moon was bright enough to light the low clouds so they looked like they were glowing, Finn’s small voice calling to her from the doorway and— “Focus,” urges Melody, squeezing her hand.

Alice swallows, forcing herself to remember. She looks down at the still black surface, and lets her vision blur as she thinks back, retracing her steps until the other girl’s pulse becomes the beat of the music through the walls, and then she’s coming out of the bedroom, and there she is, as if she’s been waiting there all night, just for Alice. She stands, and drifts forward, until she’s close enough to kiss, and that’s when Melody’s hands vise around hers.

The memory gutters, going murky in Alice’s mind, a black-on-black ripple before Lottie springs back into her line of sight, only now the party is gone, the violet dye is gone, her curls glossy and dark, the short silver dress replaced by black slacks and a black-and-white-patterned blouse, a silk bow

cinched at her throat. She’s striding up a spiral staircase, heels sinking into a plush blue rug, and fingers trailing a blue-patterned wall, and Alice’s heart lurches as Lottie looks back over her shoulder, right at her, with those eyes like strong tea, and that coy smile, dimple flashing in one cheek.

And in that moment, Alice wants to surge forward, grab her and pin her to the wall, but she can’t. This isn’t her mind, this isn’t her memory, and Lottie isn’t looking at Alice, because Alice is someone else. Their fingers are tangled, and the hand that isn’t her hand is darker, the nails painted autumn shades of gold, and amber, and red, and as Lottie leads her up the stairs, she

does the only thing she can.

She follows.

The two of them walk up and up, past gilded sconces to a landing, and down a hall to a room, where Lottie grabs her—not her—by the waist, pulls her—not her—back against the door with a breathy laugh, the same sound that made Alice’s knees go weak the night she killed her.

And Alice tries to say something, to say No, to say Wait, to say Run, but the two of them are already tumbling back into the room, and the last thing she sees is the number—139—etched into a gold plate on the door, before Melody lets go of her hands, and the vision crumbles, and Alice is left feeling like someone slammed the door in her face.

She recoils, back in her body in the coffee shop booth, Lottie lingering like a camera flash behind her eyes, repeating every time she blinks. She sits there, caught between the two places, two selves, shivering with anger.

“Well?” asks Ezra, who’s perched backward on a chair.

Melody rubs her eyes, as if clearing away sleep. “She’s at a hotel.”

“Oh good, there are so few of those around.”

Alice shakes her head, locks her hands in her lap until her knuckles ache.

“There was blue,” she says, trying to force the tremble from her voice.

“On the stairs. Blue runner. Blue walls.”

Ezra’s expression brightens. He snaps his fingers. “The Taj.”

Alice feels her chest tighten, not with panic, but hope. “You know it?”

He nods, already on his feet. “It isn’t far. Thanks, Mel.”

“Anytime,” she mutters, pushing the now-cold coffee aside and settling

the headphones back over her ears.

“Really?”