Button Hill (14 page)

Reed turned his head and spit into the grass beside the dirt pile. “And what about Harper? Will you bring her back too? Ahh, don't matter without the music box anyhow.”

“Actually, I think Riley already has the music box.”

Reed looked up, eyebrows raised. “Then you do what you can—you promise me that.”

Dekker frowned. “I don't know if she'll even listen to me. She's the one who helped Cobb get my heart in the first place. But I'll try,” said Dekker.

“Good. What's that under your hand?” Reed pointed at Dekker's arm.

Dekker looked down. He'd been rubbing at the spot he had scratched open without realizing what he was doing. He frowned and pulled his sleeve down. “What do you think it is? It's getting worse. Let's get this over with.”

Reed nodded and turned to the coffin. “Once I shut you in with Mrs. Conquergood, it's going to be up to you to sweet-talk her into opening the way.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

Reed shook his head. “Your aunt didn't teach you much, did she?”

“She said she didn't know. And
The Book of Night and Day
doesn't say.”

“Travelin's how I got started as gravedigger. Gettin' to the other side was the easy part. I was sick with love. When I realized my girl had already passed on, it drove me crazy. I think the spirits I traveled with fed off that madness, that crazy love. All I had to say was please. You got to think about what's in your heart; maybe that'll work for you.”

“My heart's in Understory. I can barely feel anything these days.”

Reed looked up, his eyes caught in the light of the setting sun. “You aimin' to go all the way to the city?” Dekker nodded. “Your aunt tell you no one living's ever come back from that far in?”

“No, she must have forgotten to mention that.”

“Huh. Musta thought you wouldn't go through with it if you knew. Return trip's the tough part. When I saw the gorge, I turned back. It's got its own kind of weight, the kind you can't shake off so easily.”

Dekker nodded. “I felt it too. But I have to go all the way.”

Reed cracked his knuckles and moved closer to the coffin. “How'd your sister travel?”

“She went through the pool in Aunt Primrose's garden.”

The gravedigger sucked in his breath and grimaced. “Dang, you're in a tight spot. Your spirit can cross into Nightside from pretty near anywhere. Only a few places where you can cross over in the flesh, like in Button Hill, but almost no one does it—too dangerous.”

“Why?”

“To the dead, life shines right out of a person, like a big ol' star. It attracts creatures that still hunger after life, who long for the warmth of Dayside, like a moth to a flame.”

Dekker imagined Riley alone in Understory and surrounded by Nightside creatures. He had to find her and bring her back, no matter what the cost.

Reed clapped Dekker on the shoulder. “Your aunt said you were in a flap this morning when you realized what your sister had done. Maybe that feeling's your ticket to ride.” The gravedigger checked the sun again. Its lower edge grazed the horizon, and the hills in the distance were the color of blood. “Sunset's now. Hurry up, or it'll be too late.” He slid the thick straps of the lowering device under the coffin and angled it out over the grave using the crank. Then he opened the coffin lid.

Dekker leaned in. An old woman lay on a satin sheet. She looked asleep. Her hair was pulled back, her face plain and pointed at the sky. She wore a royal-blue dress and matching hat and a string of pearls, and her arms were at her sides. Reed eased Alva Conquergood's body gently onto its side, and Dekker swung his leg up and into the casket.

He closed his eyes and shuddered as he slid his legs into the satin-lined recess. Mrs. Conquergood's knuckles pressed into his leg. “I don't know if I can do this,” he said.

“Too late,” replied Reed, and he pushed Dekker's head down like a police officer putting a criminal into the back of a patrol car.

Dekker opened his eyes. He was inches from her body, able to see every spidery wrinkle and eyelash. There was no part of her face or neck that wasn't creased like a crumpled paper bag. “How come it smells like flowers?”

“Open-casket viewing at the funeral parlor in town. They spray lilac water on the body so it smells nice for the family. You should try it sometime.” Reed's head appeared above the coffin, his silhouette blocking out the light of the dying sun. “Once you're on the other side, try to hold on to Mrs. Conquergood's tether as long as you can. If you're lucky, it'll take you past the gorge, to the outskirts of Understory.” He leaned closer. “Watch for the light. Good luck!” Before Dekker could ask any more questions, Reed closed the lid of the coffin and latched it.

Dekker was back in the dark. He felt a bump, and the body pressed against him as the casket tilted slightly to one side. He heard a muffled mechanical noise, and the casket bounced several times before lurching to a stop. He pushed the body as far away from his own as he could. After a few moments something dropped heavily onto the lid of the casket. The sides of the wooden coffin rattled as the lid shook. “Reed!” he shouted. “Let me out—I changed my mind.” But the thumping continued, rhythmic as a heartbeat. It faded gradually until he could feel only a slight vibration, and a few minutes after that he could feel nothing at all. Everything was perfectly still. His mind filled with doubts. What could have happened to Riley, alone in Understory, and where did Harper's allegiances lie? And what could he really hope to do about it even if he did make it to the city of the dead?

Dekker glanced at the corpse, now outlined in black and white in the dark. “Well, we're good and buried now. Do your thing, Mrs. Conquergood.” Nothing happened. “Anytime you're ready.” All was quiet.
So this is what it's like to be really dead. Boring
. “Mrs. Conquergood, please!” he shouted.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and soft brown eyes without pupils stared back at him. “There's no need to shout, dear.”

“Jeez, you scared me.”

The old woman smiled dreamily. “I wasn't expecting company either. The quarters are a little close.” Dekker could hear her voice, but her lips weren't moving. “What on earth are you doing in my coffin?”

Dekker hesitated for a moment, ready to lay on the charm, then decided honesty was best. “I need your help—bad.”

“What can I do? In case you hadn't noticed, I'm dead.” Her skin was beginning to shimmer with a faint opal light.

“I know. That's why I need you. I lost something, and it's in a place where dead people go. And my sister went to get it. Only she's not dead yet, but she will be if I don't try to find her.”

The old woman looked at him sadly. “Sounds like you do need help, dear.” She was glowing more brightly now, and light was starting to pool above her head. “But I'm going, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.”

Dekker swallowed. “Take me with you. Please?”

Mrs. Conquergood gave him a puzzled look. “How?”

“I have no idea. You're supposed to attach yourself to me somehow with a tether. The gravedigger said to watch for the light.”

She looked into his eyes. “Well, I'm sorry, but I don't see any light in you.”

Dekker sighed in frustration. “He meant your light—it's all around you, there, above your head.”

The light was getting bigger and brighter, and her voice came out of it and filled the crowded space. “I just don't see how. Oh, dear, I'm sorry. It's my first time, you know.”

Dekker closed his eyes, reaching for memories. He thought of his sister, somewhere ahead of him. He thought of his mom, somewhere behind. He thought of Harper, who was somehow everywhere.

Mrs. Conquergood was still in his head but farther away now. “Oh! There it is. It flickers like a candle. Just a minute now, dear. Can you feel that?”

He felt something tug hard against his breastbone, and when he opened his eyes he saw a tail of Mrs. Conquergood's opal light disappearing into the spot where his heart used to be.

“It hurts, but it's okay. I think you did it,” he said.

Her voice sounded far away, as if she were drifting on a breeze. “Here I go then. Wish us luck.”

A whistle like a boiling kettle pierced the air, and Mrs. Conquergood's light dropped through the bottom of the coffin. The tether pulled him down against the bottom of the casket like a fish on a line. Everything seemed to go sideways—the casket twisted, and Dekker felt himself squeezed through a narrow tube. The whistle grew into a shriek, and then the tube was suddenly just…gone. For an instant he was weightless, and a feeling of happiness rushed through him. Then Mrs. Conquergood's tether yanked him down—hard.

“Get ready, dear. I think we have a bit of a drop coming up,” said Mrs. Conquergood's voice inside his head. Dekker closed his eyes, and the bottom dropped out of everything. They were hurtling down at an impossible pace.

They fell for so long, Dekker lost the sensation of falling. It felt like an hour or more. After a long time, he noticed the faint outline of his fingers and, as if someone was slowly turning the volume back up, wind began to whistle past his ears. For a sickening moment he thought he had been cut loose from his guide, but the slack in his tether went taut, and he hung below the clear ball of light like an anchor. Below him he saw the train tracks in Nightside that he and Riley had followed away from the gorge.

Mrs. Conquergood plummeted down the line of the hill and over the edge of the cliff. She barreled down the smooth wall of the gorge, and he was falling again for a moment before the line snapped tight once more. “Wheee!” she called in delight.

The wind turned into the muttering of hundreds of voices in his ears, and as they flew deeper into the darkness he could see other blue flashes speeding past them. The far side was lost in shadow, but something was glowing faintly white below them. It seemed to break into little pieces as they got closer, and Dekker noticed it pulsing forward and back, like waves.

Dekker gasped as he realized the whiteness beneath wasn't water, but an ocean of bones that filled the bottom of the gorge. “Slow down!” he cried.

“I can't. It's as if a magnet is pulling me. I haven't felt this good in ages!”

Just before their ball of light struck the bones, it wheeled and flew across the surface. But Dekker's momentum carried him into the churning mass. White shards flew up around him, and he groaned with the shock of the impact. His body was dragged through the tangle of skulls and ribs and legs.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Conquergood.

The bones grabbed at Dekker's clothes and pulled him down. His skin ripped and tore against the churning bits of bone. Desperately he yanked on the tether. For a moment nothing happened, and then he sprang up and out of the sea of bones. Mrs. Conquergood was all light now, stretched flat, skimming the surface of the bone sea. He dragged himself onto her shining form. Inches below, the bone sea roiled.

They rose as a bone swell grew beneath them. Mrs. Conquergood's light began to sparkle. “Now's your chance to try something amazing, young man.”

“What?”

“Stand up, and ride this wave into shore.”

“But I've never even been to the ocean before!”

“Oh, I don't think you have a choice. I can't keep you up if we slow down even a teensy bit. On your feet, dear.”

Dekker grabbed the edges of the light as if it were a surfboard and pushed himself up. His legs trembled as he rose into a wide-legged sideways stance. The wave thrust upward into a peak, and they gained momentum. For one exhilarating instant, Dekker felt a cold wind on his face and the steady click of bones rolling beneath his feet.

“Look at you, young man. I believe this is what beach kids call hanging ten,” cried Mrs. Conquergood.

Ahead, another bone wave spasmed violently. Dekker's throat grew tight. Bones were everywhere—above, below and behind him. The rattle became thunder as bones curled over them, catching them in the barrel of the wave. Dekker could see an opening at the far end, but the barrel was already beginning to narrow, and something struck Dekker on the arm as the wave began to break apart. “Hurry!” he screamed. “It's collapsing!”

He crouched, and Mrs. Conquergood flew through the swirling tunnel, a streak of light. The wave bent into an impossible shape, and the air rained digits and collarbones and kneecaps as it collapsed. Mrs. Conquergood flipped end over end, and Dekker fell into the bone sea. He was forced deeper, battered from every side. His body slammed into something unyielding.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mrs. Conquergood's voice from far away. The last of the light went out, and he knew no more.

Sixteen

Dekker floated in an oily cloud. He couldn't hear anything, but the stench of sour milk was overwhelming. His thoughts were murky, out of reach. He knew he was searching for something…but what? The powerful feeling came over him that he should just keep his eyes shut and it would all be over.
Wouldn't that be a relief?
He breathed in the fetid air around him. Just for a second, he caught a whiff of licorice and smoke. It startled him, the scent
. Where do I know that smell from? Wait! I had a sister. What was her name?
As he tried to remember, a scratching sound cut through the nothingness: stone dragged across stone.

Something jabbed into his backbone, sharp and insistent. The pain reminded him he had a body, and as he remembered, pain spread from his back to his arms and legs. The scraping sound started again. He opened his eyes and looked up.

The moon was a sickle blade hanging in a colorless sky. His arms were crossed on his chest. He tried to roll over; something pinched his shoulder and dragged him back down. He arched his neck. He saw white sand passing slowly beneath him.