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  For my gram, who read me Grimm

  1

  The Underside of the Graveyard

  She descended into the basement, tasked with collecting the bones. In her hand, a single candle illuminated the way. It cast a small circle of golden light that pressed the deepest shadows into the corners.

  Not that the dark bothered Irréelle. She could see quite well in even the blackest part of the night, and besides, she knew her way around the house by heart, especially this area so far beneath the floorboards. She carried the candle as much to guide her as to warm her, if only a little. Her gray smock dress was too thin for the chill of the cellar.

  At the bottom of the staircase, she cupped her hand to guard the flame. A draft (that seemed to come from nowhere, but most certainly came from somewhere) blew cold against her face. It whispered through the white strands of her hair, surrounding her with the scent of earth and rot. She wrinkled her nose. Though she was accustomed to the dank, gloomy basement, it always smelled stronger after the rain.

  Irréelle shivered in the enclosed space and reluctantly set the candle down on a stack of wooden crates crammed full of potatoes. She crossed the room, watching her shadow-self stretch ahead. It grew out of proportion to her actual limbs, even taller, even slimmer, her silhouette even more ill composed than her body.

  She frowned. The shadow only reminded her of the bony points of her elbows and knees, and worse, the uneven lengths of her arms and the mismatched bones of her legs.

  But there was nothing to be done about that except to snub her nose at the shadow.

  When she reached the far wall, she placed her hands flat against the bricks, running them over the rough surface until her fingers found the appropriate indentations. Then she pushed down on the grooves as hard as she could. Within the wall, gears began to grind and click. She jumped back and watched as a hidden door groaned open. Beyond it, a long passageway stretched into the darkness. Irréelle could not see to the end.

  She retrieved the candle and entered the tunnel. Although the ceiling was higher here, the space crowded tighter. If she held both arms out to the side, she would just be able to touch the walls with the very tips of her fingers.

  At eye level along one wall, a shallow metal trough ran the length of the tunnel. She raised the candle, tipping it forward, and touched flame to liquid. The inky black substance at the base of the well ignited. It gave off the scent of tar as it burned, shooting forward in a line of orange flame like a flickering path of lanterns on All Hallows’ Eve.

  She followed the light. The floor of the passageway sloped downward by the slightest degree the deeper she went underground. Here and there, the thin ends of tree roots poked through from above. She brushed them away as she would a cobweb, very carefully, undisturbed when they swept through her hair or grazed her cheeks.

  She hurried along. Back upstairs, and likely none too patiently, Miss Arden Vesper was waiting for her.

  Or more precisely, she was waiting for the bones.

  Irréelle could not hear her pacing, of course, but she knew that was just what Miss Vesper would be doing. Striding back and forth across the hardwood floor, heels snapping, blue eyes flashing to the clock over the fireplace as it ticked out each second of Irréelle’s absence.

  At last Irréelle reached the place where the passageway diverged. Six tunnels split off from the first, each of them shrouded in darkness. They branched in different directions, running in parallel lines to the rows arranged so neatly aboveground. Stemming from these passages were other tunnels and niches, outstretched like the thin, jointed legs of a spider holding very still in its web.

  She entered the passage on the far left side. It was, perhaps, the oldest of them all, the ground more worn, the walls a little wider.

  The maze of tunnels seemed endless, but Irréelle knew where each one led. She wandered through them the way she imagined other children wandered paths in a park. It was not so very different (so long as she pushed away thoughts of the trees and the sky and the fresh summer air). She turned right, then left, then right again, winding deeper into the earth. Here she had only the single candle to light the way and the tug of the bones, which she felt deep inside.

  They reached out to her, recognizing her likeness. Their invisible touch was a peculiar feeling, a buzz of static, but so very gentle.

  Ahead, candlelight shone upon a crumbling arch, the alcove half caved in and partially blocked by a thick root from what must have been an exceptionally old tree. It was a haunted place. The draft whispered here too, but more insistently, sweeping across her skin and begging for attention. It released a ghostlike sigh, thin and creaky with yearning, as if it searched for some way out and to the surface.

  Very purposefully and very quickly, she passed by the opening. Still, she felt the tickle of ghostly fingers and their desire to draw her back. A chill ran down her crooked spine. Never once had she entered this passageway.

  It is the wind snaking past, she told herself. Only it felt more like a cold breath against the back of her neck, and she did not want whatever lurked in the gloom to touch her.

  Irréelle could not help but glance over her shoulder, watching as the darkness edged across the entrance with each step she took away from it. She felt much better when it was out of sight and she could no longer hear its murmuring.

  It was a good thing she did not believe in ghosts, or else she would have certainly thought one lingered there.

  She continued walking, mindful of her footsteps even when no one could see her. One stride was just a little bit longer than the other, but she took Miss Vesper’s good instruction to never let her see that awful limp again and trod more carefully ever after.

  The bones hummed to her from every direction. There were so many of them here, and their familiarity warmed her.

  She finally came to a stop just outside one of the many shallow recesses equally spaced along the passage. They were not quite twice her length. She lifted the candle to dispel the shadows.

  Before her, in the flickering yellow light, was a coffin.

  It was one of many caskets from the cemetery above, exhumed from the earth from below. Its lid had long ago been removed, set just beside it on the ground. Candle aloft, Irréelle crossed over to the coffin and peered inside. A skeleton lay peacefully on a bed of tufted blue satin, eye sockets sightless, lower row of teeth missing, finger bones entwined. The folded hands rested upon the rose-printed dress still covering the rib cage.

  Irréelle admired the bones, how long they had outlasted the life that once lifted them. She would never tire of visiting. Her own bones shivered beneath her skin as, soundlessly, the skeleton welcomed her.

  “Hello,” Irréelle said, her voice quiet, ever respectful of the dead. “If you are accommodating, would you permit me to gather your bones?” She tilted her head, ear toward the coffin, and listened.

  The skeleton said nothing. And although Irré
elle had yet to receive a response to this question on any of her visits to the underside of the graveyard, she always politely asked for permission. She waited a moment longer, giving the skeleton time to consider the request.

  When still it remained silent, she bowed her head and placed one hand over its bony fingers. They tingled with a warmth that had surprised her the first time but she understood quite well now. Acceptance. “Thank you. I promise to take only what I need.”

  Then she put down the candle and dug her tools out of her pockets. She set her collection of small glass vials along the edge of the coffin, except for one. She uncorked this vial and snapped it into place in the long needlelike instrument in her hand, which she called the bone borrower (and which Miss Vesper called the extractor).

  She knelt in the dirt beside the coffin. Being a rather small girl, there was just enough space for her to fit.

  Leaning forward, she positioned the sharp tip of the bone borrower and pierced the skeleton’s skull. Although Irréelle knew it could not feel a thing, she was gentle and considerate of not leaving a mark. She sang softly to cover the faint whirring of the machine as it threaded beneath the surface, turning bone to dust. Soon, the vial filled with a fine white powder. She removed the vial from the bone borrower, capped it securely, and slipped it into her pocket.

  She selected another vial and repeated the process on the skeleton’s brittle collarbone. Moving from head to toe, in just the order Miss Vesper had taught her, she gathered bits of bone as unobtrusively as she could. It took quite some time, as she worked with such care. When she was through, she stood, brushing the dirt from her knees. In her pockets, the vials clinked against one another, an assortment of dust from each classification of bone.

  “Goodbye,” she said to the skeleton. “Thank you again.”

  She walked back the way she had come, a little slower now as the path inclined. When she reached the main passageway, the fire she had lit still burned. The long line of orange flame led her back to the cellar. Once there, she pressed a small lever on the wall, which lowered a cover across the entire well and extinguished the fire.

  Ducking through the doorway, she tapped the bricks behind her, pulling her fingers quickly away before the heavy door swinging shut could smash them. It aligned seamlessly with the wall again, sealing off the tunnels, as if they did not even exist.

  The rest of the world knew nothing of them, just as it knew nothing of Irréelle. She took up such a small slip of space that she wondered if she left any imprint at all. Or if she was as unreal as the ghosts she did not believe in.

  With a rather crooked gait, she ran ahead of her thoughts. They always got her into trouble, slowing her down when she should have been hurrying.

  Up she went, climbing the steep, twisty staircase to the main floor of the house. Faster now, as if she could make up for her delay. From above, the door creaked open, and a sliver of light snaked down like lightning. With it came a gust of wind that blew out her candle’s trembling flame.

  Outlined on the landing, a shadow spoke.

  2

  Miss Vesper

  Halfway up the staircase, Irréelle froze. She rested her hand on the cold brick wall to steady herself.

  “Bring me the bones,” the shadow said, and then slipped away. Heels clicked on the floorboards.

  She let out a breath. Of course, it was only Miss Vesper come to hurry her along. Again and always, Irréelle had been too slow. She emerged from the cellar, squinting at the brightness of the day streaming through the windows, and stepped into the hallway at the back of the house. Having been so long underground, she stared at the clouds for a moment as they drifted across the blue sky.

  But she had no more time for cloud gazing. She glanced down at her dress, which was covered with a fine layer of dust and dirt. She stamped her boots and patted her skirt, glad the fabric was gray and hid the grime (for the most part), and relieved the skirt fell just long enough to cover her dirtied knees.

  Before following after the echo of Miss Vesper’s footsteps, she withdrew the bone borrower from her pocket. She lifted the corner of her dress and wiped the instrument clean of bone dust, and then put it away, careful not to stab herself in the leg.

  As she went down the hall, she ran a hand over her white hair to smooth it behind her shoulders. Although it was perfectly straight, it tended to fall out of place and hang forward across her face.

  Miss Vesper waited for her in the study. She stood beside the fireplace, her palms outstretched to warm herself before the blazing hearth. Even though it was summer, the fireplace burned, as it always did. The room smelled of wood and smoke, and through the tall windows came a breeze that stirred the white curtains and carried the scent of lilac. Irréelle hoped it would mask the damp, earthy smell that clung to her clothes.

  Slowly, Miss Vesper turned. Her midnight-blue eyes seemed to look through Irréelle, who always felt small and insubstantial next to Miss Vesper.

  The clock ticked on the mantel.

  “At long last, you return,” Miss Vesper said. She lifted a rectangular case onto her desk, snapped up the brass clip that held it shut, and let it fall open. “Set them here.”

  Irréelle came closer. The warmth from the fireplace sank into her skin. She pulled the vials from her pockets one by one and set them into their snug compartments beside all of the others she had gathered previously. The case’s velvet lining was soft beneath her fingertips.

  “Very good. Now let me see the extractor.” Miss Vesper held out her hand. She had long, thin fingers and pretty, manicured nails painted coral pink. Her diamond ring flashed.

  Irréelle passed her the sharp instrument, which contrasted with the woman’s dainty appearance despite the fact that Miss Vesper knew exactly how to use the tool and clasped it firmly and confidently. It was only that she looked so proper, so sweet. She wore a slim black dress with sleeves to her wrists, the lace hem to her knees, and black, round-toed heels with a curlicue design stitched into the leather. Her honey-brown hair fell in waves to her shoulders, and her pert nose lent her face a youthful countenance, though she had to be more than twice as old as Irréelle’s eleven years.

  (Not that she knew her own age exactly, as Miss Vesper had never told her more than she was not made by time, but looked like an unpleasant child of just less than a dozen years.)

  Miss Vesper raised the bone borrower to the light. The silver tip shone. She pursed her lips, lowered the instrument, and swiped it casually across her skirt. Irréelle sucked in a breath. Miss Vesper smiled, teeth sharp and white. The faintest trace of bone dust stood out against her black dress.

  “I’m sorry,” Irréelle said in a rush, standing as straight as she could, trying to mirror Miss Vesper’s exacting posture.

  “I expect you are.” Miss Vesper brushed the tiny particles from her dress. Then she opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a handkerchief. She polished the instrument until there was not a single trace of bone dust left, and then placed it in the case beside the vials. “You will have to be more careful.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Miss Vesper did not acknowledge her response; instead she closed the case and refolded the handkerchief so that the embroidered initials were displayed. N.M.H. Irréelle did not know what they stood for, only that the initials could be found everywhere around the house. Engraved on the edges of the bone china in the glass-front cabinets. Stitched onto the ivory hand towels. Printed on the stationery that sat atop Miss Vesper’s desk. And, though it was faded and hard to make out, painted on the mailbox to the left of the front door.

  “You were gone such a very long time today. Far too long.”

  “I did not mean to keep you waiting.”

  “I could not bear to be in those claustrophobic tunnels.” Miss Vesper shuddered, but just as quickly she went very still, as if she did not want Irréelle to notice the tiny crack in her composure. “However, I imagine you must have enjoyed yourself, dallying as you did.”
<
br />   Although it was not a question, Irréelle knew it was best to apologize once again. “I’m sorry I was not faster.”

  “It’s like picking flowers, isn’t it, collecting such pretty things from the bone garden?” Miss Vesper’s fingertips grazed the daffodils sitting in the vase on her desk. The yellow petals wilted by the smallest degree at her touch. She drew her hand back without seeming to notice.

  Irréelle could not remember a time she had ever picked flowers. She so rarely left the house at all, and when she did she only ventured as far as the backyard. Even then, she kept beneath the oak tree’s bowed branches, careful not to let the neighbors see her.

  Miss Vesper rounded the desk and grasped Irréelle’s hands in her own. She was unused to Miss Vesper coming so close, even more to being touched. The kindness of the gesture startled her. It could be nice, she decided, it could be comforting. If only Miss Vesper’s fingers were not so icy. Knots tightened in Irréelle’s stomach.

  “I simply wish you worked faster.” Miss Vesper sighed. “But I suppose the fault is my own.” Her grip tightened, the tips of her nails digging into Irréelle’s palms. She pulled Irréelle’s arms out between them and held them straight. Both arms were scrawny, the right not quite as long as the left. “How mismatched you are.” She looked into Irréelle’s eyes. “How muddled.”

  Irréelle’s eyes were green and brown and gold, and the left one had a dash of blue. She blinked several times, wanting only to close her eyes so Miss Vesper would not have to see them and be so offended by their odd color.

  Miss Vesper dropped Irréelle’s arms and turned away from her. “Be calm. As I said, the fault is mine.” She shook her head. “Or the boy’s, wouldn’t you say?”

  Irréelle clasped her hands behind her back. Whether she agreed or not, she knew how best to reply. “The boy’s, I would say.”

  “Have you seen him, then?”