The Gravesavers (9 page)

“What happened?”

“They told me it would cost too much—and the municipality doesn’t have that much money. Bullcrap. They have enough for their new yacht club and the cobblestone patio where all I can tell is just for the tourists and come from aways to go get drunk on Friday nights. I even wrote the government. Haven’t heard a word.”

“But what’s this got to do with you keeping a closet full of bones?”

“When I have enough I’m going to just march into Riley Tucker’s office—he’s our member of Parliament—and dump them on his desk.”

“Nana, you wouldn’t!”

“Yes, I would, then demand somebody save the grave. These folks were someone’s families. Everyone deserves a proper burial.” Her voice was barely a whisper. But fierce as the sea. A loud kathump of wave crashed just underneath us. “Besides, it’s just not good having lost souls floating around the area. Strange things start happening.”

“You mean ghosts?” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from No-Nonsense herself.

“No. I mean spirits—like I said. The dead should not be disturbed. It’s bad enough they hang around out there on Elbow Island. We don’t want them here on shore.”

“Nana, let’s go back.”

“All right. If you’re interested, I’ve got a heap of stuff at the house for you to look through. Magazine articles and clippings, some letters, in those boxes in the bone closet.” She was almost smiling.

“Nah. I’ve got enough to do with my training.” A flicker of something passed over her face. Disappointment? Hurt?

“Fine, I figured you’d be too chicken anyhow.” Her voice was pulled tight and sharp as barbed wire.

“I’m not afraid, Nana! I could handle it. I’m just not interested.” This was a bald-faced lie. She already had me hooked. I just wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. It was that old harbour of hate, I suppose.

“Someday you’ll realize it’s better to be more curious than afraid.”

We drove back home in a silence as thick as the fog that was rolling in.

It was well after supper when I ran my laps, sprints up and down that hill ten times. The feathery light of dusk fanned out into complete darkness. Tar Black. Black Raven. Darkest Black. Black Widow. Sorrow’s Black.

On the last lap I stopped at the top and looked long and hard out at that ocean. It was a calm night. The water was still but looked cold and oily, as if lying in wait to swallow a shipload of people. I could make out the faint shape of Elbow Island. Nana’s words of it being haunted by spirits revved up my O.I. It was in full spooky mode. I searched the sky, hoping for the comfort my father believed could be found there. The moon was a lopsided canoe hanging in the sky. The clouds were phantoms peering down at me from beyond the beyond. There wasn’t so much as a star for comfort. I ran fast as I could back to the house.

Nana was watching
Jeopardy, one
of her favourites. When I went to get a drink of water, I
noticed she’d left the key to the bone closet on the table. I slipped it in my pocket.

“Who is Marco Polo?” I shouted out before she could on my way through the TV room. She grunted her displeasure.

“Night, Nana, I’m going to have a shower and then get into bed.”

“Night what is helium?” she said all in one breath. She’s in love with Alex Trebek. “He was born in Canada, you know,” she says every time the theme song starts playing. Repetition is another irritating habit of hers. This was also on my list of reasons I did not love her like a normal grandchild.

After I got in bed, I set my watch alarm. It was my only chance to find out more without her knowing.

It went off at exactly 4:22.

I crept along the hall. Every step creaked.

“One thousand one, one thousand two …” I counted to fifteen between each step. It worked. The witch did not wake up. The lock was stubborn, though, and I inched the door open, cringing with every squeak. Nana rolled over, muttering in her sleep. Finally I made it in.

Utter blackness.
I had to feel my way along the wall.

Something—a wisp of hair, maybe—brushed my forehead. I smothered a scream. It was just the
frayed end of the ribbon on the chain. I yanked the light on. I picked out a stack of chocolate boxes and shoeboxes. Then I reached into the hiding place. My hand touched one of the bundles of bones. I swear every hair on my head stood up like I’d just rubbed my scalp with a balloon. But I felt around until I found the baby’s skull. It was my find, after all.

I turned off the light and scampered back to my room.

I examined the skull. I tried imagining the face of the baby it belonged to. A girl or a boy? Dimples? Brown eyes or blue?

I tucked it underneath my pillow. Then I arranged the boxes out on my quilt. I opened the first box and glanced through the contents. I began to read. And then I read and read. Oh, did I read.

The accounts of the disaster were gruesome. Article after article and photocopies of old newspapers from places as far away as New York were covered in plastic.

I read enough to figure out the obvious—the shipwreck was world news at the time. Nowadays, it would be all over CNN. And it was beyond disaster

The words made the pictures clear enough for me. Sifting through the newsprint was like putting together the pieces of a novel with the chapters out of order.

My grandmother, in her own handwriting, had compiled passenger lists: Cabin Passengers, Steerage Passengers, Crew and Officers, Firemen/Trimmers, Storekeepers, Stewards. Name after name after name, and sometimes their ages.

I skimmed through them at first. The A’s, the B’s, the C’s. By the time I got to the D’s, I began to whisper their names. When I got to the H’s—H as in Hotchkiss—I was saying them out loud.

At that point, my eyes felt as if they were bleeding. I realized I was crying. Whole entire families.
Baby Isabella.
A boy
my
age. His older brother, just fifteen.
Thomas.
It was my father’s middle name.

I didn’t know I could feel so much for folks I never knew.

Isabella never got a chance, I thought.
Like Pippa.

John—Did he live or die? Was he one of the weakest?

“And who were you, Thomas?” I asked out loud. “A fine young man? Did you live or die? Were you handsome? Were you strong enough to swim to shore?” I pictured him for a second, a smiling, sandy-haired teenager. Strong.

My grandmother had two other lists, Passengers Lost and Passengers Saved. I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I just couldn’t. I closed that box and pulled a black chocolate box onto my lap. It was crisscrossed with red elastic bands. It looked like a miniature coffin. I just sat there, holding it on my lap for a few minutes.

I was afraid that if I opened it, I would find more bones.

Nana’s bedsprings squeaked. She was getting up! I grabbed my mess of articles, stuffed them back into their boxes, did a running tip-toe dash to the bone closet, crammed everything back in, closed the door, replaced the key, sprinted back and dove beneath my covers. Phew! She was still in her room, coughing and piddling and making other noises so loud, no way could she have heard me.

I tucked the baby’s skull beneath my other pillow. I tossed and turned. Finally, I drifted off. I wouldn’t call it sleep exactly. And as for peaceful?

The reading fuelled my O.I. Not the first time, I have to admit, and the reason I have the only parents in the world who do not encourage bedtime reading.
Alice in Wonderland
gave me night horrors. So did the wicked witch in the Disney version of
Sleeping Beauty.
I was only allowed peaceful bedtime stories.

The nightmare started out pretty cozy. I was in a small house with Dory and Corporal Ray. We were
going on a trip. Corporal Ray was yodelling up a storm. Next thing I knew we were on the deck of a ship. A sinking ship. And I was sliding off. I watched my mother and father swallowed by a wave. I went underwater and grabbed a piece of wood. I came up sputtering for air, rocking on top of the waves. I was cold. Bone cold.

I woke up shivering. I’d seen the movie
Titanic
one too many times. It was one of Carolina’s favourites and she was crazy over Leonardo DiCaprio. She shared my mother’s worship of celebrities. I thought instead of the Swiss Family Robinson. I’d float to an island and survive like they did. This made me think of snakes, however. So I closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts. My mother encouraged me to do this when I was overly agitated, as she put it.

A picture of Gavin filled the screen inside my head. Not happy thoughts exactly, and not very calming either. My heart popped three wheelies in a row.

Next morning, all thoughts of shipwrecks and Gavin were swept away like bits of dirt under a carpet.

A letter from Coach Rigby arrived. It was my daily training schedule for the next five weeks along with his special brand of coaching from the sidelines.

My first week’s training schedule looked fair enough. It was in a small black three-ring binder, and every day I had to fill out what I did, when, what the weather was like and what I felt like after I’d done it. On a scale of one to ten.

His Rigbyism was another matter.

I tried. I really tried. But when I closed my eyes all I saw was a movie of disaster. There I was, all dressed up like a letter carrier, in the baggiest uniform you ever saw, staggering up the track in lane number five. Oh, I was trying my best, but the mail bag bumped against my knees, tangled me up and felt like a hunk of cement chained to my neck. On top of that, I was running in a blizzard. With every in breath, I swallowed snow. By the time I wobbled to the finish line, it was dark and everybody had gone home, but I still raised my arms in a victory salute and shouted: “I’m a sinner! I mean a whiner! No—a winner—that’s it!” Fade to black.

Poor Coach Rigby. He had no idea what sort of seeds he planted in my overactive imagination.

There was no sign of Nana at breakfast. She did leave me a note.

Great. What did that mean? I wasn’t tempted to open up that bone closet. The key was gone, and truthfully, even in the light of day, images of what I’d read the night before gave me a pain in my heart. So I studied my morning’s routine, laced up my sneakers and headed out.

As I approached the hill near Poplar Grove, I spotted the limousine. I was a bit sweaty, but my nose was clean. I decided to face the car head on. Maybe there’d be a chance to see in the smoked-glass window. If it was some little old lady, I could forget about the foolishness of Hardly being around these parts.

The chauffeur bodyguard saluted to me. He slowed down. I kept running on my side of the road but he stopped in front of me. He left the car idling, got out, folded his arms, leaned against the door and waited for me to reach him.