When they pulled into the parking lot, Gretchen took a deep breath. She shook off the image of ghostly children painting the walls with blood, and then opened the car door and planted her Doc Martens firmly on the ground.
The second she did this she started to laugh. Something about the whole thing was comical. Her haunted ancestral home, this weird town that seemed like a stage set, almost everyone already hiding in their homes to avoid being the victim of a random anniversary accident. Hawk seeing ghosts and Hope driving them around in her vintage car, giving history lectures. It had not even been two days since she left the city and yet everything in her world had changed. No, not just everything in her world, but her whole understanding of the world had changed. She wished Simon were there.
“I’ll come in with you,” Hawk said, breaking her from her reverie.
The funeral director was not what she expected, given the quaint and buttoned-up nature of the town. He was wearing a dark suit, but he had wavy shoulder-length hair shot through with strands of gray and a not-so-perfectly trimmed beard. He was wearing glasses and on his wrist was a macrame bracelet with a little pale-blue bead on it. She half expected him to be wearing Birkenstocks.
“My daughter made it,” he said, catching Gretchen looking at his bracelet. “Meant to ward off the evil eye.” He had kind, pale-blue eyes himself.
“Does it work?” she asked.
“So far,” he said, giving her a nervous look.
When they sat down at the desk he said, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Everyone’s loss, really, I remember seeing Esther Axton’s work in the paper and in magazines the whole time I was in school. She was an amazing woman.”
“Thank you,” Gretchen said.
“This is never an easy time,” he said, pulling out a leather-bound binder. “I’m sorry to rush you through this, but we’ll be closed for the anni . . . for tomorrow, and I’m sure you’ll want to get this taken care of sooner rather than later.”
“Yes,” Gretchen said. “Thank you.”
The binder was filled with pictures of ornate boxes and urns. She and Hawk sat together flipping through it. Her eyes glazed over.
After a while the funeral director asked, “Were you planning a service?”
“Uh . . .” Gretchen shrugged. “Not for anytime soon.” Hawk squeezed her hand.
“Very well,” he said. “Any of these beautiful urns would honor your aunt’s remains.”
Gretchen thought about what a strange idea it was to honor the remains of someone. Esther was reduced to a pile of ash and bone. All that truly remained of her were her photographs; whatever could be put in an urn had nothing to do with who she was. There was no need to be sentimental. Esther had left her mark on the world and now was gone, like she would be one day, like everything would be. Gretchen looked around the room and was again dying for a cigarette.
“What is she being kept in now?” Gretchen asked, and her voice sounding strangely raspy in her ears.
“Well . . . ,” he said.
“We’ll take her in whatever she’s in now,” Gretchen said. She took out her wallet. And he went into the back room to get Esther.
Back on the sidewalk holding yet another cardboard box, this one containing a clear plastic bag full of chunky gray dust, Gretchen and Hawk walked somberly to the car.
Hope looked at the box in surprise, then shook her head and started the car.
“He said they’re closed tomorrow for the anniversary,” Hawk told his sister.
“They all act like it’s not real and they all believe in it,” Hope said. “Just keeping up appearances. The whole town puts up those signs saying closed for renovations or be back in fifteen minutes, but they won’t be back until it’s over.”
“If the ghosts are just out wandering around the Axton place, why would anyone here be worried about it?”
They sat in silence for a long time while Hope drove. The car felt weighted down. Journals and books in the trunk, the box of Esther’s war photographs in the back—and this brown cardboard box in Gretchen’s lap.
“They’re not just wandering the Axton property,” Hope said. “The day after tomorrow we’ll be reading about people accidentally falling out of windows while washing them, house fires because of irons left on, bricks falling from construction sites. The anniversary has become a day where people sit at home, even afraid of a slip in the shower or a drive to the grocery store.”
“It used to be the anniversary of the fire,” Hawk said. “Now it’s the anniversary of more deaths than people want to count.”
“Like our parents’ death,” Hope said. “And maybe your mother’s too.”
TWENTY
WHEN GRETCHEN GOT BACK TO THE GREENS’ HOUSE her cell phone, which had been plugged in and charging near the television, was ringing. She quickly grabbed it, saw Simon’s face, swiped the screen, and heard his exasperated tone.
“Thank GOD, I have only been calling you like every three hours for a million years!”
“Simon!” she shouted, relieved to hear his voice.
“How’s the life of the heiress?” he asked.
“Uh . . .”
“How’s your aunt? Tell me everything!”