went to work, each taking turns twisting the narrow auger into the ground near the headstone. It slid into the earth easily, and Grace shuddered as she watched it sink farther, each twist bringing it nearer to their goal.
“They digging her up, then?” Mrs. Jacobs said into Grace’s shoulder. “The doctor thinks she’s not dead after all, doesn’t he?”
Grace eyed the small pile of earth growing next to the stone where the men deposited the dirt the auger brought up and shook her head. Their task was much more exacting than a disinterment, a job that required precision and not the blunt instrument of a shovel.
A light rain began, the cold turning each drop into an icy needle. Grace shivered and drew Mrs. Jacobs closer for her own comfort as well as the other woman’s. Thornhollow and Ned paused for a moment, the easy turning of the auger at an end.
“We’ve struck it, then,” the doctor said, eyes meeting Ned’s. “I had the point made sharp, so a few good pulls ought to punch through. Are you up for it?”
Ned’s gray head went up and down, and they twisted together, the sharp tip straining against the pine box six feet below for only a few moments before forcing itself downward.
“Stop!” Thornhollow yelled, and Grace shuddered to think what the tool might bring up on its sharp tip if they’d gone even a few inches too far. They pulled hand over hand, each exertion bringing more silver into the light. Dirt slid off the coiled edges and finally at the tip, splinters from the coffin.
The doctor nodded, tossing the auger aside. “Ned, if you would hand me the reed?”
It slid into the hole easily, and Mrs. Jacobs’s soft mewling eased as she began to understand. Thornhollow rose from his knees beside the grave, went to the carriage, and returned with a canteen.
“Madam,” he said solemnly to Mrs. Jacobs. “I believe your daughter is thirsty.”
The older woman disentangled herself from Grace, took the canteen from Dr. Thornhollow, and crawled to the gravestone. Thornhollow offered Grace his hand, and she rose, watching as Mrs. Jacobs whispered something into the reed, her words disappearing into the coffin below, followed by a long, cool drink of water.
Her sobs followed, long and heavy. “I can’t hear her no more, Doctor,” she said. “That’s all she needed. A drink, and her mother to give it to her.”
Ned removed his hat and leaned on the auger, his voice surprising them all as it rang out low and strong, mixing with the moan of the wind as the storm rolled in.
O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
Thornhollow let go of Grace’s arm and covered his heart with his hand, his baritone joining with Ned’s thrumming bass.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Grace’s throat itched to join them, but it was not only subterfuge that kept her mouth firmly shut. Emotions had welled close to the surface, and she thought her heart had never felt so full as it did standing next to the defiled grave of a whore while lunatics sang the national anthem.
Four sets of muddy footprints crisscrossed the black-and-white floor of the atrium, the doctor having convinced Ned to come inside for tea upon their return. The rain had unleashed on them, though Mrs. Jacobs had remained unperturbed, even when the closest of lightning strikes set Grace’s arm hairs on end. Ned was soaked through, and though he normally wouldn’t leave the stables, the doctor’s offer of a warm drink had brought him inside long enough to slug it down, then venture back out into the night. Thornhollow rested near the fireplace in his office, face dejectedly in his hands though he himself had proclaimed the night a success.
“It was a good thing you did tonight,” Grace said, once they were alone.
He waved off her praise. “It was no miracle. All I did was listen to the woman and give her what she was asking for.”
“When no one else would.”
“Mmmmm,” was the only response Grace got, and she saw that his eyes had wandered to the blackboard again.
“Not still in a foul mood about our killer, are