about the weekend digs that I continued to do with Harnett, nor did I apologize. His stone emissaries were in every cemetery we entered, and they knew full well what went on there.
Once or twice a week, I managed to see Ted, so early in the morning or so late in the day that not even Woody could find out about it. Ted slapped down sheet music. I played. He clapped to stop me and pointed at the bungled bar or hummed a correction. On rare occasion he would use his fingers to guide mine through a treacherous passage. There was no celebration for good playing, no admonishment for failure. We rammed through it as if it were punishment, yet week after week we both came back for more. The only spoken words came from Ted at hour’s end: Next lesson, then.
Every free minute in between was for my mom: I studied. Ignoring the smirks of Gottschalk, I dashed to class early so I could read ahead. I spent lunchtimes with a textbook opened alongside my tray, and after several days of Foley’s grousing even got him to quiz me.
And all the while there were occurrences too reminiscent of what had happened to Heidi. A kid named Kyle read a skit with me in English and it was so funny that we got applause from everyone in the room but Woody. The next day, Kyle came into class wearing a bandage over his temple and a stupefied look. A week later Laverne stopped me in the middle of the hallway to obtain my proper mailing address, and while she had my attention she jabbered numerous questions about how classes were going, how things were at home, how was I adjusting to Bloughton—and everyone saw. When I left school that day I found Laverne quietly crying over the FAT BITCH that someone had keyed onto the hood of her car. I slunk by without a word, repeating the Vorvolakas in my head.
With no solid proof otherwise, I found it surprisingly easy to pretend that these abuses had nothing to do with me. Besides, my mind was on Fun and Games, where, to Foley’s dismay, Celeste continued to nab me whenever there was pairing up. A couple of times, she and I were even forced to touch. As she did so, she would ask for updates on my theater connections while telling me how her Spring Fling rehearsals were progressing. I ignored the shadow of someone who might be Woody watching from the weight room doorway and convinced myself that Celeste was not repelled by my odor of onions and death. She, after all, was Incorruptible, only she.
39.
HUNDREDS OF FLIES EXPLODED from the casket as soon as the lid buckled. I shielded my face with my arms. Harnett ducked. Their small black bodies bounced off our cool skin and wiggled through our hair before they oriented themselves and dispersed. It was several moments before the buzzing noise was gone.
“Is that normal?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Harnett said. He paused. “No.”
There was no normal—if anything, that was what I was learning. No body decomposed like another. Some bodies bleached until they became rice-paper skin against twig skeletons; others bloomed into extravagant deformities of rainbow colors. No two cemeteries were alike, either. Each had its own challenges of scouting and approach; some had sight lines that provided a feeling of security while we were digging, though in truth there was no security, not ever, so said Harnett. This cemetery, for instance, extended flat as pavement for miles, with stones filing all the way up to the highway before resuming on the other side of the street.
We were at one of Kansas City’s largest funeral grounds—the southernmost point of my father’s territory—and though it was a place Harnett had visited several times in the past, it made him jittery. There were fifteen-foot fences topped with razor wire, night watchmen and motion-controlled lights, security cameras that had to be fooled with mirrors. Our pace dragged. My father had yet been unable to find a suitable replacement for Grinder, and I could see the mismatch in each swipe of his shovel, the way the handle wanted away from his fingers.
Overall it was a well-kept corpse.
“The flies.” My breath made spirals in the air. “How do they stay alive down there?”
“The human body has everything,” Harnett replied. “It’s a world unto itself. It has pockets of air, areas of warmth and cold. Plenty of fat and meat. All it takes