“Oh, no, no, you can’t ask me to do that, Grace. No!”
“Do it, Blessed. I can feel the bullet in me, feel it burrowed deep. I know there’s no way to get me out of here. I shouldn’t have tried to fool the sheriff like that. He was afraid it was you, so he shot me before he looked at me, my fault.
“I love you, Blessed. Tell Mama I’ll look down on her. Tell her I’ll prepare a welcome for her and a special place for her. I know I’m dying, Blessed. Do it now, please, just do it now.” Grace drew up his knees, still clutching himself, and turned his face away. His sobs were all they could hear in the silent forest night.
Blessed said to Ethan, “Give him a kill shot.”
Ethan turned to Grace, brought up his Remington, and fired. The bullet struck Grace between his eyes. His body lurched up, then collapsed again. He died with his eyes open, his face riddled with pain, his hands still clutching his belly.
“Stand back, Sheriff.”
Ethan took a single step back. Blessed pulled Autumn with him as he dropped to his knees beside his dead brother. He touched Grace’s face, closed his staring eyes. “I’m sorry, Grace. This is gonna kill Mama, and she’s gonna blame me even though it was what you wanted. I couldn’t take you to a doctor, and you knew it.” He leaned down and kissed his brother’s tear-streaked face. Blessed straightened, swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, then turned to Ethan. “You killed my brother.”
Autumn hit him with her fists, yelled in his face, “Don’t you dare hurt Ethan or Mama! You monster, don’t you dare!”
Blessed controlled his killing rage. He stared down in shock at the little girl, his own flesh and blood. “I’m not a monster. That’s not a nice thing to say to your uncle.”
“I hate you. I wish you weren’t my uncle. I wish you were in hell. That’s where you should be.”
“I am your uncle and I love you.” Autumn was hiccupping, tears streaming down her face. He thought for a moment and said slowly, “If you promise to come with me willingly, I won’t kill them even though the sheriff did murder my brother. If you promise to let me and Mama teach you how to use your gift, I won’t. Do you promise?”
Autumn looked at Grace and thought, You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead. But Blessed wasn’t dead. He wasn’t like her, that was a lie, he was a monster, and monsters could look like anybody they wanted to when they snuck into your dreams or crashed into your face. Autumn knew death was the end of things, like her father had gone away forever, and now Grace wasn’t here anymore either, and that meant sometimes death was good. But Blessed—what should she do?
She looked at Ethan, then at her mother, both of their faces blank, as if they weren’t there.
She heard his rough old voice saying again, “I promise I won’t kill them, Autumn, I won’t, if you do what I want.”
Blessed’s words fluttered over her. Autumn wanted to run to her mother, to shake her until she was back into herself again, and she jerked her arm to try to get away from him, but Blessed tightened his hold. She wanted her mother, she wanted her laughing and holding her, telling her everything would be all right. She nodded up at the old man whose eyes were hard and soft at the same time.
“Say it. Say, ‘I promise, Uncle Blessed.’”
It was hard to get the words out, but she did, finally. “I-I promise.” She tried to say his name, but she simply couldn’t. She hated his name, it scared her. Autumn lowered her head and cried. Through her hiccups, she whispered, “I want my mama back.”
“You will have her, but just not yet,” Blessed said. “Sheriff, you will dig a grave for my brother.”
Ethan said, “I don’t have a shovel.”
Autumn’s head snapped up. Ethan sounded like himself, it was his voice, but in a way it wasn’t. His voice sounded dead, uncaring, flat as the strawberry pancakes she’d tried to make for her mother on her birthday.
Blessed said, “Then you will dig with sticks and your bare hands. Woman, you will help him. Both of you.”
He loosened his hold on Autumn’s arm. She ran to her mother, but Joanna ignored her, dropped to her knees beside Ethan, and began to dig, pulling up clumps of dirt and grass, tossing them as far as she could.
“Mama.” Autumn pulled on her sleeve, but Joanna paid her no attention. Autumn grabbed Ethan’s jacket, but, like her mother, it was as if he wasn’t even there. “Come back, come back,” she whispered, and couldn’t even whisper anymore because her throat was clogged with tears. She drew back her fist and hit Ethan as hard as she could. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t react at all, he continued digging up dirt, big handfuls of it, throwing it over his shoulder. It was horrible what she was seeing, but Autumn couldn’t do anything to stop it. She listened to the thuds of earth strike the ground. She didn’t look at Grace; she couldn’t. She fell to her knees and began to dig up clots of earth.