Twenty-five: For All Intents and Purposes
***
The rain had stopped, but the wind still shook the trees around Wooster-Boalt.
Keltie and Marty met it full force on the front step. Their hair whipped to and fro. Yet rather than raise an arm to block the assault, Keltie breathed it in, and let it twirl Mrs. Haschak’s red ribbon. Marty had no choice in the matter; he was carrying a box in both hands.
Keeping to the shadows, they walked round the side of the house. Here lay a yard of wet grass, the pungent odor of which struck Keltie almost as hard as the wind. Marty put the box down.
“Here,” he said, opening his hand to her.
Keltie passed him the shovel she’d been carrying. Then he began to dig. Schuck! Schuck! Over and over, the shovel struck dirt, kicking up more dampened scents. Marty tossed each load over his shoulder without concern as to where it landed. Once, a nightcrawler dropped into his hair, making Keltie laugh. Not long after that, the hole was ready.
Marty speared the shovel into the ground, grabbed the box, and dumped Bolt’s bones into the mucky black. Ten minutes later, they were fully buried.
Using his shovel blade, the Filipino tamped the ground, nodded, looked at Keltie. Sweat gleamed on his face. His hands shook. He would not sleep tonight, she knew. Goodness no. He would lie awake in whatever bed the school could provide for him (or perhaps her bed, if they were lucky) and look at the ceiling as this stormy wind whistled in the eaves. He’d almost been killed today. Burned alive in his own room. He’d come through the ordeal, just as Keltie had come through hers, but time was nothing if not a slow healer. All the two of them could rely on, the only raft they could cling to, was the fact that it was over. Over at last.
Suddenly the dirt at Keltie’s feet rustled. She looked down just in time to see a boney hand burst forth and seize her ankle.
Then Bolt’s entire skeleton exploded from the ground, spewing soil. Before she could scream, his hand snatched her throat. She stared at his skull in disbelief. Two vacant eye sockets stared back, and though the windows of his soul were dark, Keltie sensed the life behind them, the awareness. It was pure hatred.
Her boots left the ground. She watched Bolt’s jawbone fall open as if in effort to speak, and envied the air it drew. Despite the high wind, her own lungs could get nothing of the sort. She tried punching the skeleton and only wound up hurting her knuckles. She tried to kick its pelvis but missed well wide.
There came a swoosh! as something cut the air, followed by the sound of metal on bone. Keltie was dropped to the ground, but not before she saw the skeleton’s head fly off and hit the side of the house like a wet baseball. It rolled towards her for a distance, coming to a stop with its bloodless eyes cast upon her in one final glare of evil.
“Hey,” Marty said, holding the shovel that had done the deed. “You okay?”
Keltie stood on wobbly legs. She rubbed her neck, coughed, swallowed hard. “Peachy,” she at last managed to get out. Then, gesturing the bones: “Put those fucking things in different graves if you still want to bury them. How’s that sound?”
Tossing the shovel aside, he rushed to bear her up.
And there they stood together, beneath the huge, dark windows of Wooster-Boalt, for a long, long time. Later, as they regathered the bones, a light rain began to fall once more. At the north end of the house lay a small flower bed. Here, they buried half of Bolt’s remains, leaving the other half for the hole Marty’d already dug.
When it was over, he looked at her. Soaking wet and covered with mud (as was she), he looked at her.
“Vera would be happy,” he said, “if she were here.”
“I think so, too,” Keltie nodded.
“She’s avenged. Finally avenged. Thank you.”
“We saw something wrong and we put it right. Both of us.”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. “Ready to go home?”
He smiled back. Until that moment, Keltie felt uncertain if he was really okay. Reassurance lifted her now. For the first time since leaving the house, Marty looked like the boy he was: unburdened, set free.
“I’m ready,” he replied. “You?”
“Almost. I…actually forgot to do something.”
He looked curious, but rather than explain herself, Keltie led him ‘round back of the house, here to lock the door Bolt had left open. The idea struck her only moments ago. Marty had been set free, and so, in its way, had Wooster-Boalt. But for all of its might, as well as its long history, it was now defenseless. A brooding monolith without an owner to care for it. Securing it against thieves seemed to Keltie the least she could do.
She locked the front door, then, smiling up at Marty, said: “Let’s cruise.”
Five minutes later, it was as if no one at all had come to Wooster-Boalt that night. And here is where this story, for all intents and purposes, comes to an end.