Undone: The Complete Duology, page 16
20
MAC
Waking up in the morning with Gracie was not just the dawning of a new day; it was the beginning of a new life. All the chaos of the last week had coalesced into a relationship.
She was finally honest with me.
It should have been harder to accept what she had revealed last night, but I’d seen enough since arriving in Thorn Tree to know the truth. She had only provided confirmation for what I had witnessed: the earthquake in the woods, and the Reverend with the flames on his hands.
I still had questions about what, exactly, had set Gracie on a different path than the rest of the townspeople. Why had they concluded they needed to break her? She’d said her being a witch wasn’t the real factor behind their determination to destroy her.
The answer to that would have to come another day. I had no doubt she would tell me the rest of her story eventually, in her own time. It wasn’t my place to force her to recount her personal hell just for my own satisfaction.
If anything, showing respect for her as a human being would get me further in the long run. Even if it didn’t, I couldn’t be another person who didn’t just push boundaries with her but obliterated them. I had known from the moment I’d met her that she was shards held together by sheer will.
“I forgot donuts,” she murmured into my chest, tucked next to me under the blankets of her bed.
The rain outside had eased up but hadn’t stopped.
“Donuts?”
“I was going to get donuts when I was in town, but…”
I thought she’d fallen back to sleep, but then she added, “I’ll make waffles.”
I couldn’t suppress the laugh. Last night, Gracie had controlled the weather, lighting up with the glow of the storm, electricity dancing off her skin. She’d been a sight to behold, beautiful and ethereal, a force of nature that would not be stopped.
This morning, she was going to make waffles.
I kissed the top of her head. “I can help. I’m not a bad cook myself, ya know. Bacon? Wait…”
“You can have it, but not for me.” She tipped her head to kiss my chin. “You’ll have to go into town to get some though.”
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her closer to me. “I’m not leaving you anytime soon, not even for bacon.”
“That’s real love,” she said with a laugh.
“Mm-hmm.” I pressed my hard cock against her thigh. “So is that.”
She lifted the cover just enough to peer under. “Very nice, sir. Very nice.”
I laughed, rolling onto my back with her on top of me. She grinned, light in her eyes, before planting a tender kiss on my lips.
I took her then, slow and passionate and filled with promises, because today belonged to us, finally.
Afterwards, she slipped into a long t-shirt and panties, and I pulled on my jeans before we headed out to the kitchen to scrounge up breakfast. She paused at her countertop filled with wilted plants and a bloodstain from the cut on her hand.
“I’ll just clean up real quick,” she said in a rush, scrambling for the trash bin under the sink.
I caught her arm and held until she looked up at me. Fear flashed across her face.
“It’s fine, Gracie. I don’t care about any of this. Okay?”
She gave the countertop a dubious look. “Okay.”
I released her and together we dumped the remains of her spell into the trashcan and scrubbed off the blood. There was more than I had realized, more than I would have expected from the cut, but she had let it trickle while she’d finished her potion. It seemed to have spread about the kitchen since then.
When the kitchen was clean, she gathered jars of waffle-making supplies from the pantry and set about measuring out the ingredients into a mixing bowl.
My lips were dry, my mouth parched. My head had a consistent throb just above my eyes that was growing.
“I’m going to get some water,” I said, opening the nearest cabinet door.
“The next one over.” She procured a waffle maker from under the breakfast bar and set it on the counter.
As I drained a glass of water, I caught her staring at me, expression unreadable. I made eye contact with her as I refilled the glass.
“You okay, Grace?”
She blinked back to reality. “Yep. All good. You feeling okay?”
I touched the sore spot about my eyes and grimaced.
“Just a headache coming on. Has been on, really.” I drank the water then placed the glass to the side on the counter. “What would you like me to do?”
She perked up. “Me.”
I slapped her ass.
“Anytime, sweetheart.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and touched my chin to the top of her disheveled hair. “We need to talk about what we plan to do, about everything.”
“After waffles.”
“Yes, after waffles.”
I plugged in the waffle maker, and she poured in the batter. While the waffle cooked, I lifted her injured hand. The bandage looked pretty nasty.
“You want me to change this up for you? It’ll get infected.”
“It probably already is.” She ripped off the bandage and threw it out. “I’ll replace it. You want something for your head?”
The headache throbbed in protest. “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”
She disappeared down the hall, and while she was away, I removed the waffle onto a plate and started the next one. I’d just found the syrup in the refrigerator when she returned, freshly bandaged but no pills in hand.
“Sit,” she said, indicating a chair at the table in the kitchen nook.
“This sounds promising.” I took the seat as requested, and she came to stand in front of me, giving me a view of her abdomen.
I lifted her shirt and planted a kiss on her bare stomach. She laughed, brushing me away.
“I’m going to fix your headache. Just relax.”
I positioned myself in the chair, hands on knees, and closed my eyes. I let out a deep breath.
She touched a warm—a strangely warm—finger to my forehead. From that point of contact, heat spread out across my head and down my neck and through my shoulders, rolling through my body until it reached my feet and into the floorboards. My shoulders relaxed, and the rest of me followed.
The headache eased. As she stood there, touching me, a sense of calm surrounded me.
She stepped back, breaking contact. I stretched my spine, and it crackled all the way up through my neck.
When I opened my eyes, the headache had vanished.
I caught her hand and kissed the back of her fingers. “You’re amazing.”
She stroked my cheek, staring into my face, lost in her thoughts. They seemed pleasant enough.
The smell of something burning tickled my nose.
“Oh, my waffles!” She scurried back to the kitchen and removed the waffle just this side of being a frisbee.
She poured batter for another one. “You want to make the coffee?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her. She was an enigma, my Gracie. I couldn’t believe such a ferocious creature existed in this tiny town. The pressure of having her entire world against her, pushing her, demanding her to give in would make even a strong person snap. Gracie perhaps didn’t handle it with poise, but she survived. She was here. She was whole.
I wasn’t sure how long I would have been able to manage a situation like this.
Which brought me back to the most pertinent question I had for her. “What do I do?”
She gave me a confused look. “You don’t know how to make coffee?”
I pulled the coffee maker on the counter out from against the wall. “I meant about the town. You said they would try to force me into the church and use me against you.”
Her expression fell. “Yeah, that.”
I didn’t push her while I made the coffee. By the time I handed her a steaming mug, she still hadn’t answered.
"I really need to know, Grace. I wish we could just play house all day and forget that whole world out there exists.” I gestured vaguely towards Thorn Tree. “They aren’t going to forget us, though.”
“That they won’t.” She removed the last waffle and unplugged the maker. She plated up our dishes and warmed the syrup in the microwave.
We sat at the dining room table, our chairs angled close together, one knee touching.
She took a bite of waffle, gooey with syrup.
“You have to go willingly, but that’s all relative,” she said through the mouthful of waffle.
“Elaborate?”
She chewed and swallowed before saying, “They’ll make it easier to join them than be against them. It’s not hard. We’re trapped here. We rely on each other. Mrs. Woolworth keeps track of our few visitors and reports back to the mayor.”
That was probably who her late night visitor had been, when they had discussed keeping me from invoking the ire of the Reverend.
“I thought they didn’t want me to talk to you though.”
“Seems like the Reverend has a different plan,” she said. “The townspeople will be on board before long, and they will start pressuring you into joining them, selling you on how perfect this town is. That’s the gimmick, you know. Thorn Tree is perfect. Everything is perfect—except me.”
My chest hurt at the way her voice broke.
She shoved another bite in her mouth to hide the vulnerability, but I’d seen it.
I rubbed my knee against hers. “You’re plenty perfect to me.”
She smiled with a mouthful of waffle then washed it down with coffee. “They’ve set their sights on you, and it is truly a when not an if that they get you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they can’t break you. They will. It’s what they do. The entire town exists to break you, to break all of us.”
She held her fork in hand, her other hand curled in a loose fist next to her plate as she stared down at her waffle.
“I wish I could,” she said softly. “I would give in, if I could. I want this to be over. I never meant to become the resistance.”
She started to take another bite.
I touched her arm, stilling her. “We’re going to get out of here. I promise.”
She gave me a weak smile.
“I just need to find my brother, then we’re out.”
She shoved the bite into her mouth.
We ate the rest of our meal in silence, then I cleared the dishes and washed them up while she stared into her coffee mug like she could see the future in it. Her expression remained concerned, but I couldn’t imagine what thoughts were fluttering through her mind.
As I put away the last plate, she turned to me.
“I have to finish my spell. It’s the only way out of Thorn Tree.”
I dried my hands on the towel and then placed it back over the handle of the oven. “Then let’s do that.”
“I need your help. You’re not going to like it though.”
If it meant getting us out of this town, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do without asking any questions.
“I need to dig up a body.”
That was one.
“Uh, why?” I asked.
“I need her bones. The spell requires the bones of knowledge. That’s…that’s Miss Gladys. She died yesterday. They’ll bury her today. There’s no morgue in Thorn Tree. You go straight into the ground here. It’ll be a done deal by afternoon.”
“And tonight we need to…dig her up?”
“Yes.”
“We couldn’t just use something else metaphoric like…the spine of a book?”
She pushed a tight little smile. “I doubt the Goddess appreciates puns.”
“Fair enough.” I dropped my hands. It seemed only natural that to escape this awful place would mean doing something unpleasant. “Okay, then. Tonight, we’ll dig up a body.”
I couldn’t imagine how much fun that was going to be.
21
GRACE
Playing house. That was what Mac had called it.
I didn’t hate it, making love and then waffles. If I put aside the fact he had helped clean up his brother’s blood smeared around my kitchen, mingled with mine, it had been a perfect morning.
Reality returned with sundown. We filled a bottle with water. I grabbed a pair of pliers and a handsaw from the shed out back, soaked in the rain in moments. Then, under the cover of night, we headed out to my jeep.
Mac peered into the back as he rounded to the passenger side, ducking against the onslaught of rain. “You always keep a shovel in your vehicle?”
“You know how us country girls are,” I said.
He laughed as he joined me inside the jeep.
As we headed into town, I said, “We can’t park on the curb. When we reach the cemetery, I’m going to need you to unlatch the gate so I can park the jeep inside.”
“You’re going to park the jeep…inside the cemetery?”
“We’re digging up a body, Mac. Everything else sort of pales.”
“Touché.”
He really needed to get with his new life, but I couldn’t complain. A week ago, he’d been a good ol’ boy. Tonight, he was going to vandalize holy ground.
I should probably do something to comfort him. This was a lot for me some days, and I wasn’t anything close to nice anymore. I reached over and squeezed his hand.
That should do it.
No one would be out in this weather. I slowed in front of the cemetery, and without prompting, Mac stepped out and unlatched the gate. The opening was just big enough for the jeep to squeeze through, sides scraping on the brick. Mac closed up behind us before climbing back in, tracking in mud.
I worked the jeep further into the cemetery, rolling over flat headstones, and parked under a thorn tree.
Before he got out, I placed my hand on his thigh. “We need to hurry. There’s…things that live here.”
He squinted into the darkness beyond. “You mean like, zombies?”
“Demons. They lurk in the graveyard mostly. They won’t bother you.”
Realization dawned on his face. “They’re after you.”
“They don’t like me, at least.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. “We’ll work fast. Besides, the rain.”
I grabbed the flashlight and bag with the tools, and Mac carried the shovel and bottle of water. The ground squished under our soles as we headed towards the opposite end of the graveyard. Rain pelted down on us without relenting. Puddles formed in every dip in the ground.
We would be digging up mud.
I shined my flashlight against the night and storm, trying to discern where exactly they had laid Miss Gladys to rest.
“Over there,” Mac whispered, pointing to a shadowy mound in the near distance.
I hurried over to it, raindrops making their way down the back of my jacket. I pulled up the hoodie and came to a halt in front of Miss Gladys’ grave.
They hadn’t finished filling it in, probably due to the storm. The displaced dirt stood in a heap to the side, and in front of us gaped the grave. A layer of dirt, turned to mud, draped over the top of her closed coffin. Water pooled around the edges, rippling with the raindrops.
“I guess at least we don’t need to dig her up,” Mac said. “I’ll go down and just…”
I dropped my bag to the ground and unzipped it, revealing the tools. I lifted the pliers.
“We’ll need to do it together. Someone can hold onto her hand and the other will saw it off.”
Mac looked a little green. He tipped his head slightly, letting the storm soak his face and probably wash away the visual with it.
“I can do the sawing,” I said.
“There are no good roles in this gig,” he said. “Let’s just get this done.”
I kept my gaze averted from our surroundings, refusing to antagonize the demons that lurked in the shadows.
Already in the time we stood here, the water around the coffin had risen over the top. I was soaked through to the bone, but we didn’t have the luxury of waiting until the storm passed and the ground dried out.
I duck-walked to the edge of the grave, the wet ground sucking at my soles, and then pressed my palms into the mud. I eased my legs out from under me, dangling over the edge of the grave. My hands slipped. Mac darted to grab me, but I dropped onto the coffin, face first into the murky water. I flailed as I pushed myself upright, spitting the nastiness from my mouth. The coffin wasn’t sealed; the water had touched her corpse.
Down in the grave, there wasn’t much room to work. I pushed away the visual of the muddy sides of the grave collapsing in around me, trapping me down here, and tried to position myself off the coffin so I could open the lid.
“Here,” Mac said, sitting on the edge of the grave. “Let me help you up.”
He leaned forward, wrapping an arm around my waist. I pushed my hand against his knee as he hoisted me up. Together, we each worked the toe of one shoe under the lid of the coffin and lifted it an inch. I reached down and wiggled my fingers into the gap. With Mac’s help, I raised the lid.
Water ran over Miss Gladys’ lifeless form. As rain continued to pour down, the grave steadily filled. Miss Gladys wobbled a little in her eternal bed.
I slid back down into the grave, right next to sweet ol’ Gladys, and then reached up to Mac. “Hand me the tools?”
He gave a hoarse cough behind tight lips, then passed me the saw. He dropped down at her feet, pliers in hand.
“Does it matter which side?” he asked.
“Probably not.”
“Suppose it’s a little late now. Let’s get this done before she floats out of her grave.” He shot a baleful look skyward. “This storm is no joke. You can’t make it stop?”
“My magic doesn’t work like that.”
He maneuvered around to lift her right hand with the pliers gripping her pointer finger. My elbow pressed into the muddy side of the grave as I positioned the saw at her wrist and dragged the blade back and forth. The teeth bit at her papery skin, but I could already tell this was not going to work. There was too much give.
“We need to hold her arm still better,” I whispered.
