Chapter 6

Another Sunday rolled around, and people came to church. It was now noticeably colder, and Remy had a feeling it was going to get even colder still. Although he’d never seen a winter, his mother had told him how tough it was for animals that live outside.

The brothers thought about showing themselves to the people in the hopes that a nice person would take them home. But at the last minute, Remy changed his mind. Something about it didn’t feel right. What would happen if only one of them got taken? What if it was him and not Baux? He couldn’t do that to Baux … or to himself. The two of them had to stay together, always.

They looked but didn’t see the couple that had taken their siblings. This was now the second Sunday that they hadn’t seen them. Remy hoped everything was all right.

A little sadly, they watched the cars drive off.

“Remy, it’s getting cold, really cold,” Baux said. “And food is getting tougher to find.”

“I know, Baux, I know. But we have to be careful. Not all people are as nice as that young couple a few weeks ago.”

They went and played. But Remy noticed how low the dark clouds were hanging. He felt the wind’s bite. He remembered his mother telling him about snow. He’d never seen it, but the way his mother described it, it sounded both pretty and dangerous. He didn’t know how that could be, but he had a bad feeling he was going to find out.

The next day a number of cars came back, but not as many as on a Sunday. It caught Remy and Baux off guard. They stood at the edge of the cemetery that bordered the parking area so that they could see what was going on. Suddenly, instead of heading towards the church, all the people started walking towards them. The people were all wearing black clothes, and many of the women were wearing hats. Few were talking and even fewer were smiling.

The brothers scrambled. They hid in some bushes by the creek. Baux hoped that the water moccasin wasn’t around.

The people gathered around a hole in the ground. Remy and Baux had watched two men dig that hole the other day. It’d taken them a long time. When they stopped digging, the dirt was piled neatly to one side. After the men left, Remy and Baux went and looked. It was nothing but a deep empty hole, at the bottom of which was nothing but more dirt.

Now all these people in black were standing around the empty hole. From the parking lot, more men appeared. They were carrying a long box. With straps, they lowered it into the hole. A man with gray hair who was holding a book said some words, loudly and soothingly.

Then an old woman who was standing closest to the hole started crying. It started with a few sobs, but gained in intensity. A few people stepped closer and put their arms around her. But she fell out of their grasp and collapsed to the ground. She raised her head to the sky and shrieked, “Why did you leave me? And why did you take him?”

She wailed, then wailed even more and even louder. What few birds there were in the trees took sudden nervous flight. The wail was so loud and piercing it must have gone straight to heaven, Baux thought. And it sounded like it bounced back. It was everywhere.

The brothers had never heard such a sound. But there was something in it that seemed … familiar, something they could relate to: pain and sorrow. They remembered seeing their mother for the last time. They remembered seeing their sister killed. In the woman’s cry, they heard … grief.

It was funny: they knew grief’s name but didn’t know what it meant. No one had ever told them but they could sense what it meant. Without knowing precisely what it was, they could feel it, down deep.

After all the people left and as twilight started to fall, Remy and Baux sat looking at the hole that had been filled with dirt. There was a cross at the head of the freshly turned over dirt. The cross had words, but they didn’t know what they said.

“What’s in that box that’s in that hole that made that woman cry like that?” Baux asked.

“Maybe it’s her sister,” Remy said.

“In a box?” Baux asked. He often deferred to Remy, but sometimes he thought his big brother came up with some crazy ideas.

Suddenly, from right behind them came this: “It was her husband, her love, her soul mate.”