Chapter 27

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

 

The town was asleep with scarcely enough light to navigate the streets. Once in the graveyard their anxiety rose. They carried no lanterns, lit candles or any other source of light that may have given their presence away. They did, however, have a shovel each swung over their shoulder and a cache of candles stashed in their jacket pockets.

“Do you think we could come back in summer when it is a bit warmer?” Jonas asked, warily.

“I hardly think it would be as useful to us by then,” Ainsley answered. He led the way through the sizable burial grounds, weaving between headstones and grave markers, with only the haphazard light of the moon to guide him.

“Ow!”

Ainsley turned, ready to admonish his friend for calling out so loudly, when he saw that Jonas had walked into a headstone and broken it in half. “For Pete's sake!” Ainsley retraced his steps and helped him lift the stone. They leaned the broken half against the base and quickly moved on.

Ainsley reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask. “Here, this will help keep us warm.”

A few moments later they had found Josephine's grave. The fresh mound of dirt used to cover her coffin had settled somewhat during the recent rainfall. Ainsley stood for a moment looking at the headstone. The clouds thinned partially, allowing the moon's glow to light their work and they began, slicing into the dirt with their shovels. Their pile of overturned gravel grew larger and larger as they worked silently. They soon forgot the cold, their hard labour warmed their bodies and eventually they threw their jackets over a nearby gravestone before continuing.

The work was intense, slightly more so than Ainsley remembered. The palms of his hands began to burn as the shovel's wooden handle rubbed his soft, privileged hands. He remembered what had been appealing about grave robbing, and surgery, in the first place. He loved the work, the physical act of completing a task, something that was so rare amongst his class whose work revolved predominately around the pushing of paper and pens behind a striking mahogany desk, if they were required to work at all. While Ainsley didn't want to be required to labour like this all the time, he saw value in it, perhaps more so than his peers.

The pile beside the grave grew high and the pair sank deeper and deeper into the ground. Their shovels worked in unison, slicing into the somewhat compact dirt before heaving it over their shoulders in one fell movement. Neither one dared to stop, though Ainsley was tempted to many times. His arms ached and his hands burned but he knew if he stopped it would be harder to get moving again.

Finally he felt the tip of his shovel hit wood, the top of Josephine's delicately made coffin. Gingerly they scraped the rest of the dirt from the top of the coffin and then threw their shovels up to the grass level.

“I'll give you the honours,” Jonas said, making a retreat from the grave. Once on top, he pulled out the candles they had stashed in their jackets and wedged them in the dirt that made the walls of the grave. Ainsley pulled out a box of matches and struck one, and used it to light the hole in which he was required to work. He saw Jonas above him, laying on his stomach in the grass, his head over the edge to watch. He reached out to warm his hands on the tiny candle flames.

“Do you think this will be enough light?”

Ainsley looked up and saw Jonas's breath as he spoke. “Has to be, I have nothing else.”

With the wax dripping from the lit candles, Ainsley pulled at the lid of the coffin. It wouldn't move. Using a shovel, he was able to pry it open, the creaking wood sending involuntary shivers through his body. It was loud, which made him cringe at the thought of someone discovering them. The coffin lid came off its hinges. He passed it to Jonas while he straddled the walls of the coffin ensuring he did not disturb the body.

Josephine's skin was a dark blue, her hair was damp and no longer did she resemble the doll-like young girl Ainsley had seen when he first arrived at the manor. Normally Ainsely would not look to the face, not unless he absolutely had to. In this case, he found himself unable to pull his gaze away. She resembled Lillian to a degree and seeing her, in the deep, underground pit made his stomach lurch. Lillian did not deserve such a fate, nor did Josephine but he knew there was nothing left that he could do for the younger sister. Lillian was still alive, and he could keep her that way if only he could find the source of her pain.

There was something else as well. Something about Josephine that made him stare. He grabbed one of the candles from the dirt walls and placed it next to her face. She looked familiar. He knew that he had seen her body before but looking at her then, decomposing and further along in rot, he felt as if he had seen her alive at one point, eyes opened wide, breathing and laughing perhaps. He had seen her at one time, alive and well. But how could that be?

He willed himself to focus on the body, not the person, before him.

Jonas passed Ainsley his tool case and Ainsley laid it out at the side of Josephine's head. His dirty hands and mud smeared boots tarnished the lavish white of the coffin’s satin lining. He could not care for that now. If he did his job properly he could find what he needed quickly, replace the coffin lid and the soil without anyone ever seeing the need to exhume her.

He cut her dress at the middle, pulling it apart and peeling the layers of under clothes to access her stomach. He did not intend to do as thorough an examination as he would in normal circumstances. All he wanted was the stomach. That organ alone would reveal what he needed to know.

With one quick slice, he opened her abdomen and slipped his bare hand into the opening he had created. He searched with precision, and found the stomach within seconds. He pulled back the skin and then the muscle of her stomach and cut the organ out from the body with quick, decisive actions.

“Get the jar!” he called up to Jonas, holding the near black organ in both hands so it did not fall.

Jonas held the jar for him as he placed the stomach inside.

There would be no need to sew her back up, no need to clean the skin or replace her clothing, though the last thing he did out of respect. With slightly bloody hands, he folded up his tool case, and handed it to Jonas. He replaced the coffin lid and then scrambled to ground level.

“You can't just leave her like that,” Jonas said when Ainsley climbed out. “It's indecent.”

“No one will see. We can fill it in and no one will ever know,” Ainsley said. He sealed the jar with Josephine's stomach and turned to the shovels. “It's just a body, nothing more.”

Jonas eyed him indignantly for some time, no doubt wondering if what they were doing was as harmless as the grave robbing they performed as students. Ainsley crouched down and began to extinguish the tiny candle flames and collected the remaining candles.

“She cannot be buried in pieces,” Jonas said at long last.

Ainsley rounded on him suddenly, his face tense with fury and his eyes wide. “Why not?” he yelled. “I cannot let Lillian die!” His jaw was clenched and he held fists at his side. Was he prepared to fight for her? At this point he would do anything for her. “All I need is the stomach, now help me or get out of here!”

There was a snap, a twig splitting somewhere in the near darkness around them. Ainsley's desperate fury was forgotten and they both stared into the darkness trying to decipher its clues. The hairs on Ainsley's neck stood on end and he could feel they were being watched. He wanted to call out, as he had done the other night, demanding whoever it was to identify themselves but he dared not call attention to their misdeeds. Ainsley gripped the shovel's handle tighter, and scanned the darkness. After a few moments the unease alleviated and he glanced to Jonas. He too had a vice grip on his shovel and was ready to pounce should the need have arisen.

“Let's just clean this up and get out of here,” Ainsley said.

The first glow of the sun began to seep over the horizon just as they placed the last two shovelfuls of dirt back on to Josephine's grave. Ainsley patted it down with the back of his shovel before using his hands to dust away the impressions the tool had made. If they were lucky it would rain and then no one would notice the disturbance to the grave.

Jonas hoisted the shovels over his shoulders, and Ainsley carried the jar beneath his coat. The blood on his fingernails was hidden amongst layers of dirt that seeped into the wrinkles of his skin. He wanted to get back to the house quickly, clean himself up and get back to work but he did not want to risk walking through town in case they were happened upon. There was a way to get to Bennett's house through the woods but it would take longer and they were already spent.