HEIRLOOMS
Sleet poured from the sky, making ghosts of the trees and slush of the road. I huddled into myself as we walked, hugging the crowbar to my chest, my nose leaking snot. None of us had coats. Grandpa Rose wasn’t himself, didn’t understand where we were going.
“Take me back, take me back to that house,” Grandpa Rose (forte)begged.
“Quiet, Monte,” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed.
Jordan and Zeke kept tight grips on Grandpa Rose, leading him along. A black truck (forte)honked at us, its tires (mezzo-forte)spinning in the sleet as it fishtailed across the bridge. The wolfdogs (forte)barked until the taillights had vanished.
When we got to the graveyard, we tried to boost Grandpa Rose over the spiked fence, but he was too weak to get over.
“Who are you people? Where are we going? Do you know who you’re dealing with?” Grandpa Rose (fortissimo)shouted, spittle flecking his shirt.
“Would you shut up!” I (piano)hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth.
I shoved the crowbar at Jordan, then led Grandpa Rose along the fence to the gate, an iron archway with a padlocked chain, with Grandpa Dykhouse hobbling after. Jordan was at the gate already, bashing at the padlock, the crowbar clanging against it (fortissimo)again and (fortissimo)again and (fortissimo)again like a song of Can’t Get In. Zeke was crouched at the gate with his wolfdogs, (pianissimo)whispering into their ears. A van drove past us, its tires (mezzo-piano)swishing in the sleet, and parked at the rest home, its headlights switching off.
“Hurry, boy, hurry!” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed at Jordan, staring at the van.
“My fingers are starting to freeze to the crowbar,” Jordan (piano)muttered, swinging the crowbar at the padlock.
The headlights of a car parked at the grocer switched on. Zeke was chewing a lip. Jordan swung the crowbar at the padlock again, and then, from the crowbar and the padlock, (forte)rang a different song, a one-note song of Enter. The padlock dropped from the chain, and the chain (forte)rattled through the bars of the gate and dropped into the sleet. Zeke shouldered the gate, and we stepped into the graveyard, the wolfdogs galloping ahead.
At the mausoleum, Grandpa Rose was himself again.
“And this place,” Grandpa Rose (piano)whispered. He wiped sleet from the face of the mausoleum, unburying letters, first X, then X VI, then XAVIER. Underneath that, 1847–1913.
Zeke had scrambled onto the tomb with the stone boy, was keeping a lookout as the wolfdogs prowled through gravestones below. The mausoleum’s padlock > the gate’s padlock, at least twice the size. Jordan was cradling the crowbar, staring at the padlock, looking defeated.
“There’s no way we’ll break this one,” Jordan (piano)said.
“We won’t have to,” I (piano)said.
I dug for the key in my pocket, felt the shape of the X with my thumb.
“I see flashlights!” Zeke (piano)hissed.
“Where?” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed.
“Outside of the graveyard!” Zeke (piano)hissed.
I jammed the X key into the padlock. As I twisted it, I felt it scraping through the rust on the inside, unlocking something that had been locked even longer than I had been alive. The padlock (piano)popped open.
I hauled the chain from the rings on the doors.
Jordan stepped past me, but I stopped him.
“After Grandpa Rose,” I (piano)said.
Grandpa Rose nodded, and frowned.
Then Grandpa Rose gripped the rings, shoved apart the doors, and stepped inside.
The air in the mausoleum smelled rotten. Skeletons in tattered clothes were piled along the walls—a skull blindfolded with a wool scarf, a skull with a broken eye socket, a skull split by zigzag parallel cracks, a skeleton in a checkered suit jacket tangled together with skeletons in plain suit jackets, bones stuffed into boots flecked with dried concrete, bones stuffed into leather loafers, jaws with uneven teeth, jaws with silver teeth, jaws stuffed with moldy gags—all of the bodies Grandpa Rose had been paid to hide. Near my high-tops lay a loose hand of pale bones, wearing a dull wedding ring. I hadn’t expected to be afraid of the bodies, but seeing them was different from hearing about them. Seeing them, I got colddeathbed, like all of the warmth inside me had been sucked straight out.
Zeke stood in the doorway with his wolfdogs around him. “I don’t like this place,” Zeke (piano)whispered. Zeke wouldn’t step inside.
“So many bodies,” Grandpa Dykhouse (adagio)whispered, staring at the skeletons, but Grandpa Rose (allegro)whispered, “Yes, this place, I remember being here!”
XAVIER’s casket sat in the center of the mausoleum. A dark trunk with a brass lock had been shoved against the foot of the casket. The lock was engraved, with cramped gold letters, ROSE.
My heartbeat beat faster, and faster, and faster, hit an uncountable tempo.
“The key,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.
I dropped the ROSE key into Grandpa Rose’s cupped hands.
I knelt at the trunk.
Grandpa Rose twisted the key and lifted the lid.
The trunk was almost empty.
No ivory revolver. No bellows clock. No golden hammer.
At the bottom were a faded photograph, a pair of leather notebooks, and a rusted metal cog.
I gaped at Grandpa Rose. Grandpa Rose gaped at the trunk.
“Are these the heirlooms?” I (piano)said.
Grandpa Rose shook his head.
“I remember there being so much more,” Grandpa Rose (piano)whispered.
My heart had quit. I slumped against the trunk.
Grandpa Rose (piano)murmured something I couldn’t understand. He shoved his shirtsleeves to the elbows, then reached into the trunk. He took the faded photograph, carefully pinching the curled edges. He grimaced, like someone about to either puke or cry.
“Do you know who this is?” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.
It was a woman with tangled hair and an upturned nose, wearing a bluish dress, standing against some birch trees. She was holding a garden spade and a watering can.
“Who?” I (piano)said.
“Your Grandma Rose,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.
“But she never let anyone take her photo,” I (piano)said.
“She only ever let me take just this one,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.
I sat back up. I took the photo. I stared at her face. I memorized the eyebrows, the jawline, every wrinkle, every freckle. No one would ever want to buy it, but there was nothing else like it. It was totally worthless and totally priceless. I couldn’t stop staring.
“You were right,” I (piano)whispered.
“A picture? What about the treasure? Where are the revolver, the clock, the hammer?” Jordan (forte)said, but Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)grunted at him, like BE QUIET.
“What about these?” I (piano)said. I took a leather notebook, flipping to a random page of misspelled words and underlined numbers.
“Nothing, useless, diaries I kept when I was away,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said. He collapsed onto the casket, scratching at his beard with both hands. In the moonlight, his face looked ancient. “Where are your heirlooms, kid? Kid, why aren’t your heirlooms here?”
“What’s this?” I (piano)said, touching the rusted metal cog, but Grandpa Rose (forte)shouted, “I don’t know, Nicholas, I don’t know!”
It was the only time he had ever used my name.
Then the wolfdogs (forte)snarled, and from the doorway Zeke (forte)said, “Do you remember when I mentioned those people with flashlights?”
“Why?” I (piano)said.
“Because they’re here,” Zeke (forte)said.
We stepped from the mausoleum—Grandpa Rose, Jordan, Zeke, and I. The four of us stood in the sleet, Grandpa Rose (piano)mumbling to himself and squinting at the flashlights, Jordan’s fingers swollen from breaking the padlock, Zeke’s face purpled with bruises, me clutching my grandmother’s photograph, the leather notebooks, the rusted metal cog.
I said once that I would ask you a riddle. Here is your riddle—what was bad, and what was worse, and what was worst of all?
Bad was this—a nurse at the rest home had spotted us sneaking into the graveyard.
Worse was this—I had zero heirlooms, or at least none worth any money, the money I needed to save my brother, the money I had promised Zeke could get him to his father, the money I had promised Jordan could get him a boat for his grandfather.
But worst was this—of those people with flashlights standing there, watching us walk out of a mausoleum we had broken into, in a graveyard we had broken into, with a grandfather who was supposed to be missing—one of those people was my mom.