All Hallows Read online

  Eddie put a finger in each ear. “What’s it supposed to do?”

  “It should be nesting. It’s wrong to destroy its host like this. A proper night worm would be more gentle. They need to cohabitate. Cooperate. It can’t live on its own. If it can, it mustn’t.”

  “Is he… why’s he…?”

  “That teakettle? Blood in the lungs. I warned him. Tried to. There’s more energy in that worm that you’ll find at an amusement park on discount day.”

  “Will it… come for us? After?”

  “What, the worm? If it does, then it will meet its maker. Sorry, Eddie—you know I like a joke. It’ll be weakened. It may well review its actions, curl-up in Mr. Hedgepeth’s skull, and take a little nap.”

  “It sounds more like it’s trying to—” Eddie was correct: artificial passageways collapsed; tendon groaned like river-melt. A fast tide of scalp and brain matter calved to the linoleum.

  “Or not,” Maren said.

  “Yeah.”

  The night worm burrowed and chewed until it was free of the pool, whipping on the gooey floor, its head and tail touching as it bucked, its length afterbirth-sticky with anything Hedgepeth had contained above the neck.

  “You know what this means, Eddie. You’ll be put back in the system.”

  “Yeah. Figures. It’s okay. I didn’t… Mr. Hedgepeth was—”

  “—A rotten monster. I know. Got a good death, though, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. That was… wicked.”

  “You may remember some of this, in time. I don’t mean these last minutes, I mean… You don’t need to say anything to the case workers. They’ll know what Hedgepeth was about. The worm and I will be gone.”

  Eddie stared at the floor, then the window, which offered a more serene view of the world. “That’s not something you forget,” he said, his voice choked.

  “Anything can be forgotten, at least for a while. My worry is if they suspect you had anything to do with… no, I have it. I’ll pull the fridge over.”

  “You can’t. It weighs a ton. It took three guys with a dolly to get it in here.”

  Maren smiled. “Do I look as weak as that?” Eddie, wise for his years, said nothing. “We shall see. Right now, I need to get cracking. I have to deal with a suicidal worm, conceal a crime, and throw a refrigerator.”

  “It’s going to… it’ll be a chore,” Eddie said, watching a pristine spill of milk. It dripped steadily from the countertop into an uneven hemisphere of his sponsor’s cranium.

  “I should get started. I’m pleased it’s not you in need of a mop. With any luck, you’ll forget these past months entirely.”

  “Miss Glover?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Maren said. “Two dead and it’s a serious investigation. I’d have to waste a climbing candle.”

  “What’s—?” Eddie began, but the tenderizer connected with his temple before he could finish.

  Maren peered at the handle, clicking it back and forth. “I hope that was seven months.”

  She surveyed the kitchen. Hedgepeth had walked and crawled around, which was inconsistent with a single, crushing blow from an appliance.

  The scale and degree of violence would raise eyebrows, but Maren could see a freak accident and basic karma leading to the dismissal of foul play.

  Sufficient concussive force had a way of stymieing exotic theories as to cause of death: the most inquisitive of coroners struggled with pulverization.

  Might make it into the news cycle.

  She could place a call to Detective Banfield, should it come to that.

  Maren put a hand below her jaw and tried to conjure a first impression. Eddie would have been helping to move the fridge. It had fallen, and hard—quite how would be unclear. Luckily, Eddie had dodged, or been lucky—he’d taken a rap to the head, but was thrown clear.

  Emergency services would discover the other, more horrible injuries on the boy; whatever sympathy existed for Preston Hedgepeth would dwindle precipitously. So much so, there was an argument against hiding much beyond her presence—and, of course, that of the truculent worm.

  Having decided against the search for chlorine or an accelerant, Maren threw the tenderizer into her purse and dusted her hands. She would take the foreign DNA with her in a plastic zip bag and call it good.

  “You,” she said, pulling at her earlobes as she addressed the exhausted creature. “You have been a very bad worm.” Maren felt the weight of the failed experiment settle around her.

  “I will be content. Much closer this time,” she soothed, repeating the mantra as she opened drawers at random. She gathered a collection of mismatched steak knives and glared at her creation again.

  “I won’t be peeved. I’ll conduct an extended autopsy, learn from my findings, and then I’ll try again.”

  She swore pleasantly at a length of rose-tinged cling wrap that wanted nothing more than to stick to itself. She took a deep breath and neutralized her creation with a series of pokes and slices, bagging the remains with motherly care.

  Maren turned her attention to the slop on the floor, stepping with care. The linoleum was uniformly spackled and puddling—milk was no longer in the majority.

  “Preston, I hope there is a hell,” she said, placing her shoulder to the refrigerator to test its weight. She applied steady pressure until it rocked slightly.

  “Three men,” she scoffed.

  A cumbersome item, to be sure—but the refrigerator wasn’t what she would call heavy.

  2

  17 months later…

  “Look alive, Dottie—this is no way to enjoy a deathbed. I’ve brought a tin of Linzertorte cookies with me. Three flavors. Do you have the spit to eat a sweet?”

  “They ran saline,” Dorothy mumbled, moving a mottled arm to indicate a jumble of drip lines. Her color was poor, her movement slow, her hair a damp plaster against skin lined with age.

  Maren scooted a plastic-bodied visiting chair loudly into position and leaned in, a handful of misshapen spoons clacking on her long necklace. She stashed the adornment under her waistcoat and blouse; Dorothy slurred an incoherent phrase.

  “Say again?”

  “Helped… stop… the cottonmouth.”

  “That’s an improvement on what I heard the first time. I’d have sworn you called me a hook-toothed fish-eater. It goes to show that you need a boost. Here, pop a cookie into your gob. Careful: these Linzers want to crumble.”

  “Not hungry,” Dorothy said slowly. “Been eating… like a bird.”

  “Then use your beak. These Linzers are fortifying in the way of a small meal. Their beauty lies in that paradox of strength in fragility. It’s a snack that fits you well, wouldn’t you say? Don’t gawk, Dottie—have a go. Select a cookie. Be revived. We can’t have you infirm on your final day.”

  “What’s in them?”

  Maren shook her hand with each word, counting with a closed fist. “Cyanide, arsenic, strychnine… how else could I ensure that you’re dying?”

  “You know that’s not… I fell.” Dorothy looked miserably at the sheet covering her body. “Broke my hip.”

  “A nasty spill was my backup plan. It appears the backup grew impatient. Took matters into its own… can you see the Linzers? Red-filled, two of them are; the last is yellow. Here, pick your poison. No? I’ll pick it for you.”

  “I like sugar,” Dorothy said, accepting the cookie from polite habit. “Did you buy them?”

  “What? Name a brand that raises Celtic knots on the surface of its baked goods, and I’ll… I flattened and cut the shortbread by hand. The proof is in my rolling pin. Unique as any signature. I whittled at those knots when most trees were not yet seeds.”

  “Does it… have handles? The pin?”

  “It does. Keeps my big knuckles out of whatever mud I’m making. The parent to that pin was a Circassian walnut—though trees go by more names than a riverboat cardsharp. Persian walnut,
some would say—or hú táo. It was bold, even for a tree. Tried its luck in a thimble of soil near the Black Sea.”

  “Where…” Dorothy brought her brows together as if noticing the cookie in her hands for the first time. She stared expectantly at a matte television screen with its power off. “Where’s it… come from?”

  “That sea? Runoff from rivers, primarily. It isn’t black, you know. It indicates position. As we would say north or south, earlier tribes would say black or red.”

  “Directions?”

  “Exactly. Common at the time: the Cimmerians were running amok. That stunted tree was destined to die young, twisted as it was—clinging and undersized. Grew right out of a rock. I visited again when the Romans got in the area, but it held-out until the Byzantine swell. The bole yielded a single pin of uncracked heartwood.”

  “And it was carved?”

  “What? No. Of course not. Trees do not inscribe themselves, though they will compete for a pleasant view—that walnut could just see the shore when it died. I worked that slab of wood on the spot. Planed it with a leaf-bladed sword.”

  “You carved it… with a sword?”

  “That and smaller tools. The sword did for the bark, but… it sounds like too much work, but that pin has not failed me in all the centuries since. The grain holds a burled chatoyancy you won’t find in ordinary gift shops.”

  “That’s… nice.”

  “I thought so. I knew it would be gorgeous from the start. Why keep turning your cookie, Dot? It will fall apart. The knots I mentioned are triangles, if you’re confused.”

  Dorothy raised the brittle Linzer from her chest, examining it as her bony sternum rose and fell, a small bank of machines whirring behind her. “I see them now,” she said. “I was… when I think knots, I think circles. Lovely design. Too pretty to eat.”

  “Nothing is too pretty to eat,” Maren advised. “It is the duty of food to present well, and it is the duty of the recipient to eat it. I pray it doesn’t turn to dust—there’s little worse than beauty papered around falsehood. Careful, or you’ll pull that new plumbing out of your… hand it over. Open wide, baby bird. Let’s get this where it goes. There, see? Easy as pie. Easier—there’s no dish to wash.”

  “Goodness,” Dorothy mouthed, brightening as the edges of the Linzer scraped her lips at the corners. She broke the cookie with her tongue, packing chunks of it into her cheeks and receded gums while Maren watched patiently.

  A silence extended—one minute, then two.

  Three.

  Dottie closed her eyes, sighing repeatedly. Her throat squeezed visibly, working like the action of a pump shotgun, and the cookie was gone.

  “You work miracles in the kitchen, Maren. Ought to be on the television. That was a… it was buttery, gritty, sweet. Beyond compare. Melted away like… like I tried to eat rain.”

  “Does it pass inspection?”

  Dorothy pointing a crooked finger in accusation. “You’re a cheat! Had me going. My mouth expected twice-baked gunpowder. The last of it reminds me of those mints at weddings: cream cheese is the secret there. How did you—?” Dorothy paused. “You don’t share recipes,” she said, soft reproach in her tone.

  “Untrue,” Maren said, beginning a lazy braid in her unruly silver hair. “I share the safer recipes, few if they are. How many tips have I happily divulged? Told you about the rolling pin to the point of blueprints.”

  Dottie was undeterred. “How can a cookie be unsafe?”

  “Don’t dig into that warren. If you want the recipe, what slid down your gullet can be freely obtained with a shovel and lantern, a walk in the bramble, and a trip to the litten. The worst part is the visit to a supermarket. Bakery aisle.”

  “That’s not specific,” Dorothy complained. “Recipes all start in the store.”

  “Well, what more can I tell you? I often go by feel, Dot. There is no cheese in my Linzers, if you want the full instructions.”

  “I knew that.”

  “Not such a puzzle, is it? You add your soy milk and olive oil, a squirt of cord blood, two heaping longspoons of bonemeal…” The necklace of tableware chattered under her shirt as Maren patted her chest for emphasis.

  Dorothy noticed a stripe of brilliant red scar tissue that circled Maren’s right wrist. The wound appeared to be as healed as it would get, though it was raw-looking and thorny: barbed wire transmuted into a cicatrice. Dorothy blinked, realizing that Maren was awaiting her response.

  “That’s the end of the recipe?”

  Maren shrugged. “Everything else is pedestrian.”

  “Pedestrian,” Dorothy repeated.

  “Common ingredients. Flour. Soda. Fat. Items that can be had in a baking aisle. I told you that.”

  “So, it… how does that mix together?”

  “With a spatula, you silly squash.”

  “Tell me how it goes. How it tastes.”

  “You’re lucky you’re dying.”

  “I get wishes.”

  “Not from me, you don’t. The sweetness of the cloudberry marmalade centers the cookie, but, just as you reach the salt and a stab of fruit, off goes your tongue, redirected to a dirty, blackstrap finish. There is a theme to it. An arc, if you like.”

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “—If you ate correctly, you’d be grabbed by the weight of butter. This is followed by the catapulting brightness of high-flying berries. It ends in a gliding return to the earthy molasses. Any good cookie should tell a story.”

  “That’s a nice one.”

  “Indeed. What better than to crawl, to soar, and to land again in dirt and death? I love a Linzer that is sweet, light, and conveys the eternity of our inescapable doom. Try to get that out of a store-bought cracker.”

  Dorothy touched the corners of her mouth gingerly, poking stray crumbs into her mouth. “I knew not to ask. I do get molasses at the end: sulfur and sour. Might as well kiss the devil’s hooves.”

  “Yes. Well said. And the fruit?”

  “Cloudberries, was it? Never worked with those. Pleasant. Assertive. You said two spoons of… I’d take this down, but what good can it do me?” Dorothy sank back into the bedding. “I’ll never set foot in a kitchen again.”

  “Not with one foot so firmly in the grave,” Maren agreed, testing the woman’s brow. “Your circulation hasn’t improved to my satisfaction. Pity. Those cloudberries get right to work, too.”

  “They woke my insides. Got my blood going. I can feel my pulse—here, just above my jaw.”

  “You are more alert, but the pallor hasn’t… plus I continue to wrestle with your speech. They have you doped, no doubt—and, as anyone will tell you, it is useful to wear a set of teeth.”

  “Doped,” Dorothy said.

  Maren placed a fingertip directly between Dorothy’s disheveled brows and spoke. Her voice rent the air, and Maren’s probing finger punched through Dorothy’s skull, or so it felt.

  The last trickle of molasses collapsed into the dying woman’s throat as her eyes rolled to the whites. Maren’s lyrical cadence followed Dorothy into the swoon, and the combination of intense pressure and the recital of incomprehensible words pulled a forgotten memory from Dottie’s shelf.

  Dorothy saw herself in grainy eight millimeter, gangly and barely a teen. She was delivering an oratory in the old single-room schoolhouse. There was no sound, but being as they were her own lips—and her original teeth—Dottie recognized the recital.

  “A little tremor of the blood… sets every common bush afire,” she murmured. “There were berries in that, too, but I forget how it goes.”

  Maren pulled her finger from Dorothy’s forehead with a sucking sound and a grunt of disgust. She wiped her hand on a pillowcase with two swiping strokes as though clearing hot blood from a dagger.

  “Really, Dot? Poetry? That does it—we’re bumping you up the rungs. I have a second Linzer. Two is your limit, understand. Can’t have you bouncing off the walls, can we?”

  “I wish I bounced.
I didn’t. I broke.” Dorothy blinked to settle herself, unable to reach her forehead with the drip lines as they were.

  Maren demonstrated a cookie the way a pet owner would offer a biscuit for behavior; Dorothy eyed the second Linzer with nameless sorrow and bald greed.

  “Cloudberry again? They’ll scold me for my insulin.”

  “Rubbish. You’ll be long dead before they test you for such trifles. The staff is not waiting to cure you, Dottie; they are waiting for you to die.”

  “I don’t like being scolded,” Dorothy persisted.

  “Then don’t be a pest!” Maren looked at her palms. “You’ll be happy to hear that I am out of cloudberries.”

  “I liked them, it’s just—”

  “—I’d best save the lemon. You’d find it too sour, coming so close after that other. Here, this has agave nectar. It’s the last of the red Linzers… see if you can place the jam.”

  Maren dropped the rounded, flaking circle into Dorothy’s mouth, tapping the edge of the cookie for final emphasis. “If you need a hint to guess the flavor, think of its color.”

  Dorothy worked the cookie flat on her tongue and half-closed her mouth, looking like a bored primate on exhibit, her wrinkled lips peeling from discolored gums. She savored the layers and textures as they dissolved, and, when unknown minutes had passed, Dorothy pressed her lips together and swallowed with a reluctant click.

  “God above. Remarkable. Each ingredient came forward, shaking hands by turns. It is entirely foreign to the first—this was like eating a war.”

  “Go on,” Maren said, looking pleased. “What’s in it?”

  “That vermillion jelly has a sting like… no, that would go bitter at the finish. Nectar, you said. Sweet as a salesman’s smile. Nectar would balance a more savory… the color, you said. Oh! Redcurrant?”

  Maren shook her necklace of spoons. “Sound the gongs! A fine performance, Dot. You win… well, not a cookie, I hate to say. Your blood is surfacing already. I should have led with the redcurrant.”

  Dorothy held a finger in the air to indicate the need for a pause. She began to push and pull her body upwards, wadding sheets and panting with pain.