Page 128 of Stay Buried

Mini hated when she was made to go pay her respects to the old bones in church. She hated looking down into that glass-topped case her grandpa had made. She would do her best to keep her eyes off the skull, fixing them on his chest instead, counting ribs: twelve pairs. The knackerman was not laid out flat on his back in there, but curled up like he was sleeping.

“It’s almost time,” said Willy through the mask when the bell stopped ringing.

Almost time for him to wake up, Mini thought.

She blinked down at the knackerman.

No, Willy. Just Willy. Just Willy. Just Willy.

“Time for what, exactly?”

“Once they’re all there, gathered, I’ll go to the church. I’ll have the costume on. The mask. They’ll think I’m him.” Willy swayed a little there at the bottom of the hole, leaned on the shovel for balance. He’d had so much bourbon it was a wonder he was still awake, still moving.

Mini frowned at him. “I don’t know if it’ll work. If they’ll believe.”

“Belief is a funny thing,” he told her, his voice muffled, different.

And she thought maybe he was right about this one thing. About how the whole town believed in the knackerman—left gifts, followed the rules without question. How outsiders weren’t really welcome. And Josephine Banks and Reverend Quinn and Pops and all the other town elders insisted that it was better that way. That the world beyond their valley was a dangerous place full of corruption, sickness, sin, all forms of evil. But the people of Boone’s Ferry would remain safe and strong as long as they lived simply, relied on the old ways, and followed the rules.

Mini gazed down at Willy. “But what if they don’t think you’re him?”

Sad Willy lifted up the bottom of the mask and took another sip from his bottle.

“They will.”

“How do you know?”

He sighed. “Because they have before.”

She stood staring down at him, trying to make sense of what he’d just said.

“Mr. Willy, sir. Is that how you knew about the root cellar?”

“Not much Sad Willy doesn’t know about,” he mumbled as he went back to digging.

She tried to swallow down the lump she felt building in her throat.

“The thing you need to understand, Mini, is that it’s not their fault. The things people do when they put on that mask. And they don’t have a choice. If you’re chosen, you can’t say no. And then once you put the costume on, it’s like you’re not even you anymore. You become someone else.Somethingelse.”

Mini licked her lips, tasting the graveyard dust. “Mr. Willy, have you—”

“We have to bury him,” Willy said, not looking up from his labors. “It’s the only way. Bury him once and for all. People will understand. They’ll be scared because they’ve all gotten the mark. Then I’ll come out and they’ll be even more scared. Until I take off the mask.” He was talking fast, his words slurred. “Tell them it’s over. It’s all just pretend—there is no true knackerman. That we need to lay the stories to rest along with his bones—take them out of that ridiculous altar and bury them.” He dug faster, mumbling to himself.

Mini felt scared deep down. Willy’s plan wasn’t really a plan at all.

And what scared her most was the idea that there were others. Others who’d played the knackerman. Others who knew. People she’d sat next to in church maybe. People who’d taught her in school, given her lollipops at the store and bank, smiled and told her she was just as pretty as her mama.

It was almost worse than there being anactualknackerman: this idea that the knackerman was a group of people, the whole town really, because there were the people who played him and those who helpedthem, then there was the rest of the town, who went along with it, kept the stories alive.

“We’re all the knackerman,” Mini said, things clicking into place. Usually, when Mini understood something, really and truly got it, she felt elated, satisfied. But not now. Now she felt sparks of dread kindled deep inside her, a small and dangerous fire that would continue to grow.

“I’m sorry,” Willy said, still digging. “So, so sorry. Please, Anna, forgive me.”

“Mr. Willy?”

He looked up at her, his eyes two dark sockets that seemed to go on forever. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was in the building. They told me to light the fire. To put on the costume and burn the town hall. Had to get rid of the records, the old archives, before any more outsiders came and saw them.”

Mini reeled, feeling dizzy, nearly falling into the hole as the realization hit her.