"At least you have prospects," said Christopher, giving his bone another spin. "How many colleges you been accepted to?"
"Every one that I've applied to, but they're all assuming I'll graduate before I come knocking," said Jack. "And of course, I've Jill to consider. I can't go running out into the world without making provisions for my sister."
"I can take care of myself," said Jill.
"You won't have to," said Eleanor. She walked wearily into the room, looked toward Jack and Kade, and said, "Make her go away, darlings. Put her someplace where I'll never find her, not if I look for a thousand years. We'll have a memorial service. We'll honor her as best we can. But I can't endanger us all because of one lost life. I almost wish I could. I would feel less like a monster, and more like the child who danced with foxes under the slow October moon. I simply cannot bring myself to do it."
"Of course," said Jack, and started to stand.
Angela was on her feet first. "She killed her, and now you're going to let her have the body?" she shrilled, pointing at Jack. Her face was a mask of outrage. "She's a murderess! Loriel knew it, I know it, and I can't believe that you don't know it!"
"Points for knowing the feminine form of ‘murderer,' although I'm a little insulted that you feel the need to put a lacy bow on the crime before you can believe I committed it," said Jack. "What would I do with a pair of eyes, Angela? I don't care about the visual sciences. I'm sure there were some fascinating adaptations to her cones and rods, but I don't have the facilities or equipment here to study them. If I were going to kill her for her eyes, I would have done it in ten years, after I was nicely established as the head of research and development for a biotech firm big enough to make murder charges just go away. Killing her now benefits me not at all."
"Can we stop pointing fingers at each other and deal with this? Please?" Kade stood. "We already have one body on our hands. I don't want any more."
"I can help," said Nancy. The others turned toward her. She reddened slightly, but pushed on, saying, "I can make sure nothing is done that's not respectful toward the dead. The flesh they leave behind when they depart doesn't bother me."
"You're a creepy girl," said Christopher approvingly. He stood, tucking his bone into his pocket. "I'll help as well. The Skeleton Girl would never forgive me if I didn't."
"I won't," said Jill. "It would ruin my dress."
"Thank you, all of you," said Eleanor. "Classes have been canceled for the rest of the morning. We'll see you after lunch, once you've had time to put yourselves together again."
"Bad choice of words," said Jack-but she looked thoughtful, almost pensive, as she turned her face away and led Kade and Nancy out of the room. Christopher brought up the rear, his bone sticking out of his back pocket like an upthrust middle finger. The door swung closed behind him.
Together, they walked out to the porch. Loriel was still on the lawn, covered by a sheet, and for a moment, all Nancy could think was that if this didn't stop soon, they were going to run out of bedclothes. Nancy, Christopher, and Jack kept walking. Kade stopped.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't. I just … I can't. This was never my job." Because he'd been a princess in Prism, before they'd learned that he was really a prince; because unlike the rest of them, he had never been responsible for tending to the dead. He'd killed people, sure. That was what had earned him the title of Goblin Prince. But his part in their deaths had ended on the blade of his sword.
"It's all right," said Nancy gently, looking back over her shoulder at him. "The dead are much more understanding than the living. Let us take care of her. You keep watch."
"I can do that," said Kade, relieved.
Nancy, Jack, and Christopher made their way to the body. They came from very different traditions. For Nancy, the entire experience of death was revered. For Christopher, the flesh was temporary, but the bones were eternal and deserved to be treated as such. For Jack, death was an inconvenience to be conquered, and a corpse was a Pandora's box of beautiful possibilities. But all of them shared a love for those who had passed, and as they lifted Loriel from the ground, they did so with gentle, compassionate hands.
"If we take her to the basement, I can mix up something to strip the flesh from her bones," said Jack. "The skeleton will still appear fresh to any forensics tests, but it's a start."
"Once she's a skeleton, I might be able to find out what happened to her," said Christopher, sounding almost shy.
There was a pause. Finally, dubiously, Jack said, "I'm sorry, but it sounded like you just confessed to being able to talk to bones. Why have we never heard this before?"
"Because I was there when you said you could raise the dead. I saw how everybody reacted, and I enjoy having a social life at this school," said Christopher. "It's not like I can go hang out at the pizza parlor in town if the other kids stop talking to me. And don't say you and your sister would have talked to me. The two of you don't talk to anybody."
"He's got you there," called Kade from the porch.
Nancy frowned. "They talked to me."
"Because Sumi made them, and because you went to a world full of ghosts," said Christopher. "I guess that was close enough to living in a horror movie that they were cool with you. And they talked to Sumi because she didn't give them a choice. Sumi was like a small tornado. When she sucked you up, you just tightened your grip and went along for the ride."
"We keep to ourselves for good reason," said Jack stiffly, adjusting her grasp on Loriel's shoulders. "Most of you got unicorns and misty meadows. We got the Moors, and if there was a unicorn out there, it probably ate human flesh. We learned quickly that sharing our experiences with others just drove them away, and most of the social connections at this place are based on those shared experiences. On the doors, and on what happened when we went through them."
"I went to a country of happy, dancing skeletons who said that one day I'd come back to them and marry their Skeleton Girl," said Christopher. "So pretty sunshiny, but sort of sunshine by way of Día de los Muertos."
"Maybe we should have talked to you a long time ago," said Jack. "Let's get Loriel to the basement."
They carried her around the side of the manor, walking until they found the ground-level doors that had once been used by tradesmen delivering coal or food to the house above. Their hands were full, and so Nancy twisted to look over her shoulder as she called, "Kade? We need you."
"This I can do," said Kade. He jogged past them and opened the cellar doors, releasing a rush of cool, sepulchral air. He held the doors until the others were through, and then he followed them, closing the doors with a final-sounding clank that left them in near darkness. Nancy had dwelt in the Halls of the Dead, where the lights were never turned above twilight, for fear of hurting sensitive eyes. Christopher had learnt to navigate a world of skeletons, none of whom had eyes anymore, and many of whom had long since forgotten about the squishy living and their need for constant illumination. Jack could see by the light of a single storm. Only Kade stumbled, managing not to fall as the group made their way to the base of the stairs.
"Can you hold her up without me for a second?" asked Jack. "I should turn the lights on before one of you buffoons trips and damages something valuable."
"See, that's the other reason no one talks to you," said Christopher. "You're sort of mean, like, all the time. Even when you don't have any real reason to be. You could just say ‘please.'"
"Please can you hold her up without me for a second, so that we don't knock over the jug of acid I was planning to use to dissolve her flesh," said Jack. "I enjoy having nonskeletal feet. Perhaps you do as well."
"For now," said Christopher. He shifted his grip around Loriel's torso, getting his arms locked. "All right, I think I have her."
"Excellent. I'll be right back." The body seemed to grow heavier in Nancy's and Christopher's arms as Jack let go. They heard her moving away, steps light on the concrete floor of the basement. Then, calmly, she said, "You may want to close your eyes."
They tensed, expecting a blazing surgical light. Instead, when she flipped the switch, a soft orange glow bathed the room, revealing metal racks filled with jars and lab equipment, dressers bulging with wispy lace and ribbons, and a stainless-steel autopsy table. There was only one bed.
Nancy made a small sound of dismay as she realized what this meant. "You sleep on the autopsy table?" she asked.
Jack touched the smooth metal with one hand. "Not much call for pillows or blankets in the lab," she said. "Jill got the canopy beds and the cushions. I learned how to sleep on stone floors. Turns out that sort of thing is hard to unlearn. Sleeping in a real bed is like trying to sleep in a cloud. I'm afraid I'll sink right through and fall to my death." She sighed, taking her hand off the autopsy table. "Put her here. I want to look at her before we dissolve her."