The Curse of Tenth Grave

The chicken-and-egg conundrum would get me nowhere. I needed to talk to Rocket. And I would just as soon as he stopped crushing me and put me down. One minute I’m standing there, minding my own business, and the next I’m being lifted off the ground by an ox. A strong one.

“Rocket,” I said through the sound of my ribs cracking. I’d snapped back to the tangible world the moment he picked me up, so the names had stopped glowing. But his bright, bald head hadn’t. It was as pale and shiny as ever.

I hugged his head and kissed it while he got the pleasantries out of his system.

“Miss Charlotte,” he said, his words muffled by my girls, Danger and Will Robinson. I had a feeling he was doing more than just greeting me.

“Rocket,” I said, kicking out to loosen his grip. “Are you molesting me?”

He still held me high, but he looked up, his eyes shimmering with elation. “I missed you, Miss Charlotte.”

I hugged him to me again. Thankfully, he didn’t need to breathe. “I missed you, too.”

We stood like that a long moment. Me with the hugging. Rocket with the accosting. At least he didn’t motorboat me. I didn’t know how Danger and Will would take to being manhandled in such a way.

Who was I kidding? They’d love it.

When he finally dropped me—literally—I peeled myself off the trash-strewn floor and gave him a loving punch on the arm. “How have you been, handsome?”

He still wore the hospital attire that he’d died in: dingy slippers and grayish-blue pajamas that resembled scrubs.

“Where have you been, Miss Charlotte? Everyone is very upset.”

“Really? Because I’ve been gone for so long?” That was so sweet.

“You’ve been gone?” he asked. He looked up in thought.

“Not that long,” I amended. “But if not for that, why is everyone upset?” I wondered who “everyone” was, but I didn’t want to stump him this early in the game.

“Everyone, everyone,” he said, throwing his arms up, utterly exasperated with me.

I had that effect on people.

Then he leaned in, his round face full of intrigue. “Can I see it?” he whispered.

“Of course,” I said, hoping he didn’t want to see anything X-rated. No way was I playing doctor with him. “What would you like to see?”

“It,” he said. “The gate.”

“Okay,” I said, looking around. The only gate I could think of was at the front entrance. “You mean the gate out front?”

“It’s outside?” he asked, appalled. “Where anyone can see it?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s a gate.”

“No, no, no, no, Miss Charlotte. You have to hide it. No one can just see it for no reason just ’cause. Everyone is very upset.”

I got the feeling we were talking about two different gates. Then it hit me. The god glass. The portal to the hell dimension I had sitting pretty in the pocket of my jeans.

“Rocket, who is everyone, and why are they upset? Is it about the god glass?”

He clasped his fingers together over his mouth like a child hiding his excitement, his irises dancing with glee.

“They are very upset,” he said, almost giggling. Which was odd. Normally, if the supernatural world was upset, Rocket was upset.

“I know, I know. I broke the rules.”

“You didn’t break the rules,” he said, shaking his head, suddenly serious. “You broke the rule.”

Figured. I was always breaking some celestial being’s rules. They could bite my ass. Every last one of them. I was doing the best I could with what they gave me. If they wanted me to do better, they should have graced me with the Girl’s Guide to Grim Reaperism. Instead, I somehow ended up with Harry Potter’s map, where I had to solemnly swear I was up to no good before it would show me anything. And I couldn’t lie about it, so I had to constantly be up to no good. It was exhausting.

“Whatever,” I said, ignoring his scandalized gasp. “If I show you the god glass, the gate, will you tell me what these names mean?”

His brows cinched together in confusion. “You know what they mean. They are those of good spirit who have passed.”

“Yes, you’ve told me that. But what else do they mean? Are they somehow connected with my daughter?”

He gasped again. “That is another rule you broke, Miss Charlotte. They’ll tie you to your bed.”

I’d forgotten that whole banging of Mr. Farrow and the pregnancy that followed seemed to have caused quite the uproar in the floor one level up. Another thing they could all bite me over. “The only person who’s going to tie me to my bed is Reyes.”

At the mention of Reyes’s name, Rocket turned his back to me. “You should stay away from him.”

“We’re married, hon. That would be difficult.”

“The sun can’t marry the moon. It makes no sense. The heavens will fall.” He turned back and pleaded with me. “Everything will fall, Miss Charlotte.”

I reached up and put a hand on his pale gray cheek. “Nothing is going to fall, hon, except maybe this building if you don’t stop carving into the walls like this.”

He glanced around. “I have to write the names or they burn my brain. I have to get them out when it’s time.”

“You have to write them when the person dies?”

He nodded as he studied his works of art.

“But why these particular names? What do they mean?”

“They’re in the waiting room, and their names have to be written down before they can be called. Otherwise, the doctor will never see them.”

“And how do you know who is who? Can you read them?” He’d led me to particular names before. He had to have been reading them.

“I don’t have to read them, Miss Charlotte. They tell me who they are when I ask.”

I’d known it would be a long shot before I came, but I’d hoped for at least a little more. An inkling of what Strawberry had told me. In fact …

“So, Strawberry told me the names are important for a reason. That you’re writing them for my daughter. For Beep—Elwyn. Is that true?”

He blinked as though I’d stumped him. Stepped closer to a wall. Ran a chubby finger over one of the names he’d carved. But he didn’t respond, and I didn’t want to push him too far.