Bury the Children in the Yard Read Online Free Page A

ending their conversation.
    When she left, he picked up the cordless phone and called Jeff, hoping Jeff would be able to refute everything Marcie had told him. Instead, Jeff only agreed with her.
    Jeff worked a part-time job at Bang’s supermarket. He said the manager of Bang’s was an older man with a limp. Until yesterday. Yesterday, he had come in looking twenty years younger without any trace of a limp. Jeff kept waiting for someone to ask about this sudden appearance change but the only thing anyone said was, “You’re looking good today, Mr. Castle.” Today, Jeff said, Mr. Castle had given Cynthia Raymond a “ride home,” but Jeff suspected something much more prurient was at play.
    “So,” Jakob said, “you want to come and scout this place with me and my sister tonight.”
    Jeff agreed, called Jakob a “gentleman and a scholar,” and hung up.
     
    Disappointment washed the night. By two o’clock, Jakob was tired of being bitten by mosquitoes and he was ready for bed. The two boys’ sophomoric banter had frustrated Marcie about an hour ago and she had since retreated to the house.
    “So, we done for the night?” Jeff asked.
    “Yeah. I think so. This was stupid.”
    “Not if you saw Mr. Castle.”
    “That’s supposing he came here. We don’t know that he did.”
    “Still, people don’t just transform overnight. Even if they have some kind of surgery, they have to have some healing time.”
    “I guess. Maybe we could just go to the library and ask Minnow about it tomorrow.”
    Jeff laughed. “Why? You just want to check her out?”
    “Hardly.”
    “I hear she’s pretty hot.”
    They walked through the meadow, swatting at mosquitoes and gnats, the sound of peepers and cicadas providing a churning whir in the background.
    “You know,” Jeff said. “Marcie’d be pretty hot if it wasn’t for her hand.”
    “That’s my sister . Besides, the hand’s not so bad. I can imagine a pedophile taking a keen interest in her.”
    “God, you’re sick.”
    When they got up to the house Jakob asked Jeff if he was staying tonight.
    “No. I can’t. I have to get up early and go to Bang’s. Maybe I’ll try and buddy up to Mr. Castle. See if I can get some kind of confession from him.”
    “Meet back here tomorrow?”
    “Sure.”
    Jakob went back into the house and went to bed. Lying there, he thought about the slaughterhouse. The place had always unnerved him but he found himself now terrified of it. He didn’t know why exactly. If it was making people “beautiful” that should be a lot less terrifying than thinking of the slaughters it was normally used for. But he didn’t like the idea. In his German class, they had discussed Faust, and it seemed like there had to be something Faustian about this. One does not get something for nothing. Then he had another horrifying thought. The thought actually came to him in Jeff’s voice. It was what he had said when they were walking back from the field, “Marcie’d be pretty hot if it wasn’t for her hand.”
    No, Jakob thought. Marcie wouldn’t even think about that. He knew she wasn’t a shallow person and he thought she had actually grown quite comfortable with the idea of her hand over time. If she had asked he could have told her the hands were like the last things guys looked at.
    He couldn’t get the idea out of his head.
    Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get up and check on her. Act big brotherly for a change. He was the one who had brought the whole thing up to begin with. If something happened to her, he would be partially to blame. He didn’t want the guilt.
    The wooden floor in his room squeaked as he walked across it. He opened his door and looked down the hall. Her room was at the end of the hall and he saw that her light was still on. Maybe she fell asleep with it on. She was never up this late and she had seemed pretty tired at the stakeout. He walked down the hall and gently knocked on the door. He didn’t hear any answer and just