"I feel it too. The dead are agitated."
"Why?"
Raven shrugged. "Who knows? Someone bad die?"
"The only person who's died lately is Elayne McCoy, and she was a sweet thing."
"She was. I remember." Raven stared out over the ravine pensively. It was a beautiful view, all of Ramsdell blocked by trees except for the steeple of the church rising gracefully into a white spire, gleaming in the moonlight. As long as they kept their backs to the strip-mined top of Baldy, it was a postcard picture.
Raven had taken it on himself to appease the old mountain's spirit, angry and agitated at being left naked. He spent his days planting trees, tending and watering grass, and keeping careful watch on the parts of the mountain that wanted to slide downhill, where there was more cover. There were those who called it environmentalism. Raven had always done this, though, caring for the injured parts of the land. Helen feared she wouldn't do half so well when her time came.
"Did she die well?"
"No. It was -- terrible." Helen shook her head. Daddy was the coroner and mortician of the town as well as the doctor, and she'd helped prepare the woman's body. Whatever Daddy thought, Helen knew it had been an embolism of the womb, a part of the wall that was not as strong as the rest; she had bled to death in less than five minutes.
"Daddy?" Robby stood in the doorway rubbing his eyes. One of his pajama feet was folded under his toes, stretching the red flannel leg taut. "Daddy, I'm sorry. I told Mommy not to wake him, but she wouldn't listen."
Mark tugged the shirt off the baby's torso. The baby was screaming, face red and body stiff with rage. "Robby. Go to bed."
The baby's little belly was taut. Colic, probably. Mark carried him to the rocking chair, patting him in what he hoped was a burp-inducing pattern. Just as he reached the chair, the baby vomited down his back. It splattered on the carpet and floor.
"Ah, crap, baby." The baby inhaled and screamed in earnest. Mark inhaled and wanted to scream. Instead, he gently laid the baby down on the carpet and stripped off his pajama shirt, dropping it over the mess.
"Okay, baby, okay." He tested the bottle. Warm. The baby calmed as Mark picked him back up and sat in the chair. He actually smiled when the baby nuzzled at Mark's bare chest. "Sorry, bud. Wrong equipment." The baby found the bottle and started sucking lustily.
"Dad, Mom already fed him." Mark sighed, not out of impatience, but to control the anger he felt whenever Robby said something like this. It wasn't Robby's fault. He was a little boy. He couldn't deal with the reality of Elayne's death.
"Mom is dead. Dead, Robby. That means she'll never come back."
Robby's face puckered, and tears came to his eyes. "But she does, Dad. Every night."
* * *
Stilling the Dead
A Helen Highwater Story
