The Witch's Grave by Phillip Depoy Page B

more of my great-grandfather’s story, varying only slightly in length and dialogue. His obsession with the past is what spoke to me most.
    Although I searched the trunk quite thoroughly in my younger years, there was no trace of the silver lily. I asked my father about it. All he could remember was something odd about the funeral, some trouble with the widow, my great-grandmother Adele. She didn’t like the fact that the old man had insisted on being buried with a little silver lily in his right hand. He was, they say, laid to rest with his
right hand closed at his heart. No one at the time knew why, except perhaps my great-grandmother. She wandered off from her nurse less than a year later and was never found, died alone somewhere in the mountains. Her body was never recovered.
    Her ghost sat beside me, staring silently at the pages I held, brushing gray hair with bone-white fingertips, resting her head on my shoulder. Some ghosts, so cold, cannot be dispelled by smoldering sage; they need a blazing fire.

Six
    The next morning I awoke downstairs on the sofa with no memory of getting there or falling asleep. Andrews was slouched in his chair. Sun shouted through the windows. To make matters worse, the phone would not stop ringing no matter how hard I stared at it.
    Somehow I got to a standing position but failed to move any closer to the phone. Andrews shot up angrily, scowled, stomped over, and grabbed it.
    â€œDevilin residence,” he said calmly. “Oh, Skidmore, we were just going to call you.”
    He held out the receiver in my direction.
    I took a deep breath, came to the phone. “Skid. We had an adventure last night.”
    I told him the story. He got angry; we argued; he told me not to touch the thread from the gravestone, he’d be over in twenty minutes. I hung up.
    â€œOkay, you were right.” I gave Andrews a glance. “We should have called him last night.”
    â€œSometimes I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” he growled.
    I saw no point in going over the long list of things the matter with me, including why I’d slept on the sofa. Instead, I made breakfast: omelets with fresh basil from the spice garden and the last of the tomatoes on the leggy vines outside the door. I was making the second round of espresso when Skidmore knocked.
    â€œCome in.” I didn’t turn around.

    He entered silently; I knew he was glaring at my back.
    â€œDamn it.” He stood just inside the doorway.
    â€œHere’s the envelope,” Andrews offered from his seat at the kitchen table, pointing to the countertop.
    â€œWe’re having a little espresso before we head up to the Deveroe place,” I said, my back still to him. “Want some?”
    Skid and I had found over the years that ignoring a problem, in combination with the right amount of humor, could make the problem go away. Or at least it went unspoken, which was as good in my book. That would be the oft-mentioned Book of Not Saying, perfected in Blue Mountain generations before I was born.
    â€œOkay then.” He moved to pick up the envelope, sighed. “I reckon I could use a little of that engine sludge.”
    â€œYou insult it,” I said, facing him, handing him a cup, “but you drink it.”
    â€œI tolerate it for the sake of our friendship,” he answered pointedly. “What’s left of it.”
    â€œI told him to call you last night.” Andrews shifted in his seat. His hair was a blond squirrel’s nest, and his sweatshirt looked as if he’d slept in it.
    â€œMaybe it should just be you and me working on this thing,” Skid said to Andrews. “Leave out the middleman.”
    â€œFactory-direct crime solving.” Andrews nodded. “We pass the savings on to you.”
    â€œYou get what you pay for,” I said, pouring.
    â€œNo kidding, Dev,” Skidmore said softly, “I need you to tell me when something like that