Manx- The Graveyard of What Might Be

  Four stone steps, lightly sprinkled in snow, led down to a flat plane of black ice. The ice was grainy with the recent snowfall, but the flakes were not deep—any kick of the boot would reveal the smooth sheet of ice beneath. He had gone two steps when he saw something cloudy caught in the ice, about three inches below the surface. At first glance it looked like a dinner plate.

  Bing bent and looked through the ice. Charlie Manx, who was only a few paces ahead, turned back and pointed the flashlight at the spot where he was looking.

  The glow of the beam lit the face of a child, a girl with freckles on her cheeks and her hair in pigtails. At the sight of her, Bing screamed and took an unsteady step back.

  She was as pale as the marble statues guarding the entrance to the Graveyard of What Might Be, but she was flesh, not stone. Her mouth was open in a silent shout, a few frozen bubbles drifting from her lips. Her hands were raised, as if she were reaching up to him. In one was a bunch of red coiled rope—a jump rope, Bing recognized.

  “It’s a girl!” he cried. “It’s a dead girl in the ice!”

  “Not dead, Bing,” Manx said. “Not yet. Maybe not for years.” Manx flicked the flashlight away and pointed it toward a white stone cross, tilting up from the ice.

  LILY CARTER
  15 Fox Road
  Sharpsville, PA
  1980–?

  Turned to a life of sin by her mother,
  Her childhood ended before it began.
  If only there had been another
  To take her off to Christmasland!

  Manx swept his light around what Bing now perceived was a frozen lake, on which were ranked rows of crosses: a cemetery the size of Arlington. The snow skirled around the memorials, the plinths, the emptiness. In the moonlight the snowflakes looked like silver shavings.
...

  Sara lives in a tragic dream,
  Will hang herself by age thirteen!
  But think how she will give such thanks,
  If she goes for a ride with Charlie Manx!

  Bing made a gobbling, gasping sound of horror. The girl, Sara Cho, stared up at him, mouth open in a silent cry. She had been buried in the ice with a clothesline twisted around her throat.

  Charlie Manx caught Bing’s elbow and helped him up.

  “I’m sorry you had to see all this, Bing,” Manx said. “I wish I could’ve spared you. But you needed to understand the reasons for my work. Come back to the car. I have a thermos of cocoa.”

- Spicy Menace: The Road to Christmasland