Mid-Story Sentence Competition - Winner

Body-snatching’s better than the workhouse, but only just. I suppose I’d have liked to go to school or something, if I’d been born to a family with money. Or a family at all. But God gives what he gives. Tonight, he’s given me a Devil of a job. The rain soaks deep into my ragged shirt, chilling the skin of my shoulders. It already made its way through my over-cloak on the long trek up the muddy hill to the cemetery. The cloak drags like a millstone at my neck. If I could see through the haze of water being blown into my face, I’d be looking into the midnight world of London’s far reaches. It’s less smoggy here, the air filled with the damp scent of earth instead. Fresh graves. Just what Master Kabil needs.
JOHN NORWICH
I can’t read the name out loud. I don’t know much about how letters go together. But Kabil always writes it clearly for me, so I can match it to the etching on the headstone, or the carving in the wood if they haven’t prepared a stone yet. This bloke’s got neither of those things. I stand above a mound of earth, encased in bars of iron. I look at Kabil’s note, then at the plaque on the bars. It’s him. My sigh hits the air as a cloud of vapour, a pale ghost pelted into nothingness by the rain. I drop my things onto the wet grass beside the bars: a rope, a sack and a wooden spade. My hands tingle at the tips as I sink them into the damp earth around the nearest bar, shoving hard until I’m elbow-deep in mud.
The bars are deeper than I can reach, and they cover a space more than twice the width of the grave. It’s a mortsafe. Kabil’s warned me about them, but I’ve never actually seen one until now. I suppose people are getting sick of ragamuffins like me digging up their dead. It’s not like we take the jewels or the clothes, it’s only the flesh that Kabil wants. I yank my arm out of the thick mud, shaking as much off as I can. The rain will wash away the rest. Crouching in the dark makes my thighs ache. I pause to breathe a moment, looking at the nearby graves. They’re fresh too. Mounds open and ripe for the picking. I push my hair back into the folds of the cloak, chewing on my frozen lip.
‘Sod it.’
I take my wares to the nearest mound, looking at the shape of the dirt. The head end is usually a bit thicker than the tail, and this one’s no exception. With my knees caked in mud, I plunge the wooden spade into the earth. Quieter than metal. That first squelchy slide brings a twitch to the corners of my lips. Henry used to smile whilst he dug as well. He said it was important to enjoy one’s work. The first time I uncovered a head end for Kabil, I asked God to forgive me for enjoying it. I don’t know if he did. I like to think he’s sleeping at this late hour, and perhaps he doesn’t see the things I do.
It’s bloody hard work. My arms are thicker than they used to be, both from the labour and the supplies at Kabil’s lab. If I bring him what he wants, he cares for me well. Going home empty-handed means no food and sleeping in the yard tonight. I don’t fancy any more of this chilling rain that I’ve already had. My spade hits the top of the coffin with a thud. The warmth of sweat mixes with the clammy rain under my clothes. I sit back in the dirt and wipe my brow, drinking from the Heavens as I heave out a breath. Cracking the coffin open is the easy part. It’s the noose and the dragging that’s difficult.

***

‘You have brought me a woman, Child.’
Kabil’s brows are flecked with silver among the bushy black. It’s never good news when they’re furrowed. I drag my muddy toe across the flagstones, eyes sinking to the floor.
‘I thought it was a woman what you wrote on the paper, my master.’
I keep my head low. Kabil snorts.
‘Have I ever asked you to bring a woman’s body back here?’
I blink. ‘No sir.’ They’ve all been men. Big, heavy men that I sacked up and dragged home by the neck, until my fingers turned hard and red from rope-burns.
Kabil lunges in the blink of an eye, his fingers hot where they clamp my throat. I stumble backwards, grabbing his thick wrists. I claw at them with filthy nails, but he doesn’t let go. He squeezes, jerking me so I have to look into his dark eyes.
‘It has to be the heart of a man, Child.’ A vein pulses in his lined forehead. ‘Without that, it all falls apart.’
The pressure in my jaw brings heat to my muddy lashes. My eyes sting as rain and grave dirt mixes with the tears. I splutter, spit-flecks landing on Kabil’s face. He doesn’t budge. Dark eyes boring into the veil of my tears. There’s something medicinal on his breath. He was like this that night. The night that sent him reeling off on this mad crusade.
‘Please, master…’ I bat his wrists, wriggling my neck, kicking out with one foot. ‘It’s a mortsafe… I can’t… Not alone… I’ll… I’ll go back…’
Kabil lets go. The rush of blood in my brain sends me to the ground. I cough on all fours like a choking dog, until a dirty lump of something wet lands on the flagstones. My throat tastes as bitter as Kabil’s words.
‘Come with me, Child. It’s time you saw the importance of my work.’
If I don’t get up, he’ll come and drag me by my soaking shirt. I push hard on the stone and stagger to my feet, walking in a zig-zag as I reach Kabil at the door. I’ve only ever been in this room before, where he keeps the bodies cold on the flagstone floor. Beyond that, there’s a glass door with the panes all blacked out with tar. Kabil’s opening the door with the silver key he keeps in his waistcoat pocket. I’ve never wanted to know what he does with the bodies. Henry used to tell me stories of the doctors who bought them, and how they used the cadavers to learn about life and death. Kabil’s no doctor. All he seems to have learned in the last week is how to drive himself mad.
There’s a table in the centre of the next room, as long as a man. A long shape lies on it, covered with a grubby bedsheet. Beside the big table is a smaller one, made of iron. Here, Kabil has a lot of blades and tools laid out. He puts a hard hand on my shoulder, walking me up to the instruments. Needles and thread. Hacksaws. Smaller knives for delicate work. And a book. A book with a dark cover and blotchy, inked words that would be unreadable even if I was literate. Kabil lifts the book, his long-nailed finger tracing a line of patchy scripture.
‘The heart of a man so pained by regret that he would forsake God himself.’
Kabil taps the book, eyes flashing to me.
‘This is the ingredient! I sent you for John Norwich because he set an accidental fire which murdered his children. He’s a suicide. I didn’t expect them to bury him so efficiently.’ Kabil works his thick jaw, setting the book back on the table. ‘Perhaps his family have forsaken God already.’
Hadn’t we all? There didn’t seem to be any other way to live these days. My gaze travels to the sheet. Was that the body I’d brought in last night? The one before? Where did Kabil put them when he was done with them? The rest of the room is bare as a tomb, only tools and the project allowed within. And now I’m allowed in. Kabil takes a single step, reaching for the tip of the sheet. He sweeps it back with a single swish.
‘Henry?’
He’s a week old now. Still tall and dark in his features. A little grey in his brows too. Henry was the other Master Kabil, the younger twin to the creature beside me. Alike in every outward way and totally opposite within. Edward Kabil leans over the body of his brother, his eyes watering, fists clenched. He hangs his head so low it almost vanishes beyond his sharp, raised shoulders. The back of his neck is a pale strip of flesh between his butcher’s apron and his shaggy, dark hair.
‘I know you saw, Child. You know what I did. I never should have. If I could change it…’ His torso shakes. The sob echoes in the chamber, every reverberation boring straight into my spine. ‘I will change it. Go back. Fetch me the heart.’
I look at the little black book with the inky letters. Could Henry really be risen again? Images of the cemetery and the mud and the mortsafe cycle through my memory. I watch Kabil’s retching back.
The heart of a man so pained by regret that he would forsake God himself.
I reach for the small, metal table. The hacksaw slides into my grip. Silent as the grave. The corners of my lips twitch. I take a single step closer to Kabil. The back of his neck is pale and bare. Exposed. I think of Henry’s smile, and I ask God to forgive me.