I've Dug Two Graves Novels & Stories

Not once. When I reached the mountain top, I laid her gently on a flat rock. My hands curled around the shovel left there for burial rites. I dug. The rain made the soil heavy, slippery, but I kept digging—even as my arms shook from exhaustion, even as my heart felt like it was being carved out of my chest. “This isn’t fair,” I whispered, slamming the shovel into the ground. “You deserved peace, mama… not this.” I blinked away tears, mud streaking my cheeks. My breaths were sharp, painful.

I didn’t realize how long I had been crying until the rain started, and I had to lift my head and watch the clouds fill the sky. Soon, the night would arrive, and the black wolves would show up to attack me, and the wild ones would come for Ron’s body. “I will keep you here, bury you beside the people I love,” I smiled, even when I had no reason to. Everything had been stolen from me. It felt like fate brought Ron to me just to snatch him away—like the Moon Goddess thought I hadn’t suffered enough already. I got up, dragged the shovel beside my father’s grave, and started to dig. Once again, I was tired and exhausted, having no choice but to dig another grave—for me—to lie down in.

With my own hands, I carved Lucia’s and my name on wooden stakes. “Here rests Lucia and Talia Wilkin.” As of now, Lucia and I were no longer tied to the Luther Pack. There was no place for the Hems brothers in our grave. By the time I was done, my health had declined rapidly. I crawled into the excavated pit with great effort and cradled my sister’s urn in a fetal position. With the moist soil offering me some solace, I closed my eyes.

I make a mental note to prepare something to thank them with later. When we finish digging two six-foot-deep graves, I try with all my might not to let the tears flow. Together, the men lower the bodies, wrapped only in plain white cloth into the holes in the ground. As we cover them with soil, I whisper a silent prayer, for God to lead my parent’s souls into heaven and should they be reborn, for them to have a better life.

Instead, I drifted away, gazing into the distance. I liked the cemetery's location. It overlooked a glittering lake—the same one where I used to stare at my reflection as a pup. Only Leo would think to bury me somewhere I would have loved. By the time they were too exhausted to continue fighting, they both lay on the ground, wounded, staring up at the moon. Leo bared his teeth at Ryan, panting heavily as if he wanted nothing more than to tear out his throat. "How dare you come to Tiana's grave?" he growled. "She just wanted to rest in peace, not be your possession even in death!"

Abandoning the signboard, I collapsed onto the scorching desert sand, my sobs mixing with the sand landing in the pit. "Ahhh!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice carrying my anguish as I attempted to dig with my bare hands. The sand burned my palms, and some grains found their way between my fingers, but I didn’t care. James clicked his tongue behind me. "It's pointless, muffin. He has been buried alive. He will be gone before nightfall," his voice irritated my nerves as I scooped a handful of sand and flung it in his direction, momentarily blinding them. I seized one of the shovels, attempting to dig the pit open, but the pain in my chest hindered me.

My chest still ached, a dull, constant reminder with every step. When we reached the grave, I stopped dead. We didn’t need the shovel. The earth was already disturbed. The grave dug open. And it was empty.

Half-buried in weeds. I turned, walked back to the car, and popped the trunk. A sledgehammer sat inside. Gift from a renovation company. Ribbon still tied on. Bright. Almost a joke. I grabbed it, walked back, and stopped in front of the headstone. Taking a breath, I tightened my grip around the cold metal. Then I swung. All in. Smashed it down. Crash. The sound ripped through the empty grounds. Bang. Again. And again. Until it was nothing but broken rubble.

"That has nothing to do with her." "It doesn't need to." I remember it as clearly as yesterday—the two of us, younger, digging a grave in the ice with our bare hands for a broken little creature nobody else thought worth mourning. It is small and broken, and no one else will kneel for it. "If I hear that phrase and nothing stirs, take me to where we buried it. If I stand there and still feel nothing, then she's already gone from me completely. There's no point asking a stranger about something even I can't remember." "That's insane." Azrael's voice shakes. "You're betting everything on a dead fox."

I slapped him again, "is for Lydia." He stumbled back, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. "There is nothing left between us, Ethan. Nothing but a graveyard," my voice was flat, final. "And you are the one holding the shovel. You dug the graves for our pup with your own two hands." "I can make it up to you..." he choked out. "Make it up?" I sneered. "How? Are you going to bring the dead back to life?" "We still have a chance..." he said, desperate. "We're fated mates..."