Vern released the full span of her exoskeleton and waited for Gogo to do her part. Her boots fell heavy against the floor as she walked up to each body and pried open the mouth. It was precautionary. If the spores could bring about resurrection, it wouldn’t depend on whether the dead had opened or closed mouths. But they knew too little about how the fungus behaved to know its method of transfer. Dead, they could not breathe in the spores themselves.
When every mouth had been tugged into a large O, Vern released her spores. In the same way memories had entered her, she pushed them outward with the spores, pressing them into the bodies they belonged to. The hauntings walked alongside her, alive in her mind, hesitant.
“Is anything happening?” asked Vern, knowing it was silly to hope. Even if the spores mended the holes in their heads, how could that recharge them? Respark them? Life was electricity.
That was what the paddles were for, Vern supposed. Gogo had gotten Bridget to bring an emergency resuscitation kit and travel defibrillator. If there was any sign that the spores could heal the dead, say by reknitting the wounds, then Gogo would apply the paddles to their chests.
“I’m going to try something,” said Gogo. She was standing over Carmichael. Nothing had changed in the bodies. They were as dead now as they were before Vern released the spores.
“What are you doing?” Vern asked, when she saw Gogo place the paddles on Carmichael’s chest and send electricity through him. It looked too close to defiling, and Vern ran over to push her away from her brother’s corpse, which lay at rest.
Gogo, undeterred, set the paddles to Carmichael’s chest again. “This was a stupid idea,” said Vern, shoving Gogo away, careful to modulate her strength so as not to send her to the ground.
“Look,” said Gogo, stumbling to right herself, looking defiant, boastful. Wisps of hair had escaped from the customary French braid down the center of her head and blew in the light summer breeze. The stubble of hair on the sides of her head had grown out, giving her a mullet look.
Vern stood over Carmichael. Gazing upon the brother she barely recognized, she placed an index finger over one of the holes in his chest. She felt it. Felt it moving. Felt the microscopic tugs and pulls. Felt electricity.
Gogo took the defibrillator from body to body, jolting their hearts to beat for even one millisecond so that the fungus spores could work. A moment was all they required. A moment of life to latch on to. It wasn’t self-initiated. It was a type of galvanism. For moments, they were all Frankenstein’s creatures.
But then they healed. No—they didn’t just heal. They’d been resurrected. Vern brought them back to life. She had the capacity for that. To build, nurture.
It took until late afternoon to get through all of the bodies. The Cainites lay asleep but with beating hearts, breathing lungs. Gogo called the paramedics back when Vern had awoken them all.
Ruthanne woke as she was being rolled into an ambulance. She called out Vern’s name.
Vern knew she should turn to face her mother, now brought back to life, but she could not. Relief that Ruthanne was alive again did not mean there was any forgiveness. Even knowing all that her mother had gone through did not soften Vern’s heart. She walked away.
It was summer, and the world was as bright as a lightning flash. Blue sky. Red dirt. Everything was set alight. Vern tried to cherish it, to turn toward the sun the way bluebells did, but Vern still lusted after the dark of the woods, where she was born, where her true self had been made.
Tomorrow, Vern would exhume Lucy’s body—surely too far gone to bring back—and give her a proper burial. Tomorrow, she would introduce Howling and Feral to their uncle. Tomorrow, she would decide how she wanted her little world to look, and she would make it and fight for it with everything inside her.
But today, she would grab Gogo and the children and tug them after her. “Come on,” she said to Howling and Feral, who’d arrived this morning with Bridget. She walked with them to the edge of the woods and found the place where Giovanni’s Room was buried. She dug until her fingers brushed its soft cover. She kissed it, then set it to the side.
“This is Tonkawa land,” said Gogo. She touched her palm to the ground, eyes closed, in prayer or gratitude or benediction. Vern joined her. For several minutes, they sat in reverent silence.
Howling spelled out Tonkawa in the dirt with a stick before asking how it was spelled in their language. Feral shook unripe crab apples from a tree as he climbed. “It’s food for the bunnies,” he said.