Free Bones & All by Camille Deangelis Page A

told you to make yourself at home, is that it?”
    I didn’t know why I felt so guilty all of a sudden, especially after what I’d just seen him do. “She was nice to me,” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    The man gave me a look I couldn’t read. “Never said you did.” He mixed the ingredients together in a casserole dish, sprinkled the top with shredded cheddar, and slid it into the oven.
    The clock on the mantel chimed six as Sully brought his pack in from the living room, propped it against the refrigerator, and drew a long ropelike object out of the opening. At first I did think it was a rope, but then he pulled out the thick, silvery knot of Mrs. Harmon’s chignon and laid it out on the calico place mat with a sort of reverence, and I realized what the ropelike thing was made of. There were all sorts of hair woven into it, red and brown and black and silver, curly and kinky and slippery-straight. I never knew something could be so grotesque and so beautiful at the same time.
    Sully laid the end of the rope across his knee, gently pulling a lock of Mrs. Harmon’s hair out of the chignon and into two, then four, even pieces. “Been workin’ on it for years,” he said, glancing up as he began to weave in the first piece. “That brimstone look of yours ain’t so pretty. Here’s the first thing you need to know about old Sully: I ain’t gonna change my ways to suit ya.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, it’s kinda poetical, when you think about it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œMakin’ somethin’ useful, somethin’ lovely, out of somethin’ that’s done and gone. A hundred years ago they used to make bracelets outta corpses’ hair, d’you ever hear that?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œA widow wore her husband’s hair all the rest of her days.” The coil twitched as Sully began to weave in the pieces. “Somethin’ lovely,” he said again, softly, as if to himself. “Somethin’ to remember him by.” His hands were rough and gnarled, but when he worked in the locks he did it deftly. “Gotta keep my hands busy,” he said. “‘Idle hands do the devil’s work,’ that’s what the preacher used to tell us in Sunday school when I was a boy. And anyhow, it’s better than whittlin’ out the same damn chess pieces over and over like some folks do.”
    â€œIt would be all right,” I ventured, “if you played chess.”
    He scoffed. “What am I gonna do, play against myself?”
    For a minute or two I watched him weave the silver pieces into the strands that were already there. “What are you going to do with it when it’s finished?”
    He shrugged. “Who says it’ll ever be finished?”
    â€œBut I don’t see what the point of it is, if you’re not going to finish it.”
    â€œCan’t you say the same for livin’? Just goes on and on, and no reason for it.”
    I couldn’t argue with that. Suddenly the days and weeks and months stretching out before me looked even bleaker than they had yesterday or the day before.
    â€œHere,” Sully said, pulling another few feet of rope out of his sack and offering it to me. “Give it a good tug. Plenty strong enough to hang a man.”
    I hesitated, partly because I didn’t really want to touch it but also because I was afraid I’d tear it in half and he’d be angry with me. “Go on,” he said. “It won’t break.”
    So I grabbed it with both fists and pulled, but it was as he’d said. I bet I could have climbed it to the ceiling like that rope we had in elementary school gym class. “How did you learn to do that?”
    â€œMy daddy was a rope-maker.” He paused, then added quietly, “Among other things.” He flicked his wrist, and the rope of hair leapt and twitched like a