Heart of Ice

7

There were thousands of them. Small, black jelly-bean creatures crawling around the big plastic bin, piggybacking one another to get to that one last shred of meat left on the bone.

The beetle larvae were hungry today.

This skull would be ready by nightfall.

He pressed his face closer to the slimy plastic. The smell was strong, and the inside of his mouth filled with the sickening sensation that comes just before the vomit.

He swallowed it away and held his breath.

He should’ve taken the time to remove the brain. It stunk like hell when the beetles ate the brain.

Danny Dancer made sure the lid was secure on the bin and left the room, closing the door behind him. As he walked across the cabin the floorboards gave under his weight, reminding him again that it might not be a bad idea to work on getting healthier. After all, Aunt Bitty died at sixty-four, her veins clogged with that cholesterol stuff. He missed her, but he didn’t grieve. It was only because she died and left him the cabin that he was able to do what he did now. The cabin was way atop the island, too far from the other villagers for them to smell the beetles.

In the tiny kitchen, he opened a cupboard, pulled out an industrial-size bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and filled a large metal bowl. It was his last bottle. He would have to make a trip to St. Ignace soon to restock his supplies. There were customers waiting, and he didn’t want to get behind.

He let out a deep breath and set the bowl down on the counter. It wasn’t easy doing everything himself. He had to feed and maintain the adult beetle colony, hunt for the perfect specimens, and package and ship the orders. He wasn’t twenty anymore. His muscles were turning to blubber, and his joints were sore.

It was getting harder to do things, like building the new shelves. It had taken him a whole week to put up the three near the east window, but it had been worth it. There was now enough room to display all his favorite skulls.

He looked up at them now. He liked to sit here in the morning and watch the gold sunlight slide over the smooth skulls, turning them into pieces of art that ought to be sitting in a gallery somewhere, maybe down on Main Street for all the tourists to admire.

But he knew better than anyone that the skulls didn’t belong in some shop where moms would herd their brats away, all the while sneaking peeks back.

No, only certain people could appreciate the perfection of skulls. That’s why he sold only to universities, laboratories, and artists. That’s why he advertised only in the classified section of Bone Deep, the underground magazine for collectors of the macabre.

That’s where the best money was, from the decorators in Palm Beach who bought the skulls to put on pedestals in mansions. Or landscapers in Sedona who used them as garden ornaments. He had even sold a skull to a record producer in Hollywood who turned it into a bong.

Danny Dancer moved to the window by the front door and pulled aside the curtain, looking for strangers. He did this nine or ten times a day, sometimes more if he felt he was being watched. Though he had seen no one from his window today, this was one of those days when he felt like the skulls had eyes.

Maybe it was because he had heard this morning in town that the bones had been discovered in the basement of the old lodge. He turned away from the window, his eyes slipping to the large skull on the top shelf. It was so incredibly lovely. The eye sockets perfectly round, the teeth as white as pearls, the forehead as smooth as glass, except for that one small crack.

It was his favorite. She was his favorite. Because he had always felt it was a she.

He’d never known her name. And unlike his other skulls, he had never felt the urge to give her a name. But the police were nosing around, and maybe they’d even figure out her name. That would make her even more special.

But it would also bring trouble.

They would want her skull. The cops would want her so they could identify her. And her parents would want her so they could feel as if they had put all of her to rest. He didn’t imagine the poor girl’s mother wanted to live the rest of her life wondering where her daughter’s head was, wondering if it was buried somewhere in the mud, lost forever under the feet of hikers who plodded through the woods looking for magic that they couldn’t find in their own backyards downstate.

Well, let her mother wonder.

She wasn’t going home.

Danny Dancer went to the shelf and carefully took the skull in his hands. Then, hit with an impulse he had never had before, he gave the skull a kiss on the forehead.

“No,” he whispered. “You’re staying right here.”