Chapter 52

Bogdan keeps digging in the Garden of Eternal Rest while excitement continues downhill and the expected machinery has not yet arrived. Because the older graves near the top are shaded and likely to contain solid oak coffins, Bogdan chooses that area, expecting intact coffins and no exposed remains.

As Bogdan works in a tight corner of the graveyard, Bogdan thinks about Marina, a woman he met on the way up and has seen in the village. Bogdan reflects that people usually do not notice him, and the thought of Marina makes Bogdan miss his mother.

Bogdan’s shovel strikes something solid, but it is not a coffin lid. After clearing away earth, Bogdan finds a white bone, which unsettles him because Bogdan had chosen this spot specifically to avoid rotten coffins and bones. Feeling responsible once the bone is uncovered, Bogdan decides not to ignore it and begins clearing earth by hand.

While kneeling, Bogdan realizes Bogdan is not on compacted earth but on the solid oak lid of a coffin. This creates a disturbing contradiction: there is a body outside the coffin, yet the coffin beneath is intact. Bogdan worries briefly that someone might have been buried alive, then opens the lower part of the coffin and finds another skeleton inside.

Bogdan is left with two skeletons in one grave, one outside the coffin and one inside. Bogdan considers that investigators might delay the development by digging carefully through the graveyard, and decides the discovery will probably be explained away. When sirens approach, Bogdan refills the grave, planning to ask Ian what to do before the police and others arrive.