She placed all the bones on the metal table and turned on the medical exam light. She lined up all the forearm bones, even though the left ulna was half an inch shorter than the right. She thought to herself, I’ve never seen that before around here. I’ve never seen a ghost with a forearm shorter than the other.
She shook her head at the ghosts drifting across the room. “Sorry,” she told them. “I don’t believe it’s any of you. All your arms look completely normal to me.”
One of the ghosts made a pass at the pelvis. She picked it up and held it close to her. Black shadows leaked from it.
“This isn’t yours,” she told him.
He said, “It could be.”
“It’s a woman’s pelvis.”
“We have similar trauma.”
“What do you mean?”
“See that notch there?” He pointed a shaking finger. “On the coxal bone?”
“You’re learning.”
“It’s a fracture. And I bet I have one, too. I can take it.”
She put the pelvis back on the table. “Let me know when you can tell me where your trauma isn’t present. That’s the hard part.”
The ghost joined the others. And it wasn’t like she could see their full bodies. They were like the shapes you saw in the corner of your eye at night. A bit blurry and scary, but not very important. And every time the forensics team gave her bones, the ghosts started to move closer to the front of her vision, where the more principal things lay.
The Anthropologist took the light by its tether and swung it around. All the ghosts vanished.
The odorless smell of bones brought ghosts from all around town. The finite, static movement and being of the bones was so attractive to them. She found bones attractive, too. After all, this was her favorite place. Her metal table. Metal tools and brushes. Cold thermostat and no windows and the small smell of bleach. A clock that ticked with arms that never moved. A shadow moved just out of her eyes’ reach under the ticking clock. To be grounded by bones was to finally breathe, and die.
She watched the child ghosts play behind the metal tables as she ate her lunch. The children were never really interested in their bodies left behind. Certainly not interested in moving on. Stunned by the ability to fly, their imaginations left their real bodies behind.
She felt them gather in front of her. It made her head hurt.
“Will you play with us?” They asked her.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, I have a lot of work to do.”
The children stomped in disappointment and drifted away. Only the littlest girl stayed. The littlest girl was her favorite. She was in a bathing suit. Her hair still dripped all over the place, but the water never hit the floor. And she had the tiniest arms and the tiniest hands. She’d been around since the Anthropologist got the job, all those years ago—around since relatively forever, and dead for longer.
“Can I see the pelvis?” the little girl said.
“No, you’re too young to see it,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, it’s been through a lot. And what it’s been through has followed it here. So the pelvis, it’s bad now.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” the little girl whispered.
“Only if I can never tell anyone else,” she said.
“I know where my body is.”
Her heart pounded. “Is that so?”
“Guess where!”
“A lake?”
“No, silly! I don’t know how to swim! It’s in your pants. It’s in your pants!” The little girl laughed and laughed and laughed. The little girl flew away and then the Anthropologist cried and then pulled out her estimation tools. She felt dizzy. Time for the ribs.
Bones tell stories. They hold intangible memories. The way a finger pushes into the skin. Whatever the brain cannot hold, the bones store. The pelvis she ignored was the same as her own. She didn’t want anyone touching it. Tomorrow, she’d incinerate it for good. And whoever it belonged to, if she ever showed up, would thank her. Thank you, doctor. I never wanted it anyways. To be a ghost is better than to be a shadow.
She spoke into her recorder: “The skeletal remains of the case are consistent with being from a single human, specifically a woman possibly aged 20-35 years, with a stature estimated as 68.2, give or take 1.75 inches. There is no damage beyond typical weathering and possible bleaching.”
She plugged in her rib estimations and checked the missing persons list once more. And there the woman was, right there, in column seventy-three. A forearm shorter than the other. Listed as a critical identifier.
The Anthropologist shook her head. She did her cranium metric measurements and her non metric analysis and she took the skull and held it between her palms. “Hi Marie,” she whispered.
She felt the children approach and she swung the light away from them, so as not to hurt them. She stared at the little girl and put the skull down. Her head ached.
“Gather the others,” she told them. “This is Marie. And if Marie isn’t here by, well, let’s see, one o’ clock in the morning–”
“We’ll auction her!” they shouted in delight. And then they all flew away.
It was late. She slumped in her chair and drank her coffee. It was almost time.
If Marie claimed her body, no one else could have it. And how unfair would that be, when there are so many of those with no way of leaving, with no way of retrieving themselves? Bones in deep sand valleys. Bones across borders. Bones way deep underground in the wrong coffin. Incinerated. Cremated and made into necklaces and rings. And in tree roots and under houses and schools. Bones in lakes.
The little girl sat in her shadow.
There were some bones that shouldn’t be reclaimed by someone else, or given away. For example, Marie’s pelvis. Beautifully shaped. The hip bones were well yellowed and rounded, the ischial spaces shallow but smooth. A gorgeous butterfly.
But she saw the shadows leaking out of the pubic crest and the pubic arch. The wispy fingers curling up and around the hip bones. Shadows act very similarly to ghosts: they float and they follow you. But they cannot be reasoned with. They claimed the pelvis. To give that bone to a ghost would be to infect them with shadows, to ground them with an unfamiliar trauma forever. A ghost haunted.
She looked at the collection of finger bones. Those would be just fine. They were claimable, neutral bones, that anyone could have and make their own. She took the pelvis off the table and placed it on the highest cabinet shelf, where even the adult ghosts couldn’t reach. The older ghosts didn’t much like flying anymore, it reminded them of what they were. So it would be safe there, even if it was unsalted.
She went back to the table and picked up the left tiny ulna bone of the forearm. The littlest girl stared at her from the corner and shivered. The Anthropologist held it in front of her nose and squinted at it.
Marie stared at her from the corner. “That’s mine,” she said.
The Anthropologist swung the light.
As she turned the faucet on, the Pelvis-stealer from that morning stared back at her. The lights in the bathroom flickered on and off. She scrubbed her hands. The bathroom was always the worst place to be. She preferred the cold blue of the lab to the harsh yellow fluorescents.
“That little girl might not accept it,” he said. “The ulna bone.”
She rolled her eyes. “She’s barely a kid. I don’t think it’ll take that much convincing.”
“She wants to stay with you.”
“Well, she can’t. None of you are supposed to be here forever.”
She splashed some water on her face. She scrubbed her hands harder.
“Especially not me, right?” he asked. “Especially not me.”
“Hopefully you all leave. How’s that. Hopefully one day, I never have to see any of you again. Life would be much, much better that way. None of you belong here or should be here or should even want to fucking be here. I don’t even want to fucking be here.”
The little girl coughed. She spoke quietly from under the sink. “Your face is wet,” the little girl said. “Did you go swimming?”
The Anthropologist gripped the sides of the basin and groaned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”
The bathroom door pushed open and then closed. And now she really was alone. Even the mirror was empty.
When she went back into the lab, Marie was waiting for her.
“That little girl was quite angry,” Marie said. “What did you say to her?”
The Anthropologist leaned against the metal table and held onto the lamp. “Don’t make me swing this at you,” she said. “I’m really not in the mood.”
Marie said, “I’m surprised you got all the grit off me. I’m very clean.”
She said, “You’re welcome. Are you going to make this hard for me?”
“Kill the one to save the many, right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“And that’s why that little girl claimed my pelvis.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“That little girl. She flew right up there on that shelf and reached for it. And then she vanished like she was nothing, like she wasn’t ever anything. I’m a bit glad. That was a part of me I always wanted gone.” Marie shrugged her shoulders. “Anyways, I feel much lighter without it.”
The Anthropologist ran towards the cabinet and slapped her hand on the top of it. Her fingers searched for the pelvis. She grabbed the hip bone and pulled it down. But there was no life in it anymore. No shadows. It was dull and heavy.
The Anthropologist grabbed the ulna bone and ran out of the lab.
It was dark. She ran up and down the street. She wanted to call the little girl’s name, but she didn’t even know it, she never asked.
“I have something better for you!” she shouted into the night. “This one will feel better, I promise!”
But the little girl never showed. She walked up and down the street until morning, when she saw headlights impeding and approaching the dark from over the hill.
And when she went back to the lab, all the ghosts seemed to be waiting for her. All her clothes were wet from the rain. She dripped onto the floor and onto the tables and through transparent arms and legs.
She swung the light, but all the ghosts were already gone. She walked to the bathroom and cried in a stall. Held her stomach.
Marie watched her. Then went away.
Eliza Sullivan is currently a MFAW graduate student at The School of the Art Institute, Chicago. You can find more of her work at Grim & Gilded, and Soundings East Literary Magazine.
Photo by Engin Akyurt