vanilla perfume . We stepped out into the feeble light .
In the daytime it would have been a nice place to walk , but the night gave a sinister quality to the large green spaces between the lines of graves ; it was impossible not to imagine the stiff , silent bodies underneath , deaf to the footsteps overhead . John Woods . William Young . Elizabeth Mary , wife of the above .
“ Let ’ s play ‘ would you rather ’,” said Candice . “ Would you rather be cremated alive or buried alive ?”
“ Buried ,” said George .
I thought for a moment . “ Cremated .”
George scoffed . “ Trust me , you wouldn ’ t . Do you have any idea what happens to the body when you ’ re burned alive ?”
I shrugged . He grabbed my shoulder to get in closer , so he could whisper the gory details into my ear . I flushed at the attention .
Cherry Dicko
78
“ Your fat fries . Your muscles shrink . Your skin shrinks . The skin on your neck can shrink so much that it strangles you .”
“ It would be over quickly .”
“ Yes , I suppose so . Your nerve endings would burn pretty fast . After that , you wouldn ’ t feel anything .”
“ I know .”
I willed his eyes to linger on me like they did on Candice , but he bored of me quickly , and drifted ahead with her . He told her how Aztecs used to burn people alive as sacrifices to the sun god , and she listened , touched his arm , expressed marvel at the scope of his knowledge . I wasn ’ t accustomed to looking at women the way I looked at Candy . I felt like a thief , glancing when she looked away , stealing a slice of neck , wrist , shoulder-blade . I wasn ’ t sure how much of what I felt was envy . The longer I looked , the more incandescent she looked , her bottle-red hair taking on an unearthly glow under the streetlights . As she walked among the headstones , she looked like