“Well, I am. And I can tell you that if there’s no heartbeat, there’s no chance of a person being alive except for a very unusual situation such as a child falling into a frozen pond. I don’t see any children who fell into a frozen pond here, do you?”

“I know this sounds crazy, but—”

Two men pick up a woman wearily and shuffle over to a shallow grave.

“No!” I cry out. That could have been me. Everybody thought I was dead for a while, and if circumstances had been different, they might have dumped me in a hole and buried me alive while I watched, paralyzed but totally aware.

I run over and stand between the men and the hole. “Don’t do this.”

“Leave us alone.” The older man doesn’t even look at me as he grimly carries the victim.

“She could be alive.”

“My wife is dead.” His voice breaks.

“Listen to me. There’s a chance she’s alive.”

“Can’t you give us some peace?” He glares at me out of the corners of his eyes. “My wife is dead.” Tears stream from his red-rimmed eyes. “And she’ll stay dead.”

“She can probably hear you right now.”

The man’s face turns red, making it painful to look at him. “She’ll never come back. And if she does, then she won’t be our Mary. It’ll be some abomination.” He points to a woman standing alone by a tree. “Like her.”

The woman looks fragile, lost, and alone. Even with the brown scarf wrapped around her head and the gloves on her hands, I recognize the shriveled face of Clara, the woman who climbed out of the ruins of the aerie. She wears a dull-colored coat that whispers her desire not to be noticed. I’m guessing people haven’t exactly been welcoming.

She hugs herself as if clinging to the husband and children she longs to find. All she wanted was to find her family.

Mary’s family drags her paralyzed body into the shallow grave.

“You can’t do this,” I say. “She’s fully aware. She knows she’s being buried alive.”

The younger guy asks, “Dad, do you think—”

“Your mother is dead, Son. She was a decent human being and she’ll have a decent burial.” He picks up his shovel.

I grab his arm.

“Get away from me!” He shakes me off, trembling in fury. “Just because you don’t have the decency to do what’s right for your family doesn’t mean you have any right to stop others from doing what’s right for theirs.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You should have put down your sister humanely and with love before strangers had to step in to try to do it for you.”

The older man takes the shovel full of dirt and throws it onto his wife in the hole.