MY FUNERAL IS EVERY TUESDAY

The Empty Plot

Chapter 7: The Empty Plot

My father was alive and sitting on my morgue table eating my protein bar.

That was the first weird thing.

The second weird thing was Elias hadn't let go of my hand for 20 minutes.

The third weird thing was the text.

_Thank you for breaking the loop. But you forgot one thing. Plot 9B is empty again. Someone has to fill it. See you next Tuesday at 9:02. - D.V._

D.V. Dave Vance. My father's initials. But my father was right here, alive, with a bandage on his head from 2015 that should have been healed 11 years ago but was still fresh and bleeding slightly.

"Bean, do you have water?" my father asked. He looked confused. Like a man who went to sleep in 2015 and woke up in 2026.

Hana burst into the morgue. She saw my father on the table and screamed. Then she saw me and Elias holding hands and screamed again, differently.

"Mara! The police are here! They said you kidnapped a corpse! And who is this man on the table? That's not our intake!"

Elias stepped in front of me. "Ma'am, this is Dave Vance. He is... he is Mara's father. He had an accident in 2015. He just... woke up."

Hana stared. "Mara, your father died when you were five. Your mother told me."

"My mother lied for 24 years," I said.

The police came in. Two officers. They looked at my father, at me, at the empty table where my 34-year-old corpse had been.

"Miss Quinn, we got a call about a missing body that walked out. And now we have a man who says he is Dave Vance, reported dead in 2015?"

My father stood up, wobbly. "Dead? I'm not dead. My daughter hit me with... I don't know, I fell. My head. Last thing I remember is 19-year-old Elara crying and... and two women who looked like her and a man with a shovel. I thought it was a dream."

One officer pulled me aside. "Miss, is this some kind of prank? We have a body missing."

I showed him the pink suitcase. It was now empty. No journals. No velvet box. No Nokia. Just an empty pink suitcase that smelled like my mother's closet.

"I can explain," I said, but I couldn't.

Because at that moment, outside the morgue window, in Greenfield Cemetery, plot 9B, which had cracked and fallen over at 9:04 AM, was now standing upright again.

Brand new. Polished black. But the name had changed.

It didn't say ELARA VANCE anymore.

It said:

ELIAS CROWE

1998 - 2026

TUESDAY 6

Elias Crowe. Elias's last name I never knew.

Tuesday 6.

I grabbed Elias's arm so hard he winced.

"Elias, what's your last name?"

He looked confused. "Crowe. Elias Crowe. Why?"

I pointed out the window.

He saw it. His face went white.

"No. No no no. The loop is supposed to be broken. You broke it at 9:02. You saved him."

My father, Dave, saw the gravestone too. He squinted. "Crowe? I knew a Crowe. Old man Crowe owned Greenfield before. He told me... he told me Greenfield charges one body per wish. One Tuesday per wish. If you break a wish without paying, it takes the next closest heart."

The next closest heart.

Who is the next closest heart to me?

Elias.

Elias who loved me for 31 years. Who remembered me when no one else did.

The pink suitcase, which was empty a second ago, was suddenly heavy again.

I opened it.

Inside, there was only one thing. A single black notebook. New. Not old. My handwriting, but fresh ink, still wet.

TUESDAY 6 - MARA 29 - THE PAYMENT

First page:

_You saved your father at 9:02. You cheated Tuesday. Tuesday wants payment. One body for one wish. Plot 9B is empty. Someone has to fill it by next Tuesday 9:02 AM or the loop restarts and you die again and Elias never existed._

_You have 7 days to choose who goes in plot 9B. Choose yourself, choose your father, or choose Elias._

_Or find the man who made Greenfield. Find Old Man Crowe. He lives under the oak tree. He is not dead. He is Tuesday._

_- Elara (60), last entry, dying_

Elara at 60 was dying. This was her last entry. She used her last strength to warn me.

I showed it to Elias. He read it fast.

"Old Man Crowe lives under the oak tree? I dug under that oak tree five times burying you. There is nothing under there."

"There is a root cellar," my father said suddenly, remembering. "When I was a kid, Greenfield had a root cellar under the big oak for storing bodies in winter before burial. Old man Crowe... he fell in there in 1972 and never came out. They said he died. But maybe..."

Maybe he became Tuesday.

The police were still talking to Hana. They hadn't seen the gravestone change. Only people who have looped can see Greenfield change, apparently.

"Elias," I whispered, "if plot 9B needs a body by next Tuesday, we have 7 days."

He nodded. "We find Old Man Crowe. We ask him to cancel the payment."

"And if he doesn't?"

He looked at my father's gravestone, then at his own new gravestone that said TUESDAY 6.

"If he doesn't, I will fill plot 9B."

"No!"

"Mara, I have lived 31 years in 8 days. I am tired. If one body has to go in, let it be me. You and your father can live."

My father, hearing this, stood up. "No. I should go in. I caused this. I came for the suitcase. I wanted money for your mother's chemo but I was also greedy. I pushed Elara first that day. She pushed me back. It was my fault."

Two men volunteering to die for me. One father who left, one gravedigger who stayed.

I closed the suitcase. The notebook inside stopped bleeding ink.

I looked out at plot 9B, at the gravestone that said ELIAS CROWE TUESDAY 6.

It was 9:15 AM on Tuesday. I was alive past 9:02 for the first time.

But I had 7 days until next Tuesday 9:02 AM.

7 days to find a man who has been living under an oak tree since 1972 and who is Tuesday itself.

I took Elias's hand and my father's hand.

"Come on. We dig."

We walked out of the morgue, past the police, past Hana shouting, straight into Greenfield Cemetery, to the big oak tree next to plot 9B.

The oak tree was humming. The same lullaby my mother hummed.

Under the roots, there was a wooden door I had never seen before. Covered in moss. With a fresh handprint in the mud. Small. Female. Size 7. My size.

Someone had opened it this morning at 9:02 AM.

Someone who is not me, not Elias, not my father.

Someone else is looping.

And she left the door open for me.

*End of Chapter 7*

---