MY FUNERAL IS EVERY TUESDAY

Breaking Tuesday

Chapter 9: Breaking Tuesday

The jars were screaming.

Not buzzing anymore. Screaming. Like 100 people all dying at 9:02 AM on a Tuesday.

MARGARET LEE - 1923

JOHN CROWE - 1952

DAVE VANCE - 2015

MARA QUINN - 2026

ELIAS CROWE - 2026

All empty. All screaming because they were supposed to be full and we cheated.

89-year-old me covered her ears. "Break it! Break your jar now! Before it opens 9B!"

Elias held my jar - MARA QUINN - 2026 - TUESDAY 9:02 AM (EMPTY) - out to me. His hands were solid again. Not fading.

My father, Dave, was trying to open the wooden door at the top of the stairs, but it wouldn't move. It was locked from the outside. By roots. Real roots were growing through the wood.

Greenfield was waking up.

I lifted the hammer. Rusty, heavy, older than me.

If I break my own death jar, I am telling a 100-year-old cemetery mouth that I refuse to die.

Nobody had ever refused.

I thought of my obituary. Page seven. My driver's license photo with bangs.

MARA QUINN 1997-2026 Died unexpectedly Tuesday, October 22nd, 9:00 AM.

They got the time wrong. It was always 9:02, not 9:00. Even the newspaper couldn't get my death right.

I smashed the hammer down.

The jar shattered.

Glass everywhere. But no blood. No body. Just air that smelled like cold coffee at 7:13 AM in the morgue, like formaldehyde and lemon cleaner, like Tuesday morning.

For one second, silence.

Then the earth shook.

Above us, through the root ceiling, we heard it. Plot 9B opening. Not like a grave being dug. Like a mouth opening.

And a voice. Deep. Old. Not human.

"WHO BROKE TUESDAY?"

89-year-old me fell to her knees. "It knows. It knows your name now."

The roots that locked the door suddenly pulled back. The door flew open.

Sunlight came down. But not 2026 sunlight. Green sunlight. Like light filtered through leaves that have been dead for 100 years.

"GO! Go up! Now!" 89-year-old me shouted. "It comes out at 9:02! You have 2 minutes!"

Elias grabbed me, my father grabbed the pink suitcase, and we ran up the 13 steps.

When we came out of the cellar, Greenfield Cemetery was not Greenfield anymore.

The oak tree was gone. Plot 9B was a hole. A huge hole, 10 feet deep, breathing. And standing in the hole was a man.

He was wearing Elias's black jacket. Elias's black gloves. Elias's boots. He had Elias's face, but older, like 89-year-old me is older. His eyes were not Elias's warm tired eyes. They were empty Tuesday eyes.

"I am Tuesday," he said, in Elias's voice but with 100 other voices underneath. "I am Greenfield. I am the first burial. I am Old Man Crowe who buried his wife alive here in 1902 because she wanted to leave him on a Tuesday. He buried her at 9:02. She wished to never die. So I was born. I grant wishes for a price. One death per wish."

He looked at me. "You wished this day never happened at 9:03 AM in 2015. Your price was your father. You buried him. You paid. But then you wished again. And again. And again. Five Tuesdays. Five wishes. You owe me five bodies, Elara Vance."

Five bodies.

My father. Me at 34. Me at 39. Me at 60. Me at 89.

Five Tuesdays.

"You broke your jar," Tuesday-Elias said. "So now I will take payment myself. I will take the closest heart. The one who remembered you for 31 years."

He looked at real Elias.

Real Elias stepped forward. "Take me then. I volunteer. I am Crowe by adoption. I am Vance by nothing but love. Take me and close."

Tuesday-Elias smiled with Elias's face. It was terrible.

"I don't want volunteer. I want owed."

He pointed at my father, Dave.

"Your father owes me. He was supposed to die in 2015. You saved him. Now he dies for real."

My father, Dave, fell to his knees, clutching his chest. Like a heart attack. At 9:02 AM.

9:02 AM. It was 9:02 AM right now.

I looked at my phone. 9:02 AM.

Tuesday had come exactly on time.

"NO!" I screamed and ran to my father. His pulse was fading. Same as how I die every Tuesday.

89-year-old me, who climbed out last, whispered, "There is one way to pay five bodies with one body. A willing Vance who never died before. A first death."

She looked at me.

Me at 29. First death. I have died five times but always in loop. In real world, I have never really died.

I have never paid.

I picked up the hammer, still bloody from my jar, and I walked to the edge of Plot 9B, to the hole that is Tuesday's mouth.

"Take me," I said. "I am Elara Vance. I am Mara Quinn. I am the wisher. I am blood of the first wife. I volunteer. Willingly. At 9:02 AM on Tuesday. Take me and close forever."

Tuesday-Elias, wearing Elias's face, looked surprised. In 100 years, nobody ever volunteered willingly. Everyone ran, like I ran for five Tuesdays.

"Say it properly," he said. "Say: I, Elara Vance, give my Tuesday."

I took a deep breath. The air smelled like rain and earth, like Elias's jacket.

"I, Elara Vance, give my Tuesday."

The hole breathed in.

Elias screamed, "MARA NO!"

My father, on the ground dying, grabbed my ankle. "Bean, don't!"

89-year-old me smiled, tears in her old eyes. "Finally. Tuesday 6 breaks."

Tuesday-Elias reached out a hand made of roots and dirt and grabbed my wrist, cold like the morgue gloves that first day.

He pulled.

I fell into Plot 9B.

Darkness. Earth. No air.

But I was not dead.

I was in the root cellar again, but now the jars were all full. Full of light.

MARGARET LEE - full.

JOHN CROWE - full.

DAVE VANCE - full, but alive, not dead.

MARA QUINN - full, with me inside, willing.

And outside, I could hear Elias digging.

He was burying me. For the sixth and last time. But this time, he was crying and saying, "I love you, Mara Quinn, I love you, Elara Vance, I love you, Bean."

And I could hear my father, alive, helping him, saying, "She saved us."

And I could hear 89-year-old me, fading, saying, "Loop closed."

I was in Plot 9B, willingly, at 9:02 AM on Tuesday.

And for the first time in six Tuesdays, the clock ticked to 9:03 AM and I was not afraid.

Because I finally paid.

But then, in the dark of the cellar, my phone buzzed one last time.

Text from UNKNOWN, but not D.V.

Text from: E.Q.

_Thank you for closing Tuesday. But Greenfield has a Wednesday. See you tomorrow at 9:02. - E.Q._

E.Q. Elara Quinn? Elias Quinn?

Who is E.Q.?

And why does Wednesday need a body too?

*End of Season 1*

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