Cemeteries are lonely places for most people. But they're wrong. I find that the dead are quiet company, and better listeners than the living ever manage to be.
Helen Barker, 1881-1903. She Walked in Beauty, and Sleeps in Grace. A Rose Plucked too Soon.
I imagined her differently. Not a rose, but a briar. I saw her with eyes the color of thawing ice, hair pinned up tight to satisfy her father, but fingers constantly tracing that one lock of hair up front that she never wanted trained. She didnât die of grace; she died of suffocation. Of corsets and tea times and words swallowed until they choked her. I brushed the moss from her name, feeling a kinship with a girl who likely screamed only when the thunder could drown her out.
Samuel Trask, 1860-1912. His Ledger is Closed. His Debts are Paid. Gone to his Reward.
I wondered if that reward had been worth the price of admission. Or if he found out too late the gates weren't golden, but rusted iron like the fence that penned him in here. He sounded like a man who counted every handshake and copper coin, expecting a receipt from God. I bet he arrived at the pearly gates and asked to speak to the manager about the accommodations.
Mary Ellis, 1918-1945. Resting Where No Shadows Fall. She Waits No Longer for the Post.
A soldier's widow. I was sure of it. I pictured her not weeping, but dancingâbarefoot on the linoleum in a cold kitchen, spinning to a radio station that had gone off-air, clutching a telegram she refused to open. She didn't die of a broken heart. She died because she ran out of hope to feed it.
They weren't real to me in life. But here, they felt close.
That's why I came: for the closeness.
Out here, under this November 2nd night sky at 1:30 a.m., the cold didn't bite too hard under the maxi skirt I wore. The air held shivers in queue, releasing them in waves of tension and relief. It was the kind of cold that doesnât just touch your skin; it seeps in and takes a comfortable seat in your bones. The thought of death felt less like an ending and more like a heavy blanket I could wrap into. The two married well.
The trees dropped their leaves like slow confetti, and when I crushed one under my boot, it cracked apart like old parchment. No place was safer than a place full of people who couldn't hurt you anymore. Not that most of them would in life anywayâŚ
The visit was later than usual. The energy had shifted with the season, and basking in it felt necessary. The dead seemed to wrestle and rattle awake now that All Saints' Day had passed, and missing a greeting from the beyond wasn't an option. Oh, the wait for a simple signâany single signâhad been long enough.
My footprints lived in the soil here. Creeper boot impressions proving my tread. I knew where the stones were slicked with frost and loose gravel, where the moss hid names on tombs, and where the trees knotted their roots around graves like they were guarding forgotten secrets. Iâd come here since the summer before last, always late after the sun set, always with a notebook.
Tonight was like the others at first. Under the full moonâs watch, I crouched under the crooked angel on the western knoll where there seemed to be less of a breeze for my candle lantern. My notebook waxed romantic about how the wind carried the unrequited requests and weeping from one grave to another, pulling epitaphs like Edgar Lee Masters for inspiration. My pen scratched until a sound stopped it.
Clink. A metal edge biting wood. Shovel on coffin.
I froze. The groundskeeper had warned me about graverobbers.
Thereâs a path down the hill that splits the knolls from the cedar grove, and through the bare trees, I saw movement. Lantern light that wasn't there before. A man bent over a half-dug grave, sleeves rolled high despite the cold. The dirt steamed where he tossed it.
A young lady stood next to him with her back to me. She was dressed in a heavy peacoat, and aside from the flickers of light caught in her hairpiece, I couldn't see more of her.
What a peculiar pair, I thought. I need to investigate closerâŚ
âBertram, I am bringing my mother now. If you wish to keep your tongue, youâll do your best to hold it in.â
Bertram started to talk and shovel at the same time. The lantern held by the lady burned with white smoke in the glass container. Hot wax dripped onto the frozen ground.
âMiss Alice, I don't mind doing this for the money, but I'm getting awfully curious.â
A ghastly hand erupted from the wax puddle on the ground. Bubbles popped with the hiss of escaping breath as the appendage grew a torso, then a head, rising from the tallow like a birthing calf. The lantern's faint light was enough to illuminate the core of the mannequin.
âSalutations, Alice. Bertram, if youâre curious, you may look now. Iâll tell you why your brow is wet and why I hunger for my claim tonight.â
She was like a photograph that had stepped out of its frame. All tallow and tannin, her edges had been drawn with the tail end of a wick. Her dress, still forming from the wax, was too fine for the dirt: dark gloves, long hem trailing. Alice placed a new candle in the lantern and lit it with a flint wheel lighter. The light filtered through the fully formed mannequin like burlap.
I stayed down, quietly breathing, pen clutched in my palm.
âMy husband took something with him that should never have touched his grave. A locket. Bronze. Oval. Inside, my likeness... our vow, everlasting. Unfortunately, he was a coward.â
The voice came from the wax womanâclear enough to carry, low but careful, each word pressed into the air like a seal for a letter between intimates.
The shovel paused. The man wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.
âCoward?â Bertram inquired.
âA thief of love. He hid a lock of another womanâs hair inside the locket. A Graham, a harlot, filth that tangled itself into my eternity. I could not cross. I could not rest. I am bound to walk this world in its shadow only.â
She stepped closer to the half-dug hole. Leaves broke under her boots, but the sound was⌠wrong. More like papers tearing.
Alice scowled sharply into the air. âAlder stained our family. His adultery on Elenor has led to our family's misfortune. Heâs the reason why our Heath family canât own any dirt, and the Grahams have taken everything from us.â
The manâs shovel rammed the last layer of dirt, and the coffinâs curved lid came into view. Damp wood gone black at the seams. He leaned on the handle, breathing hard. I took the opportunity to crawl a little closer.
Elenorâthe thing of waxâdidnât look at him. Her gaze was toward the ground, on the way the lanternâs light trembled over the grain of the coffin like it already knew what was inside.
âI called him once,â she said. âI was softer⌠more alive then. Thought a wifeâs voice might draw her husband to the earth the way it once drew him home from the fields. I lit candles. I prayed with both hands open. And when he came, he kept his eyes down and would not speak to me.â
She moved a gloved hand to her own ribs, pressing lightly, as if remembering a bruise that never healed.
âThat night, something in me rotted. Not all at once. Just a small piece, but it made a hollow. And hollows are never content to stay small. A small sacrifice for dabbling in these arts.â
The grave robber wedged the shovelâs edge under the lid, listening. I took a few more steps forward by the trunk of a fallen oak. I was close enough I could see into the grave plot now. My heart raced, my lungs wanted to jump from my chest, but I held my breath. I knew I couldnât make a sound now.
âThe second time, I thought I had learned more. I had read. I had studied. I had opened doors that would never be closed again. This time he came nearer. But his mouth was sewn shut with secrecy, and what I wanted from him lay behind stitches I could not cut. When he left me, the hollow grew, and the pain with it. Not sharp pain. Not something you can bite down against. His resistance told me everything. This was now⌠hunger. A hunger for something that doesnât exist in the living world. That is the pain that woke me. The pain that walks me here.â
The wood moaned with movement, waking up after a century of slumber. The iron nails gave way. The man lifted half of the lid.
The womanâs voice lowered, each word slower than the last.
âThe third time, I knew what it would cost me. Blood on the altar. The last breath of something personal. I chose one of my own children to end my life. I couldn't sabotage any of them for my debt. I brought Alder up screaming. I kept him screaming. And with each word I tore from him, the hollow devoured more of my spirit. By the time he leaked me the truthâabout her, about the hairâthere was more absence in me than a ghost left inside. The hollow had teeth now. It ate and ate and was never full. My child ran from the house and never returned. I bound what was left of myself to this book. Iâve waited for an heir to reclaim my cause.â
She turned her eyes to Alice and back to the grave robber; her face stayed serene.
âBut now I have both the proof and the guide. Now I will unmake the bond. And the void will take what it wants from me when my work is finished, and the Heaths will be free from this curse.â
The man gave a grunt as the coffinâs lid slid free.
How is Bertram not absolutely transfixed on this? I thought. This couldnât have been more exciting. The romance, the betrayal, the revenge? If fear wasn't rooting me to the spot, I would have volunteered just to be a part of the scene.
âIt is there still, I know,â she said. âThe locket. The hair. Bring it to me.â
The box creaked fully open. The manâs hands were quick, business-like. I couldnât see the body inside, only the stiff glint of gold when he pulled the chain free. He held it out.
She didnât touch the chain as Bertram dropped the locket toward her hand. She grabbed the hair inside, and the locket fell with the chain to the ground.
âTonight,â she said, âit ends.â
Bertram spit at the disrespect of the gold.
Alice pulled a thin black book from under her coat. It looked older than the trees here. The air shifted. The cold went heavy. She flipped a quarter through the book and held the open spine towards Elenorâs waxy eyes to read.
Elenorâs voice changed when she spoke again, deepened and thickened. The words werenât English. They werenât anything Iâd heard in church. Latin, maybe, but chewed through with something older, harsher at the back of the throat.
Something moved at her feet.
A darker dark, pooling outwards from the ground as though something beneath was bleeding into the night. The pool swelled, thickened, and from it rose shapes that were not yet shapes: threads of smoke twisting upward, braiding together into the suggestion of legs.
Then bone. Not pure white, but bone as it looks when dug up after centuries. Stained gray and brown, pitted and weathered.
The legs held still, quivering slightly, and above them, the smoke coiled tighter until a ribcage took form. The ribs flexed, but there was no breath. No heart.
A neck unspooled from the darkness, long and lean, sinew knitting over it in flickers, as if the creature were being drawn in quick, jagged lines.
First the jaw, sharp and narrow. Then the ears... torn, notched. Finally the horn emerged, not from the forehead, but from the shadow of its brow, thrusting forward like a spear. It wasnât spiral and clean like storybooks. It was ridged, uneven, each ridge catching what little lantern light there was and swallowing it whole.
The mane was the only thing that moved freely... long strands of smoke that drifted even when there was no wind, curling in slow spirals before vanishing.
Its body had no color. No sheen. It was made of every shade between white and black, bleeding into each other like ink in water. Looking at it too long made my eyes ache, as though they couldnât decide where the edges were.
And the eyes. I canât forget those deep sockets.
They werenât bright. They werenât dull. They were voids that seemed to lean toward you even when the head was still. Staring into them felt like leaning too far over a railing, as if they might pull you down into whatever pit they belonged to.
âHe is not yours to see, Bertram,â Alice said, waving her hand to break him out of his staring. âItâs rude, and not out of the question to seek additional blood as payment.â
It stood beside the women without moving. The grave robber didnât dare meet its gaze, keeping his head down and his hat even lower on his brow.
From Aliceâs coat, Elenor took a small pouch and held it to the beastâs lips. The coins inside clinked mechanically down its throat after they entered into the creature's mouth. It swallowed ten.
A plume of shadow astride the beast grew atop the skeletal horse. His armor was black as a soaked gravestone, every plate shaped to follow muscle and bone. No head and no mouth to speak. He waited with one hand on the reins and the other open.
Elenor placed the lock of hair into that hand.
No words passed between them.
The horse turned, walking first, then trotting, then galloping. Faster and faster until it ran straight into the thick trunk of a standing oak and vanished.
Elenor laughed once, sharp. She reached out for Aliceâs hand, but slumped into herself as the wax body collapsed. The ground underneath seemed to absorb the puddle as she deteriorated.
Alice handed a small leather pouch to the grave robber.
âTake what else you wish,â she said. âAlderâs body and grave belongings are yours now.â
She walked away into the cedar thicket with the lantern, her glow fading with each step.
The man stood by the open coffin, pocketing something small and metal.
I hadnât moved for a while. My knees ached from crouching and my lungs ached from holding the frozen air.
When I finally let it out, it came as a coughâsudden, loud in the silence.
The manâs head snapped toward me.
âHey,â he called into the dark as he revealed a gun from his pocket.
âI know youâre out there.â
