by Keary Taylor
Something crunches underneath my boot. I look down to find a tiny skeleton, it’s head now only a pile of ash beneath my weight.
“What do you mean, not today?” I say, my voice not nearly loud enough for him to hear me. I hurry along, stepping through the door after him. We enter into a dark room. A wing stretches out to my left and right, a few windows giving sparse light to the dull scene. The man walks straight forward, pushing open a door, opening into the light rain.
He tromps down one step before reaching the level ground of a deck. A pergola stretches up around us and spans the space above our heads. Intense vines wind around the beams, the white and peeling paint hardly visible any longer. Brilliant green leaves and thorns are completely outshone by vibrant red buds.
Hundreds of roses climb the structure, reaching the roofline of the church, stretching out along the edge of the gutter, before racing down another length of the building.
“How…” I gape, turning in a circle, taking in every petal, overwhelmed by the scent of the roses, strong in the gentle drizzle. It’s February first. I don’t understand how these roses are alive. And flourishing.
The man walks over to a section of vines, the pruning sheers in his non-bleeding hand and begins clipping stems. Two, three, five.
“You said not today,” I say, taking one step forward, stuffing my hands into my pockets and hugging tight to my body to combat the chill. “It was a long drive out here. Please. I need your help.”
“You’ve trespassed into my home,” he says without looking up. He leans over, clipping some of the lower blooms, and his hair swings in front of his face, blocking it from my view. “I told you not today. I speak to the dead on my own schedule. You’ll have to come back at a time when I am more in the mood.”
“In the mood?” I question. Anger surges in my blood and I take three steps forward. “My fiancé is dead. I’ve driven two hours to come find you. You can speak to the dead. And you’re telling me to come back later, because you’re not in the mood?”
He gathers the roses, quite the armload at this point, and suddenly stands, pushing his hair out of his face. His eyes instantly darken, like a storm about to unleash. “Yes.”
He turns and takes a step off the deck, trekking through the rain-sodden grass, toward the little white gate that opens up into the graveyard.
When you experience pain, you’re numb for a while. Eventually, when you wake up, you realize all these people who care about you have been doing so many things to help you, bending over backwards, just to try and ease some of the agony.
Perhaps you get used to their kindness. Perhaps you just expect strangers to feel the same sympathy when you tell them what you’ve been through.
This isn’t the reaction I expected.
His anger. His bite.
His offhanded attitude about the love of my life being dead and gone.
Chapter Four
SULLY
The fawn follows me out into the graveyard. I step through the gate, veering to the left just slightly, and turn to watch her step into the puddle she didn’t know to look out for. A tiny satisfied smile crosses my lips as I look back in the direction I’m heading.
A total of one hundred twelve people rest in the ground here in Roselock. At least that’s how many gravestones mark the ground. I have little doubt there are more surprises resting elsewhere, but within the township’s borders. Not to mention the poor souls forever entombed in the mountainside.
I lay a rose on the grave of Lanna Perkins before moving on to Bernie and their daughter Penny. Next is the Revinski family and poor lonely Betty Simpson.
“Did you know all of these people?” the fawn asks as she quietly follows me. The rain picks up, enough to darken my shoulders and coat my hair.
“I do,” I answer her, despite my desire to make her disappear. A power I don’t apparently have.
“You do?” she questions of my odd-sounding reply. But maybe she isn’t completely dull, because she doesn’t question further when she takes a moment to piece together what I’ve said and the one fact she knows about me.
I move from batch to batch, leaving roses at some graves, while others remain empty. I move among the dead, the only company I’ve had in so long.
I try not to give the fawn’s presence a second thought, but she remains so close, so observant. I’ve not had another living presence around in so long, she’s impossible to ignore.
Careful not to let her know I’m observing in return, I take a sideways glance at her.
She looks to be a little younger than myself, maybe twenty-eight or so. She’s tiny, only coming up to my shoulder and thin as a bird. Boots rise up to her knees, a black button up coat drowning her tiny frame. Dark, nearly ebony-colored hair is done up in a loose bun at the crown of her head. Thick and rich.
High cheekbones accentuate a strong chin, and those too-big eyes. Soft lips, ready to spout a million questions.
The fawn is beautiful, there’s not a question about that.
But she shouldn’t have come here.
Yet, like all the others, I know I won’t be able to turn her away.
My curse is the one blessing I’ve ever been able to offer the world.
Looping through the graveyard, I last make my way to the southeast side, where the graveyard meets the tree line.
A rose for the little girl who lived too short. A rose for the woman who stayed, despite the curse. And a rose for the man who passed it on to me.
“Aaron Whitmore,” the fawn reads. “Marian Whitmore. Cheyenne Whitmore.”
She doesn’t say it, but I know she reaches the correct conclusions.
My entire family rests here in the ground. My baby sister. My mother who outlasted the rest but still went to an early grave, and my father who couldn’t escape his fate.
The clouds continue to darken, and the rain continues to pick up intensity and speed. The puddles form in the grass, the mud grows thinner. I look over my shoulder once, meeting the fawn’s eyes as the day grows darker and evening stretches over the sky.
She’s a pathetic sight now. Hair hanging in her eyes, shivers rocking her tiny body that offers her no padding or warmth.
I only tip my head in the direction of the door, and she immediately follows me without a word more of invitation.
Water drips all over the floor as we walk inside, though the wooden floor is so worn and old we can’t cause any more real damage than it’s already suffered. I cross the common room, to the wood-burning fireplace.
Crouching beside it, getting ash on my soaked jeans, I take another log round, and shove it into the roaring flames.
“You didn’t seem to think too highly of my invitation to leave,” I say as I push a second log into the fireplace.
“I can’t give up that easily.” I can almost hear her shake her head, imagine the way her big eyes widen just slightly.
I stay with one knee on the ground, my arms crossed over it, for a few moments. The exhaustion is already settling in, stealing everything I have inside of me, and we’ve not even begun.
“What is your name?”
“Iona,” she says quietly. I hear her take three steps closer to the heat. “Iona Faye.”
“Iona,” I whisper to myself, quiet enough I know she won’t hear me.
A perfect name for a fawn.
I climb to my feet once more, and without looking in her direction, I head toward the kitchen. “If you’re hungry, you can eat. If you’re cold, you can change. If you get tired, there are blankets in the basket next to the couch.”
An invitation I’ve never extended to another.
“I’m too tired tonight,” I say aloud, though it’s justification aimed at myself.
“Thank you,” she breathes, silently following behind me.
Chapter Five
IONA
Sully bends over the stove, working carefully and with absolute focus. I’m not stupid, it’s obvious he’s doing it in order to ignore my presence. He tak
es his time browning the meat. Chopping the carrots and celery. He mixes in the stock, stirring all of the ingredients into one pot. At last he sets the lid on top and walks away.
I stand off to the side, absolutely awkward and unsure what to do with myself. I watch as he walks into the room with an empty bucket, and a few moments later he walks out with another that’s completely filled with water. He opens the back door briefly and sloshes the water out and onto the deck.
I finally settle myself next to the fireplace, peeling off my coat, which is soaked through. I hang it over the back of a chair and stand on the hearth, the heat drying my backside first.
I should leave. I should return to my life in Ander. Go in to work tomorrow. Should call those friends who keep trying to get me to go out. Should call my sister back. There are a million things I should do instead of staying here in this abandoned township. Overnight. With a complete stranger who looks like a Viking ready to go out on a raid.
We miss you, the voices call from three months ago.
You never call anymore, Viola whispered to me as she glanced over my shoulder at him.
But I’m here because none of them understood. They’d never been lucky enough to find what I had. Had never found their perfect other half.
“Did you hear me?”
Sully’s deep voice rips me from my thoughts and my head jerks back in the direction of the kitchen.
“What?” I ask, my heart suddenly racing.
“I asked if you were alright?” His accusing eyes bore into me, even as he moves about his business of making dinner.
“I’m fine,” I say in a short clip. “Why?”
He doesn’t respond right away, just continues studying me with those intense eyes for a few moments. Finally, he looks at the bowl and the ladle he uses to fill it. “You went away for a few minutes.”
My lips part to defend myself, but only lies would have come out.
He’s very observant.
I did go away for a little while.
He makes a grunting noise and nods his head for me to come into the kitchen. I shiver the moment I step away from the heat of the stove, but obediently sit at the rickety table pushed up against a wall.
Sully sets a cracked and chipped bowl in front of me, followed by a slice of what looks to be homemade bread. He sets his own food out before settling into a chair that groans under his weight.
I’d guess Sully must be around six and a half feet tall.
A Goliath to my five-foot-four frame.
He soaks a huge chunk of the bread in the soup before shoving it into his mouth.
“You don’t say grace in the House of the Lord?” I question him, guilt riding up my spine quickly.
“No,” he answers curtly without looking up from his food.
Swallowing down the unease climbing up my throat, I grab my spoon and take a few wary bites.
Silence reigns in the church, yet suddenly I’m hyper-aware of so many different sounds. The ticking of a clock somewhere. The pounding of rain on the roof. The drips in the next room over, splashing into a bucket. The light slurp of the soup before it goes into Sully’s mouth.
But not a word from him.
And I’m too scared to speak. To demand he tell me how this works. To beg him to reach into the other side and find him for me.
In silence Sully finishes his meal. I take a few small bites here and there, pick at my bread more than eat it. My nerves are too high to consume much.
As soundless as ever, Sully cleans up from dinner, completely ignoring me when I offer to wash the dishes, placing them on a drying rack, while I silently sit at the table. He returns to the common room, where he stokes the fire. He locks the back door, and then the front. He blows out half the candles that are lit throughout the hall and room.
“Stay inside,” he says without fully looking at me. “Don’t go outside until…just don’t go outside. The blankets are there,” he points to a basket beside the couch. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” I mutter, though my mind is reeling, searching for a logical explanation as to why I shouldn’t go outside.
I’m about to open my mouth and ask when Sully shuts a door at the end of the east wing. I hear a lock click into place.
And suddenly I’m terrified.
Chapter Six
SULLY
“She’s obviously in a lot of pain,” Mother says as I rest my forehead against the heavy wooden door.
“They all are,” I mutter, squeezing the hairpin in my hand.
“I thought I taught you better manners, Sully,” she chides. “You were intentionally cruel to that poor girl.”
“I just want to be left alone.” I lift from the door and walk to the drawers, dropping the pin into one of them.
The rain picks up in intensity and the sound of dripping speeds up. Grabbing a bucket from the shelf by my bed, I place it under the growing puddle in the corner. I linger next to the window, straining my eyes to make out shapes in the darkness outside. Faint shadows sway back and forth, trees bending to the master of the wind. But the darkness outside is complete, the thick clouds blocking out even tiny hints of the moon or stars.
The candle lit on my bedside table flickers as a draft rushes through the room.
The church is falling apart around me. Within a year it will probably start caving in on itself.
But there will be no one left to be inconvenienced by it.
I pace back and forth, one hand rubbing over the opposite knuckles. I still now and then, my ears straining, listening for the fawn.
Iona.
But there’s only silence.
Though I doubt I’d hear anything from her. She’s light as a bird, she practically floats over the floor.
I watched her as she ate, or rather played with her food. She took a total of four bites of her soup, and one small nibble of her bread.
There’s a reason she’s so tiny.
I don’t remember settling on the bed, but suddenly I realize that I’m staring up at the ceiling. Sprawled on my back, my arms above my head, a mane of hair threatening to drown me.
Suddenly I’m so aware of how long it’s gotten. Halfway down my back, my beard a tangled web that touches my chest.
I don’t know that I’ve cut my hair or had a proper shave since I left Charleston nearly nine years ago.
I close my eyes, letting the past drag me under, taking me to a warm bed, a mound of blankets, and the summer breeze blowing through the window. Mile-long legs tangle with my own, blonde hair fanning out across my chest, smiling pink lips teasing every ounce of strength I possessed.
In memories of paradise and normalcy, I drift into the darkness of sleep.
Chapter Seven
IONA
Melodies of bliss and sorrow enter my consciousness. When I finally cross the line of awake and asleep into the world of the living, I find there are tears that have already saturated the pillow beneath my head.
Pulling myself into sitting position, I look around, disoriented, confused. The musty smell, the flickering candlelight throw me off balance. And the haunting music floating through the space displaces me all the further.
Pulling a blanket around my shoulders, I cautiously stand, looking around for a clock, and find one on the wall across from me.
4:23 AM.
I stared at that clock until somewhere around 1:30 before finally falling into an exhausted but restless sleep. It’s still essentially the dead of night. But those sounds. They shouldn’t be visiting my ears now, not at this hour.
I hesitate at the doors to the chapel, well recalling Sully’s words of warning.
Don’t go outside…
But he didn’t finish his warning.
I don’t know why I’m not supposed to leave the church. I won’t, not when it’s still this dark. But my curiosity…
That music. So sorrowful. So filled with pain.
Surely the player is no longer sitting at the organ in one solid piece.
Thi
s is a symphony of destruction.
Two more tears make their way down my cheek. Because this is a song I understand.
Placing my hand on the knob, I give it a twist and push.
The chapel is far brighter than it should be this time of day. A thousand candles are lit throughout the space. Along the walls, set in the broken windows. Scattered along random pews.
But most of them rest on candelabras just off to the sides of the organ.
Where Sully sits. His eyes closed, his hands rising, falling, running along the keys.
I don’t think he’s noticed me enter, the sound of the organ covered the alarming screech of the door opening. So I step inside, my socked feet padding soundlessly over the dirty floorboards. Hugging the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I sink into an empty spot on the second row of pews, and I listen.
Sully is talented. No. Brilliant. Gifted. No sheet music sits before him, but he doesn’t hesitate as he moves from one note to the next, pouring a lifetime of emotion into the notes. Rising and rising crescendos, and then devastating downfalls.
Lover’s love and lives are ruined in his music.
I let me eyes slide closed. It rushes over me in such a wave, I can’t fight it. I’m taken by the undercurrent, and tossed around to its will.
My insides quiver, more tears roll down my face, and every tiny bit of self-preservation I’ve managed to tape myself together with in the last two months fractures.
This is power. Sully’s gift is also my demise.
The symphony suddenly comes to an end, and when I open my eyes, seven long moments later, Sully is facing me. His eyes don’t meet mine, they stare at the floor somewhere along the bottom of the pew in the first row. His hands are clasped together in front of him, his shoulders slumped. He looks exhausted.
And it’s no surprise, considering the life he just poured into his music.