Ghosts of Graveyards Past

by Laura Briggs

  “Not as much. I feel weak, a little dizzy—”

  “You should have another dose of the medicine.” Shifting her carefully onto the pillows, Mariah rose from the bed. “I will fetch some more tea—and your husband.”

  Mr. Kendrick met her in the hall, shuffling a little from the hours of weight on his weakened leg. “Is she—how is she?” he managed, searching her expression anxiously.

  “Come and see,” she told him.

  He crossed stiffly to the sickbed, pulling a chair alongside. His fingers reached to cradle those of his wife, lips mumbling words of comfort as he pressed their foreheads together. There was none of the usual hesitance between them, the trial seeming to bring them closer.

  “Will she be all right now?” he questioned, finding Mariah in the kitchen a few minutes later. A lamp burned on the table. Mr. Darrow sat tiredly in one of the chairs.

  “She must continue with the medicine,” Mariah told Mr. Kendrick, “and the tea is beneficial as well. I will leave you some green and black varieties, along with the ginger that soothed her tonight.”

  He nodded, hands splayed across the tabletop. “It is not over then. She could get worse.”

  “Possibly,” she admitted, stirring her cup of brew. “I will stay until she sleeps again. For tonight, at least, I think she is out of danger.”

  They left at first light, Mr. Darrow clutching the reins in grim silence. When they had gone almost half a mile like this, he spoke without looking at her. “Will the girl live?”

  “I don’t know.” She adjusted the doctor’s bag on her lap, the supplies clinking together inside. “Geneva has responded well to the medicine. That gives me hope, if nothing else.”

  She was hesitant to say more, troubled by the girl’s sudden downturn. Mere hours before she had seen her resting, her fever mild and seemingly under control. There was no way to predict such lapses, of course, but part of her felt responsible for the brush with death.

  Perhaps it was a turning point and meant only that the worst was behind them. Similar cases her father had dealt with were heavy on her mind, the instances of putrid fever she helped him to treat as a doctor-in-training. Her young hands had bathed brows and checked pulses between the long hours of bedside vigil.

  She let her head nod in motion with the buggy, eyes drifting open and shut to study the breaking day, until something outside the Hinkles’ cabin caused her to sit upright, breath coming sharp in her lungs. “Stop,” she said, grabbing Mr. Darrow’s arm. “Something’s happened.”

  Crouched on the steps, clad only in their night clothes, were five of the Hinkle children. This included the baby, who was wrapped in a shawl in his sister’s arms. Small cries from his mouth formed clouds in the morning air.

  Mariah climbed from the buggy before the wheels could roll to a full stop. Gathering her skirts, she ran towards the steps, seeing the door was already half-open despite the morning’s frost.

  “What happened?” she asked the children seated there. Not waiting to hear the answer their scared faces had already told her, she swept past them to the rooms inside.

  A low wailing sound filled the hall, quickening her steps and her heart, as well. She stopped numb at the bedroom door, gaze lighting on the two figures huddled inside.

  One of these was Nell, her shawl and nightgown poor comfort against the cabin’s chill. Her arms supported the shaky form of Mrs. Hinkle, the older woman’s face buried in the shawl as her fingers twisted and pulled its fabric in distress.

  The shape on the bed had been covered with a sheet, the black and white dog continuing to guard its master. Its paws were crossed protectively over the small form, head cocked to study Mariah with animal-like confusion.

  Tears the doctor held back from previous hours now spilled freely down her face. More burned against her eyelids when she tried to block out the scene, her face resting briefly against the door way. She could feel herself sinking under the weight of grief and exhaustion, frame sliding softly towards the floor. Slumped there, she stared emptily at the women across from her.

  November 12th 1862: Charley Hinkle died early this morning. I have listed bilious fever on the death certificate, as I was told he suffered the loss of fluids most heavily during his final hours. His fever grew worse and similar to that of Mrs. Kendrick’s. There was much confusion in his thoughts.

  None of his siblings appear to share these symptoms, but I dare not hope it remains that way. Already I have learned the entire Lesley household is infected, and a message has come from the Stroud family requesting medicine for a child with a fever.

  I fear we may be facing an epidemic.

  

  A cellphone’s jingle echoed off the walls of the historical society. Jenna silenced it, scooping up the medical journal as she moved into the hall.

  “Well?” her agent’s voice prompted. “This better be good, considering all those messages you left. Something about finding the next History Channel documentary?”

  When she had filled Joyce in on the details surrounding the town’s legend—and the real danger that worried its citizens’ lives—she sensed a startled silence on the other end. “There may be more,” she teased, “since I haven’t finished reading the doctor’s journal yet. Plus, Mrs. Maudell is going to show me some letters the soldier wrote from the battlefield.”

  “Perfect,” Joyce told her. “Any progress on the actual cemetery restoration?”

  She frowned, thinking of her last meeting with the headstone carver. The man’s abrupt good-bye still stung for reasons she couldn’t explain. “I’m about to head out to the cemetery now,” she said.

  Reluctant to abandon the doctor’s journal for another day, she wished the storm would last a little longer. Sunlight had already fractured the clouds, though, orange and gray painting an autumn sky above the town square.

  One quest postponed for another. The daybook would be here when she came back, while the headstones faded a little more with each passing thunderstorm, taking with them a part of the town’s past, secrets strange and wonderful to a historian’s eye.

  14

  Con’s fingers traced the stone’s familiar pattern, following the V-shape where it tapered to an arrow’s point. Drops of rain spattered the gray surface, smudging the dirt around the carvings. He brushed them aside to study the name inscribed below.

  Strange. He supposed the families around the spring must have been too poor to afford the average stone carver’s charge per letter policy. At least, that was the explanation he often heard for the lack of surnames and important dates on older headstones.

  “Charley,” he muttered, reading aloud the name on the headstone.

  “That was a victim of the curse,” a voice informed him. He recognized it even before he turned to see the history writer standing behind him.

  She wore the same coat and scarf from the day before, her curls partly hidden by a red beret. Instead of her usual knapsack, she carried a backpack and a heavy duffel bag, their contents clinking as she lowered them to the ground.

  “Cleaning supplies,” she explained. “I got permission from the county to start restoration on the headstones. Which pretty much means scrubbing off the grime, or as much of it as I can without causing damage.”

  “You mean further damage,” he said, with a glance to the scattered markers.

  She replied with a shrug, as if uncertain what to make of his presence in the ruined cemetery. Not fully trusting him, perhaps, considering the indifference he showed in their last meetings. It occurred to him she might even see him as a trespasser of sorts. After all, she had never invited him to visit the burial ground or even told him where to find it exactly. He wiped his hands, stepping away from the tomb with the Celtic engraving.

  “You probably need to get started,” he said. “If you want me to leave—”

  “Hey, it’s public land.” The glimmer of a smile told him she wasn’t entirely begrudging of his presence. Unzipping the duffel bag, she tossed him a spray
can. “If you stay, though, you’ll have to work. Agreed?”

  He nodded, holding their gaze long enough to see the expression soften a little in her eyes. The stare was broken when Jenna crouched beside her duffel bag, rooting through its contents.

  “So,” he began, shuffling the can awkwardly in his hands. “What’s this about a victim of the curse? Not that I believe it, of course, but it sort of stirred my curiosity.”

  “I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  She didn’t look at him as she spoke, making it hard to see whether she was joking or not. Golden hair fell across her face as she fished a jug of distilled water from the bag’s depths, curls that seemed as lively and unpredictable as her mood this morning.

  “It’s kind of like spoiling the end of a novel,” she continued. “You might not be able to keep it secret.”

  He caught something playful in her tone this time, making him bold enough to match it. “Who would I tell? All my customers are dead.”

  “That’s not exactly true, since someone has to commission their headstones. You’re part of this community, and something tells me they won’t enjoy having their favorite legend debunked after all this time.”

  “I’m not a native, remember?” He crouched beside her, for once closing the distance he usually preferred with other people. “There’s not a lot of love lost between myself and Sylvan Spring. If it weren’t for the masonry shop, they probably wouldn’t know I exist.”

  “Then you are a recluse.”

  Con’s face burned, the words like a slap despite the truth behind them. He realized she must have heard the gossip by now, the usual stories surrounding his tragic loss. Shreds of truth in every rumor, making it difficult to deny.

  “Sorry.” She handed him a plastic scraper from the tool kit, her touch a rush of warmth against his skin. “I shouldn’t have said that. It just puzzles me somehow—your living out here alone, no family or connections.”

  Questions flooded the gaze that quietly searched his. Not pity or ridicule, but a genuine interest that made him equally uncomfortable.

  Shifting back onto the leafy ground, he told her, “It’s not a big secret or anything. I like this place, these woods—” He nodded to the smoke rising above the tree line. “My farmhouse is one of the few original structures left in the county. Something worth preserving, you might say.”

  “That’s your specialty,” she pointed out. “Preserving things. It should really be you restoring the old cemetery. Or at least, leading the effort, since you’re the most qualified.”

  He paused over the answer, not wanting to hurt her with it. The fact he was too tired, too bogged down in work to tackle such a major project. And then the real reason: he didn’t like to make things personal, not when he had the luxury of shutting out even the most well-meaning of friends and strangers. “You’re the historian,” he said at last. “More than anything this place needs some identity, something to make people care about it. Unless that’s part of the secret you have to protect.”

  A flicker of resignation appeared in her eyes. Lifting the gallon of water, Jenna motioned for him to follow her towards a sycamore tree in the far corner of the graveyard.

  “This is the secret,” she told him, pointing to three headstones planted beneath its shadow. “Or part of it, anyway. One of these people—the one with the Celtic symbol on their grave—may have known the truth behind the town’s curse.”

  It was a flat marker, the carvings lined and cracked, compared to those of the marble headstones beside it. Mildew obscured part of the owner’s first name. As he watched, Jenna began to pour water over the residue.

  She worked a soft bristle brush through it, gradually revealing the letters carved beneath. A type he recognized as square cut, shaped from a flat headed chisel to spell the name MARIAH MOORE.

  “Who was she?” he asked, kneeling to study the beveled lines, simple yet beautiful somehow.

  “She was a doctor. The one who treated the sickness everyone thought was part of a curse. Or a punishment from God, if they believed in Him.”

  They sat beneath the tree’s sprawling branches, Jenna cleaning the stone as she caught him up on the knowledge gleaned from its owner’s writings. Fragments of everyday life from 1800s Sylvan Spring, the doctor’s narrative revealing more than the average medical records.

  “Dr. Moore was an outsider, but I think she truly cared about them. I get this sense of compassion between the lines, like she’s holding back emotions she can’t put into words.”

  “Probably she didn’t have much encouragement.” He leaned back against the sycamore, fingers brushing its gnarled root system. “A woman doctor was hardly the norm back then, and I’m guessing Sylvan Spring wasn’t too accepting of strangers, as it was.”

  “I got that impression.” Passing a sponge over the grime, she told him, “Someone like you might argue they haven’t changed much. Although you’re hardly an outsider if you’ve lived here for fifteen years.” Green eyes flicked hesitantly in his direction with this statement, as if she expected him to get angry or maybe walk away with the unwanted subject change. “You must have something else to tie you here,” she urged, her voice gentle. “Friends, a church family—”

  “I haven’t been to church in a while,” he admitted. Shame crept over his features in the form of a blush. Helpless to cover it, he let another confession slip out, saying, “My faith was sort of put on the back burner after Colleen died. Not because I’m angry or anything, just kind of…numb.”

  “But you still pray, I hope.” Her tone was more gentle concern than judgment as she met his gaze over the headstone. “You don’t have to be in church for that. He wants to hear from you no matter what.”

  “I try to,” he said. Resisting the urge to look away, he added, “It’s more automatic than anything. But it can lighten the load when I let it.”

  “Good,” she said. A more hesitant edge peppered the next words she spoke. “Can I ask how she died?”

  Somehow, the words tumbled from his mouth unchecked, voice rough with emotion. “A brain aneurysm. She just collapsed apparently, no warning except for something about a headache—” He broke off, raking a hand through his hair. “She died before the ambulance could get there, before anyone could help. The hospital said it was bleeding in her brain, that she never had a chance.”

  “So you weren’t there when it happened.” The words were little more than a whisper. Regret lined her face, the hint of tears in her glance. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I should be able to talk about it after two years.”

  She drew her legs up, letting her chin rest thoughtfully on her knees. “But you’re still in pain.”

  “There’s no expiration date on grief,” he said, an expression his former instructor was fond of using. “Mine has run the same course as most people’s, I guess. I visit Colleen’s grave, talk to her sometimes…it helps.”

  “I saw you there,” she said as if grasping something that puzzled her before. “My second day in town, when I visited the main cemetery. You were by this grave with an incredible ivy pattern.”

  “Plants were her livelihood,” he explained. “She co-ran the herb shop in town, but she grew all kinds in her private garden. English Ivy was her favorite—she wouldn’t let me trim the vine on our house until it started growing down the chimney.”

  The fact he had been the one to carve the headstone was something that went without saying. As did the ivy leaf’s symbolism for love beyond the grave, a coincidence that tore ragged sobs from his throat the first time he discovered it.

  A raven’s cry echoed harshly through the woods, startling him from the memory. Black wings cut the air as it flew from the branches in a nearby tree.

  “Look,” she said, pointing where it sailed down to one of the damaged headstones. Perching there, it turned a beady, inquisitive eye on them.

  “Would your Dr. Moore have seen that as an omen?” he wondered. Ha
lf-teasing, half-serious he looked at the symbol carved into the stone before them. “For someone who supposedly scorned the town’s superstition, she bore its stamp in death.”

  Jenna frowned. “I think she hated their fear. Maybe because it meant believing in something she couldn’t explain. Although, I think the idea of God’s existence troubled her more than she let on.”

  “You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he said. “Really immersed yourself in it.”

  A flush tinged her cheeks. “I tend to get emotionally involved in my research. Reading her private thoughts, it’s almost like I know her. Like she’s writing to me, like we’re sharing this whole strange experience together.” She paused, a look of discomfort replacing the burst of enthusiasm. “Too creepy?”

  Laughter was hardly a reflex action for Con these days, making him all the more surprised by the sound that worked past his lips as one hand rose to block it.

  Though she didn’t seem to mind at all, her mouth curving in response to his warmth.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Tombstone carvers have a higher threshold for the strange than most people.”

  “I guess that’s true. Most people would say I’m crazy, but you…” She trailed off, a confused look appearing on her face. Pushing herself up from the ground, she moved to examine another headstone, its surface stained green.

  “This moss is pretty entrenched.” She scraped a fingernail along the sediment, face angled away from his as she inspected it.

  On purpose, he supposed, their roles reversed as she seemed suddenly unsure of herself.

  Glancing back, she offered, “Want to start on one of the others? There’s over twenty more, some worse off than this stone.”

  He took the hint, feeling a breather was needed. Physically, they were too close at this moment for people who met just days ago. Con never trusted anyone this quickly, but he assumed this girl was used to forging impulsive connections. Part of the job even as someone who traveled in search of other people’s stories and lives.