The Boy in the Cemetery

by Sebastian Gregory

“I think I slept on the floor…ow…ow…” she replied as pins and needles prickled her skin.

  They both laughed as Carrie Anne danced from one foot to another.

  “It’s not funny,” she said in mock anger, which made her mother laugh even more. It was unusual and not unpleasant to see her smile. Carrie Anne couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother happy rather than making the pretence of happy. However, it fled as her father entered the room.

  “So we have time for games, do we?”

  “No dear we were just…”

  “Just wasting time when there is work to be done?” he said in a voice dripping with contempt.

  He fixed a stare on them both and held them in his disapproving dark gaze. Carrie Anne saw her mother shrink under that gaze as if somehow it took hold of her pride and squeezed. If only it was a gaze that did the same to Carrie Anne, but it took something far crueller. Then as if all was right with the world he brightened up with an awkward smile that looked like it didn’t belong on his face. Carrie Anne became all too aware that she was only wearing a nightie and felt embarrassed and exposed. Her cheeks flushed red and she squeezed her legs together in a tense squirm. Did his eyes flash over her?

  He’s watching you. He wants you,

  “I am going out. I need to organise a school and order furniture, inform the utilities. I cannot mess around all day like two lazy cows I can mention. Tell you what, when you are done how about you sort your new home out and stop being ungrateful.”

  He paused for a moment and then turned and left the room. Carrie Anne and her mother didn’t look at each other or speak until Father left the house.

  “He’s right, we should be grateful,” Mother softly but with a vague undertone of a wandering mind. “Get dressed and help me unpack.” She left Carrie Anne alone in the room.

  Carrie Anne took an outfit from her suitcase. She put on white socks and knickers and a bra without looking as she had no wish to see herself naked. She then chose a plain blue T-shirt and black leggings. She hated how she looked—more than the normal insecurities of a teenage girl, it was deeper; it made her gasp for air and panic. She caught sight of her pink flesh in the mirror and immediately turned her gaze away.

  When she found her mother in the kitchen there was toast and milk sitting on the table ready for her.

  “Eat up, love.”

  Carrie Anne did. Her mother had put on yellow rubber gloves and was scrubbing the kitchen surfaces with a cloth. The toast was pale and had too much butter that clumped together. It made Carrie Anne feel sick as she chewed the lukewarm bread.

  “Mum, I was thinking,” Carrie Anne said, approaching the subject carefully as she always did. Carrie Anne always felt so unsure of herself, so permanently nervous, so used to being controlled, that it was difficult to articulate her own wants. Had she always been this way? No. She remembered when life was an adventure and growing up was excitement. She often thought back to her seventh birthday. Blowing out candles on a pink frosted cake and her parents cheering. The memory came in slow motion and she saw the happiness on their faces as the sun came through a large window and reflected off a rainbow selection of balloons. She remembered that was the last time she had been truly happy. Shortly afterwards the wrongness that had twisted her father took control of him. Shortly after she learnt things no child should ever learn.

  “Yes?”

  “I was thinking maybe I could go out?”

  “Out?” There was a shrill surprise to her mother’s voice and more than a little nervousness.

  “Yeah, to explore and get to know the area?” Thoughts of herself exploring and meeting others made her nerves sweat. She knew when people saw her, they would know, know that she was different and somehow they would know her horrible secret and judge her or worse. But her parents, her father, would never let her go anywhere without his knowledge. Even the route to and from school was to be timed and never deviated from, otherwise there would be consequences.

  “I’m not sure, dear. Why?”

  “To meet others? Maybe not be so…withdrawn?” she lied, but it was a lie her mother happily accepted as truth, even if there was a hint of suspicion in her voice. She could be out and back before her father noticed. She had to see the cemetery; she had to explore. There was a hidden mystery about it. A welcome distraction from her own, soul-draining life. She had to see it.

  “I suppose, love, if that’s what you want. But you have to clean your room first.”

  “Deal,” she said, swallowing the last piece of toast and washing it away with the milk.

  Carrie Anne smiled and left the kitchen. She went straight to her room and unpacked the best she could and tidied her mattress. Carrie Anne’s anticipation tickled her stomach; she felt giddy as she hurried. She put on her trainers and black hooded fleece and was back in front of her mother in thirty minutes.

  “Really?” Mother asked.

  Carrie Anne nodded.

  “OK, don’t be too long and don’t go far; if you get lost then just call.” By call her mother meant shout for help as neither of her parents believed in the expense of mobile phones. Carrie Anne kissed her mother. Funny how a kiss meant affection to others, but to Carrie Anne her mother’s skin felt cold on her lips. She was numb to physical contact. If it wasn’t her mother, that numbness would have caused revulsion. Carrie Anne passed to leave, but when she did her mother caught her arm and held her.

  “What happened on the way here? Did you want to step under those cars?”

  Carrie Anne was caught off guard by the question. She faltered.

  Yes you wanted to die; tell your mother you wanted to die.

  “I don’t know what happened. I was just thinking and then I was there.”

  Her mother thought on this a moment. Her lips trembled like a bird with a broken back. She didn’t want to ask the question; she quivered as afraid of it.

  “Did you want to die?”

  “I’m not sure what I wanted.” Carrie Anne’s voice was deflated; she was aware of the scabs under her arm bandages. “I just didn’t want this, to feel this way.”

  Mother shook as if someone walked over her grave and chilled her spine. As she spoke she did it through gritted teeth in her sharp mouth. “And I do? You think this is the life I have chosen? Sometimes I wish I had never met your father. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a child. I know that makes me cruel, but I cannot stand what we have become; I can’t stand it.”

  As shocked as she was at the words, as horrified and lost, Carrie Anne only wanted to comfort her mother and she felt an overwhelming sense of guilt at her mother’s upset. She lay her tiny hand on her shoulder and spoke softly. “Everything will be OK, I promise, Mum. This is our fresh start.” Her mother’s body was shaking against Carrie Anne’s, and for a moment her mother stood and stared, then blinked, maybe unsure of what happened.

  “I’ll try harder,” promised Carrie Anne.

  “No more harming yourself?”

  “No, no more.”

  Carrie Anne left the room.

  Chapter Four

  Outside, the world smelt of wet grass and although it was still cloudy, the sun was big and yellow in the blue and grey sky. She walked through the back garden to the black railings. There was the longing to see more of the cemetery and there it was, only a few feet from the edge of the garden. The metal fence was taller than her, at least six foot. Carrie Anne was tall for her age, and somewhat awkward in her five foot eight inches or so, as if she was made of knees and elbows. The cruel spikes of the railings looked down upon her, tormenting her. Of course she didn’t truly believe she would find a way in from there but at least she hoped to spot another entrance so she could easily find a way through the streets. However, thick ropes of ivy and prickly thickets obscured her view. She sighed and kicked the dirt with her feet when she noticed the gap in the bottom of the railings. The dirt had been removed from under the metal that held the railings in place. There were deep grooves in the mud and it app
eared that small hands had scooped the dirt.. Carrie Anne realised this was unlikely and decided it would of have been a dog. She didn’t give it further thought as she crawled and squeezed through the gap. The metal scraped her back and the thickets scratched her skin, but as she stood in the cemetery grounds and covered in muck she felt proud at her achievement and more than willing to explore her prize.

  The cemetery was more than she could ever hope for. It seemed impossibly old and the gravestones she passed were green with moss. Some were so worn that the words themselves were weathered to mere sand on the stone. Not that many were visible through the grass that grew wild and unhindered. It burst from the old gravel path and was almost as tall as Carrie Anne herself. It swayed in the gentle wind that had blown like a gentle reminder of last night’s storm. She saw the stone crosses and headstones ornate, old and with vines pulling them down back to that dark earth, prisoners failing to escape the land of the dead. As she walked through the grass it rustled around her and she noticed she wasn’t alone. Spiders displayed silvery webs that collected globes of dew in the grass. In the trees that were heavy with the collected rain, magpies’ caws echoed to the air. It took Carrie Anne by surprise to see how much life resided here. Earwigs crawled upon a stone cherub. They hid in the angelic face as she walked by. Moss had turned the cherub’s features grey and green. The rain had left trails from its stone eyes, giving it the apperence of tears. The graves had not been tended to in decades and the only tributes left on them were wildflowers and twisting nettles. As she wandered, Carrie Anne ran her hand over the various gravestones. They were wet and cold to the touch and the moss stained her fingers with green slime. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger before smearing it on her jacket. As she walked further into the cemetery the knee-high grass left damp patches against her. However, her attention had been captured by a stone sculpture that sat apart from the rest.

  It was almost hidden by the grass growing around it, but the stone reflected the sun and caught Carrie Anne’s eye. For the stone was smooth marble, white, in an almost perfect condition. Which meant it had been overlooked by time and the elements, or someone had been taking great care to preserve the monument. Slowly and in awe she faced the statue. Over a rounded gravestone the purest white angel. Permanently, hands together in prayer, and wings wrapped around herself in comfort, the angel looked out with smooth white and wide eyes. Below the angel the epitaph read:

  Ester born 1857 died 1857 The Lord allowed her to fly before she could walk.

  A child, a baby girl, thought Carrie Anne and a profound sadness filled her chest and her eyes were overwhelmed by tears that ran down her cheeks. She remembered being a little girl, happy with all her life ahead of her. She remembered sitting on her father’s knee as he read from a book. She loved her father at this time; this was before, just before.

  “You look after her, don’t you?” she said to the angel. She leant forwards, kissed her own hand and lay it on the angel’s face. She smiled at the angel, through her tears, when her hairs prickled on her nape and she became aware of movement behind her. She couldn’t move as the sensation of eyes boring into the back of her neck was overwhelming.

  “Hello,” she said meekly. There was no reply, however the feeling of someone standing there, watching, studying, was tangible as it was unmistakable.

  “I am going to turn around now.”

  She took a deep breath and began to turn slowly, and as she heard the sound of rustling of grass and the patter of feet on the gravel. However, whatever had stood behind her had fled before she could catch aglimpse, leaving the grass bent and broken. Surely an animal then? A fox maybe? Something timid yet curious enough to sneak close behind her.

  What else could it have been? She felt foolish to have worried and decided to follow the path in the grass that her observer had left. She crept as the grass towered over her and for a moment she panicked as she thought that somehow she would be lost for ever. Thankfully she cleared the grass and once again it was at waist height and no longer choked the world.

  Carrie Anne stood in front of the church. Once a place of peace, time had rotted it to a worm-riddled skeleton. The stone flesh of the church.crumbled leaving gaping wounds where the exposed wooden frame had succumbed to fungus and corruption. Carrie Anne made her way through the large arched entrance that at one time held wooden doors but now housed only rusting hinges. Inside light poured into the shell of the church from huge tears in the roof and ceiling. Below, bird mess splattered over broken chairs and the rain-soaked floor. Dust and dirt floated lazily in the air like rancid snowflakes. She picked up a discarded bible; it was black leather and most of its pages had been devoured by fungi and smelt of damp. She leafed through the ank pages. One passage stood out amongst the others:

  Jesus called them unto him, and said, suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

  If this was God’s kingdom now, he had given up the throne as surely as she had suffered. She dropped the bible back to the floor. In the centre of the destruction a tree had grown through the flooring. It had pushed aside the floorboards and uprooted them into huge chunks, turning them into nothing but large kindle.

  The tree itself reached high to the fragmented ceiling and was a twisted black thing. It was bald and leafless and the bark was an oily black. But that was not even the strangest thing about the church tree. The floor creaked with a tired sound as Carrie Anne approached the trunk. Hanging from the every one of the brittle branches were the bones of animals. Tiny ribs and leg and tail bones. Skulls of rats, so many rats and cats and dogs and mice, voles and birds, all hanging by vines in weird decoration. Carrie Anne recognised them from schoolbooks but had never seen so many.. Each set of bones had been tied together by vine in an elaborate patterns and for what purpose Carrie Anne did not know.. That was until the wind blew through the church and the bones clashed together making chimes and whistle sounds, she realised some of the bones had been hollowed. It made a dead music that filled the air and once again Carrie Anne found herself fascinated until the wind died down and the music stopped. There came another sound that filled her with sickening dread. Carrie Anne gasped to hear her father calling her name.

  Once again he called her to the world, refusing to ever let her go. She left the church, fast hurrying as the bones once again played their grim tune. She took a moment to find her bearings before running in the direction of her house. The grass whipped at her as she ran as fast as the rough ground would allow. At one point, however, stone debris took her down and the waiting gravel bit into her palms and knees, instantly blooding them. Her father had been calling her name over and over again, taking any time away that Carrie Anne had to be upset by the pain. She was up and limped back to the black railings and crawled under and through the gap. Wincing, she was at the back door when it opened and her parents walked into the garden.

  “Christ,” her father exclaimed as he caught sight of Carrie Anne.

  She looked down at herself. Her trainers and clothes were muddied and wet. There was a hole in her leggings and bloodied skin was clearly visible.

  “Where have you been? Look at you,” gasped her mother.

  Carrie Anne tried to explain but her father cut her off; he held his hand up not wanting to hear what she said. “Do you think we are made of money? Do you think you can just go out and do what you like? With no thought for our burden? Of keeping you in clothes and food and a roof over your head? Do you think you can do what you wish without consequence

  Again she tried to answer but could only yelp as her father gripped her tight behind the back of her neck.

  “Let go of her, David.” There was pleading from what sounded like her mother’s voice but the grip made Carrie Anne’s ears ring and her eyes bloodshot.

  “She has to learn to respect us; she has to learn.”

  Carrie Anne was dragged into the house, crying, knocking into the kitchen wall, was pulled onto the stairs, haul
ed to the landing where Father kicked at the bathroom door, and Carrie Anne, bruised and sobbing, was dumped into the bath fully clothed. Before she could plead for reason, Father had the shower nozzle running hot water from the tap. It rained scorching water so hot it took her scream and she could only wheeze at what was happening. The pain was beyond belief and her skin felt like it was melting. If she died of shock it would be a mercy, anything to stop the pain.

  “You see what I have to do?” her father yelled. He emptied a bottle of shampoo on her; it stung her eyes and blurred her vision.

  “David, stop—” her mother pulled at him “—she’s learned her lesson; she’s learned.”

  He stopped, turning off the shower and dropping the nozzle. His shoulders laboured up and down as the anger in him subsided.

  Carrie Anne could only weep, too broken to speak.

  “Get her dressed,” Father said. Then to Carrie Anne: “You are grounded, young lady.”

  Afterwards Carrie Anne lay in her makeshift bed, staring at the wall. Between winces of pain her mother had helped her to change from soaking wet clothes to her nightgown. Her skin was red raw from the experience. There were tiny blisters forming along her shoulders where each scalding drop of water had hit her. Mother bathed them from a bowl of cold water.

  “Your father only wants what’s best for the family. He looks after us; we have to respect him.”

  “I know,” Carrie Anne replied automatically. The truth, however, was that the torment of her life, like consumption, was taking a toll on her sanity. Her very emotions were slipping away, draining as easily as life from a sliced wrist.

  Her father came into the room.

  “Leave her alone to think about her actions,” he said to his wife and then to Carrie Anne: “If you hadn’t acted so selfishly I would have told you my news. I have enrolled you in a school. Time for you to make new friends.”

  “Thank you,” she said, lost and alone

  She spent the day in her room, not moving. Every time she did so her skin stung, like it was made of bloodied sand paper. Mother entered the room and brought her lunch and later supper. The sun went and eventually Carrie Anne fellasleep but opened her eyes to the floorboards creaking in her room. The presence shocked her wide awake and she sat up with a pounding heart. It was her father in the dark and already he sat by her mattress. In the shadows his face was distorted and the moonlight from the window shone silver scars over his grim visage. He looked at her with dead black eyes that reflected the moon in dark orbs. He moved a hand to stoke her hair, except his hand was gone and replaced by a cold, pale tentacle lined with rows upon rows of barbed teeth. The thing had a mouth of its own and gave a tiny hiss against her forehead; the other snaked its way under the sheets to her thigh and as the cold thing touched her she screamed and screamed herself awake. Carrie Anne searched her room, wide-eyed, this way and that, refusing to believe she was alone as her imagination still had control; it made her again gasp for air. She felt overwhelmed with the urge to run; she had to be out somewhere, anywhere, but there was no safety for her and there would never be. She stood and held on to her windowsill, gasping before opening her blinds and window. The cold air instantly froze her skin but also soothed her by filling her lungs. Carrie Anne began to feel better at seeing the outside world; The claustrophobia, the feeling of being trapped, faded. And below she looked upon her cemetery to see eyes looking back at her. At first she mistook the figure for a gravestone as it stood motionless by one the rows of memorials. As the moonlight cleared the sky it reflected from the eyes staring at her; she caught its sight but as it realised the girl had spotted it, the shadow lurched as if broken and went deeper into the cemetery. It was gone; leaving Carrie Anne unsure what had just taken place. She rocked back on forth in her bed, alone in the dark and unable to sleep, questions spinning through her mind. Was she going mad? Was her observer created by a fractured imagination? Had she invented a distraction? She was now consumed by thoughts of the graveyard and the secrets the dead had hidden to be uncovered.