“Then you should probably hurry. The light goes quickly once the sun sets. And I’ve been told the cemetery attracts an unsavory element after dark.”
“The unsavory are everywhere if one knows where to look.” She gave me a sly smile as she looped her fingers through the strap of her bag. “Not to worry. I’ve come armed with more than a camera. I know how to take care of myself and I suspect you do, as well.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, dismayed by the notion of an armed Claire Bellefontaine. Suddenly, I found myself wishing for a more effective arsenal than the cell phone and pepper spray I kept in my pocket.
Was I in danger from her? After my conversation with Jonathan Devlin that morning, there could be no doubt that at least one member of the Congé knew about my gift. Who was to say he hadn’t shared his findings with his grandson’s fiancée? Maybe she had come here to observe me up close or to throw me off guard. Even if I were to believe our encounter at the restaurant had been a chance run-in, a second meeting in so short a time could only be deliberate.
“What do you think about this place?” she asked.
“The cemetery?” I studied her profile, searching for a hint of her true intentions. Her voice and mannerisms seemed open and friendly, but her eyes were cold and I could detect a hint of cruelty in her smile. One thing I knew for certain—I wouldn’t be turning my back on her. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but I’ve seen much worse.”
“I mean specifically the children’s section,” she said. “I call it the enchanted garden because it’s always so quiet back here and so lovely and cool beneath the trees. It’s like being a million miles from anywhere.”
I was all too aware of the remoteness. “Do you visit these graves often?”
“Not really, but when I was little, my nanny and I came every week. Pearlie had a thing for cemeteries. You would have liked her, I think. She was a peculiar woman, God rest her.”
“Is she buried here?” I inquired gently.
“Pearlie? No. She wanted to be with her husbands in the old Good Hope Cemetery down in Colleton County. It’s a very restful place. Maybe you’ve been there?” I shook my head and she fell silent as she glanced skyward. “Listen,” she said in a hushed tone. “Can you hear them?”
Something in her voice made me shiver as I turned my ear to the breeze, detecting the faintest of tinkles.
“The chimes are all over the cemetery, hidden high up in the treetops. When the wind blows just right, they sound like a pipe organ. Pearlie used to say they were the music of the ghosts.”
“They do sound ethereal,” I said, thinking of the murdered child’s spirit and the haunting melody that always seemed to preface her manifestation. Was she here now? I wondered. Glowering from the shadows as her rage continued to build? I didn’t see or sense her, but a tingle at my nape warned that twilight was coming and we might not be as alone as we seemed.
Claire Bellefontaine seemed oblivious to the sudden nip in the air. She said dreamily, “We used to drive out here after church. Pearlie had loved ones in a nearby cemetery, but she always insisted that we visit the enchanted garden before we went home. She said it was important that the babies knew they hadn’t been forgotten. I can still see her sitting over there in the grass reading aloud from a storybook while I gathered wildflowers for the graves.”
She had so perfectly described a scene from my own childhood that I wondered if she’d fabricated the memory in order to foster a kinship. How she had found out about my early days, I didn’t know, but if Jonathan Devlin could uncover my family’s darkest secret, I didn’t put anything past the Congé.
I mustered another benign smile as I wondered how best to extricate myself from Claire Bellefontaine’s company. She seemed in no hurry to get to her photography, leading me to wonder again about the real reason for her visit. Engaging her in conversation might be the best way to protect myself. At least I could keep an eye on her while we talked.
“Sounds like a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon,” I said.
She nodded, giving no hint that she was aware of my internal machinations. “For the most part it was. I adored Pearlie and I loved spending time with her. I felt closer to her than just about anyone, except perhaps for my brother. But I didn’t share her fascination for the dead. This place...” She paused as she gripped one of the wrought-iron pikes. “Sometimes after we left, I’d fall into a deep funk. It seemed so unbearably sad that the children were buried so far away from their families, isolated and alone, locked inside this fence. I was afraid the same fate awaited me even though Pearlie assured me that when my time came, I’d be placed in a vault in the Bellefontaine mausoleum in Magnolia Cemetery. Amazingly, this did not comfort me,” she said with a soft laugh.
Despite her air of aloofness, she had a way of drawing one into her orbit. Like a spider, I thought. Or the beguiling Venus flytrap. “It does seem sad and there is a sense of isolation back here, but the burials were probably a matter of practicality. If no family plot was available or the means to buy one, parents were offered an affordable alternative, which had the added benefit of saving space in the main cemetery.”
“But that’s even sadder. That the burial of a child would come down to a matter of economics.”
Spoken like a woman who had never had to worry about her next couture gown, let alone the feeding and clothing of a family. “Cemeteries have the same hierarchy as the living world. That’s just the way it is.”
She gave me a quick scrutiny as she tucked back her hair. “You certainly know your business. I admire passion in one’s work. It’s a rare thing these days to find a calling.” She paused. “So now that you’ve explained the purpose of the enchanted garden, perhaps you could also enlighten me as to why all the gravestones are so similar. I’ve always wondered.”
“I can only give you a guess. At one time, there may have been a benefactor, someone who took it upon himself or herself to provide headstones for children of the less fortunate. I can tell you that the open cockleshell design was very popular from the late eighteen hundreds all the way up to the Second World War. The Victorians, in particular, were fond of death as fantasy motifs.”
“Death as fantasy?”
“A seashell large enough to shelter a sleeping child is a fantasy image, one that softens the hard reality of death. Some historians believe that the popularity in whimsical cemetery art in the nineteenth century corresponded to the rise of illustrated storybooks—Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter and so on.” I nodded toward the fanciful headstones. “This style in particular became so fashionable that it could even be acquired through mail-order catalogues. In cemetery jargon, it’s sometimes referred to as babies on the half shell, but I’ve never liked the term.”
“It does sound a bit too frivolous.” She closed her eyes as if listening to the distant melody of the wind chimes. “May I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
Her eyes were still closed, her lips curled in a slight smile. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
I didn’t outwardly react. I’d spent my whole life hiding behind cemetery gates and a placid demeanor. And since my encounter with Jonathan Devlin that morning, a part of me had been waiting and preparing for the next shoe to drop. So, no, I didn’t react, but my every instinct warned that we were entering dangerous territory.
“Doesn’t everyone?” I said lightly.
She gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re teasing me, but it was a serious question. I’d love an honest answer from someone in your line of work. If ever a place could be haunted, surely it would be one of the abandoned cemeteries that you restore.”
“The only thing to fear in most cemeteries is the human element I warned you about earlier.”
She smiled—knowingly, I thought—before glancing back up into the treetops. “I’ve always wonder
ed about Woodbine. Even as a child, I sensed... I don’t know...a restive air. Maybe it was only my imagination. Pearlie did love to fill my head with the folklore and wives’ tales from her own childhood. Still, this cemetery has a history, not all of it seemly.”
I could certainly understand why the ghosts of those in the unnamed graves might be restless. “To answer your question, I don’t not believe,” I said carefully. “But I think most hauntings can be logically explained with a proper investigation.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that. I’m not sure I want to believe that.” She watched me in the same way that Jonathan Devlin had observed me that morning and I felt more strongly than ever that I was somehow being taunted or tested.
“Why not?” I asked, still in that colorless tone.
She turned back to the fence, her gaze moving aimlessly over the tiny graves. Now it was I who watched her. At the restaurant, I had thought her complexion flawless, but I found myself zeroing in on a tiny birthmark at the corner of her mouth and a sliver of a scar along her jawline. She wore a lighter shade of lipstick than the night before, but I could detect a note of the same perfume, a faint trace of sandalwood that reminded me of the cedars at the front of the cemetery. The woodsy scent conjured an image of a coffin, which I did not take as a good sign.
“I’ve never seen a ghost,” she finally said. “As frightening as I would probably find such an encounter, I’d like to think there are things in this world that can’t be explained away with a proper investigation.” The exaggerated enunciation of my words seemed to mock me. “How much more thrilling it would be if we could experience life beyond our five senses.”
Thrilling? She had no idea. Then again, maybe she did. Maybe she was one of the Congé whose sensitivity to the unseen world made her particularly dangerous to people like me.
“I’ve never really given the matter much thought,” I said.
“I find that hard to believe. Surely you must have seen and heard things in some of your old cemeteries. Things you can’t explain no matter how deeply you investigate.”
“People have the wrong idea about cemeteries. They’re built for the living, not the dead. If ghosts do exist, I think they are much more likely to attach themselves to people than places.”
“An interesting thought,” she said.
I didn’t want to appear overly eager to change the subject, so I turned to glance back into the cemetery, letting my gaze travel leisurely over the headstones and monuments, perhaps searching unconsciously for traces of a manifestation now that the sun dipped beneath the horizon. There was still a lot of light in Woodbine, but dusk seemed to steal in from all the remote corners.
“You’re right about one thing,” I said. “This cemetery does have a fascinating history. You mentioned last night that you have family here.”
“Two maiden aunts, Claire and Sybilla. Both died many years ago, long before I was born. I was named after them and so I’ve always felt an affinity. But the cemetery looks so completely different from the way I remember it, I’m not sure I would be able to find their graves now.” She gazed around. “I had no idea this place had fallen into such a sad state.”
I said in surprise, “You didn’t visit before you awarded the contract?”
“There wasn’t time. I was out of town when the donation came in, and the board had to contend with a deadline. We’re fortunate you had an opening in your schedule so that we didn’t have to forfeit the contribution.”
I thought about Prosper Lamb’s suggestion that a guilty conscience was likely the catalyst behind the Woodbine restoration. “I guess it’s lucky for all of us, then, that my next job was postponed.”
Her voice sharpened infinitesimally as she lifted a brow. “Is a postponement unusual?”
“Not really. Projects get delayed for any number of reasons. Why? You seem concerned.”
She hesitated. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything. I don’t want to alarm you.”
But, of course, that was exactly what she had done. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t entirely forthright with you at the restaurant last night.”
My apprehension deepened. “No?”
“I failed to mention that the donation was anonymous.”
“Is that important?”
She shrugged. “Probably not. But in addition to a deadline, the donation came with another stipulation. That you and only you be awarded the contract.”
I frowned. “But the project went out for bids. I submitted one.”
“The bidding was by invitation only and you were the only one who received a notice.”
I stared at her for a moment. “I don’t understand. Why go to all that trouble? Why not just hire me outright?”
“That I haven’t figured out yet. Maybe it was another way to ensure anonymity or maybe the donor thought you’d be more inclined to submit a competitive price if you thought others were vying for the contract. But let me make one thing clear. I didn’t misrepresent Rupert Shaw’s enthusiastic recommendation or the board’s unanimous approval. If your references and credentials hadn’t checked out, we were prepared to submit a counterproposal to the donor’s representative.”
“And you have no idea the donor’s identity?”
“None.”
I contemplated her revelation for a moment. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I felt guilty for all the subterfuge.”
“Is that why you came here today?”
“No, I really did want to see the cemetery one last time before the restoration. But finding you out here all alone and knowing how isolated this place is...” She trailed away. “I’m probably being overly cautious. I doubt there’s anything more than eccentricity behind the odd stipulations, but I wouldn’t feel right keeping you in the dark.”
I didn’t like the sound of any of this. I felt very much manipulated and set up. Until that moment, I hadn’t given the postponement of my previous project much thought. Delays and rescheduling came with the territory when one’s business depended on the capricious nature of weather and the bureaucratic slog through permits and red tape. Now doubt started to niggle as I wondered who might be pulling the strings.
One thing remained the same, though. I still didn’t trust Claire Bellefontaine.
“This is all very curious,” I said.
“I agree. And no one could blame you if you were to have second thoughts.”
Was that a hopeful note in her voice? After playing along with such an elaborate charade, was she trying to get rid of me for some reason? Did her family have secrets in Woodbine they wanted to keep hidden?
My imagination was getting ahead of me. I took a breath and said, “The circumstances of the contract are unusual, I’ll admit, but I see no reason we can’t proceed. That is what you and the rest of the board want, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. Her head tilted as if she were listening to the chimes, but I had a feeling her attention had strayed elsewhere. She said without inflection, “Someone’s coming.”
I whirled toward the path, expecting to find Prosper Lamb making his way toward us, but instead I spotted two men walking in single file through the graves. They were both tall and fit with the privileged, predatory bearing of those who had known their rightful place in the world since birth.
Hunters was my first panicky thought. Elite zealots from the Congé on a mission to rid the living world of the unnatural elements like me. What better place to trap me than at the back of an overgrown and abandoned cemetery?
A part of me acknowledged that I was jumping to some pretty incredulous conclusions, but something about this whole situation set off warning bells.
The alarms grew even louder as the men advanced and I recognized the one in the lead as Rance Duvall. Was that why I’d had such an unpleasant
reaction to his presence in the restaurant last night? Had my senses picked up a vibe or a tell that had alerted me of his true nature?
First an unexpected encounter with Jonathan Devlin in White Point Garden and then Claire Bellefontaine in Woodbine Cemetery. And now Rance Duvall. I felt cornered and I wanted nothing more than to bolt, but I was outnumbered and outgunned by at least one of the three.
I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting, but this was no happenstance gathering. How could it be? These people—members of a deadly faction—could be here for no other reason than to confront me. The cemetery was off the beaten path. No passing cars. No prying eyes. They could bury me in one of the graves and no one would be wiser.
At that moment, I would have welcomed the enigmatic caretaker’s presence so that I didn’t feel quite so alone. But no one was coming to my rescue. No one had my back.
Untying the jacket from around my waist, I pulled it on and slid my hands into the pockets so that the cell phone and pepper spray were within my grasp. Puny weapons, to be sure, but I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
As I inwardly braced myself for battle, a chilly breeze blew through the trees, raising goose bumps at my nape and stirring the wind chimes all through the cemetery. The faint strands of a familiar melody filtered down through the leaves as the scent of woodbine invaded my senses.
Fourteen
The ghost child was nearby—whether drawn by the coming twilight or by the two men approaching, I had no idea. Or perhaps Claire Bellefontaine’s visit to the cemetery had precipitated the manifestation. I couldn’t yet see the apparition, but I felt her all around me. Her presence was like an icy hand trailing down my back.
I glanced over my shoulder at the enchanted garden. Crimson clouds scuttled across the western horizon where the sun had gone down, but the cockleshell headstones were still bathed in a golden glow. In that fragile in-between light, the ghost child was nearly invisible.
The Awakening Page 11