by Steve Vernon
The sexton didn’t pause to see if she would make good on her threat; he stepped back and let her dig her grief out. The distraught mother set to digging. Once or twice the sexton made as if to help her, but she spurned his help, snarling at him like an angry mother wolf. Within twenty minutes she’d dug down far enough to come to her daughter’s coffin, the small, white, painted box that they’d buried three lots over.
Tamsen’s mother stared up at the sexton, dirt on her face and hands. The sexton could only shake his head in bewilderment. This went far beyond any mere prank. The entire grave had up and moved overnight.
“Shall I dig her up and place her back where she belongs?” he asked.
Tamsen’s mother shook her head.
“No sense in that. She’ll only get to wandering whenever the mood strikes her. She’s her father’s daughter.” She looked up towards the far-off hills. “Perhaps she’s even looking for him.”
So they let Tamsen lie, but she didn’t stay put for long, and she hasn’t yet.
The people of Wittenburg still talk about the wandering grave-stone that moves from place to place and is never where you expect it to be. They’ll tell you how people have sat up nights watching it, and sometime during the night between a blink and a nod the tombstone will move. They’ll tell you that some days you can’t even find it. You might think you see it, that small round white marble stone, and yet as you get closer, it seems to move or change shape or just fade away.
There’s some that’ll tell you about the phantom light that’s seen wandering the bogs and woodlands about the Wittenburg Hills, the ghost of Tamsen’s father, still wandering in search of his daughter. But none of them dare speak of the sounds you hear in the Wittenburg graveyard when the November wind is whispering soft and low through the fallen autumn leaves: the high-pitched giggle of a wandering girl and her soft, haunting call, “You can’t find me; you can’t find me.”
LAST WORDS
I’d been storytelling for hours, like I was caught in some kind of a spell. I looked up, and except for me and the old man, the upstairs of the Archives seemed empty.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve talked a spell,” I said.
Garnet nodded his head with a soft ghost of a smile.
“Now that’s a fine string of stories,” he said. “Fancy and imagination, a wink and a grin. A hint of magic and the merest bone of fact. Yes sir, you are a storyteller, and I take my hat off to you.”
He tipped his hat and bowed, and then the lights dimmed in the Archives. There was a soft flicker like a bit of heat lightning, and I felt a chill run barefoot across my soul.
The old man was gone.
“Sir?”
I looked over at at the voice calling me; it was the young clerk, whom I’d seen earlier, bustling by with a rack of books.
“The Archives are closing, sir. You can’t stay here. We’re shut-ting down for the night.”
“Of course,” I said, feeling all at sea. “I lost track of the time, talking to Garnet.”
“Who, sir?”
“Garnet —the old man who was up here. I was talking to him the whole day.”
“Yes, sir. You were here the whole day. I saw you several times, leaning on the map case, gazing off into nowhere. I figured you were thinking, or maybe just reading.”
“I was talking to Garnet.”
“You were alone, sir —alone all day.”
I looked around me. There was nothing but shadows and the shelves loaded with stories.
“Of course,” I said. “I was just daydreaming.”
We took the elevator down to the main floor. The woman was standing by her desk, eager to be off to a tavern or perhaps a Halloween movie.
I looked at the clerk one more time.
“Are you sure I was alone?” I asked.
“All alone, sir.”
I stepped out into the Halifax evening air, and they closed the door behind me. The wind whispered softly about me, sending a chill through my bones. I could hear the hush of traffic whisking past, the call of a distant seagull, and the laugh of an old man.
I found my way to an honest tavern, where I listened to a gui-tar, a tin whistle, and a bagpipe. They sang the old tunes, and a couple of fellows sat and talked with me of the day and the weather and the sports— nothing of consequence.
Just once, I thought I saw Garnet, sitting in the shadows and laughing at my confusion, but when I looked again, there was nothing but shadow and a mystery.