A Graveyard Visible

by Steve Conoboy

  Just.

  11

  Beneath those soaring stars, each concerned only with its own bright journey, a boy slips into a sleep of twisting dreams, and a girl wakes in a tangled sweat, and a graveyard gets a little bit bigger. All the way out here, however, no one is looking.

  12

  He wakes, head-heavy, like his dreams had too much weight for his brain. The stars are gone, replaced by a mushy cloud soup that has spread across the sky. A revving engine: that’s what woke him. Father’s car pulls away. He’s got ready and left the house for work without bothering to check in on his son. Caleb has another day to himself, another day in which it will rain hard, like it does every day.

  Caleb struggles out of his cocoon, wondering how many of the neighbours across the street have spotted him sleeping on the garage roof, wondering why none of them care enough to say anything to Father. Perhaps they have, and have walked away baffled by his indifference. Perhaps.

  He drags himself and quilt back through the bedroom window, changes PJs for slack jeans and an Alkaline Trio hoodie, and heads straight out before the rains fall. That graveyard has had a whole night to grow, and he’s going to find out how much.

  What Caleb doesn’t realise is how much things are about to change.

  13

  She scrubs, elbow aching, willing the words to disappear. The paint is smudging, but putting up one hell of a resistance. It wants to stay on the headstone. It wants everyone to read what it says.

  MISHA THE CREEPER GOES WITH THE DEAD

  At least Granddad hasn’t seen it yet. This one, or the other two. It would upset him a lot. Anger is a hard rock in her heart, jagged and sore. Vic did this. Him, or one of his mates. Which is the same thing. Twice in twenty-four hours they’ve invaded. Her summer of peace is over, it seems. Vic has her squarely in his sights, and if doesn’t let up? She’ll have to do something about it.

  Eight says so.

  Her arm refuses to do any more without a break, and she relents. A couple of minutes won’t harm. Granddad’s off out to the supermarket doing the weekly shop. He’ll be gone a while. He finds the amount of choice overwhelming, and fascinating.

  She sits, looks to the sky from this vantage point halfway up the hill. Clouds are piling up on top of themselves, layer upon plump layer of dark grey bundles. It’ll come down in torrents today, muddy streams weaving through the graves. It means the day’s practical lesson will be even more of a chore, because Granddad won’t allow the elements to cause any delays. He always says the timetable is too tight to change, and her poor attention span over the last few nights isn’t helping. She refuses to use the phrase ‘it’s not fair’ because that’s the kind of whiney phrase she hears the other kids say, but the refusal doesn’t alter how she feels.

  It just isn’t fair.

  She shouldn’t have to clean this up. That arsehole Vic should.

  ‘I’ll bury you, Vic Sweet. One day I’ll bury you, and I’ll laugh while I’m doing it.’

  It’s a soothing thought.

  That boy again. He’s moving slowly along the southern railings. He’s stretching something. What is he up to? Misha’s feeling fiery, so today’s the day. She makes her way down the hill. The graffiti can wait a little while longer.

  14

  He has a rhythm going, a rocking version of a side-step that almost makes a game of counting the metres. A couple of cars have gone past, and he must have looked seriously weird to the drivers and passengers, but that doesn’t bother Caleb. People don’t tend to approach him anyway. They know they won’t get much in return.

  One hundred and five, one hundred and eight, one hundred…and the count stops. The girl is opposite him, staring at him through the railings.

  ‘You planning on decorating?’ she asks, and the next breath he catches is the wrong one, hitches raggedly in his pipes, so instead of answering her, Caleb gapes.

  He was right. He’s not equipped to deal with this. And she’s staring at him. She isn’t filling the silence. She’s letting it stretch out, pull itself thin, until it threatens to snap loudly. He has to say something. She’s got to speak, surely? But she’s not. She’s waiting and waiting for him to speak. Oh God, this is worse than he ever imagined it being! Why won’t anything happen? It’s not the silence that’s stretched and snapped, it’s the universe, and it’s done it at this hideous point, and this is all he will feel, this savage burn in his face, and it will never end because Time just broke along with all of everything. Burning up under the gaze of polished green eyes. What had she said to him? Something about decorating? His head’s all scrambled eggs. That doesn’t mean anything. Answer her! ‘No, I’m not decorating.’

  Cale’s own coolness amazes him. It is amazing that the ground doesn’t freeze beneath his feet.

  ‘Okay,’ says Misha, dragging the word out for longer than is necessary. ‘So you’ve got plenty to say for yourself.’

  If Caleb had ever bothered to imagine how this first conversation would play out, this would not have been one of the outcomes. He shrugs. She tilts her head forward. Only the slightest of tilts, but there’s something about it that asks, ‘Well?’ Words are required. ‘I’m busy,’ he says, using Father’s tone, the one that says no interruptions will be tolerated.

  Her dress is a mass of red pleats that swish as she takes two steps forward. ‘I know you’re busy not decorating. So what are you measuring up for?’

  He means to say, ‘School project’. That’s why he invented the cover story: to use it. Instead he says, ‘What do you care?’

  ‘I live here.’ It comes out like a challenge, and doesn’t it look like she’s egging him on?

  ‘And I’m not doing any harm.’

  ‘You’re always around here, Caleb.’

  Her use of his name is like an electro bolt down his veins. She uses it softly, despite the hard consonants. ‘Look, you’ve made me lose count. I’ve got to start again.’

  ‘So start again.’ Swish, swish, and she is up at the railings, and she’s very close for a girl who’s always watched him from a distance. ‘I could help you keep count.’

  ‘But you don’t even know what for.’

  She pushes a scrunch of hair from her vision. ‘You’re going to tell me what for.’ She turns and heads towards the gates. She’s coming out. The quick swish of her ruffles. The lively bounce of her hair.

  Caleb knows it would be rude to run away, but that definitely isn’t what stops him. He has a measurement to finish. He’s done one side, and needs to get this one done too, otherwise it’s time wasted and he’ll only have half a piece of evidence. But what’s he meant to tell the girl from the graveyard? Because it’s clear she’s not going to shut up and leave him alone.

  He could tell her to get stuffed. Simple. He could tell her

  that Vic Sweet plus two are metres away and locked in on her.

  Too late.

  She steps out onto the pavement and Vic catches her by the elbow-crook and spins her a half-turn backwards, spins hard. The railings clang as she bounces off them. Vic pins her upright before she drops, pushes his sneer close to her face. His two buddies stand at either shoulder, going into shield-mode automatically. The buddies laugh like they can’t believe their luck, but Vic says nothing. It looks like he’s squeezing her shoulders.

  They’re not big lads. But Vic has a reputation. And the three combined are bigger than Caleb.

  He didn’t ask her to come over.

  Vic pulls back a fist. He’s going to punch her in the face. A girl, in the face.

  Caleb’s voice is trapped at the bottom of his throat.

  The fist powers forward. It unfurls at the last instant, palm slapping into the railing by Misha’s ear. She flinches, couldn’t stop herself. The metallic shrill of the blow resonates down the road and up the hill and deep into the graveyard.

  The echo stretches.

  Vic’s laugh is a harsh hyena-bark. The other two copy the vicious noise and high-five each other.

/>   Caleb’s heart thunders so hard he might be sick.

  ‘I’d love to smash your face in, ghoul,’ sneers Vic. Then he leans in, whispers something Caleb can’t hear, and it must be pure poison instead of mere words, because Misha pulls as far away from him as she can.

  Why does he have to be here watching this? Why didn’t he wait until it rained before he came out?

  He’s not the right boy for this place and time.

  And great, now Vic’s looking directly at him. This is what it’s like under the bridge, in the shadows, with the troll. ‘You want to knock me out? You want to save the little ghoul? Come on over. Come on and take a shot.’

  Silence. Even the clouds have gathered to watch.

  Vic lets Misha go at last. At long, long last. ‘You’ve got nothing, have you? No balls. Didn’t think so. You just keep on looking; it’s all you’re good for.’ More hyena laughs. ‘You want to watch what we do to her next time? It’ll make your eyes bleed.’ There’s a desperation to the laughter now, a need to be heard enjoying the joke louder than the other boy. Vic starts walking, the other two fall in behind him. Caleb’s in their path. He steps to one side. The wrong side. Dipping a shoulder, Vic alters his course to bump solidly into Caleb. It’s Caleb’s turn to slam into the railings. ‘Out the way, hard man,’ growls Vic, and the trio bark and snark as they bundle away from the graveyard.

  Caleb closes his eyes, wishing his blazing cheeks would cool, telling himself to breathe normally. The first rain-flecks hit his face. He’s sure they hiss and steam on contact. It’s not only the rain he feels on his skin. It’s her eyes. The accusation. The expectation of an explanation. He’ll have to say something.

  Something. There must be something.

  Why should there be something? None of this is his fault. He hasn’t done anything.

  He hasn’t.

  He can’t look at her, and he’s got to see, so he looks.

  Misha is already back within the graveyard boundaries, away up the hill, swish, swish, swish. She’s gone, and Caleb’s on his own again.

  It was a short but unpleasant interruption that’s over now, that’s all. Just a little blip.

  He heads back to the beginning of this stretch of railing, and starts measuring again, counting the numbers loud in his head, loud and clear. The rhythm has gone.

  15

  The third set of results are recorded carefully in the jotter.

  316.4m x 343.8m

  This piece of evidence looks very convincing to Caleb. With only two sets in place, it had appeared that the only reason the measurements didn’t match was human error. Caleb thinks, though, that it is unlikely he’d make another error, one in which both sides were longer yet again.

  More measurements will back this conclusion up, he’s certain.

  It does mean he’ll have to return to the graveyard, though. The graveyard. Where she lives.

  Sinking into the sofa, staring at the conservatory roof as it is lashed with rain, he wonders why he’s bothered. So what if she lives there? Is that a good reason for him to stay away? They’ve barely shared a conversation. He doesn’t know her. He doesn’t owe her anything. He’s got an important project to complete. There is definitely something incredibly odd happening up there, and someone should be doing something about it.

  Caleb took the job, and he’ll see it through to the end. No matter what.

  Is the rain harder today than it was yesterday? He’s surrounded by noise like lentils pouring into tin cans. It’s good to listen to whilst warm and snug on cushions.

  Just because she lives there doesn’t give her any say on whether or not he can turn up. It’s a public place. And it’s not Caleb’s fault that she’s rubbed Vic Sweet up the wrong way. She did that all on her own. That girl has no right to give him accusing looks. That’s if she gave him any looks at all. It’s not as if he’d been able to turn his face towards her until she was already gone.

  No. Whether he saw it or not, she looked. It was a look that wondered how he’d been able to stand there and let it all happen.

  ‘If it’d been serious, I would’ve stepped in,’ he says. He intends his voice to sound low and meaningful, like an action hero, but instead it comes out small.

  The hard waves of rain distort the glass into folded plastic sheets. The world has blurred. This must be the last day of this weather. The clouds must be empty after this, wrung dry.

  His comics lie on the coffee table, sprawled and ignored. Caleb’s taste for adventure has been suppressed. He tosses the jotter to land on top of the pile, leaves his arm to swing off the side of the sofa.

  He doesn’t care what that Misha thinks. He’s spending a lot of time thinking that he doesn’t care what that Misha thinks. This is stupid. She’ll probably stay away from him now. No more awkward approaches, no more squirmy conversations. She hates him. She’ll stay away. So it’s kind of worked out for the best.

  This is like being inside of a giant’s eye, looking out while the tears fall.

  16

  Inside the hollow of the tree trunk, she is away from everything except the musty smell and the stream of drips, and neither of those bothers her much. The left arm of her dress is soaked, which doesn’t really matter. Her hem and ruffles are mud-clagged, and her dresses always end up like this before the day is done. It’s what washing machines were invented for.

  She sits within the emptied-out guts of the ancient oak and sucks a single strand of her hair, freshly plucked from her head. How sad that this is the best place for her on Planet Earth. Going home would mean listening to Granddad’s anger and pity, and it’s difficult to choose which is worse. The rants are long and circular. The pity reminds her that she’s a figure of hate. The rants are caused by her, whether indirectly or not. The pity says that her life will be like this forever.

  Can it really all be anger and misery from here onwards?

  The tree’s innards are cool and damp against her back. Her head taps a slow rhythm on the rotting wood. She’s been doing this for half an hour, and it’s starting to hurt.

  It’s hard to know what she was expecting of Caleb. She wasn’t stupid enough to think he was some kind of hero, was she? Then again, perhaps he is a hero, but no one ever said that heroes would help a creature like her.

  That draws a dry, sharp laugh from Misha. The boy’s no hero. Her misery had been nothing more than an unwelcome interruption for him. He’d stood by and waited for the business with Vic to end so he could get on with his strange and stupid task. Whether or not she’d been in danger didn’t matter. She’d been in the way. That’s why he never called her a name. Complete cold indifference. No interest at all. It’s almost as cruel as Vic’s threats of physical violence.

  Why does she care? He’s a stranger. Eight had been right as always. She wonders what Eight will make of today’s events. She’ll ask later.

  That’s if she ever decides to leave the shelter of this tree.

  17

  Up on the second highest of her bookshelves, at the end and resting against the wall, sits Eight. The small window, which is the only blemish on Eight’s smooth, spherical surface, fogs over as if it has been shook. When the fog clears, there is an answer to a question distantly asked.

  BURY HIM

  18

  Perched on the backrest of the park bench, which is still damp after the early departure of the rain, Caleb asks a question of Mickey Dee, one of three Mickeys that he knows, all in the same year at school. ‘You heard about anyone dying lately?’

  Scrawny Mickey Dee, doing keepy-ups, shrugs before an answer comes to him. ‘My granny did, like a month ago or two months ago, or something. She always had a ton of sweets in the kitchen drawer and I could help myself.’

  Caleb nods, although he’s sure that this isn’t the information he wants. ‘Anyone else? In the last few weeks maybe?’

  ‘Dunno,’ mumbles Mickey Dee. Then he brightens. ‘Someone been murdered?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe, but I don’t
know about it if they have.’

  ‘What you asking for then?’

  ‘Because it’s weird. There’s been three burials up on Daisy Hill in the last week, but no one round here’s got any idea who they were.’ It’s frustrating him. A little too much, perhaps. He wants to growl and bark and shake his fists at someone. Mickey Dee is the fifth kid he’s asked about this at the park. Kids are usually all ears when grown-ups talk about the big stuff like death, and kids love talking about grown-up secrets, but so far he’s turned up nothing. The forever-snotty Sam over on the swings has also lost a relative in the last few months, and one girl broke down in tears about her cat Jupiter, and that’s all.

  Mickey Dee drops the ball on the forty-third keepy-up. ‘Old people die all the time,’ he explains. ‘They get old, they die. You coming for a game?’

  He’s lost interest in Mickey Dee. ‘Not my kind of thing.’

  ‘Football’s everyone’s kind of thing,’ says the confused boy before running off to find someone with more sensible tastes.

  Caleb wonders if it’s worth asking anyone else. One or two kids are glancing at him warily. Word must be getting round that he’s asking weird stuff. Might as well knock it on the head. Perhaps he’ll ask Gramps about it next time he’s there, although there’s a chance that the old man will forward such discussions to Father. The only time Father ever listens to Gramps is when they talk about Caleb, graveyards and the dead.

  If Gramps is looking out of his window today he won’t see Caleb lurking near the graveyard. He’s giving this evening’s measurements a miss. He’ll do another one in the morning. No need to be so full-on about it.

  He clutches the tape measure in his pocket. The plastic is making his hand sweat.

  That crazy girl’s claimed the top of the fort as her own again, and she’s showing no sign of budging. He won’t be getting up there any time soon, so he jumps down off the bench and leaves the park.