A Graveyard Visible

by Steve Conoboy

  For good.

  That sounds fine to her. Vic being gone really is good.

  Yet she can’t step back inside her tree. He’ll forever be here, pushing his way in, grabbing for her. That face, those hands, his stink. It’s a stink that’s all over this place.

  How can he be gone but still here?

  Hanging in the pillowcase she’s still holding, Eight answers. Eight answers all questions.

  90

  While she wanders around the outer edges of the graveyard, thinking about the boy, and thinking about ways to stop thinking about him, her grandfather is alone by a graveside, on his knees. He looks like a man mourning a loss so great it has punctured his heart and deflated him. A blue glow fades at his fingertips. Barely any sleep in four days, no recollection of when his last meal was, and he can’t remember the sigils he must hold in his mind, and he can’t concentrate on the notes he must hit, because he’s empty.

  Stephanie Parsons, 1964–1999 rests here, but she won’t be restful much longer. She’s next, in fact, and Granddad can’t stop it alone.

  There’s movement down there. Faint knocking.

  He would cry if he had the energy.

  91

  Nightmares wake him, and panic is electric in his chest as he finds his room is the wrong way round. The walls have shifted, his bed’s been spun, his wardrobe’s in the wrong corner. Father, the thing that’s in Father’s skin, it could come in here, could come in at any second and drag him from this wrong-room, and it will make him like Father, dead and not dead, trapped in a torturous in-between, and he’d never see Mum again, not on this side or the next and

  Gramps. He’s in Gramps’s house. This is his room in Gramps’s house. This is about as safe as things can get. No monsters in Father-skins, unless it has left the house and come hunting (and don’t think of that), no Crosswells because Crosswell knows nothing of Gramps, no Vic Sweet because…well, because.

  Although here in the first push of dawn, as deep blues take over from the dark, it occurs to Caleb that there is no reason to believe that Vic Sweet is gone for good. At least, not all of him. Neuman definitely isn’t gone for good. Neuman is very definitely still around. She’s killed four kids. Killed. Is that the right word? It tastes right, a metallic taste, a bone-white taste. Caleb saw Mickey amongst the trees, heard him, but that wasn’t the boy from school.

  THESE ARE REMAINS

  Mickey’s there in the trees. Father’s in the house. So Vic Sweet, the remains of him, are still out there.

  Is that better or worse than what they had?

  ONE QUESTION ONCE

  That ball. The one that told them to RUN RUN RUN. The one that knew. It answered Misha’s questions. It could answer his. He has a lot, and no answers.

  He hates that.

  He sits up in his bed. It’s way before early, and he’s never been up at such a time in years, and he likes the feel of it, like it’s too soon for anything to happen, bad or good. The day is stretching itself out, limbering up. There will be events later, happenings, occurrences. There will be awful things to face. For now it all waits. There are missing boys and an angry girl, and decisions, but for now it all waits.

  Caleb wishes it could all wait forever.

  92

  ‘Are you sure about this? It’s daylight. We don’t normally do this in daylight.’

  She fumbles a light-strand, looks at him like he just stood on her foot. ‘You were listening to what I told you, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Crosswell scans the cul-de-sac. It’s quarter past eight on a warm morning, and there’s nobody out in the street. There should at least be someone heading out to work in their car, or some early-bird kid punting a ball about, or a dog getting walked, or, or, or. ‘If anyone sees you making that, I’m walking away and leaving you to it. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘No one ever accused you of chivalry, did they?’

  ‘Accuse me of anything you like, just so long as you know I’m not stupid.’

  Morgan hums a note that should be steady, stretches a fragile filament of light, and eases it into the map floating between her hands. It is a tatty neon representation of this cul-de-sac. It shudders like a construction with poor foundations. It wants to fall apart. ‘Pack it in, you’re putting me off.’

  ‘Only looking,’ he says, neglecting to tell her that someone seems to be ‘only looking’ from a bedroom window, third house on the left. Crosswell can’t see them clearly through the blinds…but he can see them. He stares right back. Let them know he knows.

  ‘Done,’ says Morgan in faltering singsong. ‘Look here.’ She steps towards Crosswell with the map. It almost crumbles into sparks on her first step. She sings to it, an encouragement to hold its form. Her voice flutters like bird wings. Crosswell expects it to give up and splinter, but somehow it holds. ‘See, in every single one of these houses. Just like I told you.’ She sounds like a smart-alec ten-year-old when she says it, which makes the palm of his hand itch.

  The two of them are golden pulses at the mouth of Puliver Way. Something orange skitters across the road behind their position. Crosswell turns. A cat, streaking from one cover to the next. Back to the map. Each house is represented in minute detail, drawn by an almost-steady hand in brightest yellow. There’s at least one blue pulse in each dwelling. No golds, only blues. It’s a chilly, steely colour that flexes. Looking carefully enough shows the rhythmic pulse that runs through all the lines of the map. Crosswell looks around the three dimensional diagram, to the third house. A metallic-blue dot, on the first floor, at the window.

  ‘Hmm,’ he says, and narrows his eyes at Morgan. ‘You sure you’re doing this right? Because you remember what happened down in those tunnels…’

  ‘I might not be the best at Constructs, but there’s no way this is a mistake. Look at it. There we are. There all they are. This is what it is.’

  He sighs. She has the right of it. ‘There’s ten houses here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Every single one occupied.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Couples, and families.’

  ‘Yes. And you know what? It doesn’t look like any of them have moved. Since I called you I think they’re all in the same position. It’s as if they’re waiting.’

  ‘Chess pieces.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Chess pieces stay still until the player is ready to move them.’ He beckons Morgan to follow as he approaches the first house. The door is slightly ajar. ‘This is because of him.’

  ‘No, this is what happens when revenants are left to run around and do what they want.’ She guides the map-construct between her hands, wary. He’s not sure if she’s worried about it crumbling down to its component atoms or if her trepidation is to do with those unmoving pulses.

  ‘Morgan, all of this is what happens when we spend far too long dancing to some crazy old man’s tune. This is his idea of being in control.’ He uses his foot to push open the door of number one. ‘What have we got in here?’

  ‘Back of the house.’ She peers past him down the hall. ‘Go in there, must be the lounge, then the far corner…’ She tilts the map to check. ‘Yeah, far corner, in front of patio doors.’

  Crosswell’s hands start to work, plucking violent atoms from the air. ‘You coming in?’

  ‘Any chance of giving this one a miss, boss-man?’

  His eyes glitter, reflecting the mesh he’s creating. ‘Get in here. If it moves a single inch I want to know about it.’

  She sighs. ‘Isn’t this a bit like poking a stick in a cave to see what bites?’

  He’s already in. ‘Pretty much. Shush.’ He leads the way, expecting her to speak up if anything starts coming for him. He moves slowly so as not to upset his weave. He’ll never admit it to her, but he’s nervous, and it’s knocking his concentration. If he drops a single thread they’ll be defenceless, and their only option will be to run. Crosswell does not like running. It’s almost as bad as waiting.

  The
man, middle-aged and paunchy, is at the conservatory doors, rocking from one foot to the other. The sleeve of his shirt has been torn off, hanging like shorn snakeskin from a chubby wrist. Scratches have raked his upper arm.

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Crosswell, tearing a rope out from the bundle of woven light.

  The man turns. There are thick scorch-marks around his eyes, charcoal remains of blazing fires. His lips bleed from chewing. There are bruises on either side of his head.

  Crosswell snaps the rope like a whip. It snags hold of his throat. The Possessed bellows discordance, a chest-thumping note that pounds at the rope, shards of light splintering away. Crosswell retorts with a hard note of his own. Dust motes leap from every surface. The air shudders, the wooden floor thrums. Holding the note, thickening it, Crosswell clicks his fingers at Morgan.

  ‘Speak,’ she tells it. ‘Where is the source? Where is the one who made you?’

  The Possessed increases its volume, and Crosswell’s weave fractures. It will not hold.

  ‘Speak! Now! Where is the Revenant?’

  The noise cuts out. ‘Not Revenant. He came. He’s the one.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Alpha. Here. Here!’ It’s angry that she doesn’t understand already. ‘Let go.’ It has no eyeballs but it turns the sockets on Crosswell, and there are dark sparks in those cavities, pulsars light years away. ‘Let go.’ Morgan speaks, but in faint crackles of static. Crosswell’s own voice comes out as distant white noise. The edges of his vision fizzle. He’s passing out. His brain is vibrating. Behind its words the Possessed is making an ultra-high pitched sound. His lungs sink. The whole room seems to drop.

  ‘LET

  GO!’

  The light rope shatters. Sparks spew out of holes in the Possessed’s neck. It lunges for Crosswell even as its legs turn to jelly. Morgan gets to Crosswell first, pulling him away and out of the shuddering room, the house of screams. They bounce from wall to wall, scrabbling.

  On the doorstep Crosswell wants to drop down, to sit, to sprawl. But she’s insistent, won’t leave him alone. He can hear clearly now

  ‘Come on, come on, come on!’

  Can see clearly now,

  front doors are opening, blaze-eyed creatures are emerging,

  and despite his weakened state can think clearly again, and he knows this is out and staying out.

  93

  How can I tell you how much it hurt? How can I get you to understand? Would I even want you to? No one deserves to feel like this.

  Losing someone. Losing a love.

  It’s like a piece of meat taken from your chest.

  It’s like there’s not enough oxygen in the air.

  It’s like your blood’s so thin that your veins are collapsing.

  And there’s no respite from it. An end of a relationship is always hard, harder for one than the other when someone walks away. At least, though, there is a finish to it, nothing left hanging.

  But my Evelyn…

  I ache for those who met their love early and held them close through the years until some last sudden moment when they are gone. No more memories to be made. No more reaching out to touch that hand you know better than your own. No one to hold you when the world howls at the letterbox. Left alone and hollow. Tens of thousands of days together, and it ends, and those days are gone and can only get further away. Our wrinkled hands end empty.

  I hurt for those who found their love, only to lose them after a few short years, after hopes shared and plans made. Do they think of all the times they said ‘Let’s just do that tomorrow’? Do they regret not staying awake a little longer each night? Do they look at the decades to come and wish that there were none at all? A heart made whole, now torn in two, one piece gone forever, the other just bleeding flesh.

  I ache for those of us who were with another for moments, that look in their eyes of ‘Here’s someone I want to know, here’s someone who I might allow to see my soul’. The air is rich and all lights are dazzling, and you know now that you won’t be alone all of your life, and that someone wants to be with you. You’ll get to know each other. You’ll learn what you have in common, and the differences that keep you curious. They’ll admire your laugh, you’ll think of their smile as you go to sleep. But before you’ve had more than a touch or a kiss, they are gone. The future is dead. Your heart is still.

  How can I tell you so that you’ll understand? I never saw her alive again. I touched her hand, and before I could get to know her more she was gone. She didn’t tell me she wasn’t interested. I know she was. She didn’t say she didn’t like me. I know she did. She never said she couldn’t love me. I know she could have.

  Oh, how I wanted her.

  But Evelyn’s father killed her, and buried her, and she came back.

  God help me, she came back.

  94

  Caleb throws the journal down. There are no answers in there, no guidance. Or perhaps these really are the answers, and he doesn’t like them one little bit. In fact he hates them.

  He doesn’t want to read any more.

  He wants to finish it all now.

  He hates it. He hates the journal. He hates Gramps for having it. He hates that reading it is the only thing he can think of to do.

  What he hates most is how he’s just lied to himself. He can think of other things to do. He just doesn’t want to do them. He’s too scared. Every single time he’s gone out there everything has gone wrong.

  And that’s not all of it, is it? There’s something worse. The things he’s done, every action, every last one, has been pointless. Taking measurements. Talking to that girl. Watching people. Being chased. Arguing. Reading this journal. All of it has achieved nothing. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know if it can be stopped. He doesn’t know how to change anything.

  He doesn’t know one single thing.

  And he hates that.

  And he hates this stupid room that isn’t his. Can’t stand being within these walls. Wants to scream until they crack and split and the window blows out. He jumps off the bed and strides out.

  He comes back for the journal.

  There’s busy noise coming from the kitchen. Gramps is on hands and knees, rooting through the bottom food cupboard. He’s pulled out dozens of jars and tins and packets, stuff that’s probably been in there for years and dropped far out of date. The way he mutters sounds to Caleb like the old man’s annoyed by someone at the back of the cupboard. ‘I need to ask you something, Gramps.’ He tries to say it softly, but there’s still the thump of a surprised head. The old man pushes himself out with a collection of creaks.

  ‘Ah, Caleb, you haven’t had it, have you?’

  ‘Had what, Gramps?’ he asks, already sinking.

  ‘The tomato soup.’

  Caleb looks around the stacks and collections on the lino. ‘There’s a tin there. And two there.’

  ‘No, it’s not that one or those.’ Gramps sticks his head back in the cupboard. ‘It must be here somewhere, I saw it the other day.’

  ‘Aren’t they all the same?’

  ‘Not at all! Where is it, your grandmother would know…’

  ‘Can’t you just have one of the other ones this time?’

  With difficulty Gramps retreats once again, has to use the worktop and Caleb to stand. It looks so painful that it make Caleb angrier. What use is this frail old thing? ‘Maybe someone put it in this cupboard instead.’ He pushes things from one side to the other, one side to the other.

  ‘Gramps, forget about the stupid bloody tomato soup will you? You’ve got loads of tins here, loads! It all tastes the same! I need you to answer something.’

  The cupboards are closed, and Gramps turns. ‘What if I don’t want to answer?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard what I said. It’s about the journal, isn’t it?’ His eyes have hardened to granite. ‘There’s a reason why I gave it to you. There’s a reason
why I wanted you to read it. If I wanted to tell… If I could have told you it myself, I would have. So before you start snapping at me again, you little pup, ask yourself why I might have shut the covers on these books and locked them in a case and stowed them in the corner of the attic.’

  At last, Caleb asks the first of the questions he’s wanted to all along. ‘Why did you bring it out then? Why didn’t you just leave it?’

  ‘How could I? You weren’t going to leave it, were you? Back and forth to that bloody graveyard day in, day out, and didn’t matter what anybody said to stop you.’

  ‘I wanted to see my mum, that’s my right…’

  ‘What is there to see? A gravestone? How many things are there to say to someone who never answers back?’ Thoughts of his father hunched over a laptop flash through Caleb’s mind, and with them come spears of guilt. ‘Weren’t you told it was unhealthy? Weren’t you told to leave the graveyard behind and try to live?’

  Hot tears come. ‘Why are you being so horrible?’ He could take this venom from Father (dear dead Father, dead, dead, dead), but Gramps?

  ‘We gave you every chance, Caleb, every urging to stay away before you saw something. And that’s all it took, wasn’t it? One curiosity, one off-kilter presence to catch the curiosity of the child.’

  He screams now. ‘And giving me this stupid journal was meant to stop me?’

  Caleb has never seen Gramps this fierce. ‘No, because there is no stopping! There is no going back, ever!’ He sinks back against the oven, fury faded. ‘You stupid, stupid children, why can’t we ever teach you? Why aren’t our words enough?’

  ‘You said, “We gave you every chance”. We. So Dad knew as well. He knew whatever it is you know.’

  ‘Not all of it, but he put together enough.’

  Here, then, was the second of the questions that have burned in Caleb every minute of the day. ‘Dad is dead, isn’t he? Something got in the house and killed him and now he isn’t Dad anymore.’ The words clunk hollow through the clay shell he’s become.