A Graveyard Visible

by Steve Conoboy

  Now the old man reaches out to him. Now Gramps is the figure he’s always seemed, caring, gentle. Caleb steps away, kicking over tin stacks. He waves the journal. He’s gripping it so hard that his fingernails bite into the cover. ‘Why did you give me this?’

  ‘Because there are things that can’t be said aloud. Because words can be heard and diagrams have weight and the air is tangible…’

  ‘Gramps, you’re rambling, please focus…’

  ‘I’m trying to explain to you! There are traps, Caleb! They can be anywhere, they can be woven from the air itself, and traps have triggers… Oh God!’ He kicks out with a slippered foot, connects with a can of corned beef, thumps a dent in the cupboard under the sink. ‘If I talk more, I forget more. That is my trap. I’ll forget everything. Everyone. It’s like needle picking at the stitches holding my mind together. The memories will go. The feelings will fade away. I’ll come apart.’

  It’s cold in this room, like it’s never known heat. Gramps has had problems for years – forgetfulness, confusion, obsessive behaviours, sudden mood swings – problems that Dad (dear dead Dad) said were getting worse, and Caleb’s suddenly wondering where they started and how. ‘So you couldn’t…’

  ‘Of course I couldn’t. If I ever found someone I wanted to tell about all of that up there, of Evelyn and everything that’s come after, how could I expect them to believe me? And I’d find it harder and harder to remember what I wanted to say, and I would become this tiny minded simpleton, and that would be the end of that.’ He takes the journal from Caleb, runs a crumpled hand over it as if to smooth out the dents. ‘At least some of my memories are in here. When my mind finally fails, this will be here. A piece of me, a piece of her. You know what’s ironic? I can’t even read this to fill in the blanks, because it just makes those blanks bigger. A grand trick indeed.’

  ‘There must have been someone you could tell…’

  ‘The police?’ His bitter smile is no joke. ‘Some government authority? The neighbours? It needs someone to see first to believe.’

  ‘So tell me. I’ve seen, I believe. Now’s the time, Gramps.’

  He looks like a man the years have run away from. ‘The more I say, the less there will be of me.’

  And now Caleb sees how scared his grandfather is, and understands what he’s asking of this frightened soul, truly understands. He cries, and goes to the man, and hugs him like he may never get to again. He can’t ask Gramps. There’s only one option left. He needs that eight-ball.

  95

  The phone rings. Granddad answers, sweating. The walls around his heart are cramping.

  ‘I’ve been warning you for long enough, and now it’s finally happened.’ Crosswell, at new levels of smugness. Granddad feels his stress step up a gear.

  ‘I haven’t got the time for your hectoring. I’m a busy man…’

  ‘You’re about to get a hell of a lot busier. You’ve been trying to contain things that won’t be contained. Now they’re out. Neuman’s gone and done it. Whatever’s in her has struck. It’s a full street. Maybe two we’re still looking into that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Like all your words, old man, “no” is useless, “no” can’t change the facts. It’s official, friend. You’ve lost control.’

  The band around his chest tightens as he listens to Crosswell tells him where it happened, the number of houses, the number of families, the number of souls. ‘It’s not time, it’s not…’

  ‘Shut up. We need the books. You’ve messed around long enough. Hand them over, let us deal with this.’

  ‘You can’t have them.’ Where’s all the air gone? ‘They’re not for you.’ He wants to tell Crosswell that he’ll feed the books to fire before he’d ever let him near.

  ‘Listen to how tired you are. What is it you think you can do? This isn’t reversible, you know that. You’re already struggling in the graveyard. And you can’t keep that brat under control, and I haven’t seen you out here helping with the search for Neuman.’

  ‘If you had helped me…’

  ‘What? Helped you do something I don’t believe is right? You’ve been waiting for something that isn’t going to happen, and now we’re in a very dangerous position, and it’s all your fault! I’m coming over. Get the books ready.’

  These next words he means with every fibre. ‘If you come, I will fight you.’

  Hesitation at the other end of the line. It gives him a dark thrill to sense Crosswell’s uncertainty. ‘You’re tired. I could bring you down and you know it.’

  ‘I’ve always been ready for you.’

  ‘I think it’s time we find out.’ The line goes dead. For the first time in days, Granddad sits in his recliner and thinks of nothing.

  96

  Her forehead blooms with sweat beads, her hand tremors make it difficult to weave, light-strands formed then fumbled. She is hunch-shouldered and sore. There’s a needle-puncture throb in her finger-endings. ‘This’ll fall to pieces,’ she tells Crosswell. ‘This is beyond me. It’s beyond him too.’

  ‘I need it done, and I need it done fast, Morgan!’

  ‘We can’t do the full net! If you don’t help it will collapse. Look at it!’

  He looks at it, then her. There are days when he could happily punch Morgan in the face, and this is one of them.

  97

  He presses himself against the wall. He’s nowhere near flat enough. She’s bound to see him, and then she’ll clobber him with the very object he’s come for. Misha will smash his head in, and maybe she’ll regret it and maybe she won’t, but in this instant he feels very clearly that he shouldn’t be here. Caleb hasn’t thought this through at all. As he strode into the graveyard he’d envisioned himself demanding that she hand the ball over, that she owed it to him, that he’s not going to take any argument. As he got closer, and he could see her house, it changed to a chat, a request, a favour needed. As he spotted her coming, he threw himself round the side of the house, heart tangled in his lungs, praying she wouldn’t see him lurking.

  And now!

  He desperately wishes he hadn’t hid! All Misha has to do is peer around the corner, and what will he say? What could he possibly say? After the way she raged last night, would she give him a chance to explain? But does he want to explain? He’s angry with her. He’s sad. Confused. He’s…

  safe. The front door opened, and shut again quickly. She’s inside. He sags. It takes a surprising amount of effort to try to become a wall.

  ‘What am I doing?’

  He came up here to confront her, and all he’s ended up doing is hiding. So much for his brave stomp up the hill, his conviction that he would take charge of the situation and get to the bottom of everything. Yet again, all hot air and empty promises. Cowering is about all he is capable of.

  He hates himself for that.

  He slides his back down the wall, sitting with a bump on hard ground. Perhaps he should leave and not wait to be discovered, but he can think of nowhere to go.

  Angry muffles of shouting inside. The words come and go as the argument moves around the house. He doesn’t need the specifics: it’s an age-old theme, the clash of generations. Where have you been, it’s none of your business, it is my business when you live under this roof, why are you always on my case, and on it goes. He wonders if Misha looks the way she did at the playground. Seething eyes, pointed shoulders, throat pulsing.

  He has to see her again. Now that he’s here, he needs one look.

  Caleb eases himself back up the wall. There’s a window at his side. He slides closer, and he braces himself to peer in, and his mouth clogs up. Caleb pins himself to the bricks instead. Can’t look. Can’t move.

  Can’t stay here all day.

  Why does he have to see her? Why does his breathing feel strange?

  One look.

  He leans out slowly, so he can see through the window a tiny slither at first, then gradually more, ready to jump back at the slightest hint he’ll be spotted. Cle
arly he hears her granddad: ‘Your childish behaviour will get you killed! You know what’s out there!’

  Misha, snappy: ‘Surprise, I am a child! Can you believe it?’

  ‘Here we are again with the attitude. And where did you get that from? Certainly not your mother.’

  ‘Stop comparing me to her!’

  Caleb’s looking down the hallway now, as the inhabitants move out of sight – a brief glimpse of Misha with Granddad following. Caleb feels the pull of her, darts around the house, matters of bravery forgotten. Next he comes to a bedroom of dowdy browns and woollen blankets and a fade-old armchair and mish-mash stacks of cracked books threatening shelves. The door is shut. Caleb moves rapidly past to the next. This window is partially open.

  The room is hers.

  Purples and lilacs in here, softer than he would have expected. Unframed paintings on the wall of suns dipping behind graveyards, gatherings of well-ordered graphic novels, a collage pasted on the wardrobe of magazine cuttings and chopped-up postcards, figurines of kung-fu girls, and on her bed the eight-ball. The bed is beside the window. The partially open window. The gap is small. His arm is slim.

  A message flashes up on the ball.

  NOT FOR YOU

  Caleb has never felt such a strong invitation.

  Misha’s bedroom door is also shut. The argument is very near.

  Against his expectation, bravery burns cold in the cavity of his chest.

  Caleb reaches in.

  DON’T DO IT

  A message in hot lava glow. It pulses, growing bigger, surging.

  His arm won’t go in past the elbow. Caleb pulls at the window. It’s held in place on a latch. His fingers dance towards it, so close.

  KEEP OFF ME

  Each word bursts forward to fill the screen. Caleb flinches, sure his skin will burn if he touches the ball.

  Her voice: so close! Outside the bedroom door. ‘It’s the same arguments every day! I don’t want to know! I don’t even want to be here, so why would I want to know?’

  The door handle turns.

  An old voice cracking, but still strong. ‘You don’t walk away from me again! You need to grow up and stop acting like a brat!’

  The handle springs back, suddenly let go. ‘I’m a brat? You’re the one almost stamping your feet!’

  Keep arguing, urges Caleb as he stretches for the ball, trying to push his arm in that little bit further. A ragged spelk of wood catches inside of his thin bicep, pushes into the meat. The pain is hot and precise. He wants to scream loud, hammers his knee against the bricks so he can feel something else, anything else. Agony hisses out of him on an endless keening breath.

  Finger-ends brush over the surface of the eight-ball. It’s warm then cold, warm then cold, a heartbeat pushing then retracting blood.

  ‘Please,’ says the cracking old man at the precise moment that Caleb begs the ball to come to him, ‘please, Misha, I need your help, now more than ever, help me this one time…’

  Her shout is also a plea. ‘Leave me alone! I don’t want anything to do with it!’

  The handle turns, quick.

  Caleb lunges.

  Gets his hand around the ball; the splinter punches in.

  BLEED BLEED BLEED

  The door swings open.

  Misha pauses in the doorway. ‘And don’t come knocking! I won’t answer.’

  Caleb pulls his arm out of the window. The splinter slides out slickly, popping out of his skin. The ball clangs against the window frame, as it won’t quite fit through.

  ‘I’ve had enough of you!’ screams Misha. ‘I wish I was dead like Mother!’

  Stupid in panic, Caleb pulls again. It didn’t fit last time; it won’t fit through this time.

  Except it does.

  The thin frame bulges millimetres. It’s enough. Out comes the eight-ball.

  Misha’s in the room and slamming the door.

  Caleb drops to the ground, fast enough to catch his own heart in his throat.

  Deadly silence. It’s like the door-slam cut out all noise. The pain in his arm is so bright he wants to cry out, needs to let the pressure go, but he’s already convinced he’s bleeding too loud.

  She’ll hear.

  She’ll notice her precious ball is gone. She’ll come to the window. And lean out. And see him cowering.

  A silken blood-thread trickles up goose bumps to the crook of his elbow. The puncture wound gets hotter.

  She’s in there, above him, growling and caged, throwing things around. The rest of his skin prickles at the pulse of her fury. Something hard shudders the window – the force of her uncontrollable rage. The glass has to be cracked. One more blow and he’ll be sprayed with cutting shards.

  The eight-ball is flashing messages.

  HORRID LITTLE THIEF

  When Misha realises this ball is gone, she will go off like an atom bomb.

  BURN IN HELL

  The message swims as if melting in flames.

  Bed springs bounce. Sobbing. She’s thrown herself down, energy spent. The pillow does a poor job of quieting her tears. Misha’s short hard sobs pull at him, hook into him deep. It’s there, the want to do something stupid.

  GO ON IDIOT

  He wants to stand up, say something quiet and soothing.

  TALK TO HER

  He wants to be the one to stop her crying, make it all okay. He wants to be stupid enough to save her.

  OPEN YOUR MOUTH

  But what can good-boy Caleb say to murderer Misha?

  SHE HATES YOU

  It aches where words should be.

  DAD DOES TOO

  He crawls to the corner of the house, then runs. But it all keeps up with him.

  98

  Nights linger when pieces are missing from you. Sleep was of no use to me. It offered no respite, no relief. I would keep myself awake with despair and regret, and when exhaustion finally smothered me Evelyn would be at the edge of my dreams. Such awful, tiring dreams. Mazes, of course, narrowing tunnels, with hot breath on my neck. She’d be round the next corner, or the next, and I couldn’t run fast enough to catch her. I’d snap awake, sweating as if I’d really ran for hours through snarling labyrinths, more tired than before I’d slept, dead awake in a pre-dawn world. The sense of her nearness would linger longer than the twisting horrors of those maze-dreams. I sometimes thought that if I could just turn around quick enough, I might catch sight of her, whole, real, and alive. It was a hope that fluttered in my heart.

  It was a hope I’d come to regret.

  Four nights later – or perhaps it was five, time becomes slippery with so little sleep – I was back up at that graveyard. I’d been there every day. I’d wander around for an hour, hoping for… I don’t know what. Looking for some kind of evidence to show to others, perhaps, something irrefutable. Another entrance to those tunnels. Some kind of answer as to what had happened and why. All I found was line after line of gravestones – and the silhouette of Evelyn’s father staring out at me from that damned house.

  Dusk was fading into full night as I retreated towards home, but there was a figure blocking the way through the gate. It wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t recognise Evelyn. He’d buried her in the same dress she was wearing on that night I lost her. She smelled of soil, but even then I would’ve gone to her, would have reached out to touch her pale hand, if she hadn’t spoken. ‘He wants you.’ The words crunched in her dry throat like grit under foot. ‘I have to take you to him.’ She didn’t come at me straight away, waiting for me to surrender or flee. My Evelyn, a predator, a dead and hungry thing.

  I have no idea how I managed to find my voice. My throat was taut with ropes of tension. ‘I’m not coming, Evelyn. Your father’s an evil man. The things he does are wrong.’

  Did she smile here? I think so. ‘My father made me. Does that make me wrong? You didn’t think I was wrong that day you kissed me.’ There were sheets of ice under my skin. I was talking to a ghost who sounded like her voice was still in the
grave. Darkness was swelling around me. ‘Evelyn, I have to leave, I have things to do, I have…’

  ‘…a life to live?’ The accusation was clear. Her fingers flexed. I heard brittle, thin bones crack. She stepped forward. Her dress whispered. I thought of cold bodies lying down in velvet lining. ‘You’ve thought of me every night, all night long. Your dreams pulled at me. You brought me here, to this.’ It was a lie! Her father had summoned her with whatever black arts worked in his soul, but a large part of me believed her all the same. This was my Evelyn. How could she ever lie to me? ‘So come with me. It’s better if you do. I promise you I will kiss you again.’ Another step, stiff and stuttering, as if her legs struggled to remember how they should work.

  I moved towards her, opening my arms for a cold embrace, and my pulse was up in the roof of my mouth. Her face…sunken at the sockets, drawn in at the cheeks, lips thin and retreating, a glimmer far back in her deflating eyeballs, a dull shudder of tarnished golden starlight. She leant towards me, and panic-tension warned me she was coming for my mouth.

  I dropped my arms, dodged around hers, and ran. She was far quicker than I’d expected. Evelyn snatched at my throat; her splintered fingernails tore along the side of my neck, opening three deep scratches. I didn’t stop running. I held a hand to the wound. She screamed after me, the predator denied. She screamed for me to come back or she would hunt me down and drag me to the grave.

  I ran without thinking.

  I ran home.

  By the time I got back to my bathroom, the trio of scratches were burning like they were infected. I cleaned them as much as I could be bothered, then shut myself away in my bedroom so I could not be seen. My neck seemed to swell up, it itched from within, but I didn’t care what it might mean. I couldn’t care much for anything again. All I’d had left of Evelyn were a few wonderful memories, but they were all poisoned by that encounter with her dead soul. In all my recollections she would no longer be the beautiful girl with the easy smile. She would have those sunken sockets with those tarnished metal pinpricks staring out at me, talons grasping for my throat.