A Case of Grave Danger

by Sophie Cleverly

  ‘Hanging back,’ I whispered. ‘We don’t want her to think we’re following her.’

  ‘But we are following her,’ he protested.

  ‘Precisely,’ I shot back, thinking he was being rather dim. He frowned at me, silent and puzzled.

  I gazed up into the curve of the archway, where stone angels stared back at me. I didn’t come in this way that often, not when we had our own entrance to go through. It was chilly and dark in the shadow of the twin funeral chapels – the more elaborate one for Church of England, the plainer for Dissenters.

  Once I could see the woman was far enough along the path, I let Bones off. ‘Stay close,’ I told him. ‘Don’t go running after her. Leave this to us.’ He tipped his head on one side and then trotted away through the long grass. I knew he wouldn’t stray from the cemetery. If I lost him, he’d be back scratching at our gate before long.

  I hurried after the woman again, beckoning at Oliver to follow. At one point she stepped off the path and began walking out amongst the stones. I could hear her feet crunching through the newly fallen leaves.

  The cemetery wasn’t totally empty – there were other mourners, and even ladies in long dresses out walking arm in arm. Yet the woman in black ignored any she passed, not even offering so much as a ‘good day’. She just walked, slowly but purposefully, through the trees. She almost seemed to be going in circles, weaving and twisting, changing direction often.

  ‘She’s leading us on a merry dance,’ Oliver muttered.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’ She was heading somewhere, I felt certain of that.

  After all, I knew almost every inch of the place, and I knew every resident. I’d say a silent hello to Mr and Mrs Forsyth, to the Abrams family, to the poetic Rossellinis, as I passed their grand tombs, and heard their returning whispers of greeting as a rustle in the leaves. I knew where the broken ash tree lay across the path, where the foxes sheltered in the Egyptian-style Memorial Tunnel, where Josiah Bucket’s memorial stretched to the sky. And that meant that I was beginning to realise where the woman was heading.

  ‘Oliver!’ I whispered. ‘I think she’s going to your grave!’

  I had to admit, I felt deeply odd saying that. I suppressed a shiver, but the colour drained from Oliver’s face. I wasn’t sure if it was the memory of the night we found him that was doing it to him, or the thought that this woman could be involved.

  It soon became apparent that I was right about her destination. The woman stopped beside the row of recent graves that Thomas had commented on – where the other men rested. The hole that had been dug for Oliver still hung open, like a gaping maw. Waiting for another occupant, I supposed. It had never happened before. I didn’t know what the etiquette was when it came to reusing a space that had been miraculously not needed.

  Oliver and I hid behind the trees, watching the woman. I lost sight of Bones, who had slipped into the undergrowth.

  She seemed to have frozen on the spot. ‘She’s surprised,’ I whispered. Oliver nodded, eyes wide in silent agreement. I could only see the back of her, but I imagined she was staring down at the hole, wondering what had happened. Anyone would be, seeing an empty grave like that.

  As we watched, she took a deep breath, reached into her purse and pulled out five small black roses.

  ‘Black roses,’ I muttered, frowning. Those were a bad omen, a symbol of death.

  She placed one on each grave, and at the last one, she simply paused, her hand held out over it. Then she snatched it back, and put the rose away again. Her arm was trembling.

  Oliver looked at me, his eyes wide. ‘She didn’t know,’ he mouthed at me.

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded back. The woman in black clearly didn’t know that Oliver had come back to the land of the living. But what I could tell was that unless she was some eccentric who paid her respects to the newly dead, the like of which I had somehow never encountered before, the only other thought was that she did know all of the victims.

  She knew they were dead.

  That made her our first suspect for Oliver’s attempted murder.

  e stood and watched the woman for a few moments longer, but we were interrupted by a crunching noise from the undergrowth, and a dark shape coming towards us. I hastily pulled Oliver back behind the tree.

  Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, it was just Bones, who began sniffing Oliver’s shoes in an enthusiastic greeting. The woman in black must have heard something, and as I peered out I saw her head snap round as she searched for the source of the sound. I held my breath, felt the rough bark of the tree scrape my hands.

  Bones turned his attention towards her. I could see the dark hairs standing up on the back of his neck, and he began to give a low growl. I shushed him.

  The woman didn’t seem to have seen us, but she’d certainly sensed something was up. She gathered her skirts and hurried away.

  Within moments she had slipped into the dense trees, and I lost sight of her. By the time we made it to where she had been, there was no way to tell which direction she’d gone in – unless I tried to put Bones on the trail, but I supposed that a large greyhound chasing after her would definitely give the game away.

  ‘Drat,’ I said, ‘she’s on her guard now. And this nuisance didn’t help.’ I poked Bones gently on the nose, to which he responded by licking my hand.

  Oliver shook his head slowly. ‘I … I thought I didn’t want to know what had happened to me. But seeing that … that was peculiar. If this was down to her …’ He reached for his scar. ‘Or she knows who did this to me …’ His words trailed off.

  I put a gentle hand on his arm. It was strange. We would just have to investigate further. But how?

  I turned to Oliver. ‘Let’s head for home. I would say Father will be dreadfully worried that we’ve been gone for so long, but his head is in the clouds these days …’

  * * *

  The following day dawned, and I woke with the ferns of the first October frost creeping up my window.

  Mother insisted I help her peel potatoes for a pie, grumbling about how much she missed the cook. Bones hovered about our feet, hoping for scraps. Father and Oliver were out working that morning, yet I had been forbidden from joining in, much to my annoyance.

  I had other things on my mind. Namely, the woman in black with the spider brooch in her hair. We needed a plan, yet we knew nothing about her, save for the fact that she hung around the cemetery like a bad smell. What she was doing there, only the dead knew.

  As I thought that, I paused, my knife halfway across a potato. If the dead knew … perhaps they would tell me?

  And so, once I got the chance to slip away from house duties in the middle of the afternoon, I made for the back gate and headed out among the gravestones. Bones happily picked up a stick and bounded along beside me.

  In the past I had never had much luck with talking to ghosts. Feelings and snippets of words were all I could usually manage. But this was a new matter. A dangerous investigation – murder most foul, as Thomas had put it. Would they now have more to say?

  I first made my way through the sparkling dew of the melting frost back to the row of graves, each topped with a single black rose and with the empty hole at one end. I glanced around, but there was no sign of anyone – mysterious woman in black or otherwise.

  ‘Spirits,’ I called, unsure how else to address them. I reached out my hands towards the mounds of earth. ‘Um … were you … murdered?’

  Nothing happened. I could hear birdsong and the wind in the trees, and felt nothing but cold.

  ‘Did you see the woman in black?’ I asked the empty air. ‘She left you flowers? Do you know what she’s up to?’ I closed my eyes and listened. I thought I heard the wind pick up, felt tiny pinpricks of cold go down my arms, but that was all.

  I heard a bark and turned to see Bones harassing a pigeon. ‘Here, boy,’ I called. He bounced back over to me and curled around my legs, panting. ‘Make yourself useful. Can you hear anything?
’

  The dog tipped his head, an ear pricking up, and whined.

  I huffed and sat down beside him in the wet grass. I had to try harder.

  I put my gloved hands down, and just tried to concentrate, to feel with every ounce of my might.

  There was something there …

  I felt a sudden warmth in my fingertips. The world seemed tinted red, and I heard the crackling of a fire and the hint of words on the edge of hearing.

  Avenge us.

  Justice.

  I shuddered, and opened my eyes, and suddenly I was back in the chilly October graveyard with Bones sitting in front of me. He blinked his dark eyes slowly.

  Try as I might, I could feel nothing else. The ghosts had said their piece. Whatever it meant, I knew one thing – they were angry, and someone had made them that way.

  followed the path back down the hill, stopping along the way to touch gravestones and ask about the mysterious woman – but the dead were quiet that day. I caught echoes of curiosity, and yet none seemed desperate to tell me anything.

  Halfway down I stopped for a rest, leaning against Mrs Jennings’s gravestone. She had been dead fifty years, and she didn’t seem to mind. I felt a faint warmth against my back as I sat – not the angry warmth of the fiery spirits, but almost like a ray of sunshine on that cold October day. She was welcoming me.

  I peered out round the stone, and I caught sight of Oliver coming up the path. Bones jumped up and ran over to him.

  ‘What are you doing, Miss Violet?’ he asked, dodging the greyhound’s affections.

  ‘Investigating,’ I replied, not wanting to explain that I was attempting to converse with ghosts. I wasn’t sure that it would be well received.

  ‘Really? Have you found anything?’ Oliver sat down beside me in the grass, before thinking better of it. ‘It’s all wet!’ he exclaimed, jumping back up again. ‘How are you not soaking?’

  ‘I’m wearing three layers of petticoats,’ I said, climbing up and pulling Bones’s lead from my pocket so I could attach it to his collar. ‘And no, unfortunately.’

  ‘No more sign of that woman in black?’

  I shook my head. ‘I think we scared her away.’ I waited as a few more ladies wearing mourning clothes ambled past up the path, arm in arm. ‘Perhaps we need to call her something more specific. Like …’ I thought of the spider brooch perched in the back of her hair, and the way she crept around. ‘The Black Widow.’

  Oliver shuddered. ‘We’d better get back,’ he said. He rubbed his stomach, probably thinking of the potato pie. ‘Your family are wondering where you’ve got to.’

  I paused for a moment. My family. That was a thought. Over the years, I had found that my connections with family ghosts could be stronger. ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘That gives me an idea. Come on.’ I began striding ahead towards the other path that led down through the row of mausoleums.

  I came to the last one and stopped, placed my hand on the carved upside-down torch on the doorway, and whispered a few words. It was a regular ritual. ‘Here we are,’ I said.

  When I turned, Oliver was watching me, hands wedged in his pockets.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  I looked back at him, wondering why it wasn’t obvious, before I remembered he couldn’t read.

  I waved up at the inscription above the door. ‘It says VEIL,’ I said.

  Oliver peered at me. ‘You think it has something to do with the woman in the veil?’

  ‘No, you clod! It’s our surname!’ Honestly. Did anyone else do any thinking around here? ‘It’s our family mausoleum.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Your family are … buried in here?’

  ‘Not buried. Oh, never mind, I’ll just show you.’ I reached into my dress and pulled out the brass key from where it hung on a chain round my neck. I unlocked the door, gripped the heavy iron ring and pushed it open. There was barely a creak. I tied Bones to the ring. ‘Wait here, boy,’ I said. ‘We’re going in.’

  For a moment, Oliver stood frozen. I wondered if it was too uncomfortable for him, given what had happened. ‘It’s dark,’ he said.

  I thought perhaps he just needed a little encouragement. I gave him a gentle shove and he stumbled in. ‘Oi!’ he said playfully. ‘Watch it!’

  I grinned at him. ‘Welcome. I know it’s dark. They don’t really have any use for windows.’

  I gestured around at the walls as Oliver stared up at them. The mausoleum was about the size of a large garden shed, with thick shelves going all the way up. On the shelves rested several stone coffins of varying sizes.

  ‘This is Grandfather,’ I said, pointing at the one on the top right.

  Oliver seemed to think something was expected of him. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘And this is Grandmother,’ I said, pointing to the other side.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Oliver said with a cheeky smile. He tipped his cap at the coffin.

  ‘She says good afternoon,’ I relayed to him as an echo of a warm voice rattled in my ear. I wondered if he would be concerned by the idea that I could hear whispers from the dead, but he seemed to take it in his stride. I wondered if perhaps he thought I was joking.

  ‘Why ain’t they next to each other?’ he asked.

  I laughed at the thought. ‘Grandmother said he was a cantankerous old hoot when he was alive, and that she’d be blowed if she had to spend eternity right next to him as well. Apparently he snored too.’

  I felt what could only be described as a grey wave of grumpiness, and fought back the urge to laugh again. Grandfather never changed – he was stubborn even in death.

  Oliver grinned. ‘That’s where you inherited the bad temper from then, miss?’

  ‘To borrow one of your terms,’ I said, ‘oi!’ I turned and ran my finger along the shelf, expecting dust, but there was none. This place was as sealed to dirt as it was to time. There was nothing but a tiny spider scuttling into a crack in the stone.

  ‘I’m going to try something,’ I said carefully. ‘Asking them a question.’

  Now he looked at me with curiosity. ‘All right … Don’t think you’ll get much answer, though.’

  I turned, put out my hands to the walls and closed my eyes. ‘Have you seen a woman in black? Acting strangely in the cemetery …’

  A faint blue tinge spread across the darkness beneath my eyelids. The colour of mystery. I felt the rough stone under my fingertips crackle.

  Strange.

  Familiar. I spoke the words out loud as they came, but my voice didn’t sound like my own. Someone close.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked. Were they saying I knew her? That she was nearby?

  Cold … witch, my grandfather’s ancient voice said suddenly in the back of my mind. It made me shudder, but I wondered if he was talking about the woman or insulting my grandmother.

  Before I could ask more, the sounds of a far-off argument met my ears, and the voices slowly drifted away.

  ‘Ugh,’ I said, opening my eyes and clenching my fists in frustration.

  Oliver was staring back at me, open-mouthed. ‘You can … hear the dead?’ he asked finally.

  Now, the thing was that this was something I had held on to for so long because nobody had ever believed me when I told them, so I had given up mentioning it. I went quiet for a moment, wondering if he was about to tell me that I had an overactive imagination, as my parents always did when I so much as hinted at what I could see and hear.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So … what’s it like?’ he said finally, his words a soft breath of fresh air.

  ‘A feeling,’ I replied with relief. ‘Emotions. Sometimes muttered words or sentences. I wondered if I could hear anything at the victims’ graves back there, but all I felt was a desire for … revenge. Justice.’

  ‘How do you do it?’ Oliver asked, his eyebrows narrowed, questioning.

  The question caught me off-guard. No one had ever asked me that before. I thought about it. ‘I do
n’t know.’ My gaze ran over the coffins. ‘I think people leave echoes when they go. You can’t drop a stone in a river without making ripples. I think perhaps I can feel the ripples.’

  I often thought that about Bones too. Dogs had better senses than people, didn’t they? Perhaps the ripples were even clearer to him.

  Oliver shivered again, properly this time. The chill was pouring in from outside, and he hadn’t the warm clothes that I had.

  ‘Ain’t you ever … sad? That people are gone?’ he asked.

  I smiled at him gently. ‘Of course I’m sad. But it’s part of the cycle. Look!’ I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back out of the door, into the bright orange light of the sunset. He shielded his eyes. ‘Look around you.’ I waved my hands. ‘When I first understood death, when I started to cry about it, Father brought me out here. It was autumn, just like it is now. He said to me: The sun is setting. The leaves are falling, the flowers are bowing their heads. Do you cry for them? And I shook my head and sucked my thumb, and he asked, Why not?’

  I turned and pulled the door of the mausoleum shut, locking it behind me, tucking the key away safely again in my dress.

  ‘I thought about it, and I said … Because there will be new ones. And he told me I was right. A new sun would rise in the morning, new leaves would grow on the trees, new flowers would bloom.’

  ‘The spring comes,’ Oliver said quietly.

  I smiled again, brushed the wet ground with my feet. ‘No matter how long and how dark and how cold the winter, the spring always comes. The autumn has to happen to make way for the new life. That’s what he told me. He said the autumn happens, and we’re here to sweep up the leaves.’

  There were a few moments where we said nothing, just stared out over the cemetery, as the dying light bathed everything in orange and pink. ‘He’s clever, your dad,’ Oliver said finally.

  ‘He is,’ I said. I breathed out, a cloud of mist in the frosty air. ‘Come on. We should get back. There’s pie.’

  he following day was when I first heard whispers of murder.

  Father’s footsteps were already moving about the house when I woke. He called out to Mother and asked where he’d left his hat – he had a funeral that morning.