The Caretakers

by Maxwell, Eliza

  He proclaims the words with the puff-chested confidence of a man-child in the company of females.

  “Denny, you silly lad.” Saoirse Donnelly’s voice is gentle, softening the rebuttal. “’Tis the gravedigger’s bell that matters. Have I never told you that tale?”

  Young Kitty’s eyes grow large and Aiden frowns, though he dares not disagree.

  “Sit down, then. Deirdre, you as well, and I’ll tell you now.” Mam’s eyes are bright and the shadows deep, flickering from the firelight of the cookstove. She takes a seat at the head of the table.

  “A hundred years ago, in the old country, there was a lass whose life was soft like a down mattress.” She glances one by one at the children gathered, drawing them into her confidence.

  “’Twas no fault of her own, she’d simply drawn a fine lot at birth. The only child of a rich man, she lived in a fancy house and all was done for her before she had a chance to want, with no reason to believe it would ever be otherwise.”

  “Sound familiar?” Aiden whispers in Kitty’s ear, but Mam shushes him before Kitty can snap back that her hands are as rough as his.

  “And so it might have gone forever, with no more to the story, had she chosen wisely, but a woman’s heart is a mystery and cannot help but seek the path it shouldn’t take. She fell in love with a young lad, more boy than man.”

  Kitty raises a brow pointedly in Aiden’s direction, but he’s busy sopping stew with his bread, oblivious.

  “Soon they were engaged. Preparations were made, and a wedding was planned in a flurry of excitement. And with each passing day her betrothed heard stakes being driven into the ground, binding him forever to a future with a predetermined shape. Every decision made for him by others who’d already lived their lives. Others who saw no need for excitement or adventure. And his fickle, restless heart began to yearn. Not for the love of a respectable lass, but for the sights and smells of a wider world.”

  “But didn’t she want those things too?” Kitty asks.

  Mam’s lips turn up slowly, sadly. “Perhaps, love. But no one bothered to ask her, did they?”

  She winks at Kitty and goes on with her tale.

  “When the morning of her wedding day dawned sunny and clear, the lass woke to find an envelope slipped beneath the crack of her door, her name across the front in a hand she recognized well.”

  “What did the letter say?” Deirdre asks before Kitty has a chance.

  “My love,” Mam says. “Though I’ve promised to be a husband to you, I canna live with myself if I don’t first become a man you could be proud to have on your arm. I’m off to put my mark on the world, or it on me, whichever comes first. Do not cry, my dear, for this is not goodbye, but only goodbye for now. I shall return when the winds are right and make you my wife, of that you can be sure.”

  Aiden gives a low whistle and turns his eyes downward toward his bowl.

  Deirdre’s mouth falls open before she clamps it shut again, sits back in her chair, and crosses her arms. “Good riddance,” she proclaims. “She’s better off without him.”

  Kitty glances between the two of them, wondering about the fuss. “Well, maybe he was telling the truth. He could’ve come back,” she says, but Deirdre rolls her eyes, as if she were so much older and wiser.

  “Nay, he took the coward’s way,” Mam continues, trying to hide her smile at Kitty’s consternation. “For the only thing worse than leaving a woman standing at the altar with her heart in her hands is giving her hope that you may someday return. For years and years, she waited, growing pale and thin, sacrificing the bloom of youth to wasted hope. As the days piled up and the years became decades, he did not return, but still she hoped. Still she waited. Until one day, a well-meaning friend suggested that perhaps he could not return. Perhaps a mishap had befallen him on his travels and he was gone to be with the angels above. That he was watching over her, wishing for her to move on with her life, to forget him and live again.”

  “What did she do?” Kitty asks Mam, breathless.

  “Well,” Mam says, leaning close to Kitty. “She was shaken to the bones of her toes by the very thought. What if her friend was right? What if her young man intended to keep his word, but something had happened to stop him? It was the only explanation, and the more she thought on it, the more convinced she became.”

  Deirdre snorts, and Kitty’s eyes shoot daggers in her direction.

  “Our lass was not so young now, and with a head of silver hair and wrinkled, papery skin, but she rose and dressed, and she readied herself for a journey all the same. She was convinced her lost love was waiting to be found, if only she looked in the right place. So, she took the train to the next county over and began to search.”

  “But if it had been so long, how did she expect to find him?” Kitty asks.

  “Well now, the places she was looking were the sort that once you arrive, you won’t be leaving anytime soon.”

  Kitty frowns, and Mam lowers her voice, her eyes dancing at the dark and fanciful tale and her rapt audience. “She was checking the boneyards, child. From one town to the next, she wandered through the cemeteries, up and down the rows of stone markers, reading the names in search of the one that was also carved on her heart.”

  Kitty’s eyes grow wide, then sympathy clouds them and her shoulders droop.

  “All over Ireland, as far as the railroad tracks would take her, she made her pilgrimage. Word spread about the silver-haired lady searching for her vanished betrothed, and soon people were whispering behind their hands from the moment she arrived in a new town.

  “‘She’s come,’ they’d say. ‘Come to search the graves for the man who jilted her, the wee barmy thing.’ To escape the unwanted attention she was receiving, our silver lady had begun to undertake her lonesome search in the dead of the night, with only a lantern and the stars to show her the names chiseled upon the stones.”

  “Wasn’t she frightened?” Kitty asks.

  “Aye, Kitty, more than likely. But she didn’t let that stop her. And so it was that one night many months after she’d left home, and with only the moon as a witness, she came upon a lone figure carrying a shovel and spade. He was the caretaker, you see, and the gravedigger as well, though she didn’t know those things when she came face to face with him stepping ’round a dark bend at night.

  “She held her lantern high in front of her and swung it wide. ‘Get back,’ she cried, fearful of this hulking stranger whose face was half hidden in shadows.

  “‘My apologies, madam,’ he said, as politely as you please. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m as surprised as you, truth be told. Normally have the place to meself at this hour.’”

  “I’d have died right there,” Kitty exclaims. “Dead on the spot.”

  “And you, Dee?” Aiden asks with a grin. “Would your poor heart have exploded with fear?”

  “Nay,” Deirdre says. “I’d have hit him with a stick and told him not to be sneaking up on women in the dark.”

  Mam laughs. “No doubt you would have, child, but our lady had nothing to fear from the old caretaker, for he was a gentle soul. He led her to a nearby bench, for he could see how shaken she was. He had heard the rumors about the silver lady who roamed the countryside, searching for something she’d never find. He’d hardly believed them, yet here she was, in the flesh.”

  Their bowls were empty, and the fire was growing small, but the family gathered around paid it no mind. They were lost in Saoirse’s story, sitting in a dark boneyard with a silver lady, an old caretaker, and the stars winking above.

  “Once her heart slowed, our lady told the old man of her search. The whole sorry tale poured out of her, from beginning to end. He listened without interruption, and made not a sound, and when she was done, he sat in silence for a moment before he spoke.

  “‘I’ve spent many a year in this place, with only the dead for company. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. But back in the days before time had its way with me, I met a lad
, brought into town slung over the back of a horse.

  “‘He’d been set upon by highwaymen, and he was near enough to death’s door that the doctor called for the gravedigger before the young man had even drawn his last, so sure was he of the outcome. I was hardly more than a boy myself, so I sat with him while he raved, delirious and half mad. His face was sliced from a bandit’s blade, and he’d taken a bullet to his leg. The doctor had been forced to take the leg, and it must have pained him greatly, but the lad didn’t speak of these things, only the lass he’d foolishly left behind, waiting for him at the altar.

  “‘He died that day, with words of regret on his tongue. Regret that he could never return and be a man she’d be proud to have on her arm.’”

  Kitty draws in a sharp breath. Aiden is quiet. Even Deirdre looks shaken.

  Saoirse Donnelly, with all the tricks of a born storyteller at her fingertips, pauses to let that sink in.

  “The caretaker might have expected tears or lamentations from a woman who’d waited so long on a boy who’d never had the chance grow to a man, but instead, she simply stood, though her bones were old and creaky. ‘Would you take me to his grave, then, sir?’ she asked.

  “‘Of course, my lady,’ was his reply. So with slow steps and her head held high, our silver lady was shown to an unmarked grave. ‘We never knew his name,’ the caretaker said, a note of apology in his voice at the simple wooden cross that tilted in the shadow of the moon. ‘But this is where he lies. Perhaps you can be at peace now, ma’am.’

  “She knelt at the foot of the grave and placed both hands on the ground in front of her, closing her eyes. The caretaker backed away, thinking to give her some privacy to grieve, but she turned back to him and spoke. ‘Tell me about the bell, sir, if you don’t mind. I’ve seen this before in my travels, a bell with a chain that leads to a pipe in the ground.’

  “He pushes back his hat and scratches his head. His eyes drop away from hers. ‘Aye, miss. That’s the old ways, that is. To keep a body from being buried alive, when the doctor wasn’t so sure of himself. If the dead awoke by some miracle happenstance, they could pull the chain, and we’d dig ’em up. Saved by the bell, as it were. But I promise you, ma’am, your lad was gone for good before he was lowered into the ground. Make no mistake. I added the bell myself, for his was one of the first graves I dug, and I had a fanciful notion that if he weren’t really dead, perhaps he and his lass still had a chance. But that bell never rang. Sadly, it weren’t meant to be.’”

  Kitty wipes tears from her eyes. She always forgets that Mam’s tales never have happy endings.

  “He left her then, to say her goodbyes, and walked slowly back to the lonely, ramshackle cabin at the edge of the graveyard he called home. There were hours still to go before the break of a new day, but the pain in his chest for the fate of the woman wouldn’t allow him to rest. He listened instead, ears pricked for any sign of a lady’s distress. But none ever came.

  “Time ticked past and he lay in his cot. Tears dried on his weathered cheeks. Then a sound he’d never heard before found his ears. It echoed in his soul. He sat upright, fear and wonder coursing through his old veins. It was the gravedigger’s bell, clanging in the moonlit night. Once. Twice. Three times it rang, and he bolted toward the cabin door.

  “He hurried up the hill as quickly as his battered body would take him and rounded the path to the place he’d left the silver lady mourning. What he hoped to see, he didn’t know. But the sight that greeted him as the first rays of the sun appeared over the horizon broke his old heart all over again.

  “The lady was lying on her side. Her hands curled peacefully beneath her head as she lay upon the earth over the unnamed grave. He moved toward her, inch by inch, but he was a gravedigger by trade, and he knew what he saw. Her skin was ghostly white, and no breath came from between her lips. When he touched her neck to be sure, he found her cold, dead for heaven knew how long.”

  Then who rang the bell? Kitty wonders, though she can’t bring herself to speak and break the spell the story has cast upon them all.

  “There upon his knees, with the body of the woman so still before him, the caretaker was sure of one thing. He was going to hell for all his lies. The bones in that grave had never belonged to the lad the silver lady had been searching for. He’d spun the tale hoping to give her some peace at last. So that she could go home now, and live her life in comfort and warmth, not searching to the ends of the earth for a foolish boy who’d never deserved a love so loyal and true.”

  “He lied?” Deirdre cries. “How dare he lie to her?” She seems to have forgotten she thought the woman a fool.

  Mam nods. “He did, indeed. Some would say he lied from compassion, though, Dee. That he lied because a lie told out of kindness is less of a sin than the cruelty of a harsh truth.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Deirdre says, crossing her arms again.

  Saoirse Donnelly’s eyes are melancholy as she studies her daughter. “And my hope for you, child, is that you’re never forced to put those fine principles to the test,” she says gently.

  Kitty wonders what she believes, but it’s too tangled to make sense of.

  “But what of her betrothed, Mam?” Kitty asks, desperately tugging the loose end she’s left to dangle. “Was he truly never heard from again?”

  “Well now, Kitty cat, I’m not quite sure how to answer that. Some would say no, that our lady’s young man had surely died somewhere along the road that took him away from the promises he’d made. But others, perhaps, would disagree. What I can tell you is that once dawn was fully broken on that fateful morn, the townspeople found not only the cold body of the silver lady they’d all heard so much about, but a second body as well.

  “For the caretaker, unable to live with what he’d done, had returned to his cabin, fashioned a noose from an old length of rope, and taken his own life, God rest his poor tortured soul. It was there they found him, with the sun shining through the door and no shadows left to hide behind. An old man with scars on his face from a bandit’s blade, and a wooden leg strapped on to replace the one the doctor had taken after he’d been brought to town, slung across the back of a horse, many, many years before.”

  The memory gently releases Kitty to float back into the present, her eyes glazed and unseeing. She reaches out to hold the images close for a moment longer, but they’re fading, as insubstantial as the morning mist.

  17

  TESSA

  The little black rental car hugs the curves of the two-lane road as it winds its way northwest. Tessa concentrates on the road, channeling her erratic thoughts and energy toward the path ahead. It works, and she feels more in control than she has in days. After exiting the highway, each town she’s passed has grown increasingly smaller, outnumbered and surrounded by state forests and game lands. Tessa welcomes the isolation.

  She stops to get gas and fishes her phone from the bottom of her bag. She turns it on, but stubbornly ignores all notifications and does a quick search for someplace to rent a room for the night. The internet gives her one choice in Snowden, the closest town to the murder house.

  Bracknell Lodge.

  There’s no website, and Google’s street view stops without venturing quite so far into the wilds of northern Pennsylvania. Tessa doesn’t have high hopes. But the voice that answers the phone is friendly and confirms there’s a room available.

  “What name should I put this under, dear?” the woman on the other end of the line asks.

  “Tessa—” She hesitates. Not Shepherd. Oliver’s story is plastered all over the news, and Tessa’s name is now too closely associated with it. Her mind immediately goes to Russell, Margot’s married name, but she’ll forever associate that with Ben. Impersonating Ben’s wife is a line she isn’t willing to cross.

  “Ashwood,” she finishes with a silent grimace at the lingering pause. “Tessa Ashwood.”

  Her credit cards clearly say Tessa Shepherd, but she can only hope her hostess doesn’t
notice.

  When the GPS indicates she’s nearing her destination, Tessa slows the car. Snowden is the smallest small town yet.

  Houses dot the main street, mostly neat and well kept. A tire swing sways in the breeze, dangling over a soft green lawn.

  She passes a park on the left, surrounded by a chain-link fence that encircles plastic playground equipment that used to be red. A small post office sits next to it with a blue-domed letter box out front and an American flag hanging by the door.

  Then, the crown jewel of Snowden. A white clapboard church with an impossibly tall and narrow spire that juts into the sky, as if daring the devil to do his worst. There’s a cross at the top so high that Tessa leans forward and cranes her neck uncomfortably to see it.

  Enthralled by the sight of it looming above, she doesn’t spot the scruffy brown dog that darts into the road until it’s almost too late. She gasps, jerks the wheel of the car to the right, and slams on the brakes.

  It takes a moment for her to catch her breath. The little dog now sits along the edge of the road, watching her. One of its oversized ears stands at attention. The other flops across the top of its head. A little girl with a brown ponytail runs up behind it and stops to stare at Tessa as well.

  Tessa forces a smile and raises a hand in a wave, but neither the girl nor the dog respond. Tessa hits a button and her window slides down, allowing a breeze into the car that cools her face.

  “Cute dog,” she says.

  The little girl tilts her head, raises one hand, then extends her middle finger upward, as boldly as the church spire at her back. She grins, then whirls and runs off. The dog sits for a moment longer, tongue hanging from the side of its mouth, then trots after the girl.

  “Cute kid,” Tessa mumbles under her breath. A small blue truck passes slowly on her left, and she meets the curious glance of the woman in the passenger seat with a wan smile. Tessa rolls her window up and pulls onto the road, watching more carefully this time for stray animals and cocky kids.