Letters From The Grave

by Jeanie P Johnson

  When the letter was finished, she put a small dab of her perfume on the letter, before placing it in the matching envelope, covered with roses. A long sigh escaped Emma’s throat, and it felt like a burden had been lifted. She felt at peace for the first time that day, and went back to bed. If she dreamed, she could not remember it, but she knew she slept peacefully.

  When Emma woke the next morning, there was an urgency to return to the grave, and put her own letter in the tombstone, which is what she did. As soon as she closed the little brass door, though, she felt utterly stupid. She couldn’t just put a letter written a hundred years later, in the same tombstone as the letter written by Doran Foster back in the 1800’s. It almost felt sacrilegious to her somehow. Did she have the right to tamper with the grave in the first place, like that? No one seemed to be in charge of the graveyard, but she wondered about the ethics of it.

  She started to get up and return to her car, but something stopped her. She decided to remove her letter after all. It was silly of her to have written it in the first place. She retrieved the key from its hiding place and put it in the lock. The door opened easily, and she looked in, but she could only see the letter that Doran had written. Her letter was nowhere in sight.

  This shocked Emma. How could it just disappear? It didn’t make sense, and she sat there for a very long time, just trembling as she stared at the cubby hole. Finally she closed the door and locked it again. An eerie feeling came over her, and she just wanted to be away from the grave yard, and the letter, along with everything that made her think of Doran Foster.

  When she returned home, she couldn’t wait to Cassandra to tell her of what had happened at the graveyard. “You will not believe what just happened!” she breathed, and related to Cassandra her experience at the gravestone.

  “Are you sure it disappeared? Maybe it was under the other letter? Did you check?”

  Emma started to laugh. “That is probably what happened. I must have accidentally slipped it under the other letter without realizing it. I didn’t bother to take the original letter out of the cubby hole to look under it. You are probably right, and I am getting freaked out over nothing. I’ll go check on it tomorrow. I need to startworking on my next art project, and use the Emma Foster tombstone etching in it.” She hung up, and went to her small studio which was a sun porch off of her kitchen.

  Emma became totally distracted, as she started her new project. She had gotten the photo of the grave developed at the hour developing counter at the drugstore on her way home from dinner the night before, and she wanted to work that into the painting behind the etching of the stone. However, as she drew the face of the angel, her face seemed to materialize in its features, and this puzzled her. Did she still see herself as the dead Emma of her dream?

  Finally, Emma put her art materials away, and sat down to read a book to distract her mind from everything. She could not wait until the next day when she would go back to the grave and retrieve her own letter, and put an end to this obsession of hers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1859

  Doran Foster trudged slowly to the grave of his beloved wife. It had been a scant five days since she had been laid below the stark cold earth. Even the balmy spring day could not bring him any solace from the deep dark tunnel he felt his soul drifting down. His son, Matthew, seemed to make it worse for him, every time he looked into the infant’s face, for it only conjured up memories of Emma’s face. His feet felt heavy, and he was barely able to move them, even though he was a strong muscular man, of unusual height. His dark hair fell ruffled and unkempt over his forehead, from constantly running his fingers through it. His green, usually striking, eyes were pale, the pupils dark with despair. Lines of worry creased his forehead, and the corners of his strong, full, masculine, mouth. His square jaw was clinched, the muscles flexing as he ground his teeth in anguish. He held a single envelope in his hand, the name Emma scrawled on its cover, slightly smeared from the tear that had fallen on it before he picked it up to bring with him to the grave yard.

  He had poured his heart out in the letter, and now he felt empty and worn to his limit. His thoughts were too dark to even think. He didn’t even nod acknowledgments to those on the plantation who tipped their hats or nodded to him as they passed. Everything around him was a blur, floating by without form or recognition. He almost passed the graveyard, in his blind oblivion to the world around him. He felt dead. As dead as Emma was, he realized.

  When he reached her graveside, the stark dark dirt piled in a mound over the coffin, beside the lush green grass that surrounded it, marred the grounds with its newness. He had instructed the planting of a dogwood tree to be placed nearby because it was one of Emma’s favorite trees. A stone angel had been commissioned to be placed by the headstone, a slight wistful smile forever engraved upon its face. He knelt and removed the key from under the stone, opening the small door, and placing the letter inside. It did not make him feel any better. It did not make Emma seem any closer. It was merely motions made, memories recounted, wistful thinking, on his part. He knew the letter was a physical gesture of his love for his wife, now that he could no longer hold her in his arms as he longed to do. Yet no matter how many letters he wrote to her, he would still be faced with her absences and the realization that she would no longer be in his life.

  He replaced the key under the rock, and knelt there motionless until he gathered enough strength to pull himself up, and return to his home. In spite of the fact that his mother was there to greet him, and his new son was in residence there as well, along with servants, and wet nurse, the house felt utterly empty, without Emma’s sweet spirit to brighten the place. The plantation was situated not too far from the old stone church, which had been built by his great grandfather. Beside it was the graveyard plot that had been set aside, when the necessity to bury the dead became a reality, as family members and servants or slaves started to die on the old plantation, which had been fairly new at the time. The slaves had used the church to worship in and sing their religious songs.

  Doran’s great grandfather had started out as a tobacco farmer, but later, as the crop, seemed to suck the very life out of the soil, his grandfather, and own father changed crops. After that, the plantation became more of a farm that supplied various crops of food and livestock for the food demands of the region, and to be shipped out to nearby towns. They used the natural droppings of the animals to build the soil back up, and rotated the crops regularly, to keep the soil producing well. Some thought it unusual farming practice and scoffed at it, until they began to see the results, which caused them to rethink their own plantation methods.

  The barns were stocked with horses, both for riding, hitching, and working the farm, and a few they bread just to sell. The meadow was filled with grazing cows for dairy and meat, and sheep, for wool. Pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, and the like filled the barnyard, beyond the horse barns, and milking barns. Anything that was necessary for sustaining life was readily available on the plantation, including a woodland area for cutting timber, for both the huge fireplaces of the plantation, and building supplies. It also attracted wild life for game.

  Doran’s great grandfather worked his plantation with slaves, but now the farm was run with servants. Some were descendants of the old slaves, who remained in residence. Others were hired on, some staying at the plantation, and some who came to do their jobs as needed, such as sheering sheep, when there were not enough workers on the plantation to handle it, or men who came in just to milk the cows, morning and evening.

  Though Missouri was still a slave state, Doran’s own grandfather, had freed his slaves at his death, and their loyalty, kept them working the plantation, but now they were paid. Others in Missouri did not like the fact that the Foster Farm did not have slaves, because it made their own slaves restless, and eager to escape.

  Doran nodded briefly to his mother, who met him at the door, but passed her and climbed the stairs to his room, where he entered and closed
the door, breathing in the perfume that lingered there from Emma. He sunk down on the bed, closed his eyes and dreamed of the woman he would never see again. He slept the rest of the day, not even waking to eat, which made his mother worry about him, but she dared not approach him.

  He needed time to mourn, she knew well because she had lost her husband in a riding accident several years prior. She knew the pain of losing someone so dear. Luckily, her marriage had lasted a lot longer than Doran’s, but that made it all the more difficult to face after years of loving the same person, and having him there by your side.

  The next morning, Doran returned to his wife’s grave. Not with a letter, but with the book of her favorite poems, to read aloud beside her grave. He brought a stool to sit on as he read. He first knelt beside the grave, and it was then that he noticed it... Something unusual was behind the brass door, where he had deposited his letter the day before… a strange envelope with roses on it.

  He had never seen such an envelope before, and couldn’t imagine where it could have come from, and who was tampering with his wife’s grave, he wondered? Anger rose within him. Had someone seen him put the letter inside and return the key under the stone? Had they come and put something in there for Emma as well? Perhaps his mother, he thought, calming the sudden anger that had risen at the thought of anyone tampering with his wife’s grave, but the paper was peculiar. He knew that his mother, nor anyone else he knew, had ever possessed paper with roses printed on it. He doubted that stationary with that kind frill even existed. Where could it have come from?

  With shaking hands, he hastily retrieved the key, and opened the door. The envelope had his name written on it, in an extraordinary blue ink, which he had never seen before. The only ink he was aware of was black, which you had to dip your ink pen in, in order to make if flow across the paper, yet this ink, did not have the same kind of flow or texture to it that he was used to seeing.

  Who had written to him, and placed the letter in his wife’s gravestone? It did not make sense. If someone wanted to give their condolences, they would have sent it to him direct, not placed it in the door of his wife’s headstone. Besides how would they know where to find the key?

  With trepidation, he opened the envelope, and the smell of his wife’s perfume, wafted up to his nostrils, in a shock that almost made him fall over. The stab of pain it caused made him almost drop the letter. Then he saw how it was addressed, and his hands began to shake even more. This was not a letter written from some friend, but written as though his wife had penned it to him herself, and perplexing still, was his wife’s very perfume, permeating the paper. What did this mean?

  Who was playing this cruel trick on him? He read the words, written in a curious, curving script, with the same unusual ink. The words pulled at his very soul, but he did not recognize the script as his wife’s, even though there were little familiar flourishes in the writing, which did remind him of things she used to do, such as placing a heart here and there among the writing, and making a feminine flaunting scroll under her name. Someone was trying to copy her handwriting, he thought, yet the bulk of the letter did not resemble her writing that much.

  However, it was not the writing that made him gasp. It was the words she had written, so much like his wife to say such things. He was trembling visibly, by the time he had finished reading the letter, because he did not know what to make of it. Why would someone try to impersonate his dead wife and send him a letter from her at a time like this? He was furious and curious at the same time.

  Doran rose from the grave, with the letter in hand, and stocked back to the house, determined to get to the bottom of such a tasteless prank. His mother was wide eyed, when he marched up to her, almost accusingly.

  “Look what I found in the headstone of Emma’s grave,” he choked, handing the letter to her. “Do you know anything about this?”

  Melissa Foster stared down at the letter in her hand, not knowing what to make of it. “What is this? I have never seen such fancy paper before or this type of ink. Where has it come from?”

  “The dead, perhaps… or someone who wants me to believe so,” Doran fumed.

  “No one here, who I know of, has access to such paper or ink, and why would they do such a thing, to upset you so?”

  “I have no idea, but I am going to get to the bottom of this. I am going into the city, and find out where this kind of paper came from. It is so unusual, that someone should most likely remember who purchased it. That will be a start.”

  Melissa was shocked, but something remarkable was happening, she noticed. Her son suddenly had a purpose in life. He had been jolted out of his daze caused by his wife’s death, and while it was painful to think someone would play such a trick on him, he was now determined to discover who had done it, and why. By the time he found out, perhaps he would be past the worst of his mourning.

  Doran did not waste any time. He hitched up his horse, Pandora, to the buggy, and made the day’s journey into the city. He wasn’t really sure where to start, but he decided to go to the paper supply house, where most stationary was purchased in bulk by businesses. When he showed the clerk the paper, the thin scrawny man scratched his chin, and called for the owner. The owner, who was a plumper rendition of the clerk, claimed he had never seen any sort of paper like that, either that he could order special, or that had ever been produced in the past. He was amazed at the ink that did not smear like regular ink if it got moist, and it was a thin line, rather than a broad sweep like most pens made when you wrote with them, turning from thin lines to broad lines as you turned the point to form the letters. The roses printed on the paper seemed to be embossed within the paper itself, and had not been hand painted or commercially painted on the paper, and the colors were something that could not be produced commercially in such a manner, anyway, he pointed out. This paper, he surmised, could only come from the future, which was impossible, or from some foreign land that had greater abilities in producing such results, than any he knew of in America, or England. He wanted to know where Doran had come by such paper and ink.

  “In my wife’s tombstone!” he replied, without explanation, which left the paper works owner with a shocked look on his face, as he watched Doran turn and stride from his office.

  When Doran reached the walk outside, he didn’t know where to go from there. He was no closer to discovering the origins of the paper than he was the moment he had seen the sheet. He slowly climbed into his buggy, and just sat there, staring down at the letter. He read it again, but it only pulled at his heart strings, and he wondered how the person who wrote the letter had known the kind of perfume his wife used? Only someone who was close to her would have known, but all of Emma’s friends and relatives came from back east. Her parents were dead, her brother had been estranged from her since they were young, and she had not been back east for many years anyway. All her other friends were more casual acquaintances than close friends, and they would have had to purchase the paper somewhere nearby, unless they traveled abroad and found the paper in another country. It seemed there was no place for Doran to even start to come up with suspects.

  Finally, he picked up the reins and clicked his tongue for Pandora to start back to the plantation. He didn’t return home until late, but he couldn’t sleep, and his mind seemed worn out trying to think about what to do to discover what or who was behind the letter in his wife’s gravestone.

  Instead, he found himself doing the only thing he could do. He would write a letter to the anonymous person, demanding answers, and place it in his wife’s headstone, where whoever put the strange letter there in the first place, may come to find it. Otherwise, he would never discover the answer to the mystery. After writing the letter, he still couldn’t sleep, so after placing it in the headstone, he decided to remove himself a ways from the gravestone, and watch to see if anyone approached his wife’s grave during the night.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1979

  When Emma awoke the next morning, she had
almost forgotten about the letter, until she passed the studio and saw her unfinished painting of Emma’s grave, and the etching she had taken from it. She ate a hasty breakfast, and then jumped in her 850 Spider, heading it down the road to the graveyard. She approached the grave anxiously, found the key and opened the door, but instead of finding her letter there, along with the one addressed to Emma, she found a brand new letter.

  It was not old and yellowed like the first, but the handwriting on the front of the envelope was in the same ink and the scrawl used on the letter was recognizable as the one she had found the day before, on the old letter, but it was addressed… To Whom it May Concern. This puzzled Emma. She pulled the letter out, and checked under the other, older letter, for her own letter, but it was not there. Whoever wrote this new letter must have removed hers, she decided, but what did all of this mean? She had not seen it here yesterday, after her own letter seemed to disappear. Had someone discovered the grave had been tended, and wondered who was doing it? Had they found the key and the letter she had written, and was now going to reprimand her for tampering with the grave? But that did not explain the use of the old ink and similar handwriting on the paper, which looked to be exactly like the paper the old letter had been written on, except it was much newer.

  Emma opened the envelope. It was dated April 7, 1859. How preposterous, Emma thought. That was the day after the last letter had been written, yet this stationary was new and crisp, as though it had been written recently. It didn’t make any sense. She read the scrawl that seemed a little shakier than the previous letter.

  April 7, 1859

  To Whom it May Concern,

  Whoever you are, I demand some answers. This is a cruel joke you are playing on me, pretending to be my poor dead wife and answering my letter to her. Where did you get her perfume? Where did you get the stationary that you wrote the letter on? I cannot find any evidence that this stationary can be produced or even exists, yet I have seen it with my own eyes. What strange ink have you discovered, that is nothing like the ink of the day? Why have you used these unusual methods to write to me, if not to try and trick me into believing that this letter came from heaven, or from a place I know nothing about? Why are you tampering with my heart, to make me believe that my wife lives beyond the grave, and can write to me as though she still exists on the earth? Have you nothing better to do with your time, than to badger a poor grieving widower? Are you without any feeling or decency? Do you have no ethics to realize the pain you are causing me? Please desist from this wicked pass time, but explain to me your motivation and methods in order to ease my mind.