Letters From The Grave

by Jeanie P Johnson

  She wasn’t quite ready to give up her past life husband, she thought. She wanted to learn so much more about him, before she ever met him in this life, she decided. Would the person he was in this life look just like him, she wondered? Shouldn’t she learn enough about his character so if she did meet him in this life, she would recognize him, just in case he didn’t look anything like Doran of old? Did people recognize their soul mates if they never learned anything about them from the past? And would either of them have the same personality? Too many questions, with no real answers.

  She felt even more confused than before, so she decided to occupy herself with finishing up the painting of Emma, painting her own face on the canvas, but using the picture of Doran’s wife as a model, with the same hairdo and expression on her face. When she was finished, she stood back and looked at it. It gave her an eerie feeling. No wonder the angel’s face kept looking like hers when she painted it. The angel must represent Emma in death, and she hadn’t realized it. She toned down the features of the angel’s face, while detailing the features in Emma’s face. When it was finished, she shrugged, trying to get rid of the strong connection that persisted every time she looked into her own ‘dead’ eyes. Then she decided to start on a painting of Doran for his grave marker etching, which she had taken after cleaning up his grave.

  She found comfort in doing his painting, and spent the rest of the day working on it, until it was finished. When she set the paintings side by side, it gave her a feeling of completion. By the time she had finished his painting, she was familiar with every curve of his face, and the deep expression in his eyes. He became more real to her with every brush stroke. She felt suddenly drained, and could think of nothing else but finding refuge in her bed.

  That night she had troubling dreams. They started out pleasant enough. She realized that she was dreaming of Doran, and how she had met him in that past life. She felt ecstatically happy in the beginning of the dream, but towards the end of the dream she was bearing a child, and it was painful, and she was calling out for Doran but he never came, and then she was floating out of her body and looking down at Doran as he cried over her dead body, and she was suddenly jolted awake.

  Emma lay shaking and sweating in her bed as the remembrance of her dream washed over her, and she wondered if she was having a past life remembrance, or was she merely transposing herself into that past life with Doran because of her obsession with her ability to communicate with him? Was all of this just a dream, she wondered, and none of this was really happening?

  She couldn’t go back to sleep, so she decided to compose a letter to Doran. She enclosed snapshots of her paintings that she took with a Polaroid camera, and by the time she finished, she felt calm again, and so went back to bed. In the morning, she took all her paintings and put them in a large folding portfolio, and stuck it in her car. Then she drove to the grave yard, put the letter into the tombstone, and got back in her car and headed towards St. Louis and to Sal’s Art Studio.

  By the time she arrived, she felt excited, wondering what Sal was going to say about her face being in the painting, and wasn’t sure what she was going to tell him. As she opened the door of his studio, someone brushed past her. He seemed to be in a hurry, but as their hands touched, she received a tingling sensation throughout her whole body. She wondered if it was static electricity, and turned her head to watch the man hurrying down the street, and then shrugged, continuing on into the studio.

  “Well hello there,” Sal smiled as she entered. “I was just talking to someone about you. Did you tell someone that you were planning to display your art here?”

  “Just my family and my girlfriend,” she said truthfully.

  “I could not believe it. Someone has seen your art, it seems. The young man that just left insisted you would be bringing in your paintings today. He was especially interested in paintings of the graves markers of Emma and Doran Foster.”

  “What?” she exclaimed, almost dropping her portfolio. “I just finished those paintings last night. No one has ever seen them yet!”

  “But someone must have known you were working on them,” he mumbled.

  “Only the one of Emma, I showed it to you, remember?”

  “Yes, the angel had your face,” he murmured.

  “The other one I did just yesterday, and hadn’t told anyone I was even thinking of doing it.”

  “Well, this is all very mysterious, but whoever was in here, made me promise to hold those two paintings and save them for him.”

  “What was his name?” she wanted to know.

  “Doran Foster. He said the people in your paintings were his ancestors or something.”

  “Doran Foster!” She started to feel faint, and reached out to steady herself, grasping onto his arm. “Do you have his address, or phone number?” she asked in a shaking voice.

  “No. He was rather secretive about all that, but he paid me money to hold them for him, and said that he would check back later, since he was sure you were going to bring them in soon. He said he would pay whatever price I asked for them.”

  “How would he know? I didn’t tell anyone I was bringing them today?” Then she took in her breath at the thought, because she had mentioned it in her letter to Doran. Only she had told Doran of the past, so how did Doran of the future know about them? She didn’t even know the Doran of the future… was he also in contact with Doran of the past? Could one communicate with their own past life?.

  “Don’t keep me waiting. Now I am more curious than ever. Show me the paintings!” Sal insisted, reaching for the portfolio. He opened it up and laid the pictures out on the table. “My word, girl, these are amazing. You not only painted your face on the angel, but the face of Emma is yours as well,” he breathed. Then he stared at the other painting. His gaze raising to her eyes. “You must have known the young man who was just in here, because this other painting looks just like him,” he said in a low voice.

  “Only I don’t know him,” she gulped. “I got both of these pictures from an old photo from their wedding. The woman happened to look like me, but since the woman happens to be my father’s great, great aunt or something, I figured that was the reason I resembled her.”

  “Yes, the young man mentioned that you looked like Emma in the painting, but he didn’t mention that he also resemble his ancestor as well, because this is the spitting image of him.”

  “Listen, when he comes in to get the paintings, would you give him my phone number? I need to talk to him,” she insisted as she wrote the phone number down on a piece of paper, and handed it to Sal.

  “Sure, no problem, and since he took such interest in your paintings, I think I will display the rest of your work, if you want.”

  “You will?” she gasped.

  “Sure, when he comes back, he may want to buy some of those as well.”

  “He is probably only interested because the people in the painting are related to him, but I just want to know how he knew I was bringing the paintings in.”

  Something was not right. Maybe she hadn’t been writing to someone in the past. Maybe this man who was related to the Fosters, and knew about the grave yard, was the one answering her letters. But that did not explain the stationary and the pen being the same. However, if he was related to Doran Forster, perhaps he inherited the pen, and paper, some way. Only the plantation was burned down, wouldn’t all of that have been in the house when it burned?”

  Her head was going mad, trying to put it all together. Someone, other than herself, knew about that grave yard. Maybe she should hide there in the old church and see, she thought. Wistfully, she realized there was no way to know when he may come to the graveyard, and she had to work. She couldn’t just camp out there.

  “Are you alright?” Sal asked, looking at her closely. “You seem upset.”

  “I’m fine,” Emma lied. “Take whatever pictures you think will sell,” she murmured.

  Sal decided to take all of the paintings, and encouraged her to d
o more. She nodded, feeling in a daze. This could not be happening to her, she thought. Someone wanted her to think she was actually writing to someone in the past, but why? There was no rhyme or reason to it.

  She got back into her car, and slowly drove away, looking over her shoulder, just in case Doran Foster was nearby someplace, watching her. Why was he being so secretive about himself? Was it because he wanted to learn more about her through her letters to his dead ancestor, for some reason? This was maddening. Maybe she wouldn’t write to Doran any longer, she told herself. She needed to talk to someone about it. Cassandra was the only one she could trust with the information, she decided.

  CHAPTER NINE

  1859

  Doran anxiously looked forward to Emma’s next response to his letter. It seemed now his head was filled with thoughts of her, only it wasn’t like thinking about his wife Emma. This woman was new and different, even if she did look like his lost wife. She was modern beyond his time, and lived in a whole different world than he did and this made her new and exciting beyond belief.

  Only he could not touch her. He could not meet her. He could only share words with her, and it made him wish all the more that there was such a thing as reincarnation, so he could be with her in the future, but what good would that do if he couldn’t experience it in his own time? Once he joined her in the future, he most likely would forget anything about his life now. In the same way he could not remember any past lives he may have had with or without Emma in it.

  He sat in his study with the ballpoint pen in his hand, clicking it over and over again. The sound seemed to sooth him in some unexplainable way, but it wasn’t getting anything accomplished. He had to learn when the war was going to start, so he could start making plans in advance. He would have to ask Emma, because she knew. He didn’t want to wait for the election of a president that he and very few people even knew the name of.

  Whoever Abraham Lincoln was, he must be an unknown, and if Lincoln was the one who would order such a war, perhaps he should campaign against him. He wondered if that would make any difference, though? The thought of his plantation being burned upset him, and he wondered if it was a good thing to know things about the future, especially if there was no way you could change anything? However, he couldn’t just sit and wait around for someone to come burn his plantation down. He needed to find out if Emma knew when the plantation would be burned.

  Doran threw the pen on the desk, and rose up from the chair. He wanted to go check the tombstone to see if Emma had answered his last letter. He barely noticed his mother as he passed her in the hall. His whole focus now was on a future he realized he had little control over even when he knew what was going to happen.

  First, he lost his wife, and now he was going to lose his plantation. Why was God punishing him like this? It was bad enough that he would have to raise Matthew on his own as best he could, unless he remarried, and the thought of that was the farthest from his mind. No one could ever replace Emma, and it would be unfair to any woman who tried. If he could only transport himself in time, like those stupid letters did. Even if he could, he would have to leave his son behind in order to do it, and that was not an option either.

  He reached the graveyard, and approached Emma’s grave. He noticed that the grass had already started to cover the fresh dirt, and the dogwood tree was now in bloom. The ache in his heart was not quite as painful, and he realized he was going to get through this, with the help of some woman in the future, who may or may not be the reincarnation of his wife.

  He knelt and opened the brass door, reaching inside to find another letter. Inside the envelope he discovered two pictures. They were of the paintings Emma had spoken of, and he saw how well she had captured both his and his wife’s images within the paintings. He unfolded the page and began to read.

  April 8, 1979

  Dear Doran,

  As soon as I deposit this letter, I will be traveling to Saint Louis to take my finished paintings to a studio there. Sal Hunter owns it, and has promised to show my work, once I finished the painting of your wife. But when I received the photograph of you and your wife on your wedding day, I began working on your tombstone picture as well. I had to blacken out the date of your death, on the photo I sent, because I don’t want you to know the day you will die. I am very excited about how the paintings turned out, though, and hope that people will wish to buy my paintings, even though I hate parting with the ones of you and Emma.

  I see how much I resemble Emma, so I am sure the picture I sent to you must have shocked you, but it is probably because I am related to her. You appear to be a very handsome man, and I can see why Emma was attracted to you. I barely know you, except through your letters, but I feel like I have met you before. When I saw your picture, you looked so familiar to me, somehow.

  Though I have had a couple dreams about you and Emma, I really can’t recall anything about my life back then or if I even did exist back then.

  You ask about what buildings other than the church are still standing. There were several barns that were not burned, but of course now, they are mostly tumbled down. So I suppose that the barns would protect supplies, if you wanted to store something. I hope who ever burned your plantation will not look for anything beyond the house. Hide everything well.

  I tried to call the Doran Foster I found in the phone book. I suppose you cannot understand that, but we have what are called telephones, which are connected by wires that reach all over the United States and the world. It is kind of like telegraph, but you can talk over the wires to each other, and each phone has its own number that you call. I tried calling Doran Foster’s number, but it was no longer in service. That means it doesn’t work even though he does have a number to call. He has just changed it, and made it unlisted, which means only his friends are given his number, and it is not published in the phone book, where anyone could call him if they wanted to.

  Since I do not know where he lives, even though he is in the area somewhere, there is no way I can contact him to discover if he is related to you or not, but I will keep working on it.

  Be safe, and don’t worry about the war. It won’t even begin until 1861 and then it will take several months before it expands into more than just a few skirmishes. It will continue on into 1865 and in April 1865, Abraham Lincoln will be assassinated by a Mr. Booth.

  Abraham Lincoln is considered a great president by people of my generation, but he was hated by many people in your day, because he did not allow the states to separate, which was actually against the constitution not to let them secede, which is what the south wanted to do. By the way, many people of Missouri were torn over whether to support him, because Missouri was a slave state, and Lincoln was against slavery, while half the state was also against slavery. However, I will leave you to make up your own mind.

  Forever your friend, Emma

  Doran put the letter, along with the photographs in his breast pocket, next to the one Emma had sent him of her. At least he had time to make plans, he decided, and if he could get through the war unscathed, perhaps there would still be a chance for him to rebuild the plantation. Then the thought occurred to him… of course he could not rebuild the plantation, because in Emma’s day in 1979 his plantation was still burned down, and she claims it happened during the war. What will become of him and his family, he wondered? They must survive, since she says there is a Doran Foster still in the area in her time, but why didn’t the plantation get rebuilt? That would have been his first priority, once the war was over, he thought.

  He decided to put it all out of his head. The war wasn’t even going to start for another couple of years, and that gave him plenty of time to decide what to do. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the plantation did not get burned down until later, for some other reason, and she just thought it was during the war. After all, there was a hundred year gap between her time and his. Anything could happen in a hundred years, he decided, and she hadn’t even been there.

  Slowly, he s
tarted walking back towards the house. Emma’s brother, Mark, would be arriving any day. It had been his mother’s suggestion that he come and help Doran with the plantation. After all he was uncle to his child. Since the plantation seemed so lonely since Emma died, Doran agreed, even though he had only met Mark once, which was at his wedding. He would be bringing his wife, Julia, and his young son, William, who was barely two years old. William would give Matthew a companion to play with in the future, Doran thought.

  Doran’s mother had mentioned that Mark’s wife was carrying another child, which would be due at the beginning of the next year. This worried him. He did not want to witness another death at childbirth, but she had lived through the birth of her first son, so perhaps she would survive the next. It made him envious of Mark, but he tried to stifle down the feeling.

  He pulled Emma’s picture from his breast pocket, and looked down at it. Strange, he carried her picture with him, instead of his wife’s photograph, but weren’t they almost the same? They both resembled each other, and had the same name. His connection to this Emma seemed as strong as his connection to his wife, Emma.

  As he stared at the photograph in his hand, he could see small differences between her and his wife, but they were so slight, it was difficult to notice them. It was merely because he knew Emma so well that he could see the differences. And this woman could write to him, where his wife couldn’t. Yet if Emma of the future was really Emma of the past, it was like talking to his wife from the grave, except for the fact that she could not remember anything they had shared together, or their conversations, or even the times they made love. Could he dare speak to her of those things in hopes that she would remember them, he wondered?

  Now he had a driving need to try and rekindle her memory of him. Perhaps if he reminded her of those things she would remember her past life with him, he hoped, and they would have that much more to bond them over space and time.