Being Dead

by Vivian Vande Velde

  What happened to my father inside the house while the rest of us were all outside discussing him? Did he intentionally shoot himself from grief or guilt? Did he accidentally shoot himself while trying to protect himself from Kevin? Was Kevin's ghost there—and if so, did he return specifically to try to stop Dad from killing himself? Or am I wrong about Kevin? Did he set out to drive our father to his death? Can a ghost be angry enough, and substantial enough, to aim a gun and pull a trigger? Were we blockheads to base so much of our theory on the behavior of a brain-damaged dog?

  "Stay here," Uncle Jack commanded us—me and Dwight, though neither of us had twitched—as he yanked the porch door open and ran into the house. Aunt Lise was holding my mother. Dwight and I were staring at each other. Spartacus took the opportunity to run through the open door into the front yard, where he stood and bayed at the sky.

  When the Canettis peeked out their window to see what die problem was, I finally took Spartacus by the collar and told him, "That's enough."

  And he stopped.

  The Ghost

  When Jessica screamed, Mark and Adam came running so fast, they nearly bowled me over.

  "Did you see it?" she yelled. "Did you see that thing?"

  We all peered around the room and shook our heads.

  "It was terrible!" she said. "I've never seen anything like it."

  Adam took a deep breath before speaking. While Jessica and I had been inside, he and Mark had been struggling to get the refrigerator up the front stairs, and his patience had obviously been left behind. "If it was a bug," he warned, "or a mouse—"

  "Bug!" she shouted. Her chest heaved under the tight T-shirt, which boldly proclaimed, ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIG IT—SUNY COLLEGE AT OSWEGO. She had been working hard, also. The previous occupants, gone two years now, had left their furniture behind, and she had been cleaning the large, dusty rooms and trying to arrange the new and the old furniture so everything fit That must be a girl thing, wanting everything to be perfectly right from the very beginning. Her exertions and her recent scare made her voice strained. "Mouse? What kind of jerk do you think I am? It was a person. A horrible, disgusting, slimy, half-human person."

  "'Disgusting'?" I said. "'Slimy'?"

  Mark also seemed incredulous. '"Half human'?"

  Adam started for the window.

  "No, right here in the house," Jessica said. "He was standing there all dripping and ... and ... foul, and leering at me. And then he just kind of dissolved into thin air."

  Leering was just like her; she was the type who'd always suspect a guy's ulterior motives—even a slimy, disgusting, half-human guy.

  Mark seemed to have the same idea. "'Leering,' Jessica?"

  "Where, exactly, was this thing?" Adam asked, trying to take charge.

  "There, right there." She pointed to where I stood, and I had to move quickly to get out of Adam's way.

  He crouched down, examined the dust patterns. He had already finished sophomore year in archaeology and obviously felt his training qualified him as some sort of forensic expert.

  "Any slime there?" I asked. "Any drips?"

  "Well, see anything?" Mark interrupted. "Any cloven hoof tracks or whatever?"

  "Cute, Mark, real cute," Jessica snapped.

  Adam stood up. "Well, of course, there's all the tracks we've made moving our stuff in here, but I don't see anything that looks out of order. Tell you what: Why don't you sit down and rest for a while, Jessica?"

  "Don't take that tone with me."

  "'Tone'? What tone?" Adam was a bit too defensive. "That was concern you detected in my voice."

  "Bull. That was a Jessica's-been-seeing-things-that-aren't-there-Must-be-that-time-of-month tone."

  "Come on, Jess."

  I was biting my cheeks over this exchange, and one look at Mark showed he was enjoying himself, also. Not that I knew him that well, but I thought we had a lot in common. If it weren't for those other two! They were only interested in this fine old house because the real-estate broker was willing to rent it out cheap to college students until a buyer turned up. There was no way the four of us could share the house in peace.

  "You think I'm just imagining things," Jessica was accusing. "That I believed Donna Horvath's stories and got carried away with my own daydreams."

  "Of course not," Adam said so quickly that we all knew that was exactly what he was thinking.

  "Big deal," Jessica said. "So a murder was committed in this house. That doesn't bother me."

  "Here," I said, "in this room."

  "Right here," Mark echoed.

  "As the poor guy dozed in this very rocking chair," I finished, "his dear brother beat him to death for the sake of a woman who didn't really love either of them."

  As if on cue, all of us turned from the antique rocker and looked at the fireplace, but of course the police had kept the poker as evidence.

  "And we know that the murderer confessed but then hung himself in his jail cell before telling what he'd done with the body," Jessica continued. "As for the rest of it, that's just garbage: how the dead guy came back and haunted his brother, brandishing the murder weapon—the fireplace poker—until the brother turned himself in. How the ghost followed him to jail and drove him to suicide. I never gave the story a second thought."

  "Until now," I said.

  "Until now," she echoed. She rubbed her arms. "Jeez, this place is depressing. I think we made a mistake renting it."

  "It's better than the dorms," Adam started.

  "I think we need some air," I said. I could see what was coming, but I couldn't help myself. With perfect timing I threw the window up just as an owl hooted.

  Jessica, as could be counted on, overreacted and screamed.

  "There, there," I whispered just loud enough for her to hear, then patted her on the back. The more I patted, the more she screamed.

  Finally I pulled a hanky out of Adam's pocket and fanned her with it. Jessica started hyperventilating.

  "That does it," Adam said. "Let's get out of here."

  It had taken them about three hours to unload their stuff, but they got it all back in the truck in less than thirty minutes.

  "Good-bye," I called as they piled themselves in.

  I wanted someone to stay—really I did. Otherwise, I'd never rest properly. But I found it hard to resist playing my little jokes.

  I watched the truck pull out of the driveway, then went back into the house and sat down in the old oak rocker—always my favorite, despite what had happened to me there. Perhaps later I would go visit my special place in the lower garden.

  For Love of Him

  It was no good trying to outrun the rain. Harrison realized that after those few frantic seconds when the first big drops pelted the leaves in the uppermost branches, hard enough to be audible. Already soaked, he wasn't running, for the roads in the old section of the cemetery could be treacherously slippery. He was caught, naturally, just about halfway between the cemetery office, where the rest rooms were, and the area where his troop was helping Allan earn his Eagle Badge by cleaning up litter and debris from around the graves.

  He almost missed seeing the woman kneeling by a grave not far from the road. It was only the near-simultaneous flash of lightning and crack of thunder that caused him to jerk his head up, into the eye-stinging rain. For a moment he thought he was seeing mist, a product of the combination of hot spring day and cold rain.

  As soon as he saw it was a woman in a white dress, Harrison stopped looking, reluctant to intrude on someone's privacy, even if that person was unaware of him.

  But then he glanced back.

  The woman just knelt there as though oblivious to Harrison, to the pouring rain, to the danger of a thunderstorm with all these centuries-old trees around. She rocked back and forth, her pale hands covering her face. Her white dress and her long dark hair were plastered to her body, giving her the look of a black-and-white photograph. Even from the road Harrison could see her shoulders shaking.

 
Strange, he thought, that anybody should be so overcome by grief here in the old part of the cemetery. Most of these graves dated back to the 1800s, which was why this section looked so like a park: The Victorians had had a weird perspective on things. These days sightseers came here to take pictures of the grand angels or to make rubbings of the stones with their elaborate carvings and their flowery testimonials.

  Why such heartfelt tears for someone at least a hundred years dead?

  Harrison glimpsed Mr. Reisinger's van rounding the hill on the lower road. "Mr. R.!" he called, waving his arms, though with the rain and thunder and distance, the scoutmaster couldn't possibly hear.

  But he must have been on the lookout for Harrison. He flashed his headlights to show he'd spotted him.

  Harrison watched the van make its way around the pond, when he remembered the woman. Should he offer her a ride? But the woman was no longer there. Silly, Harrison thought. You'd think she'd come to the road on a day like this, rather than cut across the back way to the old buggy path. But perhaps she'd been embarrassed to have been caught at ... whatever.

  Harrison stepped onto the rain-slicked grass. "Miss?" he called over the surly rumbling of thunder. The sheet of rain prevented him from seeing far at all. He thought he caught a glimpse of a figure beyond the willow tree, but that seemed to be a man, a tall, thin, dark-haired man. And then he was gone, too.

  "Miss?"

  Harrison took another step. He heard the crunch of gravel as the van approached on the road behind him. "Do you want a ride?" he called. "You shouldn't be out here during a lightning storm."

  There was no answer, but by then Harrison was almost to the grave by which the woman had been kneeling. He took the few extra steps.

  It was a double headstone. ROBERT DELANO ADAMS was inscribed on one side.

  LOVING SON

  LONG WILL HE BE REMEMBERED

  LONG WILL HE BE MISSED

  HIS MOTHER GRIEVES STILL

  JANUARY 10, 1874–MAY 17, 1892

  A hundred years ago today. What an odd coincidence. He did the mental arithmetic. Only a few years older than himself.

  The other side bore the name EULALIA MEINYK. There was only one date, two days later than the other: MAY 19, 1892.

  SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM

  How very sad, Harrison thought.

  Mr. Reisinger beeped the horn, calling him back to here and now, and motioned for him to get moving.

  He clambered in next to Spense, who made a face at Harrison for dripping on him.

  "Don't know enough to come in out of the rain," Mr. Reisinger said over the noise of the windshield wipers. He shook his head, then reached under the seat and pulled out a roll of paper towels, which he passed back.

  "We get enough done?" Harrison asked.

  Mr. Reisinger was a professional gardener who had contracts to take care of several dozen of die newer graves, so he'd be very fussy about the cleanup the scouts had done. But he said, "Probably," and Harrison leaned back in his seat.

  "You smell like a wet dog," Spense complained, friendly as always.

  Harrison gazed out the window as they approached the stone-and-iron gate. How pretty the trees looked, their leaves still fresh and new, the trunks and branches stained dark by the rain, with the dramatically gray clouds as backdrop. Robert Delano Adams and Eulalia Meinyk. He wondered which one the woman had been crying for.

  The next day, Monday, Harrison was riding his bike home from school and decided to cut through the cemetery.

  We did a good job, he told himself, but then he rounded a comer and saw that somebody had lopped the heads off all the tulips Mr. Reisinger had planted over Mrs. Reisinger's grave. In fact, for the entire length of this row, wreaths were knocked off their stands, ivy and geraniums were trampled. When Harrison got off the bike and walked around to the other side, he saw that someone had used a red felt-tip marker to deface the fronts of the headstones. A few had obscene messages scrawled on them, but many simply had a line drawn through the names, as though the vandals had simply held the marker out when they strolled past.

  Stupid, senseless malice. And this was just the kind of thing Mr. Reisinger had complained the police were useless for. They'd take the report—they always took a report—but they weren't interested unless there was dramatic breakage. Angrily Harrison got out the linen handkerchief his mother always tucked into his backpack and spat on it. On his knees he scrubbed at Mrs. Reisinger's headstone—one of the ones that was simply scribbled on. The ink came off the smooth surface easily, but he had to scrape it out of the engraved areas of the letters.

  Finished, he sat back on his heels. On the grave to the left, someone had covered the inscription MOTHER with a particularly crude word. The grave was not one of the ones Mr. Reisinger was responsible for, but it was a recent grave and had been well tended. Now the urn with fresh flowers was overturned. Harrison could just picture this poor woman's husband and children coming with some new flowers this weekend and seeing that obscenity. With a sigh he began scrubbing at the word.

  Three hours later he'd scrubbed clean all the gravestones with actual words on them. The knees of his school pants were filthy, and his hands were too sore to do any more. Sorry, he thought to the others.

  The scents of crushed flowers and damp earth heated by the sun mingled and hung heavily about him. What is the matter with me? he thought. He'd just spent all afternoon cleaning gravestones for people he didn't even know, who wouldn't even be aware of what he'd done, who might not even care. And for what? He was late for dinner, which always made his mother crazy; he'd missed die chance to go to the library to research his science paper, which was due tomorrow; and he still had to pick up a snack for the scout meeting tonight.

  Harrison jammed what was left of the handkerchief into his pocket, unsure whether he was more sad or angry.

  Somehow, despite all the times he had been here, he missed the turnoff to the exit. He was pedaling past the reconstructed Victorian gazebo before he realized he was in the old section. Rather than backtrack, he kept going. The road circled around, anyway, and came out near the old chapel. There was the grave of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. On the other side of that hill were buried the poor nameless children who had died in the turn-of-the-century orphanage fire. Over there just beyond the curve of the road was the infant son of Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody. Instead of going that way, Harrison turned down the road to take him deeper into the cemetery. He slowed down, unsure he'd recognize it, sure he must have passed it already. Then—just as he was about to give up—he spotted it. ROBERT DELANO ADAMS. EULALIA MEINYK.

  He left the bike by the road.

  What am I doing here? he asked himself. Surely he hadn't expected the strange dark-haired woman to still be here.

  He ran his fingers across the cool marble, tracing the outlines of the letters. ROBERT DELANO ADAMS. EULALIA MEINYK. SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM. Two days later. Had she died of a broken heart? People used to do that, back then. What must he have been like for her to be unable to go on without him? Had she taken her own life? SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM.

  Without planning it, Harrison sat down next to the grave. What am I doing here? he asked himself again.

  Just resting, he answered himself. As soon as I catch my breath, I'll be on my way.

  But the next thing he knew, it was dark out, and Mr. Reisinger was shaking his shoulder.

  "What?" he said. "What is it?"

  "'What is it?'" the scoutmaster repeated. "It's nine o'clock at night, and your parents are frantic. The whole troop and half the neighborhood are out looking for you. What are you doing?"

  "I must have fallen asleep," Harrison said. But he was still sitting up, and he'knew his eyes had been wide open, though he couldn't remember what he'd been looking at.

  The groundskeeper who'd opened the gate for Mr. Reisinger told Harrison to keep out of the cemetery from now on; his parents told him to keep out of the cemetery; the police told him to keep out of the cemetery.


  But his science teacher made him stay after school because his report wasn't done, and he didn't want to worry his parents by being late again, so he took the shortcut, anyway.

  Everything's fine, he told himself, ignoring the pounding of his heart and the damp feeling around the edge of his scalp. So why were his hands slippery on the handlebars?

  He rode past die stone chapel and into the old section, where the trees were tall and the roads wound dizzyingly and the graves seemed scattered randomly in the most improbable places rather than being lined up in neat rows. He was aware that he was breathing with his mouth open, and still he couldn't get enough air. What was the matter with him?

  He stopped pedaling, and the bike coasted to a stop. For several minutes he just sat there straddling his bike, staring straight ahead.

  A woman and her dog jogged by, the dog's chain collar jangling.

  Harrison finally turned his head and faced the double headstone. ROBERT DELANO ADAMS. MAY 17, 1892. EULALIA MEINYK. MAY 19, 1892. SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM. Harrison closed his eyes, SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM.

  He left the bike and approached the gravesite. 1874–1892. Robert had been eighteen when he'd died. Of what? And how old had Eulalia been? SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM. A hundred years ago today. Had they been engaged? Was that why they were buried together? If so, she was probably a little bit younger than Robert Maybe about Harrison's own age, since people back then married young.

  Harrison had lived near the cemetery for as long as he could remember, but he'd never thought about dying before, about being dead.