The Orphan of Cemetery Hill

by Hester Fox

  He had hardly stepped foot through the cemetery gates when he spied the limping caretaker hurrying toward him. “Oh, Mr. Bishop. It’s good you’ve come,” Mr. Cooke said. “I was just about to send a messenger to fetch you.”

  Caleb blinked and grew wary, momentarily wondering if the man had somehow discerned Caleb’s impure thoughts about his daughter. “You were?”

  “I’m afraid there’s, uh, been an incident.”

  So not about Tabby, then. Caleb frowned. “What kind of incident?” Scenarios ran through his mind, but none of them seemed particularly pressing. Had the silversmith botched the dates on the plaque? Had the payment from the bank not gone through? Mr. Cooke could have sent him an invoice or letter if any of that was the case.

  Mr. Cooke pressed his lips tight together, looking exceedingly uncomfortable. “There was a robbery last night.”

  “A robbery?”

  “Yes. That is...your father.” Clearing his throat, the caretaker removed his hat and scrubbed at his graying crown of hair. “Rest assured, I’ve contacted the constable and he’s aware of the situation.”

  Mr. Cooke was still speaking, but Caleb hardly heard him. “I’m sorry, but did you say my father was...robbed?”

  The caretaker nodded.

  Caleb considered this. “Are you trying to tell me that someone dug up my father’s corpse just to rob the old fellow?”

  Mr. Cooke looked taken aback at Caleb’s language, but pressed on, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Sir, I’m telling you that someone dug up your father to rob him of his corpse.”

  Well. He certainly had not been expecting that. His father had been gouty and pockmarked; he hardly seemed like an appealing prospect as far as corpses went.

  “Are you all right, sir? I know it’s a shock, but—”

  Caleb waved off his concern. “Yes, yes, quite all right. But,” he said, “what on earth would anyone want with my father’s body?”

  “Er, I believe the freshly dead sell at a premium to surgeons and medical students. For dissection, that is.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Caleb marveled at this. His father had been a miser and a hard man, but he certainly hadn’t deserved such a fate. Caleb wouldn’t be able to tell his mother about the desecration, of course; it would shatter the poor dear’s nerves. Rose likewise should be kept in the dark, lest she become upset. “I thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Caleb said, turning toward the back of the cemetery. “I’ll bid you good day and take a walk to the grave site if it’s all the same.”

  Mr. Cooke looked as if he would have thrown himself in Caleb’s path to stop him if he could have. “I... You want to go to the grave? There’s nothing to see there except a pried-open door and a splintered coffin,” he said. “It might be most distressing for you.”

  But Caleb was already making his way to the back of the cemetery, scanning for a splash of bright red hair.

  The crypt yawned at him balefully as he approached, debris and evidence of forced entry scattered about the ground. But it was the person he found there that caught his interest. “Hullo there.”

  Miss Cooke was crouched by the edge of the crypt with broom in one hand and pan in the other, sweeping up splintered bits of wood. She was wearing the same brown wool dress as usual, and without her bonnet her loose red hair shone brilliantly in the sunlight. At the sound of his voice she sprang up, sending wood and dust falling from her pan. “Caleb,” she said. “I mean, Mr. Bishop. What are you doing here?”

  Caleb was more than a little pleased at the way she breathed his name as if it were the most precious word to ever cross her lips, and the strange news of his father’s body was momentarily forgotten. “What, is a man not allowed to pay his respects?”

  She colored prettily at this, and he noticed that she had a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “No, of course not, it’s only—”

  He stopped her with an airy wave of his hand. “Don’t fret, I was only teasing.” She was easy to tease, and though there was a guardedness about her, there was also a sensitivity, and he realized he would have to be careful with this rare cemetery bird, lest she take flight and leave him there. Because even though there was no accounting for it, he realized that he very much wanted her to stay.

  They stood in silence, staring into the violated tomb, the only sound the clip of horses on the cobblestone street and a breeze lifting from the harbor and filtering through the trees.

  When she spoke her voice was small, hesitant. “I—I am very sorry about what happened to your father’s body. He...” She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but trailed off.

  Caleb knew he ought to have been angrier about the robbery, but it was mostly just annoyance that it was one more unpleasant task on his endless list of obligations since his father died. The realization made him only loathe himself the more that he was such a vain creature, just as his father had always accused him of being. “I just hope the villains are brought to justice without too much fuss,” he finally said.

  “I doubt the police will be of much help. They could hardly be bothered when it happened before.”

  “You mean to say that this isn’t the first time?”

  She nodded. “The night we met, actually. I wonder that you didn’t cross paths with them.”

  He gave a low whistle. “Is that so?” Then an unexpected surge of anger ran through him. “I say, they didn’t bother you, did they?”

  “No, they didn’t know I was there.”

  A cemetery was no place for a little girl, even if her father was the caretaker. He wanted to ask her about how she had come to find herself there in the dead of night, but something told him he wouldn’t get an answer.

  “Do you think they targeted him in particular? He wasn’t exactly well liked.”

  Miss Cooke shook her head. “I doubt they knew or cared who he was. They probably just wanted someone recently buried.”

  Caleb mused on this. “Do you know, my old man thought that a witch put a curse on him when he was a boy? Nothing was ever his fault. No matter that he was a bitter old drunk—if something went wrong, someone else always was to blame.” The story of the witch always came out when he was deep in his cups, an angry, incohesive rant that explained everything from Mr. Bishop’s lame leg to the bad luck that had plagued him throughout his sixty years. “It’s all nonsense, of course,” he continued. “Well, I hope wherever he is, he’s in better spirits.”

  Miss Cooke hadn’t said anything in a while. He looked over at her and found that she was worrying at her lip, staring at the crypt. “Miss Cooke? Are you all right?”

  If she heard him, she gave no indication. “Mr. Bishop, there’s something I need to tell you. I...”

  He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t seem inclined to go on. “Yes?”

  “I... That is...” Pausing, she darted a furtive glance at him, then took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “I spoke with your father.”

  “You were acquainted with my father?” Caleb couldn’t help his incredulous tone. This young woman was really quite extraordinary. She dressed as if she were the poorest church mouse, never seemed to leave the cemetery, and yet she had somehow crossed paths with his old man, who had always been notoriously proud when it came to mixing with the lower classes.

  She bit her lip and twisted her hands together. “Well, not exactly... That is...”

  Caleb groaned, leaning back against a tree. “Oh, don’t tell me. You weren’t one of his...” At her wide-eyed expression, Caleb cleared his throat and straightened. “Of course you weren’t. I shouldn’t have even suggested such a thing. I apologize.”

  Something in her seemed to shift, and her face shuttered. “It doesn’t matter how or when I spoke to him,” she said with a defensive bite in her voice. “He said that the ledgers are in a lockbox, behind a false panel in the
bottom drawer of his desk. He knows that you aren’t good at balancing the numbers, but hopes that with time will come diligence.” With this, she crouched back down and resumed her cleaning.

  This caught his attention. Drawing closer, he bent and took her by the arm. “How did you know about the lockbox?” he asked, raising her up. After he had gone home the other day, he had turned his father’s study upside down, and sure enough, the ledgers had been in the bottom drawer of the desk. As for balancing them, he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which his father had even a sliver of faith in him.

  “Please,” she said, twisting out of his grasp, “it doesn’t matter how I know of them. I only wanted to help you, but now I see I shouldn’t have bothered.”

  Her answer didn’t satisfy him, but as he took her by the shoulders, studying the bitter disappointment, the earnestness on her face, he realized that he really didn’t give a damn how she had found out. Someone had wanted to help him. For the first time since his father died, he didn’t feel so utterly adrift. In fact, he felt rather calm and drowsy with the thin wool of her dress under his fingertips, and the sunlight cradling them in a hazy embrace.

  “Mr. Bishop?”

  Her tremulous voice tugged him out of his thoughts and when he looked down, he realized that he was still grasping her by the shoulders. He relaxed his grip, but just a little. She was looking up at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes searching his. What did the world look like through those incredible eyes of hers? Did she see a foolish young man when she looked at him? Or something more? Did she feel the same inexplicable desire burning deep within her belly when they stood close?

  Before he knew what he was doing, he murmured, “I think I will kiss you now.”

  * * *

  She surely hadn’t heard him right. Why on earth would he want to kiss her, here, now? His father’s body had been stolen, the grave violated. And never mind that he had already told her he was an engaged man. But then he was leaning in toward her, the trajectory of his lips unmistakable.

  She knew that it was wrong, for so many reasons, but she was helpless to stop herself as her mouth parted and she went boneless in his arms. She’d never been kissed before, and the temptation to experience this strange and wonderful phenomenon for herself was too strong to resist. Then he was deepening the kiss, pulling her against the length of him as she automatically twined her hands behind his neck.

  It was glorious. Parts of her she didn’t even know existed flared to life, her body flooding with warmth under his fingertips. There, amongst the carved death’s heads and rasping crows, she felt more alive than she ever had before.

  But then reality came rushing back. What was she doing? The girl with the calloused heart didn’t fall into the arms of handsome young men. The girl with the curse of talking to the dead most certainly didn’t partake in such intimate gestures. And he was engaged, the cad.

  She pulled back and, before she could think twice, slapped him clean across his cheek, the force smarting her palm. She’d never struck someone before. Reeling back, he gave a yelp.

  She shouldn’t have hit him—it had been more to make herself stop than him—but he didn’t look angry or even surprised, only slightly sheepish, breathing heavily as if awakening from a dream.

  “I suppose I had that coming,” he said with a crooked grin, and Tabby got the impression that this was not the first time he had found himself on the receiving end of a blow from a woman. But then his face darkened and his expression grew serious. “I’m sorry. I... I must be off. I shouldn’t be here with you...doing this.”

  He was right, but the sudden sting of rejection hurt more than it had any right to. She watched him stride away, his gait still confident but unmistakably hurried, as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

  Had that really just happened? She ran her tongue over her lips, reveling in the lingering taste of him. He had been so easy to talk to, and the fact that she had spoken to his father had just slipped out. How could she be so careless? All it had taken was one lopsided smile from him, one electric look from his probing eyes, and she had been ready to let all her secrets fly from her like birds from a dovecote. He was probably used to women spilling their secrets to him—he was clearly no stranger to kissing—but what would he have thought of her if she had told him the truth about how she had learned of the ledgers? At best, he would think her a charlatan after money from the grieving. At worst he would think her an aberration. It didn’t matter either way, she reminded herself bitterly; he was not for her.

  Hastily gathering up her broom and pan, she finished cleaning up the debris around the tomb. It had been her first kiss, and it certainly would be her last.

  * * *

  If Miss Suze had a surname or indeed any other name, Tabby didn’t know it. Everyone from her own children to grandchildren simply called her Miss Suze. It was an endearment, a mark of deference. And though she was small of stature, Miss Suze commanded respect. A passionate abolitionist and active member of the church, no one of importance passed through Boston without sitting at Miss Suze’s table and partaking in her legendary cooking and a lively debate. She could boast of having hosted everyone from Frederick Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison to Maria Chapman, earning her frequent mentions in the Boston emancipation newspaper the Liberator. So when Miss Suze’s invitation arrived, Tabby had been quick to convince Eli to accept, knowing that it would go a long way to cheer him up from the robbery of the previous day.

  Miss Suze lived in a modest, yet homey row house in the fashionable Back Bay enclave of Boston. With pink chintz wallpaper and cheery vases of flowers throughout the house, it seemed a thousand miles from the shabby rooms that Tabby and Eli rented. Every chair that was pulled up around the table was worn and comfortable. Children’s footsteps pounded up and down the hall, adults halfheartedly admonishing them for being too rowdy. Tabby’s elbows brushed against her neighbors on both sides as she hungrily spooned up Miss Suze’s okra stew, the lively conversation flowing around her.

  “Homer and Mary are coming by with the twins later,” Miss Suze said as she set down a steaming plate of hoecakes. “You won’t believe your eyes when you see how those boys have grown,” she told Eli. “Gonna be tall like their daddy.”

  Polly, Miss Suze’s eldest granddaughter, reached for a hoecake. “You know he puts cork in his shoes, don’t you? He can barely see over the pew in front of him at church.”

  “Tch, you’re just jealous ’cause you were born runty,” rejoined a cousin or grandchild that Tabby didn’t recognize.

  “Was not! Pa, tell him I wasn’t a runt,” Polly implored her father.

  “Oh no, I ain’t getting involved.” A neatly dressed man with lively eyes, Paul was a clerk in a law firm in the city. He diplomatically changed the subject. “Miss Suze, these hoecakes might be your best yet.”

  “You can thank Lemuel for those. He bought the cornmeal.”

  “You didn’t go to Pratt’s, did you? He always skims off the top.”

  Lemuel ducked his head.

  “Lemmy is sweet on Isabelle Pratt,” Polly piped up. “Ow! Why’d you kick me?”

  Tabby was so fascinated by the back and forth of the siblings, that she almost didn’t notice the little girl with braids that had crept up beside her chair.

  “Tabby, will you play dollies with me?”

  Tabby looked down to find little Ella with a collection of well-loved ragdolls. A shy girl of seven, Ella had always been Tabby’s favorite of Miss Suze’s grandchildren. She smiled. “I don’t know how to play dollies, you’ll have to show me.”

  Ella reached out to take her hand, but as Tabby pushed back her chair and stood, she felt her balance shift, as if the floor under her had tilted. Light-headed, she put her hand out to steady herself on the table.

  Miss Suze shushed the conversation. “Tabby, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I
must have just stood up too quickly.” But then she was assaulted by a familiar scent. The pungent, thick smell of death wormed its way inside of her and she doubled over, sure that she was going to be sick.

  Ella shrank back, hugging her dolls to her chest. Tabby tried to reach her hand out, tried to open her mouth to reassure Ella that there was no need to be frightened. But she found herself powerless to say a word. No, no. Not now. Not here!

  She concentrated every ounce of her being on closing her mind, trying to focus on the rapidly dimming table and family around her. But it was no use. Mr. Bishop came roaring into her mind’s eye, a frightful apparition in the black expanse. You lied, girl!

  She hardly had time to gather her bearings before his voice was ringing in her ears again.

  You summoned me, requesting my help, yet I have no peace, no rest!

  If you have no rest, it is not my doing. Desperate, Tabby tried to ground herself back in Miss Suze’s dining room. Where was the pink chintz wallpaper? Where was the happy babble of children, the aroma of sweet yams and hoecakes? She tried to take deep, even breaths, but they came out shallow and fast.

  Mr. Bishop was joined by another spirit, and then another. Soon Tabby’s mind was filled with the grotesque faces of the dead, all clamoring for her attention.

  I am lost! cried a woman with a gaping wound to her head.

  I was laid to rest not three days ago and thieves came in the night, stealing my mortal remains away, lamented another. Tell me, how am I to let go of this earthly plane when my coffin lies empty?

  You hear us, you see us, yet you do nothing. Have you no compassion for our plight?

  You shall have no rest until we have rest!

  Louder and louder they shrieked. Tabby’s head filled with pressure, felt as if it were being cracked open from the inside. She was terrified, but a small, detached part of her could only think of the gathering that was happening around her in Miss Suze’s dining room. What did she look like right now to them? How would she explain her episode when it finally ended?