by K A Goodsell
“No worries,” I laughed, looking between the two of them again. “I had no idea you two were a couple.”
“I was just saying the same thing about you and Mr. Morrow.” Andre winked.
“Yes, I thought you were with Mr. O’Moore’s son. But my mistake,” Velma said, giggling. “He’s much handsomer, if I do say so myself.”
I nearly gasped. “No, no. I’m not with Gage. Or Elgort. Neither of them.” I felt like I was stumbling on my words.
“Oh,” she said, picking up the popcorn bucket again and sticking a few pieces into her mouth. “So sorry for the confusion, dear.”
“It’s fine,” I told her, nodding in her direction, and then turned to Andre. “The dock was lovely last night, wasn’t it?”
He froze for a moment before turning toward me. His eyes were suddenly darker. “It was. I love sitting out there for a half-hour or so before I head home after a long day, although I was off yesterday. Will be the whole weekend and also Monday. It’s a beautiful thing to take vacation time.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said, leaning up against the truck now. “I heard there was a noise disturbance, though, so it couldn’t have been too quiet.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I told those kids they needed to head home, and then the deputy showed up. Someone must have called it in.”
“Must have. It was a quiet night, so I’m sure it echoed across the lake or something.” There were no houses directly around the dock, unless you counted the cottages that the Morrows owned.
“Must have.” He shrugged.
We looked at each other for a moment before I broke the glance. “Well, it was nice speaking with you both. Enjoy the movie. I’ll have to try sitting at the dock more often. Thank you for the tip.”
“Anytime. I hope to see you there,” he said as I walked away.
I don’t hope to see you there, Andre. I really don’t.
I’d been waiting in the middle of Center Cemetery for what felt like an hour but was probably only about twenty minutes. It was enough time for me to create a spot next to Sarah Sturges. I couldn’t believe Gage was late. We’d planned a time, and he should have been here by now. What would I do while I waited? This was why I never partnered with anyone in school if I could avoid it and took the lead on projects when group work was necessary. People lacked professionalism. I knew we were teenagers, but we were about to go to college soon. Get your shit together already.
I opened my phone’s messages and tapped on Raimy’s name. She had texted me recently, and I hadn’t noticed.
So, should I welcome you to the family now or later?
I ignored this and asked about Gage’s whereabouts. Raimy quickly replies he had left the house a few minutes ago and should be over soon. She’d heard his Jeep sputtering out of the driveway.
Send me words of encouragement so I don’t murder him for being late when he gets here.
She responded right away:
There’s no Netflix in prison.
Touché.
I rested John on top of Sarah’s gravestone and my teal headphones fell out of the side pocket of my backpack.
“Damn, they will get dirty.” I pulled them up off the grass and dusted them off. They were brand new, an early birthday gift from Nat after our dog, Pace, chewed up the last pair when Nat accidentally left my bedroom door open..
It would bother me if they were dirty, and would definitely bother Mitzy if she saw them with so much as a speck of dust.
I glanced up at John and thought, What if he held onto my headphones for me?
I placed them on John’s skull, roughly where his ears would have been years ago, and he looked more alive somehow.
“Okay, John.” I smiled at him. “You are almost Instagram-worthy.”
I wondered what kind of music he listened to. There must have been some guitar in the town or someone who would sing at the local tavern, right?
I bet he’d never most of what I played for him, even though much of it was centuries old..
I plugged the cord into the phone and scrapped playing a current band, instead choosing the next song in my playlist of music by my father. “This is the perfect song for you to be introduced to my father’s previous job. Also, a bit of his soul, as he loves music, just like me.”
“Let me guess—” a voice chimed out of the blue. “He’s listening to Logic? Maybe a little 50 Cent?”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Gage, who was now an hour late to our meeting time. He wasn’t wearing all the fake forensics and cemetery swag from last night. Instead, he was in a pair of jeans that were fitted and slightly worn and a navy-blue sweatshirt that had Aztec-like prints on the front. He had a light brown beanie covering up his hair, and it accentuated his features. His eyebrows looked larger, and his lips looked plumper. Odd how one thing changing could cause such differences.
“What, are you crazy? He’s listening to Charlie Puth.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “He’s really into the Top 100 these days.”
“That’s neat. I like how you bring him around with you. Kind of weird, but I’m not judging.”
“That should offend me, but I don’t care.”
He nodded awkwardly and set down his bags. It was a lot more than I expected: a duffel bag and a backpack.
“So, how do you want to do this?”
“Have you ever watched Casey Neistat on YouTube?” he asked as he opened up the carrying case for his drone.
I shook my head to signal that I have never even heard of Casey Neistat. Was he a videographer?
“He flies drones in a lot of his videos. He uses one called a Phantom,” he explained as if I already knew what a Phantom was. It must have been a brand or manufacturer, but other than that, I had no clue. “This, though, is my custom build.”
I blinked a few times. “You built that?”
He pulled out a drone that looked like you could purchase it from a store. I couldn’t believe he’d made it.
“Yeah.” He had put reflective stickers on the drone for night flying, among other loving details. “Your dad actually helped with it.”
“Really?” I felt like I would fall over. So my father really knew Gage. It wasn’t through his job as a coroner but in the technology lab. That made so much more sense. I hadn’t known he had any interest in tech.
“What makes this drone unique, different from the one that Casey Neistat or other videographers use, is that while it has a camera, I primarily use it for ground-penetrating radar.”
I looked blankly at him.
“We can use low frequency, which is better for deeper depths and larger targets, versus a higher frequency for shallower depths and smaller targets.”
“So, what you’re saying is that body, casket, or skeletal remains would be larger targets? What’s a smaller target then?”
“Like a screw or a nail.” He held the drone in his hand and leaned toward me. He pointed out a small wire near the base of the drone. It looked like an old cell phone antenna from the 1990s. “This GPR antenna here sends and receives electromagnetic waves. When the signal returns to the antenna, travel time and amplitude of the signal are recorded. Then, the collected data is put together to form a two-dimensional data set called an OB scan. This represents a vertical slice into the ground, which gives the depth of graves or other objects, like tree roots, or, I don’t know, a sprinkler system or something. We can also look at the data in a horizontal location of a grave or another object.”
“Out of curiosity, how much would something like this cost?”
“Normally? There are Swedish models are on wheels and honestly give a lot more accuracy. They look like little push lawn mowers. They run anywhere between twenty and thirty thousand.”
“A piece?”
“A piece.”
I whistled. I had been considering asking to fly it. Not anymore.
“How deep down into the ground are we going to look?”
“About eight feet.” He hesitated and grinned at me.
“But you should know that with your family business. Ready?”
I nod at him, excited actually to see how this would work. With a few flicks of switches, the drone hummed. It was louder than I expected, and the blades spun faster and faster.
“It sounds like a weed-whacker.”
We watched as the drone lifted off from its resting place, and Gage meandered behind it.
“Okay, look here.” He pointed to the screen attached to his controller. “This is where we can see the graves and the density of the ground. Where do you want to start?”
I look around and point to a spot about a foot in front of us. “Let’s start here at the edge.”
Gage peered around him. “Actually, what about over near the driveway or near this oak tree? There’s a stone there that looks like a headstone.”
I shook my head. “That’s just Mr. Yashida.”
He peered back over his shoulder towards the stone. “Okay, so, shouldn’t Mr. Yashida be included in this survey? You know, just out of respect.”
I laughed. “Mr. Yashida was an awesome guy, but it won’t matter much historically. He was my old cat that died when I was Mitzy’s age.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “I won’t tell that you said he doesn’t matter. Onward—over here?”
I scanned the gravestones ahead of us as the drone hovered over them. But nothing showed up on the screen.
“Wait, how come that one didn’t show up properly?” I put my arm out to stop him from walking and ended up brushing up against the back of his hand instead. It wasn’t even an aggressive stroke, it was a soft one which had to be the most awkward of them all.
We halted at the ancient oak tree that covered most of the cemetery with his expansive branches and heavy leaves.
“It’s probably just a root. It could cover it, or it could be a rock. It happens a lot.”
“How can a root cover this type of radar?”
“I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you. But I have a concern.”
“Just one?” I rolled my eyes.
“No, but I didn’t think you’d let me speak my piece if I told you how many I have.”
“You’re funny.” I folded my arms. “Go ahead.”
“You need to detach yourself from this project,” he said without looking at me. “You seem to be attached to the cemeteries and even the stones. I never quite understood that.” Gage shook his head.
I smiled at him and turned to face the cemetery. “Ever since I was little, this was one of my favorite places to go to have time to myself. It’s quiet and peaceful.”
“Well, I would hope so,” he joked.
I laughed. “True. If not, I guess we would have another problem on our hands.”
“I worry about the zombie thing.” Gage looked over at me and then quickly back at his drone. “Seriously, though, it could be a thing.”
I laughed again. “My grandfather was worried about the same thing. All that gnawing on flesh can be a little terrifying, I suppose. But that’ll never happen.”
“I’ll remember that when it actually happens and you want to get into my safe house.”
I paused.“You have a safe house?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
We took in the cemetery for a moment. “I always loved that they’re here.”
“The graves?”
“The tombstones. It signifies who lived in the area, in this case, primarily people who lived through the Georgian and Victorian eras, but some even before those times. These people were once in our shoes. They had families, jobs, children. Now they’re just bones, but they had a purpose, and they kept our town running. No matter how small of a town it was, they established it, and we’re here today because of that.” I ran my hand across the top of one gravestone. “It’s pretty…” I was searching for the right word.
“Eerie?” Gage finished for me.
“I was going to say something more along the lines of beautiful or fascinating.” I rounded the gravestone. “But eerie works, too, coming from a guy who’s afraid of the living dead.”
Gage took a few steps closer as we looked down at two gravestones laid side-by-side. “Like, for instance, these two.”
“Thomas and Eliza White?”
“They lived about two streets—well, about two miles down the road, since the streets are different now. Thomas was a solider, and Eliza was a homemaker. She passed away in childbirth during her second marriage, and about a year prior to her death, she was told that Thomas passed away during the war, so she did what a lot of women who had families to care for did: She married his elder brother.”
“Brutal,” Gage remarked. He caught me looking at him from the corner of his eye. “But interesting.” He smiled at me.
“The White Manor Inn is named after Thomas and Eliza.”
His eyes grew a little wider as he connected the dots. That was the best part—when history became relevant to your own surroundings and life. “Really?”
“That was their house.”
Gage moved the drone above the two graves. “Come here.” I stepped over to look at the image Gage was studying. He was much better at translating them into something that made sense. When I looked at them, I didn’t quite know how to make sense of the lines. They told me nothing. “Okay, so we definitely have a body here.” He gestured at the lines. “That is an anomaly, so it shows that there’s something there, and as we are in a graveyard, it’s logical to assume it’s a body. Your job is to double check on the map we have that this is where we were expecting a body to be.”
Nodding, I looked down at it and ticked the site off on a map I had printed earlier. It was a copy of the Center Cemetery plots map my father had hanging in his office. “Yeah, we were meant to find a grave there.”
“Hey!”
We broke apart as we saw Nat entering through the wilderness.
“Are you okay?” He walked over to us, and I could tell he was silently judging the way he had found us. “I heard a yell from the house.”
“How is that even possible? We didn’t yell.” I folded my arms across my chest and then raised an eyebrow. I know how he saw us. There was no yelling. “You were on the roof.” I jabbed a finger at him. “You were smoking pot on the roof, weren’t you?”
He took a step back, trying to look shocked, but it didn’t work, and he knew it. His expression faded back into wondering why I was out here. “None of your business.” He paused and then looked at Gage.
“I don’t have any beef, man.” Gage raised his arms, the controller up above his head for a second before he went back to piloting the drone.
Nat hesitantly backed off for a moment. “I have my cell phone on me. We’ll be up at Old World Cemetery today. Two new burials this weekend, so we’re prepping, and there were some cave-ins of older graves. Be careful, please. Remember: squishy grass, haul your ass.”
Gage took a step toward Nat and put his hand out for him to shake. “Good to see you without Raimy stuck to your face.”
Nat broke out in a smile, to my surprise. They were having a bro moment. I rolled my eyes.
“‘Twas a pleasure,” Nat joked. “Remember, I have my phone.”
We waited a few moments until Nat was out of the cemetery.
“I’m sorry, Big Brother is always watching.”
“Doesn’t bother me at all.” Gage held the controller out. “Want to try?”
“No, no.” I waved my hands. “You do not want me navigating. I’ll accidentally navigate us off that cliff over there.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, and we walked in silence for a few minutes up and down the cemetery. “So, we just passed over about three graves right over here.”
“But there aren’t any headstones,” I protested.
“Right. That’s why we’re doing this. There could be quite a few people who aren’t marked out here.”
“I had no idea.”
“I was telling Raimy one time th
at this is kind of like icebergs. You can see the tip, but you have no idea what is going on underneath the surface.”
“I know a lot of people back when Center Cemetery was first established may not have had money for headstones, but I’m sure they were at least cataloged.”
“So, that means you can cross check them?”
“Right. And I think I still have copies of the cemetery plans. I should be able to reference back to see who they are.” I looked back over the ground we had crossed and felt sorrow I had not known they were there. This whole time, I was walking over them like they were just grass in a field instead of resting places. Immediately, I felt like I had to apologize.
“Their feelings aren’t hurt, you know that.” Gage looked between the controller and me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, still looking at the ground behind me. How many had I been ignoring? I should have looked more into the maps over the course of my research, not just at the headstones.
“They don’t know that you even exist.”
I turned on my heels to look at him. “That’s not the point. It’s a respect thing.”
“I respect that, and I respect that they made the town what it is today, but you also have to step back from the overall emotion of their deaths.”
“I do.” I felt heated. That wasn’t what I meant at all. “Their lives were really important, and I just want them to feel like someone still cares about them.”
“They won’t know, though.”
That wasn’t the point. He didn’t get it. “I have to go.”
“So soon?”
“May I remind you that you were late?” I glanced up while I packed my backpack. “I have to pick-up my sister at the White Manor Inn. She was hanging out with Radar today.”
He slowly glided the drone down from above the trees, quickly looking between the very expensive piece of machinery and me. I winced when I saw the drone tap against a small tree limb, Gage too focused on the conversation to avoid wrecking his precious drone.
