Ghosts of Graveyards Past

by Laura Briggs

  “I think so. He wasn’t the emotional type, but there was a sort of unspoken pride, at times. Hopefully, I can live up to his standards,” he added, thinking the possibility was still years away in terms of his talent and experience.

  By now, they could hear the flow of spring water somewhere nearby. Pointing up a steep incline, Con told her, “We’re here. The Lesley homestead—or what remains of it, anyway.”

  A stone foundation and skeletal frame to a house that burned long ago. Big, forked trees and wild berry bushes; a pile of firewood some visitor must have left, since people often camped there without permission.

  Before he could offer assistance, Jenna had scrambled ahead of him up the rocky path.

  When he caught up to her, she was attaching a lens to a film camera.

  The violet blossom was tucked in her hair, the rich purple like a jeweled clip. “My agent prefers digital pictures, but I try to include the old-fashioned kind, too,” she explained, waving a battered-looking 35 millimeter. “It seems more appropriate, somehow, photographing history with vintage gear.”

  He couldn’t help smiling a little at this idea, thinking it was typical of someone who stayed up half the night reading one hundred year old love letters, or spent the following day trudging through acres of wilderness in search of a few weathered monuments.

  “The graves are towards the back of the property,” he told her. Waiting for her to loop the camera strap over her neck, he led her to the small grove where three fieldstones were nestled among the leaves.

  Time had been hard on the poorly carved tombs. Jenna crouched beside them, snapping pictures of one that was marked simply as BLAIN, 16 YRS. Photographing the other two, she asked, “When did the house burn?”

  “Years ago, I think. No one was living in it, and a drought was causing some wildfires.”

  She nodded, carefully tracing the shape that was cut into one of the stones. “Dr. Moore mentioned the Lesley family among her patients. I suppose they were part of the epidemic.”

  “So that’s what it means,” he said, with a nod to the design. “All the stones with Celtic V-rods belong to fever victims?”

  “Some of them do,” she said. “But if the symbol was legendary enough, I suppose other people may have chosen it based on the stories they heard. With no dates on the graves, it’s hard to know for sure.”

  They drifted towards the remains of the house, peering over the stone wall to see where a crawl space used to be. Bits of glass and pottery layered in the dirt gave off flashes of color in the morning light.

  “I can’t believe places like this are still abandoned,” Jenna said. “There’s so much potential, with the woods and the spring around it. Doesn’t anyone else see that?”

  He rested against the foundation, hands stuffed inside his coat pockets. “The county owns most of the land. Maybe they’ll arrange for a campground or hiking trails at some point. Or a grave walk,” he added, with a nod to the woods below.

  “If the monuments are ever restored,” she reminded him.

  The words made him stiffen instinctively, waiting for her to push him to make it a special project. With anyone else, it would have been unbearable, but she had a way of making him question his deepest motivations. Including the ones he considered his only choice in his current state of mind. “The graveyard won’t be forgotten anymore,” he pointed out. “You’ve given it a better chance for preservation than most places here. Right now, the Lesley homestead is pretty much the only site from these woods people still recognize.”

  “Speaking of that,” she said, digging through her bag, “I have something to show you.”

  She unfurled what seemed to be a scanned image from a map. The date 1876 was penciled in the corner, the layout showing the Sylvan Spring schoolhouse, church, post office, and other period buildings. It showed where the homesteads had been, the property owner’s names inscribed by some of them. The Lesleys—which belonged to a new owner even then—was among those located by the spring, a gray squiggle representing the body of water.

  “Here’s the graveyard,” Jenna said, indicating a piece of acreage called Crooked Wood Cemetery. “And over here,” she said, running a finger to the south, “must be your property—the Darrow residence. Ever heard of them?”

  He shook his head, dumbfounded by the map’s detail. A brief glance revealed names that were still familiar to the region. The Strouds, whose descendant worked at the funeral home; a family called Girvin, whose distant relation ran the herb shop where Colleen had worked. There was also the Maudell house, proudly situated off the town square, its architecture still a testament to the early Victorian era.

  “This says the soldier lived near town.” He spotted the Widlow homestead beside that of the Camdens. “I wonder why he’s buried out here then.”

  “More answers I don’t have,” she said. “Yet.”

  Placing the map aside, he hoisted his backpack onto the wall. “I thought we could use some refreshments,” he explained, taking out some fruits and crackers he’d packed that morning.

  Jenna’s face held surprise as he handed her a bottle of water. “You’re better at this than I am,” she said, uncapping the bottle. “Coffee was the first thing I thought of on my way here. Guess my city upbringing shows, huh?”

  “Here and there, yes.” He rolled an apple in his palm, conscious of the urge to flirt. To provoke the girl before him with some remark in hopes of earning a smile or touch, however brief. The realization brought warmth to his face, a warning he chose to ignore with his next comment. “You should consider bringing a guide for all your outdoor research. Someone who knows caffeine is just a way to zap your energy partway through the hike.”

  “I got through trails in three other states just fine, thanks.” She grinned, peeling an orange to savor its tangy flavor. Gazing into the forest below, she asked, “Do you ever miss a different kind of atmosphere? I’m guessing this place was sort of a culture shock after your life in Kansas City.”

  “It was a hard adjustment. I didn’t miss any particular place so much as the sense of belonging somewhere. In some ways, these woods are the closest I’ve come to that feeling anywhere I’ve been.”

  “But you don’t feel the same about the town.” Her fingers pulled apart slices of fruit, her expression thoughtful. “I can understand why, but it’s a shame. They could learn something from your work and you…” Her voice faltered, the usual boldness disappearing. “I know it’s none of my business, really. But you can’t always plan to be disconnected from them. Every place has its faults. From what I’ve seen, Sylvan Spring is just a little random in its search for identity.”

  “See if you still feel the same after the festival,” he joked, chewing a bite of apple before he added, “Unless, of course, you’re leaving before then.” The answer shouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t be there regardless of her plans, but for some reason his breath grew still waiting for her to speak.

  “I have to attend,” she said after a brief pause. “Publisher’s orders and I confess a curiosity to see what it’s all about.” Chucking the orange peel into the weeds, she gave him an expectant look. “What next?”

  He studied the map a moment. “Over here,” he said, indicating a place that once belonged to someone called Roan. It was a name that must have gone the same way as the Darrows in the town’s later years. “More fieldstones,” he recalled. “It seems one of them had an epitaph.”

  “Let’s go, then.” She slid off the wall, stealing the map from his hands as she passed. “In case I decide to ditch my guide,” she called, waving it playfully over her shoulder as she disappeared in a grove of fall colors.

  

  The shutter gave a faint click as Jenna took the picture. A twisted, barren oak was the focus, the middle part hollowed to resemble a gaping mouth.

  “Watch where you step,” Con advised. “There’s a few bigger roots under the leaves.”

  He had watched, amused perhaps, as she photographed some o
f the oddities tangled in the thorns and brush. Rusty old farm equipment and signposts; a crumbling chimney sunk into the ground where someone’s residence used to stand.

  “I think it’s wilder in this part of the forest,” she noted. Hugging herself, she glanced at the tree’s branches overhead. Unlike the ones around it, the foliage was brown and shriveled, limbs like angry claws reaching for the sky. Standing in the shadows it cast, she could understand how people thought the woods were haunted so long ago.

  “We should be getting close to the homestead site,” Con promised, taking her arm as they passed through a narrow thicket.

  This protective gesture made her skin tingle beneath the fabric that separated their touch. She hadn’t expected him to be in such a helpful mood or to volunteer for this in the first place. Was it his love for the stonework that made him offer? The other possibility was that he wished to see her again. She shivered with the thought, unconsciously drawing closer to his arm.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, quickly relaxing her grip. She needed to be more careful, it seemed. Blood rushed to her face, making her suddenly thankful for the foliage that surrounded them.

  Pushing past limber branches, they emerged to find a denser part of the forest. Spanish moss hung in long chains, its scaly leaves brushing their faces when they passed beneath its vines. Scattered beyond a fallen pine were a handful of grave markers fashioned from rocks of various shape and size.

  She glimpsed primitive carvings that read ‘BABY BOY’ and ‘DEAR SIS’ on the smaller stones. Initials were all there was to commemorate the bones beneath two large ones, along with dates from the 1850s.

  “Jenna, over here.” He nodded to where a flat marker was encased in the earth. Rain water pooled around its edges.

  Scratched into the surface was an epitaph, along with the moon and arrow symbol she’d come to know by heart. “Is there a death date?” she asked, coming to kneel beside him.

  He frowned, running a hand over the faded carvings. “It’s had more sun exposure than the others. I can only make out a few letters.”

  The marker seemed sturdy enough, its flat shape giving it a more grave-like appearance than the other fieldstones. Excited, she pulled out a blank sheet of paper and stretched it carefully across the surface. “Help me hold it,” she told him, fingers brushing his when they moved to take her place. Her heart raced at the possibility of what lay beneath those fade marks, soon to be revealed before their gaze.

  Working the crayon in a gentle sideways motion, she brought the meaning to the surface word by word. She could feel Con watching, her gaze meeting his briefly to find the same excitement mirrored there. The crudely cut letters took shape for a message of three lines: Here lies Old Roan/Who lived alone/And died alone.

  “That’s it?” She dropped the crayon with a frustrated sigh. No clue to when or how the man died, only that he wasn’t very popular in life. Disappointed, she sat back as Con studied the epitaph with a faint smile.

  “I was just thinking,” he said. “What you asked earlier, about what I would put on my headstone. Something like this—” as he tapped the hermit’s grave—“seems appropriate, don’t you think?”

  Her heart sank with the joke, thinking he had completely missed the point of their conversation. Stowing the gravestone rubbing among her other papers, she told him, “It was a serious question. One I thought a stonecutter might understand, but apparently not.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “What would you choose? You’ve clearly given it some thought.”

  Fair enough. Except that she hadn’t found an answer those times she debated it while preserving someone else’s words of remembrance. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She plucked the violet from her hair, absently fiddling with the petals as she talked. “So much of my time is spent researching about other people’s lives. Who they loved, what they did…” She shrugged, glancing up at him. “It can make my life seem plain, sometimes. Empty, even.” That was just a feeling, she knew; her faith should be strong enough to fill any void created by the lack of a human connection. At her loneliest, the pain couldn’t be worse than Con’s grief, something she realized with a rush of sympathy. “I’m not ungrateful,” she began. “I have the job I want and a chance to do something that matters. When it comes to other stuff, people say it’s impossible to miss something you never had —”

  “People who already have it, usually.” A wry smile broke across his features. Reaching over, he covered her hand with his, hesitant at first.

  “I don’t think you have to question whether you’re doing something that matters,” he told her. “Not when you’re giving a heritage back to places like this and the people who settled it.”

  “You really think that?” She couldn’t help the skepticism that laced her tone, despite the way her heart fluttered from their contact.

  “We’re not so different,” he said. “I can understand your reasons for tracing the cemetery. It makes me envy you a little, that sense of purpose.”

  Warmth traveled through her, from his words and the touch of his hand. Returning the gesture, she twined her fingers with his, seeing his eyes widen across from her. She was disappointed when he finally drew away, leaving her with only the flower she’d been holding before.

  “Maybe I’m not the best person to be giving advice,” Con said after a moment. “Still, that’s how I see it.” He climbed to his feet. “There’s no graves at the other homestead sites, at least none I’ve heard about.”

  She could hear the catch in his voice, mimicking her heartbeat a moment before. “So this is it,” she said, getting to her feet before he could offer a hand. If they touched again, she felt something might happen beyond the closeness they already shared. “You probably have work to do,” she continued in a breathless tone, although she had been sitting. “I should drop by the historical society and finish reading the doctor’s journal.”

  Understanding shone briefly in his face. With a nod to the other side of the woods, he said, “We can take a shortcut back, if you don’t mind crossing the spring. The water’s shallow this time of year, with plenty of rocks to make a path across.”

  “Sounds good,” she said.

  Leaving the violet on the hermit’s grave, she trailed after him down the path. Neither spoke. Jenna took up her camera to frame shots of an old smoke house that was partly collapsed. Its roof was gone, vines growing in the cracks between the bricks.

  She peered into the depths of an old root cellar. Stone steps descended into murky darkness, the picture she took likely to be too dim when she developed the film later. Up ahead, her guide waited to see she was safe before moving into the clearing visible past a cluster of pines.

  It was here the ground sloped to meet the clear flow of the spring. It wasn’t as big as she imagined, the water receding with the change of the season. Jenna stood on the banks, camera scanning the horizon until it focused on Con.

  He faced her, crouching to examine something among the bedrock in the shallow part of the water, hair tousled, eyes a rare shade of blue as they glanced up.

  She pressed the shutter release, capturing the image. Then, without glancing away, she lowered the camera and moved towards him. Water splashed her shoes, mud coating where they touched the bottom of the spring. She was almost to him when a stone shifted beneath her feet. A sense of panic was followed by relief as he caught her, pulling her towards him before she could fall.

  “Careful,” he said, still holding onto her arm as they stood close together.

  She looked up at him, seeing a question in the blue depths.

  Con tilted his face to press their mouths together in a soft, searching kiss.

  Leaning into it, Jenna threaded fingers through his hair. Touch and taste collided with the memory of his hands guiding her to form a letter in smooth stone; arms that cradled her with the same warmth as now. Familiar senses blended with new ones in a way that made her head spin. “Wait.” She p
ulled back to find her hands clutching his jacket, a few breaths all that passed before she closed the gap again to kiss him even deeper.

  It was Con who broke the connection this time. He kept his hands on her shoulders, gaze filled with something between confusion and an apology.

  Suddenly, Jenna was aware of the cold spring water seeping into her shoes and jeans. The fact her knapsack had escaped when she stumbled, and now floated against a big rock nearby.

  “My bag,” she said, finding her voice as she realized the danger to the papers and voice recorder inside. Her legs seemed frozen in place, feet numb as she watched it bob helplessly against the tide.

  Con pulled it from the water, canvas muddy and dripping. Extending his other hand, he nodded to the embankment across from them. “Come on,” he said.

  They broke apart as soon as they reached dry ground.

  Sitting on the leafy slope, Jenna removed damp papers from the bag and then checked her recorder with its hours of material.

  “Everything OK?” Con hovered nearby, seeming uncertain whether he was welcome or not.

  “I think so,” she said, hearing a tremor in the words. “The recorder still works, which is the important part. The papers are a little damp, but seem all right otherwise.”

  “What about you?” he asked. An awkward cough followed, as he admitted, “I’ve never kissed someone after knowing them less than a week.”

  “Neither have I,” she said, looking at her shoes, which still bore the traces of spring water. “Gives a whole new meaning to getting your feet wet.”

  His laugh broke some of the tension. Sitting on the bank, he kept a noticeable distance between them. “That wasn’t something I planned. It’s not why I invited you here. It was an—an accident, sort of.”

  “I know,” she said, aware that what happened was a culmination of events. The odd glance or touch; the fact she had been drawn to him from that first glimpse among the town’s monuments and crypts. “I don’t mind,” she added. “What happened—it seemed like it was coming on for a while.”