Ghosts of Graveyards Past

by Laura Briggs

  Instead of answering, he stared at his hands. She thought he was considering her words until she noticed the faint markings where a ring used to sit. A wedding band.

  When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “It’s hard to explain. This feeling…being with you…” He glanced up, uncertainty in the look. “I haven’t thought about something like that for a long time.”

  Jenna, having never felt that way before, had nothing to compare it with. She struggled for anything to reassure him when her thoughts were just as muddled. Finally, she pulled the knapsack across her shoulder. “We should probably head back now. If you’re ready.”

  The walk back to the farmhouse seemed longer, neither of them saying much until they had reached the car.

  Con leaned down to speak through the window. “Let me know how it turns out. If you find anything in the doctor’s ledger.”

  “It’s a long shot,” she admitted, “but it’s the only trail I have right now.”

  When he started to move away, she caught his sleeve. He stiffened slightly with the touch. “Thanks, by the way. For showing me the gravesites. I couldn’t have found them, even with the map. “

  He nodded, slowly easing away from the hand on his arm. “I just wish it had been more helpful,” he said.

  Had he meant it to sound like good-bye or had it been only a friendly gesture? His interest in the gravestones might depend solely on the way he felt about the woman researching them. For her, Con was never far from any thought she had about the wooded cemetery. Both were lost to the town’s sight, hidden away in the acres of foliage and neglect.

  19

  The manager at the historical society saw her coming this time.

  “Our Civil War fan returns,” he said, fishing a set of keys from a basket on the desk. “I have your reading material right here, my dear. Though I can’t imagine what’s so interesting in a lot of remedies I recall from my granny’s old cupboard. “

  “You would be surprised,” Jenna said, smiling as she thought of how such a pivotal part of the town’s history could go unnoticed for so long. Especially when a whole festival was devoted to a legend no one could quite remember anymore. She took the ledger, aware she should feel excitement for whatever entries remained to be read. At the moment, though, she was having a difficult time concentrating on someone else’s troubles.

  Why had she kissed Con? A week ago, if someone told her she would do such an impulsive thing, she would say they were crazy. What does it mean, Lord? I’m not sure it’s possible to accidentally kiss someone, so there must a reason for it. I don’t believe in fate, but Your Will is another matter.

  The idea that God had a hand in these feelings was one she hadn’t considered yet. As much as she hoped there was a heart somewhere intended to be with hers, there was never any promise of it. This might be nothing more than an admiration for the work he did, the craft so closely tied to her ambitions.

  And if she didn’t see him again, it might not matter at all. A possibility she knew was likely, since her agent was eager to move her on to the next site. All the more reason to be concentrating on her research, a task she began by sliding the fragile text from its protective bag.

  

  November 14th 1862: They buried Charley Hinkle this morning in a plot of ground at the back of the cemetery. There was no coffin for the poor body and only a cloth to cover his small features. His mother wore no veil, and there were bits of foliage scattered inside the grave by his brothers and sisters.

  I cannot help feeling responsible for this boy’s death. No one cast an accusing eye in my direction, however. Instead, there was much agreement that God had called him home for some hidden purpose that will not be revealed until the final resurrection. I cannot rest so easy with such an explanation, and lose sleep to studying my father’s textbooks for a deeper understanding of the illness that took him.

  Still, no word comes from Bridgeport. How much longer must I wait to hear from A.?

  The smell of grief hung thick in the air: walnut oil, boiled over an open flame for dyeing garments the color of mourning. Mariah knew Mrs. Hinkle had done this for Charley’s funeral, soaking her Sunday best in the steaming brew. Its pungent odor carried for miles on the wind to mingle with that of dye pots in other communities—places where women had already learned of loved ones lost to the fighting in Bridgeport.

  Sylvan Spring had yet to receive any real news of that event, either by letter or word of mouth.

  Mariah was among those who waited in painful suspense each day for the post to arrive, only to glance through its contents with a sinking heart. She saw her anxious feelings mirrored quietly in faces on the street and in those of the blacksmith’s family, whose son Henry had not written since the battle took place.

  “Give us patience, Lord,” the blacksmith prayed at mealtime, his weary tone implying he had little of it left. His tablemates would spoon dutifully at their stew or crumble bits of cornbread on a plate, eyes turned away from each other’s worried expressions. Talk was of the weather, the crops—anything but what really occupied their minds it seemed.

  Her next visit to Mrs. Tate found the patient poring over a newspaper. “Says here there were dozens killed and more than that injured,” she said, holding it out for the doctor to see with panicked eyes. “The hospital outside Bridgeport’s overflowed with the hurt, and private homes is taking the ones with no place to go.”

  Such rumors made focusing on her work nearly impossible, though she had more of it than ever to keep her busy. Mrs. Tate gave birth to a healthy son, and the Stroud household requested medicines for fever and stomach troubles.

  The Lesleys were sick. Dying, if she were to be honest. The wife could no longer rise from her bed, the son and husband carrying on the chores, despite their own difficulties.

  “Is there no one to help you—no girl from the town to see to the meals or laundry, even?” Mariah wondered, dabbing the woman’s forehead with a damp cloth.

  “We help ourselves,” came the stubborn, but honest response. Her presence was necessary only for delivering medicine; she found, the door remained shut tight against her knocking at any other time.

  November 16th ,1862: Rumor has surfaced of a foul smell in parts of Crooked Wood, and there is much fear of contaminated air. It is certainly a possibility, though I believe a contagion is proving more and more likely. It is bad news either way, and soon there will be no denying the state of the outbreak upon us. I can only prepare my medicine cabinet for all who may need it and hope that others will take their duties as seriously where action is demanded.

  Two days after Charley Hinkle’s burial, the schoolhouse was closed.

  Mariah had known this might happen from the moment she signed the boy’s death certificate. She didn’t anticipate it happening so soon, since most towns denied an epidemic as long as possible for the sake of their businesses. In the case of Sylvan Spring, there was no other choice: the teacher herself had caught the illness.

  The children found her half-curled beside her desk, retching into a bucket used for cleaning the stove ashes. That was the chore she had been performing when the attack came upon her, hands and face streaked from where she’d touched her cheeks in an attempt to push the stray hairs from around her face.

  Coming beside her with the satchel of medical supplies, Mariah ordered the frightened students outside. “Someone bring me a little water before you leave and something to dip it with.”

  This task was met by a tall girl with a crown of braids, who accidentally sloshed liquid out of the bowl as she handed it to Mariah. Her eyes, wide with fear, were fixed on the teacher, who clutched her abdomen in pain. Without a word, the girl turned and joined the other students, who filed quickly out the door.

  “You should not have done that,” the teacher scolded, half-sitting with a grimace. “The rowdy ones will feel the liberty to go home now. No duty for their lessons, these farm boys.”

  Mariah shook her head, observing the red rash that
crept above the woman’s dress collar. “There will be no more lessons today, I am afraid,” she told her, easing water past the chapped lips. The woman drank it down, sputtered a little as she covered her mouth. Her hand was lined with veins, the skin pale and thin.

  She offered Mariah a frown that might have frightened a pupil. In a tone equally stern, she told her, “I shall rest a spell, perhaps. There is no reason I cannot sit down while I teach, however.”

  “You have the look of a fever about you,” Mariah replied, “and such an illness requires rest and quiet for the body to mend itself. The children will be safer at home,” she added, thinking of the contagious diseases she’d read of in her father’s medical journals. She couldn’t be sure this one would pass from human contact, but risking it seemed unwise.

  “The Hinkle boy,” the woman realized. “I heard there was fever upon him that night. Others, too. The Kendrick woman and Mrs. Lesley. Her son’s been kept home all week to do the chores—” She broke off in a coughing fit, the frail body threatening to collapse against the pine boards.

  Mariah took hold of her arm, carefully wrapped it around her shoulders before staggering to an upright position. They stood that way a moment, both recovering their breath before the doctor half-carried the older woman to a curtained-off portion beyond the rows of desks.

  There, a small cot stood against the wall, books piled on a knee-high table beside it. A plain dresser and wash basin were the only other furnishings Mariah noticed as she lowered the woman onto the makeshift bed.

  “Do you have more blankets?” she wondered, moving towards the battered dresser with its years of use.

  There was a Bible laid on top and a handkerchief with flowers embroidered around the edges. The initials A.M. stitched in the corner suggested it came from the teacher’s handiwork, perhaps in her younger years.

  “Leave it be,” the woman replied. Propping herself on one elbow, she fixed Mariah with a determined stare. “I will not be needing your help now. It was the children who fetched you, not me. I won’t pay you, so you best be on your way.”

  “I have many who cannot pay for their medicines,” Mariah assured her, tugging on a set of brass handles to reveal a drawer full of winter clothes and fabric. “If I helped only those who could afford it, there would be no point in my being here.”

  She pulled a shawl free from the pile of fabric, moth-eaten wool that smelled of musty storage.

  The teacher gave a laugh that might have been a shudder passing between her lips. “It is not a matter of payment—if I could afford your care I still wouldn’t call on it. No God-fearing woman relies on the work of a heathen to keep her from the grave. “

  Mariah froze, arms hugging the shawl before the dresser. Turning slowly around, she forced her voice to come out steady despite the anger shaking through her. “My work can pose no harm to your religion,” she said. “No more than the apothecary who practiced here before me. It is an act of charity to care for one’s neighbor—does your Bible not say the same?”

  The woman sighed, gaze roaming the plain walls. “Perhaps you mean well,” she admitted, “but your medicine could not save the boy. Perhaps nothing could have—it might be the sickness is a punishment for some wrongdoing. Many a reverend’s preached it that way, and I have seen it myself when those who knew better strayed from His Will.”

  The words—strange enough in themselves—had a rambling quality that made her worry the fever had taken over the woman’s reason. Bringing the shawl, she started to drape it across the thin shoulders, only to feel a hand clamp around her arm.

  “We may have called down His judgment,” the teacher confided, gaze latching onto Mariah’s with unnerving force. “Called down a punishment for sending the men to hunt their fellow Christians like wild game. There must be payment for such a mistake.” Fretful, agitated—the woman was mixed up in her thoughts beneath the grip of illness.

  Mariah realized this, even as she wavered beneath the sound of bitter regret. As the town schoolteacher, Miss Mitchell would have seen the local soldiers grow from boyhood, their hearts and minds bearing some part of her instruction. Talk of the skirmish had probably left her rattled, the same as everyone else.

  “Surely no punishment is greater than this war,” Mariah suggested, easing free of the woman’s grasp. Arranging the shawl around Miss Mitchell’s frail form, she added, “We have all suffered terrible loss in its wake. Further sacrifice could hardly be demanded from any fair Creator.”

  The eyes watching her narrowed in response. “What does an unbeliever know of sacrifice? Those who never enter a church or seek any power outside their own.” As she spoke, pain contorted her features. Her hands clenched at the bedspread, her face turning quickly towards the wall. “I can look after myself now,” she said. “Tell the children what has happened, and send them home.”

  Mariah hesitated, reluctant to leave one so clearly in need of help, despite the harsh words between them. If she left some medicine, perhaps the woman would take it once the pain became unbearable. She started to fumble with the latch on her bag and then reconsidered as the woman’s gaze drifted back in her direction. Pride and pleading were buried beneath its surface, telling her the gesture would be taken as an insult. She ducked past the curtain, fabric swinging back in place to hide the sight of the figure huddled on the cot.

  Outside, the number of students had dwindled as the teacher predicted, with only a handful of curious girls gathered on the playground to hear the outcome of the morning’s excitement.

  “Miss Mitchell is ill,” Mariah said, stepping onto the path in front of them. “She will not be able to teach you for some days. You must tell your parents about this, and tell them as well if you began to feel any sickness yourself.” When no one spoke, she continued. “You may go home now. It will be your parents’ decision to decide what to do about your lessons next.”

  The classmates looked at each other, one girl elbowing her companion with a secretive glance. They began to giggle in a nervous way, others close to them picking up on the joke with barely concealed smiles.

  “What is it?” Mariah spoke sharply, annoyed by this reaction to the teacher’s misfortune.

  After their classmate’s death, she had supposed the subject would hold a new kind of terror for them. Instead, the faces below her were almost gleeful somehow.

  “What makes you laugh?” she demanded, this time with obvious anger for the quiet mirth.

  The girl with the crown braid who had fetched the water earlier, now avoided eye contact with Mariah and stretched a hand to point silently to Mariah’s feet.

  There, in the dust of the schoolyard, someone had traced an inverted half-moon, its shape stabbed through with a broken arrow. The same as the one painted on the building’s front door. Attempts to scrub the symbol from the wood planks had made the dye streak, a bleeding effect against the whitewash.

  Mariah’s gaze moved slowly from one image to the other. Heat rose to her face, mouth forming a thin line as she stood there. After a moment, she lifted her boot and erased the pattern from the dirt with a swift motion. “Go home,” she told the children who gawked in silence now.

  They obeyed without a word, some of them linking arms as they moved past the closed-up building.

  With a last glance to the symbol on the door, Mariah hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and walked the opposite direction down the path through the woods.

  20

  November 18th 1862: Mrs. Lesley and her son died two days apart and were buried in the grove behind their cabin. The poor husband continues to lie in a stupor, and I suspect it will not be long before he joins his family in that final rest. There is no fight in him, and any chance of improvement seems to have vanished with the loss of his wife and child.

  Six new cases of fever since closing the school, two of which are children. Talk runs as wild as the fear among our neighbors, and I can say nothing to turn its course. Perhaps some speck of light will shine from the darkness, a glea
m of hope to dispel this talk of divine punishment and superstition.

  Ending the drought of battlefield communication was a letter from the Darrow’s son. Written on a torn sheet of stationary, it contained but five lines explaining he was unharmed and on the move again, his plan being to write a more detailed account of what had passed once the company settled into its winter quarters.

  This was enough to send tears of joy streaming from Mrs. Darrow’s eyes, the family’s members embracing each other as Mariah smiled faintly from the stairs. On her way to another house call, she had paused to hear the long-awaited contents of the envelope from Bridgeport.

  Unlike the Darrows, the tears in her eyes had nothing to do with the letter’s author—she knew him only as the blacksmith’s son and the true owner of the room she occupied upstairs. It was Arthur she had hoped to hear of. The thought of learning his fate explained her held breath while Nell read the scant details of the fighting along the river.

  Rain pelted the windows, the gloom outside less noticeable to the family with their newfound cheer. Only young Nell showed a hint of wistfulness in re-reading her brother’s message, as if expecting to see something more scrawled inside the paper’s margins.

  Mariah couldn’t miss the desperate way the girl eyed the mail over the next few days. Stealing a quick glance at the postmark on every envelope, never touching them as she did so. But all that came were more messages from town requesting medicine for stomach cramps or fever, a paregoric to soothe a baby’s cough.

  The doctor delivered these medicines on foot, rain dripping off the brim of a man’s hat pulled close around her curls. Her boots let the water in, feet chaffing in a way that had her limping by every afternoon. She took a rest by the fireplace whenever one was offered, a cup of tea or drink of water from those who shook free of their worry long enough to summon basic hospitality.