“Or maybe she’s been doing it all along,” Claire suggested, “but the house has been empty. Nobody’s been around to hear.”
“Except Mr. and Mrs. Hoover,” Ruby said, remembering what Monica had said. “Maybe she doesn’t want anybody around. Maybe she’s trying to get everybody to leave, so she can have the place to herself.”
“Or maybe she’s trying to get our attention,” Claire replied, “and she’s like…well, waving a flag. Ringing a bell, playing a harp, banging pans. Maybe she wants something from us. Or needs something.” In a helpful tone, she added, “I suppose you could ask her. Since you’re the one who saw her first. And since you’re psychic.”
“Since she lives in your house,” Ruby replied pointedly, “it would be good if you could do the asking. Anyway, you’ve seen her, too, which means that you must be psychic as well. I told you, Claire. I’ve never tried to communicate with the dead—or the undead.”
“Dead, undead.” Claire shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts and hunched her shoulders. “I’m not sure I understand the difference.”
“The dead are dead and they know it,” Ruby said. “They stay dead. The undead are a different story, at least from what I’ve read. Some of them were taken by surprise and they haven’t yet figured out what happened. Or maybe they’re stubborn and simply refuse to accept the fact that they’re dead. Or they have a job to do, or a mission, and they can’t be at peace until they’ve finish it.” Her attention was caught by a half dozen wheeling turkey vultures spiraling upward in the darkening sky, carried on a thermal ahead of the coming storm. “And some are just plain stuck. Betwixt and between, as it were—between there and here, then and now. We think time is linear—that it’s always moving forward—but maybe that’s not always true. Maybe time sometimes loops back on itself and repeats. Or gets trapped in a loop, so that the same thing happens over and over again.”
Claire shuddered. “That’s the worst hell I could imagine. To get trapped, I mean. To get stuck in something and keep repeating it over and over, for all eternity.”
For a moment, Ruby wondered whether Claire might be thinking of her own situation. She had said herself that she wasn’t able to get over her husband’s death, that she’d gotten stuck and couldn’t break away from the past, from losing Brad.
But she seemed to be thinking only of the ghost, not of herself. She went on. “I wonder, Ruby…maybe the problem is that Mrs. Blackwood is trapped here. Not in time, I mean, but in this place. Or rather, in this house.” She stopped in the path and turned to look back at the mansion and the maybes began to tumble out. “Maybe the house won’t let her go. Maybe something really bad happened here when she was in her thirties. Maybe that’s why she appears to be so much younger than she was when she died.”
Ruby turned to look, too. They were far enough away so that the house no longer looked terribly threatening. But it still looked terribly wrong. “This poor house,” she said, shaking her head. “It seems almost tragic to me, as if something happened here that was so utterly awful that it left its imprint on the structure itself.” She gestured. “Perhaps it even…you know, wrenched the house out of alignment. Distorted it. Unbalanced it. Made it crooked. Does that sound crazy, Claire?”
“Not at all.” Claire tilted her head, squinting. “The house does seem crooked. It’s not so bad on the inside, at least not on the main floor. On the outside, though—” She broke off. “But what could have happened that was so horrible that it could have such a strong physical effect?” Her voice dropped. “A murder, do you think? And Mrs. Blackwood survived it?”
“Or more than one murder,” Ruby said, thinking of the multiple headstones in the graveyard up ahead. “And Mrs. Blackwood herself was the…murderer.”
“Oh no!” Claire exclaimed, horrified. “I…I didn’t get that impression at all—when I saw her, I mean. She didn’t seem malevolent or evil. She just seemed terribly sad, especially when she was standing up there on the widow’s walk, looking out to the horizon.”
“You’re right about that,” Ruby conceded. “When I saw her, I didn’t get the impression of anything sinister. So maybe there was a mass murder here and she was the only survivor.” She frowned. “But surely your aunt Hazel would have known about that, wouldn’t she? She would have passed the story along, if not to you, then to your mother.”
“Not necessarily,” Claire said. “Aunt Hazel didn’t come here until she was sixteen. And while she was very sweet, she wasn’t a curious sort of person—certainly not the kind who goes digging into somebody else’s secrets. Anything could have happened in this house before she arrived, and she wouldn’t have known.” She smiled a little. “You could add that to your list of questions to ask Mrs. Blackwood when you talk to her.”
“We could add that to our list,” Ruby said pointedly. “And if we have to communicate with her, I think I’d prefer something a little less formal than ‘Mrs. Blackwood.’ What was her first name?”
“Aunt Hazel never mentioned it. But I’m sure it’s on her headstone in the cemetery. Aunt Hazel pointed it out to me—the headstone, I mean—the one time we went there together, but I didn’t go over and look.” Claire chuckled wryly. “I was just a kid, what did I know? Cemeteries always creeped me out—still do. Anyway, at the time, I had no reason to be especially interested in Mrs. Blackwood. She was only the little old lady who’d built the house and lived here until she died. I didn’t connect her with the woman you saw on the stairs.”
“If you weren’t interested, why did your aunt take you there?”
“Aunt Hazel had found a hawk’s nest in the woods and wanted to show it to me. I saw the angel and asked what it was.”
“The angel?” Ruby asked, then remembered. “Oh, right. The Victorian marble angel. In the cemetery.”
“Yes. On a pedestal, overlooking the row of headstones.”
The sky was darker, and the freshening breeze carried the scent of rain. “You mentioned those headstones before,” Ruby said. “Who is buried there?”
“I have no idea,” Claire replied, “except for Aunt Hazel, that is. Mom wanted to put her with the rest of the family over in the cemetery at Smithville, but Hazel insisted on being buried here. I didn’t come to the funeral,” she added. “I think it was just my mother and my uncle and the caretaker. Nobody else knew her.”
Ruby shook her head, thinking how it would be to live your whole life so utterly alone that only three people were aware of your death. The path was considerably narrower now, climbing up the hill. As they drew closer to the small cemetery, Ruby could see that it was surrounded with a tall, Gothic-looking iron fence topped with a row of pointed iron finials along the top rail, which was decorated with a skein of old wisteria vines bearing lush purple blooms. A pair of stern stone lions flanked the head-high gate, twins of the pair on either side the front steps of the house, and a brick path led beyond the gate into the graveyard. In a nearby tree, a redbird sang, cheer-cheer-cheer. A mockingbird returned the call, with amused irony, from the other side of the fence.
There was an old-fashioned cast-iron lock on the gate, but when Claire tried to turn the handle, it wouldn’t budge. “Looks like it’s locked, and I don’t have a clue where the key is—maybe in the kitchen somewhere.” She turned away with a discouraged sigh. “Sorry, Ruby. I guess we’re out of luck.”
Ruby stood for a moment, very still. Then, without thinking of it, without willing it, she felt her glance being pulled in the direction of a large gray rock beside the gate. She went to the rock, pushed it aside with an effort, and there was a large brass skeleton key.
“Do you suppose this is it?” she asked, holding it up.
Claire frowned. “How did you know where to look?” she replied. “Oh, duh,” she said, rolling her eyes, and put the key in the lock. After a moment, she gave up. “Feels like it’s the right key, but the lock is just too rusty. Maybe if I brought some oil—”
“Let me try,” Ruby said, and put her hand to
the key. It turned easily.
Claire chuckled wryly. “I guess you’ve got the magic touch, Ruby. Or somebody wants you to see what’s here.”
Ruby frowned. “Maybe it was too easy,” she said. The gate, though, was a different matter. It took both of them, shoving hard, to push it open. But it finally yielded with a rusty screech, and they went in.
At one time, the little cemetery must have been well kept and even beautiful, for there were oleanders and gnarled hollies all along the fence, as well as a couple of stone benches and flower urns placed along the walk. But from the looks of the rampant undergrowth, it hadn’t been touched in years. The shrubbery was a jungle and the weeds and grass were knee-high. The red bricks in the path were uneven and some were broken and crumbling. Everywhere there was a profusion of small blue flowers, faded and wilted as if by the sun. Ruby recognized them as the same wildflowers that volunteered along the fence behind her shop in Pecan Springs. Widow’s tears, they were called.
Somehow the little flowers seemed appropriate here, for in the far corner of the little graveyard stood the marble angel that Claire had mentioned. It was the very image of grief, standing fully seven feet tall on its rough stone pedestal, wings folded, head bent, eyes cast down. The stone from which it was carved was gray with age and exposure to the weather, and green and gray lichens were growing in the folds of its stone robe. A sweet, fragrant tangle of blooming honeysuckle was draped around it, and a black crow perched carelessly on the angelic shoulder. At its feet, nearly hidden in the grass and wildflowers, was a row of seven stone crosses.
Ruby’s skin prickled. The breeze had gone still, the birds had stopped in mid-song, and there was an almost electric feel to the air. She had the strong sense that she and Claire were not alone in the graveyard, and her heart began to beat fast. She looked back and was startled to see the rusted iron gate, with a loud screech of its rusty hinges, begin to swing shut.
Claire saw it, too. With a cry of alarm, she sprinted for it, catching it just before the latch clicked shut.
“Thank God,” Ruby said, swept by relief. “The key is still in the lock on the outside of the gate. I don’t think we could reach it through the bars. We could have been locked in here!”
Claire was pushing the gate open again. “I don’t see how this could swing shut,” she said, panting. “The hinges are so rusty.”
“Yeah.” Ruby went to help her. “And it’s heavy. If our ghost pushed it shut, she’s a better woman than I am.”
“You hold it, Ruby,” Claire said. “I’ll get a rock.” She found the large rock that had hidden the key and rolled it into place. “There,” she said firmly, dusting her hands. “I don’t know about you, but I do not intend to be locked in here. I’m not in the best shape, and with those spiky doodads on top of that fence, I’m not sure how I’d climb over it. And with the Rawlingses gone, we might have to spend the night, which I would definitely not enjoy.” She glanced apprehensively toward the darkening sky. “Looks like it’s about to rain. Maybe we should just head back to the house.”
“Not yet,” Ruby said. The closing gate made her nervous, and she wasn’t any more anxious to get rained on than Claire was. “Now that we’re here, I think we ought to at least take a look.” She didn’t want to say it out loud, but she felt compelled to find out just who was buried in those graves—who they were and when they were buried.
“Well, okay,” Claire said, sounding resigned. “But let’s make it quick.” She gave another nudge to the heavy rock to make sure it would stay put and followed Ruby down the brick path.
The graves were lined up in a row to the left of the path. Mrs. Blackwood’s was first, the coffin-shaped mound obscured by the tall grass. The stone cross at the head of the grave was carved with her name, Rachel Blackwood, and the words Wife and Mother. There was no date.
“Rachel,” Ruby murmured. A gentle breeze lifted the leaves of a nearby tree, and the grasses on the grave bowed in a soft ripple.
“Rachel,” Claire repeated softly, coming up behind her. “Well, at least we know what to call her. What about the others?”
“Looks like they’re children,” Ruby said. “There’s a name and an age on each stone.” These crosses—some of them were tilted crookedly—were smaller than Rachel’s, and an angel was engraved at the top of each. Ruby read the inscriptions as they went along the path, stepping to the crosses and bending over to pull the grass aside. “Angela, age three. Peter, five; Paul, five.” She paused. “Peter and Paul. Twins, maybe?” The next one was Ida, age eight; then Matthew, ten.
She straightened with a long, regretful sigh, and the thought of it clutched at her heart. Five children, a whole family of brothers and sisters, buried here together. When had they died? All at the same time? And how had they died?
Beside her, Claire broke the silence. “I guess this explains the nursery,” she said quietly. “And the playroom. They must have been the children’s rooms.” After a moment, she added, “You know, I’m thinking that Rachel’s children could have died in an epidemic—diphtheria or whooping cough, scarlet fever, even. Back in the day, when kids got sick with something like that, it was hard to treat them, especially if they lived miles away from a doctor.” Her voice softened. “I just wish there were dates on the grave markers. That way, we’d know for sure whether they all died at the same time.”
“There’s another marker here,” Ruby said. She took a few more steps down the path. Next to Matthew’s cross was a larger one, the same size as Rachel’s. It bore the name Augustus Blackwood and the words Husband and Father.
“My gosh,” Claire said, staring down at Augustus’ marker. “Not just mom and kids, but the whole family buried here. Rachel, Augustus, and five little ones. How sad. How terribly, terribly sad. Do you suppose they died at once, all of them?”
“Six of them, maybe,” Ruby said, “but not Rachel. Rachel survived.”
“True,” Claire said, and frowned. “But something is bothering me, Ruby. I was only a kid when Aunt Hazel told me this, but I remember it very clearly. She said that nobody else had ever lived in the house except her and Mrs. Blackwood—she was really definite about that. But she must have been wrong. For one thing, there’s the little rocking chair in the music room, and the nursery and the playroom upstairs.” She pointed down the row of crosses. “And this. It’s evidence that the whole Blackwood family—all seven of them—must have lived in the house. And at some point, maybe all at the same time, the father and children died and were buried here.”
“Makes sense,” Ruby said distractedly.
“Exactly.” Claire was going on, trying to work it out. “But what’s puzzling me is that Aunt Hazel must have known about this…this whatever, even if it happened before she came here. She lived and worked in the house all her life, so she had to know about the rooms upstairs—unless they were kept closed up and she was forbidden to go in them. But after old Mrs. Blackwood died, she often came to this graveyard to put flowers on her grave, so she had to know about the graves. And the house was hers, so nobody could forbid her to go into any room she liked.” She shook her head, frowning. “So she had to have known about the children, at least. Then why did she tell me that she and Mrs. Blackwood were the only people who had ever lived in the house?”
Ruby wasn’t really listening. An Old Testament phrase had slipped into her mind. Rachel, weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for they were dead. Rachel, who had survived the awful thing that had destroyed her family, whether she had lost them one by one over months or years or all at one terrible time. The children had died so young—Angela just three, Matthew only ten—so Rachel herself must have been in her thirties when she was left childless, perhaps widowed at the same time.
And Rachel had survived. She had lived into her nineties, another sixty-some years, with no life outside this house, with nothing to do but weep and refuse to be comforted, with only Hazel to keep her company and a caretaker to manage the chores. Perhaps that was wh
y her ghost haunted this place. Perhaps Rachel could not bear to leave the house where all she had loved in the world had lived and died. She wanted to go on grieving, to go on possessing this place until the end of time, to go on bringing white roses to this lonely cemetery, touching harp strings, ringing bells. That’s why she had included the odd stipulation in her will, requiring the person who inherited the house to live in it and keep it up—and if they didn’t, it would be torn down.
Somewhere nearby, thunder growled. Nearer at hand, the mockingbird offered a staccato barrage of skeptical chirps. Of course, Ruby thought, the situation might be entirely different. Perhaps Rachel’s spirit, her ghost, was actually stuck here. Maybe she wanted to leave, would leave if she could, but the house—the crooked, misaligned, misshapen house—held on to her and refused to allow her to go. Ruby remembered what Claire had said a little earlier: that it would be the purest hell to be trapped inside a time or a place, to keep repeating something over and over, forever and ever, for all eternity. Was Rachel’s ghost being held a prisoner, drowning in an overwhelming grief from which there could never be any rescue? Or was it the other way around? Was she voluntarily, willfully, stubbornly holding on, refusing release?
Ruby shivered, hearing those questions pounding on the walls of her own heart. She knew how it felt to grieve, yes. She still grieved for Colin. But would she want to grieve for dozens of years, for decades? To grieve for the rest of her life, and beyond? No. No, of course not. She couldn’t want that. It had already been too long. She wanted to stop grieving now, and get on with the rest of her life. Maybe she needed to let Hark pull her out of her own stuck place. Or pull herself out. Either way, she didn’t want to let herself stay stuck.
She wrapped her arms around herself. It might be her imagination, but the air seemed colder. Nervously, she glanced over her shoulder. She had the feeling that someone else was here in the graveyard with them, standing not far away, listening to what she and Claire had been saying, listening to what she had been thinking. She raised her voice.
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