“Mr. Fletcher,” he responded. “Good afternoon to you, young fella. What brings you here today?”
“I’m trying to remember, sir… Did you say you knew my grandfather, Emmanuel Rogers?”
“I know who he is. I’ve spoken to him on occasion, about a funeral, or church—saw him earlier today, in fact—but I don’t know him very well.”
“I understand. Well, we were talking again this afternoon about that curious case of the girl who you said came up out of her grave—you remember, of course.”
Mr. Shaw gave a slow, solemn nod. “I do indeed.”
“My grandfather was trying to remember more about the girl—who her family was and whatnot. Do you remember much about that? Or do you think your nephews might remember more?”
“I reckon they might. You can ask ’em yourself. They should be coming over shortly to help me get a grave ready.”
Adam wrinkled a brow. “Someone died?”
Mr. Shaw nodded. “Old fellow named Grimley Adams. Poor man dropped dead last night.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Apparently, it’s that curse sickness that half the town’s got.”
This was the same man Adam had heard was doing poorly. He didn’t know the man personally, but he did know this new development would do nothing to calm the fears of people in town.
* * *
PONY AND CLEM SHAW WERE identical twins, which was a highly unusual occurrence in a tiny town like Beaufort. They both looked to be about thirty years old, with somewhat frizzy brown hair pulled back in ponytails, and hazel eyes. They were of average height and thin, and looked far more normal and well-put-together than Adam had anticipated. The only difference between them was that Clem had a big, dark mole—probably half an inch in diameter—low on his left cheek, just above his jawline.
“Your uncle told me the other day y’all were north of town digging for treasure. How did that go?”
Pony sort of rolled his eyes and exchanged an annoyed look with his brother.
“You don’t really think we went trying to dig for hidden treasure, do you?” Clem asked Adam.
“He must think we’re some kind of half-wits,” said Pony.
Adam was unsure of what to make of their reaction. “Sorry, fellas. I was just going by what your uncle said.”
Clem bobbed his head from side to side and gave a sly grin. “Well, our uncle’s a bit—how do I put it?—eccentric. He believes a lot of strange things.”
“Right, and we don’t have the heart to tell him otherwise,” said Pony.
“Like that girl coming up out of the grave,” said Clem. “We know no such thing happened. No girl crawls up out of a grave, but that’s not to say folks didn’t see something out here.”
“Very true,” said Adam. He was relieved that they seemed like rational men. “And you know, it’s interesting that there are conflicting stories of what folks claim to have seen.”
“Ah, it’s bound to happen,” said Pony. “We don’t doubt folks saw something, but it could’ve just been someone passing through—like a shortcut—but it’s a graveyard, so folks’ minds go right to thinking about death, and one person says it’s a ghost, next thing you know you got a bona fide ghost story going around.”
“Alright,” said Adam. “What about the disturbed grave? Your uncle showed it to me, and it does look like someone might’ve done some digging there. What do y’all know about that?”
“Well,” said Clem, “like we said, we don’t believe any little girl climbed up out of that grave.”
“Of course not.” Adam chuckled. “You know, Nan Gidding thinks the gypsies out at Town Creek conducted some ritual at the grave to try to summon up the body of the dead girl. You ever heard of anything like that?”
“I’ve heard there are folks who have tried to do sick things like that, but how would you even know it happened if you didn’t see it with your own two eyes?” asked Clem.
“Mrs. Gidding claims they draw a circle around the grave, then burn some kinds of herbs while they recite strange incantations.”
Pony and Clem looked at each other.
“How in the world would she know that?” Pony asked.
Adam shrugged. “No idea. I wondered the same thing.”
“Well, we can tell you there is no circle around that grave, and there’s no evidence of anybody burning anything over there—at least not that we can tell,” said Clem.
“Well, do y’all have any ideas of what might have happened?” asked Adam.
“We don’t know, but we’ve talked about it,” said Pony. “We haven’t wanted to draw attention to this—it’d upset people—but the fact is, with the girl being buried in rum like she was, she’d be real well preserved. We’ve read about men in some of the bigger cities who dig bodies up from graveyards for scientists to experiment on—to try to learn about the human body for medicine or something.”
“You think that could’ve happened with this girl?” asked Adam.
“Could be, but we can’t imagine who’d have done it. The only person in this town who would even possibly know anything about experiments like that is Dr. Taylor, and he’s not even in town.”
That observation struck Adam as troubling. He tried to remember when Dr. Taylor was last seen. It was the previous morning—Saturday—but the ghost was spotted on Tuesday night, and Mr. Shaw noticed the grave had been disturbed on Wednesday morning. Would Dr. Taylor have dug that girl up to sell her body to some scientist? That would be horrifying, thought Adam. He quickly decided he wouldn’t mention that possibility to Pony and Clem, but he knew it was even more important now that they determine whether or not the girl was still even in the grave.
“Has anyone checked to see that the barrel is still there?” asked Adam.
“We suggested it to Uncle Archie, but he said the parish would likely need to approve first,” said Pony.
“And that’s not likely,” Clem added. “The family who buried her is long gone from here, and they’d probably just see it as disturbing the grave.”
“But it’s already been disturbed,” said Adam. “Sounds silly to me.”
“I think we would agree with you,” said Pony.
“I mean,” said Adam, “it’s not like anyone would even have to dig the barrel all the way out of the ground to check—just dig down deep enough to be sure it’s still there. But if it’s not there, don’t you think someone should know?”
Pony and Clem looked at each other.
“I would think so,” said Clem.
“Me too,” said Pony.
Adam looked at the two of them. He didn’t see why they couldn’t get started right now.
“Should we go ahead and do it now?” he suggested.
“Whoa now!” said Pony. “It’s the middle of the day. Even though it might be fine for us to do it, I think it’d be best if we did it either real late tonight or real early in the morning.”
“Something about digging in a graveyard late at night, even if it is for a good reason, seems like a bad idea,” said Adam. “How early tomorrow morning could you fellas meet me here? I can give you a hand with the digging.”
The two brothers looked at each other. They seemed a little hesitant.
Adam added, “Let’s face it. There’s a very real possibility that a girl has been dug up out of her grave, her earthly remains robbed right out of what was supposed to be their final resting place, and it’s also possible—if that has happened—that whoever stole it might already be trying to make their way to some bigger town where there are scientists that experiment on bodies. Shouldn’t we at least try to get some answers so we’ll know one way or another whether or not to alert the authorities?”
“He’s right,” said Pony. “At least we’ll be able to rest easier just knowing.”
Clem nodded.
“Alright, how ’bout if we meet you around four o’clock?”
“That’ll be fine,” said Adam. “I’ll see
you then.”
THE ONLY LIGHT ADAM COULD see as he made his way to the burying ground was the moon’s glow. It had been full a little over a week ago, but now it was only half as bright. He didn’t take his grandfather’s horse cart. The noise might wake folks sleeping along the way. In fact, he made a great effort to not accidentally wake anyone when he left the warehouse, a logical choice considering he didn’t tell anyone what he was planning to do.
He didn’t talk to Boaz about things like that anyway—he always found fault with the things Adam did. And he knew his grandfather would insist they talk to the reverend before doing any digging. By not mentioning it, he figured he wouldn’t be in the difficult position of having to choose between obedience and outright defiance.
Since Pony and Clem had put to rest the idea of some ritual being done at the grave—at least as far as Adam was concerned—the biggest question now was whether or not the barrel was still where it should be.
When Adam arrived at the burying ground, it occurred to him that Mr. Shaw might be awake. He did say that he went to bed with the sun and got up before dawn. He was relieved that there was no sign of him.
“Is your uncle still sleeping?” he asked Pony and Clem.
“He is for now,” said Clem. “Might not be for much longer, though. He’s usually up early.”
“But we kept him awake as late as we could last night, so hopefully we’ve got at least until the cocks start crowing and start waking everybody up,” said Pony.
The three of them went over to the grave by the light of Pony’s lantern. They were careful as they navigated the various graves, since they didn’t want to accidentally step on one or trip over the smallish headstones. There were no large monuments in the burying ground. It had only been officially used for town burials for less than a half century, and without a source of granite nearby the only way of having any sort of substantial tombstone was to have it brought in from elsewhere. Expense and expediency made that an impractical solution.
Once they were at the grave, Adam asked what everybody was probably already thinking. “Alright, so who’s going to start the digging?”
Pony and Clem looked at each other, but neither made the first move.
“I’ll do it, fellas,” said Adam. “Just tell me where I should start.”
“It’s alright,” said Clem. “I’ll start. We just need to work down here in the center of the plot.”
Pony and Adam joined in and started digging as well.
“This feels so bizarre,” said Pony. “We’re used to digging holes to bury folks in, but digging holes over folks that are already buried is a different thing.”
“Well, if we work fast, we can go ahead and get this over with,” said Adam. “I’m not too happy about having to be here doing this either.”
The three of them dug for the next few minutes, carefully spilling out each shovelful of dirt just beside the grave. The ground was looser than it should have been, definitely indicating it had been broken up recently. The question was, what would they find when they got down to the grave?
After they had excavated about two feet of dirt, Clem stepped out of the hole and pushed the dirt that had been excavated to the side. The hole wouldn’t be big enough for all three of them to keep digging. Adam continued helping Pony, though.
They were working against the inevitable sunrise.
“What about the barrel that the girl was buried in?” asked Adam.
“Huh?” said Clem.
“Was there anything you remember about it? Anything special?”
“Eh, I wouldn’t say so. There wasn’t nothin special about it really. It was just a big ol’ barrel full of rum. Ain’t that right, Pony?”
Pony nodded. “Yep.”
After a while Adam and Pony were quite far down in the hole. They had dug out much longer and wider than the grave should have been, but only to be sure they didn’t miss anything.
When Adam realized he had dug up a shovelful of dirt mixed with long grasses, he asked, “How far down do you dig these graves?”
It made no sense that there would be grass, especially that looked relatively fresh, buried so far beneath the surface.
Clem told Pony to stand with his back up to one of the dirt walls of the grave. The dirt came up almost to his shoulders.
“We should probably hit it anytime now,” said Pony, “or maybe we should’ve hit it already.”
“How tall are you fellas?” asked Adam.
“We’re about five feet seven inches,” said Pony.
“That’s what I thought,” said Adam. “I’m about five foot ten.”
He was getting more careful about each downward thrust of the shovel. “You don’t dig down deeper than six feet, do you?”
Clem shrugged. “Sometimes. Depends sometimes on the weather, or if we know a spot might get washed away more often than others.”
“Makes sense.” Adam nodded. “But if we’re that far down—and this seems like a pretty dry area in this graveyard—I would think we should’ve already hit the barrel.”
“About how high do you think that barrel came up when we put it in the ground?” said Pony.
Clem scratched his chin. “You know, now that I think about it, seems like we put it in upright, so it came up pretty high. I think y’all ought to already have found it if it was here.”
Pony stopped digging. He held the shovel upright in one hand and put his other hand on his hip. “You’re right. That barrel is gone.”
Adam wrinkled his brow. “But the grave didn’t seem any lower. How can somebody take out something as big as a barrel with a girl in it and not leave a hole in the ground?”
He thought for a moment. “Clem, let me see that light.”
Clem handed Adam his lantern. Adam lowered it down near his feet. There was a great deal more clumps of earth mixed with long grasses, and he pointed out the fact to the two brothers.
“Huh. That’s strange,” said Pony.
Adam handed the lantern back to Clem, then climbed out of the hole. Pony climbed out right behind him.
“There are no holes around here, so they had to have brought in dirt from somewhere else to fill the hole,” Adam suggested. “I’d imagine the grass is from the top layer of ground where they got the dirt.”
“But wouldn’t we have seen tracks if they done that?” asked Pony.
“Not necessarily,” said Clem. “If they came up with a cart or a wagon—which we can guess they must’ve done, since they carried the barrel away—they could’ve had it parked right over there on the street near the trees. Then, what if they brought the dirt in sacks? They could’ve carried those over and filled it in.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” said Adam. “It’s pretty clever, actually.”
Adam started to wonder about how Dr. Taylor could’ve managed a project like that on his own. He was not a young man and didn’t look particularly robust. That led Adam to think that either he would’ve had to have had help to remove the barrel, or someone else entirely must’ve done it.
“So the barrel is gone?” said Clem.
“Yeah. It is.” Pony was emotional at the implication of the little girl’s grave being desecrated in this way.
“What do you think we should do?” said Adam. “I mean, we didn’t even get permission to do this. Now we’ve gotta talk to Reverend Miller, right? And let him know what we’ve found.”
“I would think so,” said Clem. “I don’t know how we’re going to find out who did this, though. Whoever it is, is probably long gone by now.”
“Maybe,” said Adam, “but maybe not.” He racked his brain, trying to think of who, other than Dr. Taylor, could’ve been interested in exhuming the girl.
“Tell me again, what do y’all remember about the little girl’s family?” he asked.
“Well, they were just really torn up, and they were in a hurry to get on down to Charleston. The oldest son was probably about sixte
en or seventeen years old, and he seemed to take charge of things. They wanted to get the girl buried before they traveled any further because they had already come across the ocean on two different ships, carrying the dead girl in that barrel of rum the whole way.”
“Where was it they said that she had died?” asked Adam.
“Oh, I don’t know. It was somewhere between Bristol and Madeira if I remember correctly,” said Pony.
“Do you remember the name of the family?” said Adam.
“They said their name was Smith,” said Clem.
The sky was beginning to warm, with a sliver of light on the eastern horizon.
“The sun’ll be coming up directly,” said Pony. “You’re prob’ly gonna want to head on out of here.”
Adam stepped on the little stool that Pony and Clem had brought into the grave and then pushed himself up over the edge and out. As he climbed up, he noticed something on the ground near the base of another nearby grave marker that looked like a piece of debris. He couldn’t see clearly what it was, but as soon as he was out, he quickly reached down and grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket just in case it might be a clue.
“Let me give you fellas a hand filling this hole,” said Adam. “Your uncle will be up soon, and he’ll see the mess we’ve made. I’m sure it won’t make him happy.”
“No,” said Clem. “You just go on. My brother and I can get this filled up real quick.”
Adam didn’t like the idea of leaving them there to do all the work, but he knew it would make for an awkward, and possibly legally problematic, situation if he hung around.
WHEN HE BEGAN HIS WALK back to the warehouse, he was startled to hear footsteps coming up behind him. They seemed to be getting closer and closer, and whoever it was seemed to intentionally be following Adam. Never the one to shy away from such a situation, Adam turned right around and saw a slender male figure heading towards him. As he got closer, Adam recognized the person.
It was the sixteen-year-old boy who had been sick—Dr. Taylor’s neighbor.
“What are you doing here?” Adam asked. He hoped the boy hadn’t been watching him with and Pony and Clem back at the graveyard.
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