Today is Dearly Departed, the first in the Grave Reminders series.
I traced a single finger down the windowpane and watched as
a mark of clear glass appeared in the fog, beads of moisture clinging to the
glass. The silence of the house was
broken by the creak of time in the old timbers of the pitched roof, and the
steady drip, drip, drip of the bathroom faucet down the hall. The night outside was rapidly cooling;
inconsistent fall weather going from a pleasant mid-seventies to the forties in
a matter of hours. My breath made
another oval of misty white against the night’s darkness. I pressed slightly closer to the glass, the
window's mirror image of my room disappearing as I focused beyond the glass.
Outside, the graveyard was
largely unlit, partially to dissuade more timid visitors after sunset, but more
out of respect for the neighborhood homes crowded like concerned aunts around
the parameter of the grounds. The
regular inhabitants of the yard, under their snug carpet of soil and lawn,
cared little for light or dark. Under
the protective limbs of oaks and maples, their leaves burned gold, orange, and
rosy red, the grave stones cast moonlit shadows on the ground. Amid the steady swaying of the trees, a pale
figure passed silently.
“You’re here again,” I said. I pulled the thick material of my sweatshirt
over the heel of my hand and wiped a wide swath of moisture from the pane. The view cleared, snatching reality from the
ghostly blur. My second story window gave me an excellent view over the four
foot creek stone wall into the adjoining cemetery. This was my opportunity for the nightly
viewing of assorted activities that took place in one of the county’s oldest monuments.
Visitors,
even late night ones, were not so unusual.
I’d
been the silent guardian for a long time, spying through my curtains for almost
15 years, after my parents had chosen to move to the historic little town when
I was just two. Since then, I had knelt
in childhood curiosity, my knees padded with the skirts of my long flannel
gowns, and all that time I had felt somehow privileged to be the protector of
those even more vulnerable than myself.
But this visitor was different.
He made me watch. For two weeks straight
I had seen him here, walking slowly and deliberately through the grounds like
an unsettled spirit. His pattern was
always the same, starting at the gated entrance where he appeared after
vaulting over the stone wall and moving into the center circle. From there he moved either right or left,
sometimes disappearing into the damp shade of the oaks, sometimes behind the
shelter of the chapel. He was always in
darkness, always clinging in the shadows as they caressed his figure, blending
him and shielding him from probing eyes.
This was the first time he had stilled, and my breath caught as I
watched through the damp glass.
The window
was fogging again as I leaned closer to watch the tall figure pause. For a moment, I saw the pale oval of his face
framed by paler hair worn too long.
My
indecision melted when I saw him raise one hand in a casual wave. He had seen me.
“Alright,” I muttered to myself. “Time to face up.”
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