Grave Girl (4 page)

Chapter Six

"Mayor Winters!" the old lady calls out, as she hurries across the town square. "I want a word with you! Mayor Winters!"

Stopping at the door to the town hall, Mayor Winters turns to see Ethel Mayberry making her way straight toward him. Now that he has a bad leg and relies on a cane to walk, the mayor struggles to outrun even the oldest of his constituents, which means that he has to discuss local matters much more frequently than he'd prefer. He's learning to put a brave face on the experience, but in truth he'd rather avoid direct confrontation wherever possible.

"Mrs Mayberry," he says, forcing his lips to contort into a not-altogether-convincing smile. "What can I do for you on this fine afternoon?"

"I want to talk to you about the state of the cemetery," Mrs. Mayberry says as she reaches him. "I was just there an hour ago, and the place is a disgrace. Have you seen how the grass has grown? When was the last time you actually took a look and saw the terrible state of the place?"

"I was there just ten minutes ago," the mayor replies, "showing the new gardener around."

"New gardener?"

"Absolutely. It has taken quite some time, but I feel I have finally found someone to take the job on a permanent basis. As we speak, this new employee is undoubtedly getting a feel for the area and deciding what part of the task to tack first." He pauses for a moment, having expended considerable mental dexterity in avoiding the use of words such as 'she' and 'her' when describing Sam Marker. Having been in Rippon all his life, the mayor is fully aware that many of the local residents are rather old-fashioned and would take a dim view of a girl being given such a position.

"I didn't know anything about a new gardener," Mrs. Mayberry says. "Why wasn't it mentioned at the last town hall meeting?"

"The appointment was only made this week," the mayor continues. "I was planning to mention it at the next opportunity, now that the finer details have been worked out."

"And this new man's going to return the cemetery to its former standing, is he?"

"The new gardener is undoubtedly the best person for the job."

"He'd better be," Mrs. Mayberry says with a sigh. "It's absolutely disgraceful to see hallowed ground being left in such a decrepit state. It's an offense to everyone who has ever been buried there, and to the relatives who have to put up with such misery when they go to visit the graves."

"I'm sure the new gardener will be very pleased to have your input," the mayor replies.

"I also want to ask him about moving that confounded statue from by the gate," she continues. "The thing gives me the creeps." Turning, she starts walking slowly away, heading for the shops on the other side of the town square.

Letting out a sigh, the mayor looks up at the gray sky and imagines the reactions of people at the following week's town hall meeting when they discover that the cemetery's new gardener is a young girl from Leeds. Already able to hear the gasps and mocking laughter of the townspeople, the mayor makes a silent prayer, begging God to ensure that this Sam Marker girl at least does a passable job and doesn't bring the whole town into disrepute. Still, he figures he'll have to start looking for her replacement soon. If a succession of good and strong local men couldn't last long at the cemetery, there's absolutely no way a girl will be able to hack it. In fact, the mayor notes as he heads inside, it'll be something of a miracle if she survives past the weekend.

Chapter Seven

"So," Sam says, standing in the doorway of the little cottage and staring out at the cemetery. Everything looks still and peaceful, as if the place has lain undisturbed for many years. The grass is so overgrown, it reaches up several feet, while there seem to be bits of brickwork and machinery scattered across the ground. Frankly, it looks like the previous gardener - whoever he might have been - left in a hell of a hurry, and Sam finds herself wondering why the town seems to have had such a hard job finding someone to stay in the gardener's role. This seems like the perfect occupation for someone who likes a quiet, uncomplicated, lonely lifestyle. With a wry smile, Sam reminds herself that this is precisely the kind of existence she has to get used to now; she's tried the opposite, and it was a miserable failure, so she has to force herself to retreat from the world like this. That's why she jumped at the job in the first place.

"Home," she whispers, trying to force herself to believe that she can live here. "Home," she says again. It still doesn't sound very easy to believe, so she pauses for a moment before saying the word a third time, louder and with more confidence. "Home," she announces proudly.

Well, at least it
sounds
convincing.

"This is where I live," she says, walking around the side of the cottage and finding a pile of chopped wood, presumably intended for the wood-burning stove inside. "
This
," she says again, with different emphasis, "is where I live." She pauses. "This is where
I
live," she says eventually, before frowning as she tries to think of a better way to express the idea. "This is where I
live
," she tries finally. None of it sounds right, but she figures she'll get used to the idea eventually.

Wandering around to the back of the cottage, she finds a huge thicket of overgrown brambles and bushes; deep in the undergrowth, however, there appears to be a small shed, which she realizes probably contains the tools she'll be requiring. Pulling her hands up inside her shirt for protection, she struggles through the mass of vines until finally she reaches the door to the shed, which opens easily enough to reveal a dark interior. As her eyes get used to the darkness, Sam starts to make out a pair of benches running along the walls, covered with various small spades and hoes; at the far end of the shed, there's what appears to be a small mechanical lawnmower, which instantly looks to be woefully inadequate for the task of keeping the cemetery clean. Leaning against one wall, there's an old-fashioned scythe, like the kind that Death wields in old paintings.

"Perfect," Sam says, grabbing the scythe before turning and using it to swipe the vines aside. Within a few minutes, she's managed to clear a path from the shed door to the cottage, which seems like something of an achievement. Already tired, and with her hands feeling sore, she sets the scythe over her shoulder and wanders around the rest of the cottage and arriving back at the front door, where she carefully rests the scythe against the wall.

"Hello," she says, staring at a stone angel that's standing close to the door. Frowning, Sam wonders how she managed to not notice the damn thing earlier; thinking back to when she arrived with Mayor Winters, and to when she emerged from the cottage a couple of minutes ago, she's quite certain that there was no stone angel in the immediate vicinity. Still, stone angels don't move themselves, so she decides she must have simply had a little blind spot. Reminding herself to be more vigilant and observant in future, she walks over to the angel and finds that its eyes are staring straight at her; it's an unusual coincidence, and once that sends a slight shiver down her spine.

"I'm your new boss," Sam says after a moment, patting the angel's shoulder. "I shall name you Sparky. Don't worry, I know it sounds a bit modern and weird, but you'll get used to it. I used to have a dog called Sparky but he..." She pauses, thinking momentarily of her dog and what he must be doing at this exact moment. Probably running around, playing in a field; probably not missing her at all. "Well," she says, taking a deep breath, "you're the new Sparky. To be honest, you seem easier to train. So why don't you wait right here while I go and take a look around, okay?" Turning, she walks a few meters, before stopping and looking back at the angel. "Stay!" she says firmly, before continuing on her way.

Taking a small notebook and a pencil from her jacket pocket, she starts jotting down a rough map of the cemetery. She soon finds that there are several paths criss-crossing the place, each of them meandering in curled lines between crooked gravestones that appear to have been dropped into place from a great height. Clearly there was no central planner or grand designer; space has simply had to be found for new graves in the most convenient spot, while larger mausoleums stand dotted around, testament to the wealth of entire families who chose to be buried together. As she walks, Sam sees dates stretching back hundreds of years marked on stones that are covered with green and yellow moss. Most of these people have been dead for centuries, although occasionally she spots the shiny new marble of a more recent memorial, and a couple of graves even have fresh flowers resting on their turf. Looking down at the uneven grass, Sam can't help but think of the dead bodies resting in the dark; some of them will just be bones by now, but some might still have a little flesh and meat.

Hundreds and hundreds of corpses, all around her; the thought freaks her out for a fraction of a second, before she reminds herself that she's definitely not the kind of person who gets worried about such stupid things.

"Time to get to work," she says, turning and heading back to the cottage. It takes her a while to work out which path to follow; already, her map seems to be stubbornly unhelpful, almost as if the paths have shifted since she set out a few minutes earlier. Eventually, however, she manages to get to the cottage without having to take any shortcuts across the grass, and she finds Sparky still standing obediently where he was left. "Good boy," she says, patting him on the head before she makes her way into the cottage and grabs the broom. As she starts sweeping dirt from the kitchen floor, she raises a cloud of dust that makes it difficult to breathe, but she forces herself to keep going until, finally, she has to nip outside for a short break.

"I could kill for a cigarette," she says, looking over at Sparky. "I quit while..." She pauses for a moment. "Hell, I swear to God, right now I could kill for just one little..." Her voice trails off as it occurs to her that she could probably just go into town and find a newsagent. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out the envelope that Mayor Winters gave her; it's the first time in many, many months that she's actually had some proper cash, and she has to fight the urge to go out and splurge. Besides, she reminds herself, she had plenty of reasons to give up smoking, one of which was that she was starting to get a little worried about the persistent cough that kept rattling her chest over the winter.

"So what do people do for fun around here?" she asks. "Come on, Sparky. You look like you've been knocking about for a while. Are there any pubs or clubs, any..." Again, her voice trails off as she remembers what happened the last time she was in a position to go out socializing. It was fun, sure, but things got kind of out of hand. Taking a deep breath, she feels a strange sensation deep in her chest, almost as if some invisible hand has reached into her body and placed a gentle, calming touch on her heart. "Never mind," she says after a moment. With these urges to have a drink and a cigarette, she realizes that perhaps she hasn't changed as much as she'd hoped; those complicit little demons are still lurking deep within, curled into tight balls and ready to leap out at the first opportunity. Fortunately, Sam tells herself, she has this little thing called Free Will, which means she can fight her temptations and get on with the task at hand. "I didn't come here to have a good time, Sparky," she says after a moment. "I came to get away from all that. I guess you can be my new best friend, okay?"

She pauses, almost as if she's waiting for an answer. "Does this count as talking to myself?" she asks after a moment. Glancing around, she sees that there's definitely no-one nearby. "I think I've been talking to myself," she says, nodding slightly. "Sparky. I'm begging you, don't tell anyone. Don't embarrass me."

Heading back inside, she spends a couple of hours cleaning the interior of the cottage. There's a huge amount of dust and soil and dirt caked all over the place, but eventually - as the sun starts to set and the sky turns a kind of warm orange - she finds herself standing in the middle of the kitchen, reflecting upon the fact that she has at least made the place habitable. She can get about without breathing in a cloud of dust every time she moves anything, and she can touch the surfaces without having to immediately wash her hands in the gray-green water that comes belching out of the rickety old tap.

"Time to go into town," she says, checking her watch and seeing that it's almost 8pm. Grabbing the keys, she steps out of the cottage and pulls the door shut. It takes her a few tries to work out which key fits the lock, but eventually she gets the job done. Turning, she smiles at Sparky before making her way along the path, toward the main gate. When she gets there, and while she's finding the right key to lock the cemetery for the night, she glances over at the stone angel that stands nearby, or rather at the plinth where there used to be a stone angel. A shiver passes through her body as she thinks back to the moment, earlier today, when she definitely saw an angel standing right by the entrance.

"Huh," she says, making a mental note to start keeping better track of the cemetery's stone inhabitants as she wanders casually along the street.

Chapter Eight

Turning the television down for a moment, Mrs. Mayberry listens out for the sound of footsteps in the alley that runs down the side of her house. She looks over at the clock and sees that it's almost 9pm, which means no right-minded people should be out at such an hour. In Mrs. Mayberry's opinion, people on honest business tend to go out during the day, while the night is reserved for drinkers, carousers and fornicators. She's old enough and wise enough to know that she can't stop people from gathering at drinking holes around the town, but the one thing she
does
like to control is the alley next to her home. Every time she hears someone walking down there after dark, she suspects they must be up to no good. After all, there's nothing at the other end apart from some sheds.

Suddenly she hears the clinking of her back gate, and her heart immediately starts to race. Rising slowly and painfully from her chair, she hurries as fast as her creaking bones can carry her to the hallway, where she picks up her cordless phone and dials the number for the local police station. After a moment, she hears nothing but an engaged tone; putting the phone down, she curses the local officer for always going out drinking late at night, leaving the citizens of Rippon to face murderers and thieves on their own terms. Fearful of an intruder, Mrs. Mayberry hurries to the back door and double-checks that it's locked. Still, a locked door isn't necessarily an entirely reliable barrier, not when there are determined thieves in the area.

Heading through to the kitchen, she draws her back curtains and stares over at the glass panel in the door. She can't shake the feeling that there might be someone out there, staring in at her. She's read the newspaper, and she knows there are perverted people in the world; why, perhaps there's someone in her garden right now, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in her nightgown? She heads over to the back door and checks yet again that it's locked. It's been a few minutes since she heard the footsteps and the creaking of the gate; perhaps, she realizes, it might simply be the case that someone got a little lost on their way home. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that one of the town drunks took a turn down the wrong street.

Feeling uneasy, Mrs. Mayberry goes back to her front room and switches the television off, before drawing the rest of the curtains, grabbing the cordless phone, and starting to make her way unsteadily upstairs. She'd hoped to stay up a little longer, watching a documentary about adoption services, but she feels far too unsettled to remain downstairs now that she fears there might be a prowler about. When she gets to the top of the stairs, she pauses to give her bad hip time for a brief twinge, and then she goes through to her bedroom. Dialing the number of the police station yet again, she finally hears the phone ringing, and eventually Mr. Matthews picks up.

"Mr. Matthews, it's me!" she says hurriedly, "Elizabeth Mayberry. Listen, I think there might be someone in my back garden."

There's a sigh on the other end of the line. "Are you sure now, Mrs. Mayberry? Have you checked it's not a cat?"

"Can cats open gates?" she asks.

"Have you actually
seen
someone?" Mr. Matthews continues. "Like a dark shape at the window, or something like that?"

"I heard him!" she replies. "I heard footsteps, and I heard the gate go, and..." She pauses for a moment as she realizes that she's not being taken seriously. "And then I saw him," she continues, deciding to mix a little white lie in with the truth. She's sick of being fobbed off every night. "As clear as I can see my own shadow on the wall right now. I saw a dark shape standing by my back door."

There's another sigh. "I'll be there in ten minutes, Mrs. Mayberry," he says eventually. "Until I get there, make sure to -" Suddenly the line goes dead.

"Mr. Matthews?" Mrs. Mayberry asks, looking at the phone and, in a desperate attempt to make it start working, giving it a quick shake. "Mr. Matthews, are you still there?" She waits, hoping in vain that perhaps the interruption was only temporary. Finally, she disconnects the call and sets the phone down on her night table. Taking a deep breath, she decides to remain dressed for half an hour, just in case Mr. Matthews bothers to turn up. After all, it wouldn't do to let a man see her in her night clothes. Taking a deep breath, she turns to go back downstairs.

And that's when she sees it.

The stone angel from the cemetery is standing in her doorway, staring straight at her.