Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“This is a useless task,” Roz told Albie as she raked the leaves into large piles.
“I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that if you leave them, they like…
help. You know, the environment. Bugs. That sort of thing.
” Albie opened a single eye to regard her.
Seeing that her piles were not large enough for him to jump in and scatter, he returned to his nap.
“Fine, I saw it on social media. But it was from someone who knew what they were talking about!” she added quickly. She should hire a maintenance company, but then what would she do all day? Knit and stare at the gravestones, hoping a ghost would appear?
She slowed her pace as she approached the series of large, black headstones that made up the center of the cemetery. The Graves gravestones (hah!), seven in a row, every one stronger than Roz. Great Aunt Francesca raised ghosts like most people raised chickens. Roz? She mostly raised headaches.
She pulled a dead leaf off the top of Aunt Franny’s grave, her fingers lingering on the stone. She closed her eyes and tried to focus, tried to concentrate just as Aunt Franny had taught her.
Breathe in, breathe out. As you do, channel the energy that runs through you, through your core. That is your magic.
Her voice reverberated in Roz’s head as she reached for that invisible thread. Sometimes she swore she felt it, mostly it just slipped through her fingers. She couldn’t commune with the dead, she couldn’t see spirits, she couldn’t do anything.
So she became an outcast in a family of outcasts—left to tend the cemetery while her family continued the real work without her.
Well, except her twin Delia, who could create rot.
Roz pressed her fingers into the cold stone, digging deep for the memory of Aunt Franny—her voice, her face, the way she brewed tea. Her brow furrowed as she focused, drawing deeper and deeper.
She opened her eyes, half expecting to see her aunt standing there. Instead, she was alone, a dead leaf crumpled in her hand.
“Better luck next time, I guess,” she muttered, though at thirty-two, she’d seen plenty of “next times,” and they all ended the same. She kicked at a rock before trudging to the next set of graves.
She saved Alaric’s for last.
His site was often littered with notes or flowers, which necessitated daily upkeep.
She placed all the letters into a box that was stored in the office for the mortuary, and tried to repurpose the flowers as best as she could.
Food, she left to the elements. It was rare for a raccoon or squirrel to take anything from his plot.
Even the animals respected the dead founder.
She went through the flowers, moving the older ones to the back and the newer to the front.
She pruned a few of the dead ones, deciding to dry them and make decorations for the Pumpkin Festival.
So what if she went alone? It wasn’t 1693, women were allowed to be places without a chaperone!
She didn’t need a partner to enjoy some festivities!
“Yeah, I’m i-n-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t!” she sang to the empty cemetery. She added a quick little shimmy, which caused the toe of her boot to catch the lip of the stone. She braced to catch herself, pitching forward right into the statue.
She held her breath for a long, perilous minute. What if she knocked the damn thing over? And it broke? And she wasn’t just the useless necromancer, but the one who destroyed the statue of the beloved founder?
Oh goddess. She was going to vomit.
She took several deep breaths before adjusting herself, careful not to use the statue for too much support. Her gaze slowly traced up the figure, sighing when it remained exactly as it always had.
“It’s been here three hundred years, dummy,” she told herself. She wiped her sweaty palms on her dress, wincing at the sting. Roz raised her hands to appraise them, sighing at the blood that collected had on them.
“Well, no more sweeping leaves, I guess,” she said. She was about to turn to clean up when a slow movement caught her eye. It was her blood, dripping down the edge of the statue, painting the front of the nameplate.
ALARIC BLACKWOOD
BELOVED FOUNDER
SAVIOR OF PUMPKIN HOLLOW
1661 - 1693
The words were now covered with her blood as it congealed and filled in the cracks. Why was there so much blood? The cut was shallow, more a scrape than anything else, but her blood flowed readily off her fingers and onto the ground.
“That is going to be a bitch to clean,” she groaned.
Albie rose from his resting position, his head low, his lips pulled back to expose his teeth. Roz blinked at him, frowning. “Albie?” she asked. The dog ignored her, his gaze still intent on something just beyond the statue.
“Alopecia Murray Graves! What is your deal?” she asked, resorting to using his full government name.
He ignored her, taking a slow step forward, his entire body set to lunge.
Roz opened her mouth to scold him when an errant breeze whipped through the cemetery, scattering the offerings before the gravestone.
Roz reached for them uselessly, cursing as the flowers scattered and the candles fell over, breaking into pieces.
Several offering dishes cracked, their contents joining the melee.
“Listen to your dog, he’s a smart one,” came a male voice. Roz jumped, turning in a circle to try to locate the voice. It was everywhere and nowhere, carried on the breeze as it finally settled.
“Who said that?” she asked.
Several beats passed.
“You…can hear me?” the voice asked. Roz couldn’t place the voice or the accent. Pumpkin Hollow wasn’t small, but she knew pretty much everyone here. She didn’t recognize the voice, nor the strange lilt of the words.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to?” she asked, turning in a circle.
“Because I’m dead,” the voice answered, closer now.
Roz held very, very still. Because I’m dead.
“Well, I’m a necromancer,” she replied, her voice catching. Had she found a spirit at last? One that wanted to communicate, and decided to come to her instead of her family? Had the breeze blown him in? Or had her attempt earlier been fruitful, just delayed?
Oh goddess, she did it!
“I know,” the voice replied slowly. “But you’ve never heard me before.”
“You’ve…tried?” she asked, wincing. Her first spirit already knew of her shortcomings. Well, everyone had a first time, right? Right?
“For a long time, yes. I believe your family has, as well,” he said. Roz tried not to let that get to her head, though she wanted to sprint to her aunt’s house and throw open the door and yell, “GUESS WHAT I DID, SUCKERS?”
Instead, she nervously picked at the edge of her dress, her entire body vibrating with excitement.
“Well, then. I suppose it’s a good thing I was here.
What message do you have to deliver?” Roz asked.
She wished she could see him; it was strange to talk to the air.
Her aunts and mother could all see the spirits they communed with.
It’s your first time, give yourself some grace, she reminded herself.
“Message..?” he trailed off. “I haven’t one.”
“Oh,” Roz said. “Then...is there something you need?”
“Not particularly.”
“Why are you here, then?” she asked, then winced again. “Sorry, that was rude.”
“I’ve always been here,” the voice said. “For centuries I’ve watched, unable to touch the necromancers who reached for me, nor interact with the town. I’ve yelled and raged, and no one answered. Until…now,” he added wistfully.
“Centuries?” Roz asked, her blood running cold. There was only one centuries-old grave that her family would have tried to communicate with time and time again. Her gaze slid to the statue of Alaric Blackwood, from her blood that covered his nameplate, to the handsome, weathered face.
“Centuries,” the voice agreed, closer now. She shivered, goosebumps erupting across her flesh. “Unable to leave this town, anchored to it by a curse I didn’t understand at the time.”
Curse. Roz hadn’t heard that. Maybe she was wrong, and this wasn’t Alaric, and it was someone else. Or something else. It’s not as though witches were the only paranormal creatures in Pumpkin Hollow.
“Forced to witness and never intervene,” the voice continued.
“By who?” Roz breathed. The voice was so close now, she swore she felt it like a puff of air on her ear.
“The reverend who caught me, hanged me, quartered and burned my body. He said I’d remain to watch as he destroyed the town I helped save.” A piece of her hair moved, as though someone tried to push it behind her ear and failed. “But it endured, and he died, and I remained.”
“Alaric?” Roz asked, her voice so quiet she barely heard it.
“Yes, Rosalin Graves. You are no useless necromancer, as you’ve often called yourself. You succeeded where everyone else failed, and I believe you will be the one that sets me free.”