Ghosts of Graveyards Past by Laura Briggs Page A

ground. Sunlight bathed the etchings to show a skill that surprised its creator, whose accomplishment was tinged with a sense of emptiness now that it was finally done.
    It was August by then, roughly a week before classes were scheduled to start.
    Returning to the shop, Con began the ritual of sweeping and tool care when Sawyer told him, “Reckon your debts been paid, then. You’ll, uh, not be needing to come in tomorrow.” His voice was gruff as usual, but the tone one of calm as he stowed a sack of gravel in the corner.
    Con stood still, fingers gripping the broom handle. “I could stay,” he said after a moment, sounding more like a question than an offer. Muscles tensed as he waited for the answer.
    “Can’t afford a full-time assistant,” the older man said, wiping his hands on a rag from the work bench. “You’d earn more sacking stuff down at the grocery store.”
    Con’s glance roamed the shop with its collection of archaic tools and gravestone patterns pinned to the walls like a collage. Some were his—the sketches of the lamb design and the rubbings he’d taken of the original stone’s lettering to make stencils. “I’m not really interested in the grocery business. You know, as a career.”
    Sawyer’s lined features cracked slowly into a smile of understanding. “All right then,” he said. “Come in after school next week.”
    Con reached to seal the bargain with a handshake.
     
    
     
    The Lesley headstones might be a coincidence; the photograph in the newspaper was a sign. Con saw it almost as soon as he fetched his morning mail. A thank you card from a customer in Birmingham, an inquiry from a potential client somewhere much further away. And the latest issue of The County Times , the headline story devoted to the upcoming festival.
    Images from last year’s event were spread across the front page. Game booths and vendor’s tents filled the town square, as a garish-looking banner danced overhead like something from a Renaissance fair married to a Scottish Games celebration.
    He started to turn the page and then paused as an idea came to him. Pulling open a drawer in the work bench, he fished a magnifying glass from its jumbled contents. When he placed it over the photograph, a murmur of interest escaped his lips.
    Slowly, his gaze traveled to the paper fastened to the corkboard, to the crayon rubbing made by the writer, her strokes bold and sure compared to his wife’s gentler chalk ones. Instinct had told him to throw it away, that he would never call the number scrawled at the bottom.
    But instinct, it seemed, had been wrong.
     
     
     
     

10
     
    “My granddaddy used to say it was weeds that grew on the graves of the wicked, and flowers on those of the good. That’s the kind of superstitious talk folks learn as children and forget to leave behind as they grow.” The woman who spoke these words was closer to a hundred than ninety in terms of appearance. Lipstick smudged the puckered mouth, a vintage shade that hinted at a time before lines had creased her face. Gray hair was kept in a tidy knot, a strand of pearls visible above the collar of a silk blouse. Bony fingers tugged the necklace, her eyes fixed on Jenna with a shrewd gleam from across the patio table. “Folklore’s in our blood here,” she said. “Faith, too, though some might argue it’s not always the right balance.”
    They had been talking for nearly an hour, Jenna finding the Maudell residence as soon as she left the historical society. A big Victorian house on a lot just off Main Street, it bore a touch of the gothic in its ornamental turret and steeple. The paint was flecking away in places, a crack visible in the trim above the bay window.
    The door was answered by an ample figure in nurse’s scrubs, her features lined with middle-age and a sense of authority. She heard Jenna’s explanation with a surprised smile, her accent a strong Southern flavor when she spoke.
    “Is Mrs. Maudell expecting