venerable old poetry books from which Phil so loved to read.
Some hazy sense of the future emerged in which a boy was striding through the front door with a backpack full of textbooks, and then it seemed he was grown into a man. And the future shifted, clouded, became a fog in which Reuben would have to leave the warm circle of his family, and his son—have to, have to flee—unable any longer to disguise the fact that he wasn’t growing older, that nothing was changing in him—but then this boy, this young man, this son, would be with them, with Grace and Phil, and Jim, and with Celeste, too, and Mort perhaps, a part of them, after Reuben was gone.
He looked at the windows, and suddenly this little world he’d constructed collapsed. In his memory, he saw Marchent beyond the glass, and he was shuddering once again.
It seemed a long time passed in which Reuben sat there in silence, and Felix stood quietly by the fire.
“My boy,” said Felix softly. “I hate to intrude on your happiness just now, but I was wondering. Would you come along with me, perhaps, to the Nideck Cemetery? I thought you might want to come. I talked to our attorney this morning, you know, Arthur Hammermill. And well, it seems Marchent was indeed buried there.”
“Oh yes, I do want to go with you,” said Reuben. “But there’s something I must tell you first. I saw her again. It was last night.”
And slowly, methodically, he relived the chilling details.
8
T HEY HEADED FOR the Nideck Cemetery under a leaden sky, the rain reduced to a drizzle in the surrounding forest. Felix was at the wheel of his heavy Mercedes sedan.
Arthur Hammermill had seen to Marchent’s interment in the family mausoleum, Felix explained, according to clear instructions in Marchent’s will. Hammermill himself attended a small ceremony for which a few residents of Nideck had gathered, including the Galtons and their cousins, though there had been no public announcement at all. As for the murderous brothers, they had been cremated, based on their own instructions to “friends.”
“I’m ashamed that I never thought to visit her grave,” said Reuben. “I’m ashamed. There can’t be the slightest doubt that whatever is causing her to haunt, she’s unhappy.”
Felix never once took his eyes off the road.
“I didn’t visit the grave myself,” said Felix in a tormented voice. “I had some convenient notion that she’d been buried in South America. But that is no excuse.” His voice went dry as if he were on the verge of breaking down. “And she was the very last of my own blood descendants.”
Reuben looked at him, wanting so badly to ask how this had played out.
“The very last of those related to me by blood in this world, as far as I know. Since every other scion of my family has long ago withered or vanished. And I didn’t visit her grave, no, I did not. And that is why we are doing it now, isn’t it? Both of us are visiting her grave.”
The cemetery was behind the town, and occupied about two city blocks, flanked by scattered houses on all four sides. The road herewas patchy, badly in need of repair, but the homes were all vintage Victorian, small, simple, but well-built frame houses with peak roofs much like the Victorians Reuben had always loved in countless other old California towns. That several here and there were brightly painted with fresh pastel colors and white trim struck him as good for the town of Nideck. There were multicolored Christmas lights twinkling in windows here and there. And the cemetery itself, bound by an iron picket fence with more than one open gate, was rather a picturesque spot with well-kept grass and a great sprinkling of old monuments.
The rain had let up, and they didn’t need the umbrellas they’d brought with them, though Reuben wound his scarf around his neck against the eternal chill. The sky was dark and featureless, and a white mist enveloped the top of the forest.
Small rounded tombstones made
Some hazy sense of the future emerged in which a boy was striding through the front door with a backpack full of textbooks, and then it seemed he was grown into a man. And the future shifted, clouded, became a fog in which Reuben would have to leave the warm circle of his family, and his son—have to, have to flee—unable any longer to disguise the fact that he wasn’t growing older, that nothing was changing in him—but then this boy, this young man, this son, would be with them, with Grace and Phil, and Jim, and with Celeste, too, and Mort perhaps, a part of them, after Reuben was gone.
He looked at the windows, and suddenly this little world he’d constructed collapsed. In his memory, he saw Marchent beyond the glass, and he was shuddering once again.
It seemed a long time passed in which Reuben sat there in silence, and Felix stood quietly by the fire.
“My boy,” said Felix softly. “I hate to intrude on your happiness just now, but I was wondering. Would you come along with me, perhaps, to the Nideck Cemetery? I thought you might want to come. I talked to our attorney this morning, you know, Arthur Hammermill. And well, it seems Marchent was indeed buried there.”
“Oh yes, I do want to go with you,” said Reuben. “But there’s something I must tell you first. I saw her again. It was last night.”
And slowly, methodically, he relived the chilling details.
8
T HEY HEADED FOR the Nideck Cemetery under a leaden sky, the rain reduced to a drizzle in the surrounding forest. Felix was at the wheel of his heavy Mercedes sedan.
Arthur Hammermill had seen to Marchent’s interment in the family mausoleum, Felix explained, according to clear instructions in Marchent’s will. Hammermill himself attended a small ceremony for which a few residents of Nideck had gathered, including the Galtons and their cousins, though there had been no public announcement at all. As for the murderous brothers, they had been cremated, based on their own instructions to “friends.”
“I’m ashamed that I never thought to visit her grave,” said Reuben. “I’m ashamed. There can’t be the slightest doubt that whatever is causing her to haunt, she’s unhappy.”
Felix never once took his eyes off the road.
“I didn’t visit the grave myself,” said Felix in a tormented voice. “I had some convenient notion that she’d been buried in South America. But that is no excuse.” His voice went dry as if he were on the verge of breaking down. “And she was the very last of my own blood descendants.”
Reuben looked at him, wanting so badly to ask how this had played out.
“The very last of those related to me by blood in this world, as far as I know. Since every other scion of my family has long ago withered or vanished. And I didn’t visit her grave, no, I did not. And that is why we are doing it now, isn’t it? Both of us are visiting her grave.”
The cemetery was behind the town, and occupied about two city blocks, flanked by scattered houses on all four sides. The road herewas patchy, badly in need of repair, but the homes were all vintage Victorian, small, simple, but well-built frame houses with peak roofs much like the Victorians Reuben had always loved in countless other old California towns. That several here and there were brightly painted with fresh pastel colors and white trim struck him as good for the town of Nideck. There were multicolored Christmas lights twinkling in windows here and there. And the cemetery itself, bound by an iron picket fence with more than one open gate, was rather a picturesque spot with well-kept grass and a great sprinkling of old monuments.
The rain had let up, and they didn’t need the umbrellas they’d brought with them, though Reuben wound his scarf around his neck against the eternal chill. The sky was dark and featureless, and a white mist enveloped the top of the forest.
Small rounded tombstones made
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