Page 7 of Graveyard Girls (Hollows Grove #1)
We avoided each other after the bath, drying off awkwardly, pulling on robes, and going our separate ways.
Lunette did call after me that my clothes would be cleaned, and that freshly laundered ones were awaiting me in the dresser in my room.
My room in her house. What was I even doing here?
Fucking a witch who didn’t want me, could never want me.
Opening the top drawer, I pulled out a pair of my mysteriously, probably magically, laundered boxers and something clanked.
Pulling it out, the silver locket I’d forgotten about dangled by its chain.
Where had I acquired such a thing? Who was C.M.D.
? After pulling on my pants, shirt, and suspenders, I shoved the necklace into my pocket to inspect later.
Maybe keeping it with me would help jog more memories to life.
The house was big, cold, and full of meows.
Despite the hundreds of cats I stepped over on my way out, the big house suddenly felt pretty lonely.
There was no sight of Lunette as I exited, pulling on my boots by the front door, because god forbid I track mud into her perfect marble home.
Her perfect home with a study made for her dead fiancé.
A dead fiancé she still loved. A man she fought every night to bring back to life.
Meanwhile, I’m fucking her, hoping her pussy would get me closer to her heart.
Clearly, after my recent date proposal rejection, I was learning that wasn’t the case.
Wandering down the garden path and into the cold streets of Hollows Grove, I left Lunette behind, at least for now. She’d told me not to go off on my own, but why should she care? Clearly, she didn’t. Passing by a spiked fence, a gold plaque with an inscription caught my eye.
Home of Alaric Lonesome
May He Rest in Peace.
The three-story city apartment stood over me as thick as his haunting memory. Pushing the fence open, I ascended the stairs and knocked on the door. Promptly, a maid emerged. “Hello, are you here for a self-guided tour?”
“A tour?”
“Yes, tours of the historic Lonesome House are from two to five daily.”
“Sure, I’m here for a tour.”
The maid let me in and swiftly disappeared into whatever tasks it takes to maintain a dead guy’s home.
The place was as brown and manly as the study in Lunette’s manor.
Only this apartment had animal heads on the walls.
Not something I’d imagine Lunette would approve of, with her love of furry creatures.
With no clear objective in mind, I judged the man’s birch and forest green bedroom, his billiard room that smelled of musty cigar smoke, and finally stumbled upon his office.
The desk still sat with stacks of papers, as if the guy were out to lunch and could walk back in at any moment.
Checking over my shoulder for the maid, I sat behind the oak desk in Alaric’s squeaky chair and shuffled through the paperwork.
Bills, bank notes, receipts, and bets on horse races. “This was your one true love, huh, Lune?” I muttered to myself at the boring nonsense he occupied himself with. “What a fascinating gentleman.”
The something at the bottom of the pile caught my attention.
It was a sketch of an oval object with sparkling stones around it…
the cursive scrawl of C.M.D. underneath in bold.
Shock tensed my shoulders as I fished in my pocket and pulled out the finished product that the drawing intended. The locket.
A maid laughed down the hall, startling me, and I shoved the jewelry back into my pocket and returned the paperwork to its former messy disarray.
Why did I have Alaric’s locket? Who was he having it made for?
I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.
Once I was safe on the street, I caught my breath on a nearby bench.
The sapphires sparkled as I turned Alaric’s locket over in my palm. Regardless of how it had happened into my possession, one thing was certain: it wasn’t for Lunette. Now, I hated him all the more. Now, I had to find out what he was up to, who was C.M.D., and who had murdered Alaric Lonesome?
I had an idea of where to start. Soon after, as the sky mixed the shades of orange and purple, I walked into the only jewelry shop in town. Jilly’s Finery’s. Jilly herself, I assumed, cleaned the glass of the countertop as I approached. “Hello, ma’am. What can you tell me about this?”
The old woman adjusted her monocle and took the locket for inspection. “Where did you get this?” She glanced up, giving my attire a once over, her expression seeped in judgement.
“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking. At least… I don’t think I did.”
“Seems like something a person ought to know.”
“Can you tell me anything about it or not? I’ve got places to be.”
Jilly hummed and handed the locket back. “It was a custom order from a well-off customer. To whom or why, I’m not privy to.”
“Well, thanks for nothing, then.” I spun on my heel and halted at the door as the jeweler added to her statement.
“However, I can tell ya… that both the gifter and its recipient are now long dead. Both murdered. Personally, I wouldn’t want that damned thing anywhere near me. You never know with spirits of dead lovers. They’re a dubious sort.”
“Right… well, thanks.”
Dead lovers.
Dead lovers.
Dead lovers.
Alaric had a mistress.
It’s all I could ponder as the locket felt heavy in my pocket. Through the gate of the graveyard, the moon shone high in the sky, and I heard the familiar chanting. The chanting of a girl trying to bring back a dead man who was cheating on her—and she had no idea.
Her true love.
What an idiot to waste Lunette’s affections like that. A woman like her… goddamn, I’d never look at another. Before his death, Mr. Lonesome, however, didn’t share my loyalty. Busying myself with my graveyard tasks, a ghost hummed an eerie tune near her grave.
Swing, swing,
Bleeding by the sea,
Lost lovers cry
Oh, why didn’t you flee?
Sigh, sigh,
Sailor bold.
You lost your lover
In high tide,
You watched her die.
“Well, that’s cheery,” I commented, kicking more fallen autumn leaves off her plot. “How are you this night, Cora?”
The ghost’s translucent form rippled into view. “Oh, you know. Neither here nor there. Unlike you, graveyard keeper. You are both here and there, aren’t you? How do you manage it?”
“Creepy ass poems, creepy ass questions, Cora. I couldn’t tell ya. Say, can you tell me anything else about what you saw the night I hit my head? You mentioned there was a tussle. Was I fighting someone?”
The ghost floated closer, so unnervingly close that I could make out her facial features through her ghastly glowing sheen.
I suppose in life she could have been pretty, but in death, she was something from nightmares.
I suppressed the urge to take a step backward as she surveyed my face.
“You know… the last emotion I had before I died was regret. Now, it’s all I can feel.
Deep, deep regret. Can you make it go away, graveyard keeper, Shiloh? ”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “I’m no priest, Cora. In fact, I reckon I’m pretty far from holy. But I’ll listen if you ever want to confess your sins. That might help.”
Suddenly, the wind howled, and the branches of every cemetery tree clanked together. Cora’s eyes grew unnaturally wide and dark. Her face contorted into an oblong, sorrowful expression as she floated backward, repeating:
Swing, swing,
Bleeding by the sea,
Lost lovers cry
Oh, why didn’t you flee?
Sigh, sigh,
Sailor bold.
You lost your lover
In high tide,
You watched her die.
You watched her die, Shiloh Solair.
You watched her die, Sailor Solair.
You watched her die.
You watched her die.
My palms were slick and slightly trembling as I picked up my worn shovel.
Goddamn, that ghost was spooky as hell. It was an effort to shake off the ominous feeling that she was still watching me, still reciting her poem, and wading through regret.
Ghosts’ minds weren’t always left intact.
Some were sharper than others. Though for a few unlucky ones, they seemed tormented for eternity.
What had Cora done to deserve such a wretched fate?
Unable to resist, I paused, resting on my shovel outside Alaric’s grave.
Lunette stood, hands together, wearing her wedding dress.
An angel in the cemetery. Her spellwork of asking, begging, pleading for her love to find her was finished, and now she swayed in the frigid October breeze and waited.
Waited for Alaric to rise from the dead.
I half hoped he would, so I could meet him with a swift fist to the nose.
“I know you’re watching me,” Lunette said without turning around.
“I’m the graveyard keeper, you’re in my graveyard, it’s kind of my job.”
She turned around, her face like a sad porcelain doll in the moonlight. “Just doing your duty, then?”
“That’s right.” I leaned forward on my shovel for support, squaring my shoulders. Lune was smaller than me, but even so, she often made me feel about two feet tall.
Sauntering closer, I noted her misty, swollen eyes. She’d been crying. Crying for Alaric or crying for me?
“How can I repay you for your diligent protection?” Her voice cracked.
My white witch was searching for an escape again.
Would I give it to her? Would I continue to let the girl I was falling for use my body and reject my bids for her heart?
I probably should have said no and had some self respect.
Instead, I dropped my pants. Standing naked from the waist down, she took me in with satisfied surprise.
“Well, that’s certainly a steep payment. ”