The Complete Collection (13 page)
Read The Complete Collection Online
Authors: Susan Shultz
It is easy to see others as monsters.
We sit back and know we are incapable of
such inconceivable acts.
We don’t want to ask why, because once
we begin to understand, we might relate. And if we relate, we might see ourselves
in the monsters.
And we mustn’t.
Because we aren't monsters.
We live in fine communities. We say our
prayers and go to sleep every night.
We don’t leave our heartbroken wives to
deal with their emotional vacuums and, in the meantime, replace them with a
better model.
We don’t visit our daughters’ bedrooms
and commit monstrous acts behind closed curtains.
We don’t talk about these things. We
don’t ask why.
We don’t ask why, in the middle of the
barren, unhallowed ground of a backyard graveyard, a fragile, white rosebush
struggles to find the spring sunshine every May.
It sits there alone, so lovely. If
you stop by, make sure to look. Its roots dig deep into the ground, sowed with
much blood and many tears.
If you touch it, beware—it has some
of the sharpest thorns.
But if it pierces you, don’t worry.
Your blood will only makes it grow
stronger; help its roots dig deeper.
Just don’t ask why.
Because, here, the wind will answer.
And you might not like what it has to
say.
Sam
Tales From the Graveyard
Book Four
Susan Shultz
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Table of Contents
Still of a winter's night, they say
When the wind is in the trees
When the moon is a ghostly galleon
Tossed upon the cloudy seas
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight
Over the purple moor
A highwayman comes riding
Riding, riding
A highwayman comes riding
Up to the old inn-door.
—“
The Highwayman
,”
Loreena McKennitt
Before
The rose over her head was so
lovely.
It had never looked as lovely as it did today.
It had been years—five years now—since the latest
incident at the house.
The grass had grown over the ugliness.
The roses were growing strong.
The community had just begun to forget about what happened
at the house on the hill.
Of course, at Halloween the legends of the haunted graveyard
and the spirits that lurked beyond still came up.
But other than these faint whispers, it was time to move on.
The little league games continued.
The newspaper cranked out its mundane community news.
The library got back to the business of lending books and
opening minds.
It’s a survival instinct: people always forget.
Well…most of them, anyway.
* * *
A figure stood in the familiar
grass, breathing in the air of spring.
He looked at the yard with all its mixed memories—so
good and bad.
His hand reached down to the lovely white roses.
He bent to breathe in their heady scent.
His fingers went to pluck one of the fuller, more lustrous
blossoms.
“Shit!” he said.
The thorn pierced his skin and, almost in slow motion, a
drop of blood fell toward the ground.
He gazed into the rose’s core. It almost breathed with life.
A sound from the driveway snapped him out of his reverie.
“Sam!
Saamm
!”
“I’m up here, honey!” he said.
“The moving truck is here!” she cried.
“Okay! I’ll be right down!” Sam said. “You shouldn’t be
lifting boxes in your delicate condition!”
SMASH
.
The fractured dish scatter across the kitchen floor,
prompting Claudia, who is pregnant as well as mentally and physically exhausted
from the move, to burst into tears.
Sam rushes into the kitchen, his eyes full of concern.
“Honey? Are you okay? Did you cut yourself? What is it?” he
says.
My nails dig into my palms, as sharp as shards of glass.
“Oh, Sam, no. I’m fine. I’m FINE!” she snaps. “It’s just
this move! And I feel like shit! And this house!”
Sam pulls her into his arms.
“
Shh
, honey, it will be all right. Why don’t you go
sit down for a while? I’ll make you a cup of tea and clean this up.”
“I don’t like it here, Sam,” Claudia whispers.
I don’t like you here, either.
Claudia shivers.
“This is our home now, Claudia. It’s just going to take some
getting used to. That’s all,” he says soothingly.
This is
my
home.
“But, Sam, all the things that have happened here… Why did
we have to buy
this
house?” Claudia asks.
Sam is quiet. He is thinking about me.
I smile.
“Because, honey, I told you. They were going to rip the
house down and sell it to developers. I owe it to this house and my childhood
friend to not let that happen,” he says quietly.
“Your childhood friend was a—” Claudia responds, but
bites her tongue.
She feels Sam’s body freeze.
I drink the tension between them like a fine wine,
breathe in its essence and gently tease it with my tongue.
Claudia surrenders.
“Okay, Sam… I’m going to go lie down,” she says.
He kisses her forehead. “That’s good, honey. Get some rest.
I’ll bring you tea,” he says.
She leaves the room and Sam rests his hands on the sink,
breathing a sigh of weariness. He is conflicted.
He is thinking of me. He has not told Claudia all our
secrets.
Sam stares out the kitchen window and looks toward the yard—the
place where he thinks I am.
Quieter than the flutter of butterfly wings—so only
we can hear—he breathes my name…
“Ainsley.”
But I’m not there.
I’m here.
The morning sun is bright in the
freshly painted kitchen as Claudia unknowingly stares out into the yard in the
same direction as Sam.
I hate yellow.
“I want to plant a vegetable garden,” she says.
Sam winces, but tries to cover it.
“Really?” he says. “Won’t that be hard given how you’ve been
feeling?”
“Sam, I’m only six months pregnant. I know I’ve been tired
and cranky, but it really isn’t that much work. I’ve always wanted a vegetable
garden. My grandmother had one when I was growing up and she taught me a lot,”
she pleads.
My grandmother taught me a lot, too. She taught me to be
a good girl. I didn’t listen.
Sam is not convinced. He is not sure he wants her to dig in
the dirt of the backyard. There are too many secrets there.
He has not told Claudia our secrets.
“Claudia, I’m not sure…” he starts.
“Sam, please!! You want me to feel at home in this
house, right? You want it to feel like my home? Then let me do this!” she says.
“You’re at work all day. This is something that I can have for me—that I
will enjoy and will relax me.”
Sam gives in.
“Okay—but let me choose where in the yard,” he says.
Claudia can’t see the death like he can.
After breakfast, Sam and Claudia walk the yard. Her hand stays
in his to make sure her walk is steady.
Wouldn’t want you to fall, now.
I smile.
Claudia climbs higher into the yard.
“Wait, babe—don’t go up there,” Sam says.
“Why not? The best sunlight is up there,” she says.
Sam’s deception lurches within him, gnawing on his insides
like a brain-starved zombie.
“The ground there is no good for planting—nothing has
ever grown there,” he says quietly.
Sam’s long-time familiarity of the house’s past always
evokes awkward silences between them—silences in which Claudia’s unspoken
questions hang like wet clothes on a line, flapping in the wind for both to
hear.
Don’t ask, Claudia. You don’t want to know the answers.
Sam leads her away, toward a lower spot in the yard.
“Here is much better. Closer to the house, easier for you to
get to… Remember, it’s only going to get hotter and you’re only going to get
bigger,” he says.
Claudia punches him—and laughs.
“Thanks a lot!” she says.
Sam smiles at her, and pulls her to him. He rests his hand
on her belly.
“I can’t wait,” he whispers.
She holds him to her.
“I love you, Sam,” she says.
“I love you, too,” he whispers.
They kiss.
In the far distance of the woods, there’s a loud
thud
—a
cracking of branches, maybe?
Sam’s lips freeze on Claudia’s.
“Sam… What was that?” Claudia says nervously.
Over her head, Sam looks into the woods.
He controls the chill creeping over him with pure will and thinks
of the gravestones hidden just beyond the tree line.
“Oh,” he says, smiling, “probably just a bear.”
“Sam, you didn’t’ tell me there were BEARS!” Claudia gasps.
They walk back toward the house.
“Oh, of course! Bears, mountain lions, probably anacondas… You
live in the wilderness now, honey,” he says.
Their laughter trails off in the evening air.
The
thud
is forgotten.
But the gravestones in the woods will not be—especially
not by those to whom they belong.
It’s the dead of night and Sam can’t
sleep.
Claudia slumbers peacefully in their bed.
My
bedroom
.
“OUR bedroom,” he whispers defiantly.
I smile. Sure it is, Sam. For now.
Sam gets up and heads downstairs.
The windows are open and the faint cries of a wild animal
can be heard in the distance. Are they killing? Or mating?
Sometimes there is so little difference. Right, Sam?
Sam goes to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a bottle of
Scotch.
He pours himself a glass and steps out onto the deck.
His soft, brown, wavy hair shimmers in the moonlight.
I run my fingers through it, admiring its luminosity.
Sam once again is drawn to the yard—
where he thinks
I am
.
But I am not there.
I am not bound by earth or stone.
You cannot hide me, Sam.
An evening breeze blows by and Sam closes his eyes.
Can you feel me?
A chill runs up his spine and into his heart.
Sam puts the glass of Scotch down, lowers his head, and
closes his eyes again.
He licks his lips to swallow my name from his tongue. He can
still taste my kiss from the night when all our secrets were revealed.
You still love me, Sam. You wanted this house.
You know I am still here.
“
No…” Sam whispers.
The breeze floats by again.
You want me, Sam.
“No…” he says.
I am right here, Sam.
“NO!” Sam says.
He throws his glass at the house’s wood siding.
“GODDAMNIT! What the fuck is wrong with me?” he yells.
“Sam? Sam? Are you okay?”
The sound woke Claudia.
“It’s okay, honey—sorry. I just broke a glass,” he
says.
Sam cuts his finger while cleaning up.
The blood wells from the wound.
I watch him stick his finger in his mouth to stop it.
My mouth waters.
Sam tastes delicious.
“Sam?” Claudia says.
“I’m coming, honey,” Sam says.
So am I, Sam.
So am I.