The Secrets of Lily Graves
Read The Secrets of Lily Graves Online
Authors: Sarah Strohmeyer
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
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For Janet Gross Sonnier and her mother, Ann Gross, for graciously sharing their own experiences about the womanly craft of burying the dead.
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“H
ey, Lily. Wait!”
Erin Donohue made her way up the steep hill, her long, coppery hair fluttering in the breeze as she wove through the tombstones. I couldn't imagine what she was doing here in Hillside Cemetery on a bracing Saturday afternoon when everyone else was at the big football game.
She paused by a large marble angel to catch her breath. “What a coincidence, running into you. Then again, I guess this place is your hangout, huh?”
I snapped a twig in half and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. “Something you want, Erin?” I highly doubted she was here to chat. Erin and I hadn't
exchanged a civil word maybe ever.
“Just wondered what you were up to. It's so weird to see you doing this kind of work in a full-length black gown. Don't take this wrong, but have you ever considered even trying to act
normal
?”
I ignored the dig and shook the garbage bag filled with dead foliage, rotting green Styrofoam blocks, and broken pots. My mother routinely volunteered my services to the cemetery commission twice a year, spring and fall. Somehow, Erin must have figured this out.
“Doing some winterizing,” I said. “Want to help?”
Erin recoiled as if I'd asked her to bury a body. “Ew, no.” She rubbed her bare hands and surveyed our surroundings at the far end of the graveyard. “Geez, it's cold up here. Desolate, too. Not a living soul around.”
I tied the bag and got a new one. “Yup.”
It was late October, almost Halloween, and though it was just after four, the sun was setting. The woods behind us cast dark shadows across the browning grass and the air was turning raw under the gray sky. I had to get going if I wanted to lock the tools in the shed before the caretaker locked up.
Erin was not the type to stop by Hillside Cemetery on a whim. She was more the type to document her super busy life in sparkly pink gel ink on her Blessed Virgin Mary wall calendar, every minute packed with
wholesome, youthful activities designed to bring her closer to sainthood. Or Villanova. The two in our town being virtually synonymous.
“Matt came by last night,” she said breezily.
Matt was Matt Houser, Erin's longtime boyfriend.
“He wanted to talk about us.”
I emptied a container of wilted geraniums into a wheelbarrow. I had no idea why Erin thought a routine visit from Matt was something I would find fascinating. “That's nice.”
I guess.
She tagged along as I tended to the next grave, where a wreath of faded plastic roses covered the brass plaque for a World War II veteran. I bent down to get it and she towered over me, blocking the fading light.
“We broke up.”
My fingers gripped the small wreath and I stood, careful to appear nonchalant as I folded it in two. “Seriously?” Okay. That
was
a surprise. Matt and Erin were such a thing that they were referred to in one slurred word,
Mattnerin
. “You have a fight?”
“Not exactly.” She pulled herself onto a small black tombstone and scowled. “We're taking a break. But I'm sure he'll come back to me. He can never stay away for long.”
Why was she telling this to me, of all people? Erin and I had never been particularly close. In fact, we'd
been quite the opposite.
“Well, you know how guys are in their senior year,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. “Got to spend their final semesters with their bros and all that.”
She swung out her leg, blocking my path. “Um, I don't think bros are the problem. It's more like the
hos
.” Her lips twisted. “Or, to be more specific, one ho. You.”
I sucked in a breath. “Actually, Matt and I . . .”
“Eh, eh, eh.” She tick-tocked her finger. “Correction. There is no Matt and you. Never has been. Never will be.”
I bit my lip and remained still, staring at her outstretched leg. There were five rows to go and I didn't want to have to come back. But I also didn't want to get into a confrontation.
“Look, Erin, I have to keep moving if I want to get this finished while there's daylight.”
I attempted to sneak by, but she slid off the tombstone and blocked my way. “You're not going anywhere until we hash this out.”
The caretaker was in the gatehouse watching the game on TV. My phone was locked in my aunt's car on the street. We were almost in the woods and it was beginning to dawn on me that if something happened, no one would hear me scream.
She took a step forward. I took a step back, my heel hitting the base of a headstone. She was so close, I could smell her breath; it possessed an alarming metallic odor.
“Come on, Erin, cut it out.” I gave her a slight push, but she wouldn't budge.
“You tried to turn Matt against me.”
My pulse had started to race. I was beginning to panic. “Excuse me,” I said, shifting to the right.
Erin shifted to her left. “When he realizes you told him a pack of lies, he'll be back.”
“And I'm sure you'll be very happy. Now, if you don't mind . . .”
“I'm the only one he'll ever really love.”
If I could just get to the gatehouse, I'd be safe. But the gatehouse was all the way at the bottom of the cemetery road. At least I was in Doc Martens, while Erin was in Frye boots with clunky heels. There was a chance.
And then a gust of wind stirred up a curtain of leaves and I went for it, ducking under her and running as fast as I could, leaving my bag of debris behind. The road was in sight, when I stupidly slipped on the damp grass and stumbled.
It was all she needed.
Erin clamped onto my forearm and gave it a cruel
twist, taking her hissy fit to a whole new level. I whimpered as she hauled me upright, and I cursed. I did not deserve this kind of abuse. Lots of girls had practically thrown themselves at Matt. I'd merely been his friend. So why was she taking out her rage on me?
“Stop it,” I demanded, my arm pulsing in agony.
“Apologize.” She cranked it again. “Say you're sorry for spreading lies!”
I couldn't reply, the pain was so intense. All I could do was reach out and bat her away with my other hand, accidentally scratching her cheek.
“You're pathetic!” She twisted again, and I fell hard on the cold ground.
Erin stood over me, that hair of hers whipping wildly in the breeze. She swung her foot for a sharp kick when I grabbed her other ankle and she veered backward, almost catching the sharp edge of a granite tombstone.
The next thing I knew we were rolling in the grass. I was shocked by both of us. I never fought like this.
Never.
And yet, here was Erin doing whatever she could to maximize damageâyanking my black hair, slapping, biting, and finally digging her nails into the delicate flesh of my forearm.
I reared back in pain and horror as blood gushed out in rivulets, running over my wrists onto the browning
grass. Only later did I realize that her nails had been filed into seriously badass points.
Leaving me bleeding on the grass, Erin got up and brushed herself off without a second glance.
“You need help,” I whispered, hugging my arm.
“Do I? I don't think so. I think you're the one who needs help.” She peered at the blood cascading down my wrist and smiled in satisfaction. “You should take care of that. Could get infected.”
I held my arm tighter. I felt stunned and dizzy as I wobbled upright.
Do not pass out
.
“Well, see you in school Monday, and remember . . .” She did that tick-tocking thing with her finger again. “. . . it's School Spirit Day, so wear your orange! We already know you've got plenty of black.”
With those final words, she proceeded down the snaking cemetery road, adjusting her jacket and smoothing her hair, wiping my blood off her fingers onto her jeans. I watched her walk confidently past the gatehouse and greet the caretaker before stepping into her late-model Mini Cooper. A rev of the engine, a U-ey in the turnaround, and she flew up the hill, passing by with a kiss blown out her window.
I stared for a minute, and then my knees gave out and I collapsed, overtaken by a sudden bout of nausea. Beads of sweat popped out along my hairline and I had
to grab on to a headstone for support as I resisted sickening gulps of bile.
Obviously, Matt had said something to Erin about me. But what?
It didn't matter. Erin was right. Those two would never really break up and I bet that come Monday morning they'd be in the hall, entwined in their standard embrace by her lockers, all thoughts of Lily Graves forgotten.
But I would never see Erin again.
At least, not alive.
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T
he worst of all possible scenarios was waiting for me when I got home.
The best would have been an empty house, but that's a lot to ask when you live in a Gothic funeral home with your aunt and grandmother upstairs and your mother down the hall, as well as several not so lively residents in the basement cooler.
Our house used to be a private mansion owned by a nineteenth-century coal baron before coal went bust in the 1930s, along with the rest of Potsdam. My great-grandfather Harold Graves bought it when prices were rock-bottom during the Great Depression, and according to family legend he became a
funeral director just so he could have an excuse for owning a place this impractical.
Since then, it had been divided into sitting rooms and parlors, a chapel, several offices, and two apartments, one for my mother and me on the ground floor, and one for grandmother, Oma, on the top. My aunt Boo had her own digs in the renovated carriage house behind the garage.
Boo moonlighted as our embalmer when she wasn't cutting and styling hair at Sassy Cutsâor getting tattoos. The woman was covered in swirls of ink and intricately stenciled words like
Carrion
, which was imprinted across her hips. I had no doubt that if she'd been around, Boo would have quietly cleaned my wounds, poured me a cup of hot chocolate, and listened without judgment.