Ghosts From My Past

Ghosts From My Past

Many years ago, when the world was young and we were none of us so jaded as we are now, I had been working as the editor of a series of computer magazines, because that’s what young writers did back then, if they didn’t live in New York City where real publishers were located. But Nan – my father’s mother – had become sick and was dying; so I quit my day job in order to be one of her care-takers, and was doing freelance writing and editing work for a few local magazines and newspapers, technical book publishers, and always the ubiquitous computer magazines and computer companies.

This worked well - I could work from home, and set my own odd hours; and after Nan died, I continued freelancing. One year I was hired to write a white paper for a big computer company. White papers are basically lengthy technical statements about something – in this case, a mind-numbingly boring and detailed technical approach - to I don’t remember what.

The deadline was short, and the paper had to be quite long, so I hired The Musician to be my co-author. The Musician had written for me when I was editing computer magazines, so I knew he was up to the task (back then, that’s one of the things under-employed musicians did, too, between concerts); and as important as his writing skills and ability to concentrate on technical jargon were, as importantly he lived in the Northeast Kingdom, a quiet, distraction-free, yet comfortable working place. 

The Musician lived a few miles from the closest small town, down a dirt road, down a dirt road, past an old cemetery, then down a long dirt driveway. There was a beaver pond a few feet from his front door, and the cemetery a short walk through trees and over an old stone wall behind the house. It was quiet, except for the occasional splash of critters in the pond, the birdsong, the crickets in the tall grass, and the click-click-click and scritch-scritch of computer keys and pens. And it was beautiful – it was full autumn, and the daytime sun was warm on our faces as we worked outside in the shelter of the house. When we were thoroughly frustrated with our work, we could scream without alarming any neighbors. And night-time, when it was too dark to work, was filled with the sound of candles sputtering, pages turning; music flowing from the piano as The Musician practiced, filling the shadows of his house with mystery and magic.

About two weeks in, and half-way through version 1.0 of the paper we’d quickly begun referring to as the Black Hole, to mirror its effect on our minds and emotional states – did I mention it was an incredibly long, boring, deadly-dull technical paper? – I couldn’t take it any longer. I got up from the lawn chair where I’d been working, stretched, and announced I was done with it and suggested we toss the whole mess into the beaver pond, then go swimming.

“Right,” The Musician muttered, looking up briefly from the stack of technical sheets he was trying to turn into human language. “I’ll take care of that; you go for a walk and see how you feel afterwards. $1000 fee.“

“Why don’t you come with me? It’s beautiful, it smells like fall, we both need a break,” I wheedled.

“You go. If I take my eyes off this merde for more than a few seconds, I’ll never find my way back here again,” he said. 

Sigh. I knew what he meant – I’d been there.

“OK,” I said. “I’m going down the road.”

“Mmph.”

I headed off down the long driveway, walking on the edge for the pleasure of kicking up dried leaves, enjoying the smell of autumn richness, deer musk, fallen apples. I decided to go explore the cemetery, something I’d been meaning to do but had never gotten around to. This was an old cemetery, there would surely be some interesting gravestones, with elaborate Victorian artwork and interesting snippets of poetry or worldly observations - a perfect change from what I’d been concentrating on for what seemed like years.

I spent half an hour strolling about the near side of the cemetery, brushing leaves away from moss and lichen-covered headstones, enjoying the odd old names, intriguing bits of funeral art and marveling that some old folks had lived to be near 100 years old before they succumbed to time. 

It was time to head back to my worldly toil. I looked across the long cemetery and was surprised to see that I’d been so intent on reading gravestones that I’d missed the arrival of a funeral – or, no, a funeral re-enactment, at the far end of the cemetery. These must be actors, or Victorian re-enactors, I thought: there was a cart drawn by a pair of horses wearing black headpieces, the women were all in long black dresses with long black veils over their heads, I saw black top hats and – were those frock coats on the men? There were only three children, also in dark clothes, holding hands and being very still.

I wanted to creep closer but also didn’t want to disturb whatever re-enactment or play rehearsal was going on. It was late October: maybe the town was going to sponsor a haunted walk around Hallowe’en, and this was the prep for it. It was kind of an artsy town, after all. So I stood and watched for awhile, then crept quietly away. If the enactors were aware of me – and how could they not be? – they didn’t break character.

I hurried back to The Musician’s house, eager to tell him about my discovery. “Is the town doing a haunted Hallowe’en walk or something? Can we go to it?” I was ready for an adventure.

The Musician said nothing for a few long minutes, just stared at me. “There isn’t an acting group in town,” he intoned. “There aren’t haunted walk plans.”

“Must have been a re-enactment, then. Is there an anniversary of something historical that happened coming up?” I suggested.

“No. There isn’t,” The Musician said. And looked at me oddly. 

“Let’s go back and watch,“ I said. “We can ask someone when they’re on their way out.”

“Mmph.” The Musician said. 

We quietly snuck through the treeline and onto the stone wall behind the house to peer into the cemetery closer to where I’d seen the funeral. No one was there. There were no cart tracks. No horse poops. No veiled women or top-hatted men.

“Mmmph.” The Musician said.

Later; many, many days later, after our work was done and I was back home, it occurred to me to get out the notes Nan had made when she and Gramp traveled around back roads and visited cemeteries, tracking the history of ancestors. There it was:  Abigail Webster, died November 1857, Hardwick Center, VT, buried Old Hardwick Cemetery; three surviving children, and husband Cyrus. Abigail was my great, great, great grandmother.

Hmmmph.

For the Concord Monitor, 31 October, 2019: An Odd Scene in a Very Old Cemetery

Photo courtesy Clare McCarthy