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
