Creepers (14 page)

I propped my poster against the stone column and wrapped my hands around the iron bars of the gate. The metal still held the chill of the evening. I glanced toward Prudence's gravestone—all seemed okay. In the gentle morning light, the tilted tombstones appeared almost giddy compared to last night, as if they were all just a little bit tipsy. The leaves of the willow and sycamore trees, which formed the borders of the many paths, seemed to droop in sleep. Such a quiet, peaceful site.Why did darkness make me feel so afraid, when all it did was hide such tranquility?

I heard voices soft with the sound of laughter. I looked down the road toward my house to see Margaret carrying her poster in front of her. She walked beside a Pilgrim or, I guess, a Puritan, with a sack flung over his shoulder. Mr. Geyer was wearing one of those cone-shaped hats with a wide brim and a buckle in the center. His black shoes had buckles, too. All his clothes were black except for his white shirt with the poofy collar that seemed to hang limply over his black coat.The best part was seeing Mr. Geyer in knickers and stockings. Margaret pointed at them as she walked beside him, and he reached over to playfully pull at her ponytail. He really did look like a guy who had just walked out of the eithteenth century.

“Hello, Courtney. Are you ready for our big show?” Margaret's face was flushed, her eyes bright. The pinched look of worry she carried from our house last night was gone. Mr. Geyer gently lowered his sack onto the driveway.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, raising his arms, as if begging for an answer. “Do I look the part?”

I looked at his lens-enhanced eyes beneath his big hat. “You look great,” I replied sincerely. “Are Pilgrims and Puritans the same thing? You look like a Pilgrim going to a funeral.”

Mr. Geyer laughed. “Well, they both were fleeing religious persecution and did dress similarly.The Puritans were a bit grim, though. Thus the choice of black.” He looked down at his buckles proudly.

“He stood in front of the mirror for about an hour this morning,” Margaret teased, rolling her eyes.

A passing car slowed to gawk at Mr. Geyer. He waved good-naturedly.

“Aren't you going to be hot?” I asked, feeling the threads of my shirt warming as the sun's hands were on my back.

“Yes, but I won't mind it, Courtney, because passion makes it easier to bear many discomforts,” he said seriously.

“He even
sounds
like a Puritan,” Margaret said.

“I'm in character, my dear girl,” he replied with the barest of smiles. “We have only one shot today to convince the good residents of Murmur that they must save their Puritan cemetery.”

“Are you ready, Courtney?” Margaret asked, clinging to her poster. Her knuckles were white.

“Sure I am,” I said with too much gusto. I needed Margaret to be the confident one. “Mom and Dad have the
easels. Dad borrowed them from work. They'll be here soon to help us set up.” Suddenly I felt all business.

“Splendid,” Mr. Geyer replied. “Why don't you girls go over your posters one last time while I review my notes? We want this to be perfect.”

I glanced into the cemetery, toward Prudence's grave.
I hope you appreciate all the work they are doing
. The Geyers were determined to break whatever nasty spell the witch had placed on all of them.

By the time a second wave of cars pulled up to the cemetery gate, there were already about fifteen people standing in the driveway apron, waiting for the tour. Mr. Geyer directed people to park their cars on the side of the narrow gravel road, which split the cemetery in half like a drunken line. Margaret and I giggled at the Puritan parking lot attendant. The single road was the only one available to cars, and funeral participants were forced to walk quite a distance along the narrow pathways to get to graveside services that were on the fringes of the cemetery. Mr. Geyer said that the gravel road was actually the original road for the horse-drawn funeral hearses. I shook my head.
I knew way too much about this cemetery.

Mom smiled brightly at the visitors around our posters as she clutched her notepad and pen. A camera was slung over her shoulder. I watched her approach a young couple, extending her hand, causing them to release each other's. She pointed to her notebook, her eyebrows raised expectantly. The couple nodded as she wrote down their names.

Dad was busy reviewing the schedule, as he called it, with Mr. Geyer. He was rubbing his chin and pointing in various directions as he mulled over the itinerary. Mr. Geyer had a patient, amused smile on his face, although I could see he was a little nervous because he kept adjusting his glasses. Margaret and I stood by one of the easels that Dad had placed by both entrance columns.

The late-morning sun was blinding, and I raised my hand over my eyes to squint at our crowd.The people who had arrived early were older—bald men wearing cheap sneakers and big shorts, ladies with white hair, sensible shoes, and skirts, clutching their purses to their chests.They seemed nice, though. Lots of squinty smiles softened lined faces. Obviously people who liked this sort of thing and had the time to arrive early to hang for a while.Two of the people had dragged kids along—kids old enough to walk without complaining too much. I figured they had baby-sitting duty for the grandchildren.

The rest of the crowd contained people of all ages, who clustered in family or friends' groups as they stood in the driveway on both sides of the cemetery gate. I even recognized a few faces—the tall, thin librarian from town, the nervous manager from the grocery store, the cute guy with the mustache who coached the peewee soccer team. Passing the soccer field on our way into town was one of the highlights of our drives. Both Mom and I loved to see the little kids tumbling over the ball like bowling pins. Even the kid from the pizza shop was there, this time wearing a black Alice Cooper T-shirt. I felt myself turn red when he waved at me.

“Good morning, guests!” Mr. Geyer bellowed from the cemetery entrance. “
Memento Mori!
” he added with gusto, looking up at the ironwork that proclaimed just the same directly over his head.

Mr. Geyer raised his arms and motioned for everyone to gather around him. He smiled as if he was among friends. “Of course, you all are just the type of people that the Puritans would appreciate,” he said jokingly, “as you are ‘remembering death' by your supportive presence here today.”There was some polite laughter as people glanced at one another shyly. And then he was off. Mr. Geyer seemed born to teach and reenact history. I felt the tension in my muscles draining away as he told the crowd about the
history of the cemetery, the interest in preserving it, and the important role this cemetery played in the history of Murmur. “Your founding fathers are here,” he extolled. “Those brave settlers, who left Europe to carve out a new way of life. Their bones are in these fields.” He turned to gaze at the crop of tombstones behind him.When he faced the crowd again, I thought I saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “The men who fought in our war for independence are laid here, as are the men who fought to keep our country together. And the mothers, wives, and daughters who embraced this challenging way of life, who nurtured Murmur till it grew to be the wonderful town it is today, they are here beneath this grassy blanket.”

I glanced over at Mom and Dad. They both looked around at the crowd as if gauging people's reactions. Margaret's gaze was glued to Mr. Geyer. She stood as straight as a soldier. I looked out over the many faces. Some were nodding and smiling. Others were trying to peer over Mr. Geyer's shoulders as if they couldn't wait to get into the cemetery. They all looked interested. Had any of them been on one of Mr. Geyer's previous tours?

Mr. Geyer bent down and pulled out a few of the hatchments—the shields with a family's coat of arms—that he shared with us last night. The crowd moved in a few steps closer, until Mr. Geyer began passing them around
among the group. He launched into his story about the funeral of Elijah Watson, whose death provided a grand diversion for the otherwise monotonous lives of Murmur's populace. A great funeral was an event to look forward to, as the money saved by the frugal Puritans was often spent to provide a heavenly send-off for the deceased that was unparalleled to any festivity sponsored when the now departed was alive.

Mr. Geyer's stories about Cotton Mather involved the Puritan preacher's role in the late seventeenth century witch trials. Preacher Mather supported the use of “spectral evidence” as testimony that the accused witch's spirit had appeared to the witness in a dream or vision.The dream or vision was admitted as evidence.Witnesses, who were often also the accusers, would testify that the “witch” had bitten, pinched, and pushed them to the ground. The dream was taken as evidence that the accused were responsible for the biting, pinching, and pushing, even though they were elsewhere at the time.

A tittering thrill seemed to sweep the crowd. Mom had told me the night before that it was important to add some sensational elements to a story to keep people's interest. Mom snapped a picture from the side.

It was not until we went into the cemetery, to see some of the tombstones that Mr. Geyer had chosen to illustrate
the artwork of the stonecutters, that the sun was suddenly smothered by some rumbling dark clouds.

“Come, friends. Follow me to the resting place of Beatrice Wolcott, where we will begin our discussion of the gravestone art.” Mr. Geyer raised his arm and gestured to the crowd to follow him.They were right on his heels, as some moms grabbed kids' hands or old guys in white shorts gently touched the white-haired ladies' elbows. I heard the click of Mom's camera. “If you need to leave the tour early, be sure to stop and view the posters designed by Courtney and Margaret. They show a few more sites that aren't included in my walking tour.” Some people looked back and gave us an encouraging smile, as if they wouldn't
think
of missing us.

Mom and Dad were at the tail end of the group. Mom was looking up at the sky, her brows furrowed quizzically. Had she heard a rumbling? I anxiously searched the sky and spotted some dark clouds in the distance.
Stay there,
I commanded.

After a few minutes, Margaret and I left our posts to stand on the other side of the columned entrance. We
wanted to watch Mr. Geyer's progress. From this distance, although he was really never far, we saw him wave his arms dramatically or drop down to peer at a stone. He even took off his hat in a sweeping motion, indicating to the crowd the direction to flow to reach the next gravesite. Mom and Dad whispered to each other from the fringe, nodding sometimes. I was relieved that people looked interested. Many of them tilted their heads as Mr. Geyer spoke or raised their hands when he took a breather.

“Such an actor,” Margaret commented dryly.

We were both feeling so good, even though the sun had been eclipsed by the dark, beefy clouds and the metallic smell of rain was in the air. Actually, the absence of the sun was a good thing.The people who tromped around the cemetery were not wilting under the sun's blasting rays. If only the rain would hold off. Mr. Geyer was animated, and the crowd flocked around him, not wanting to miss a morsel of information. I was excited to see Mom and Dad caught up, too. Mom was a sucker for this history stuff, and she was putting together a story for the newspaper, but Dad is so skeptical about causes, insisting that somewhere hidden from view is a real bottom line.Yet there he was standing next to Mom, nodding encouragingly if he thought Mr. Geyer was looking his way. Dad bobbed his head like a confidante to a Puritan.

Margaret pulled out Mr. Geyer's cemetery map, the one he showed us last night that traced his tour and the tombstone stops. “Looks like he's heading to the grave site of the drowned sea captain.That's one of my favorites,” she added wistfully.

I was tempted to laugh since I felt positive, and because it sounded so funny—Margaret and a favorite tombstone—but a sudden warm breeze distracted me, as it tousled my hair against my bare shoulders. I turned in the direction of the breeze.

I stared dumbly toward Prudence's grave, allowing the breeze to hit me full in the face. No one was in the west section of the cemetery, as Mr. Geyer focused on the grave sites to the east and north. All seemed still.Yet as I continued to gaze, I saw something move along the stone wall that separated our house from the cemetery. It was not really moving at first, just shimmering on top and along the side of the wall. Maybe it was those heat waves that wiggle and distort objects when you looked at them from a distance. But the sun was not out.

It was then that I realized what I was looking at, and my stomach shrank into a ball. It was the ivy. The ivy poured over the stone wall. It slithered in bunches and flowed like a babbling brook of vines. The ivy created its own path, composed of frantic plant life, from my house to something
it was targeting in the west section of the cemetery among the tombstones and trees.