Three
Sussex had been settled in the 1700s, which means there's an abundance of historical sights and forts and ruins, and cemeteries. Lots of those. My destination is a ten minute drive from my house and affords the solitude I crave. No one will be there in the middle of the night on a Friday, unless they're teenage vandals. In that case, I'd leave an anonymous tip with the County Sheriff.
There are no cars in the little pull-off when I get there. I rest my hand on the little iron gate before I vault over it. Fourteen years of ballet comes in handy sometimes. I'd quit last year, but I knew my mother wanted me to go back. Now... I don't know.
Using my cell phone as a flashlight, I decide where I'm going to go. The ground is uneven, which creeps me out, but I try not to think about the effect of erosion on cemeteries. I go up one row, pausing to read some of the names. Many are so worn that you can't make them out, even in the daytime.
I run my hand over a small stone for a child who had only lived seven years. Life is so fragile, taken away so easily. I move from one stone to another, touching each one as if saying hello to a friend. They have been my friends this past year. I find more comfort in the dead than I do in the living. The dead don't ask me if I'm fine, or tell me that they are there for me and then never call. The dead don't make horrible tuna casseroles and drop them off, even though I've told them I'm a vegetarian and my mother is allergic to fish. The dead don't look at you like they're scared and pity you at the same time.
I sit down in front of one large stone that was so old, it nearly topples over when I brush it with my hand. Nothing lasts.
I have to go to school on Monday. I have to text my best friend and smile and take a geometry quiz and figure out where I want to go to college. Those things are so unimportant in the face of losing my mother. No, that's not right.
I wasn't losing her, like an earring or a set of keys. She's going away and never coming back. I'm still on the fence about the whole afterlife thing. I haven't thought about it much, because I always assumed she would get better. Everyone said so.
The sobs come up, consuming my entire body, making me shake as strange sounds escape from my mouth. There aren't tears, not yet. I'll have to let it go on for longer, and I'm not going to do that. My crying sounds are loud in the quiet night.
It takes me a while to get control of myself again. I hate it when I lose it, like some animal part of me takes over and I'm not human anymore. I can't see or feel anything. I am my grief. It consumes me, owns me. I let it, if only for a little while. I always come out of it in the end. Exhausted, but back in control. So I can put on a smile and continue pretending I'm fine.
At last, I'm able to inhale normally, and my legs support me when I stand. My jeans are wet and covered in dirt and my face is swollen and sticky from my tears. I'm going to look so awesome tomorrow morning.
I stare up at the stars, breathing in the night air. I read somewhere that people used to think that night air was bad for you. The vapors, they called it. They thought it brought disease. I can't understand why. I pull in a lungfull of it.
I walk around a bit after my episode is over. My crouched sobbing-position had made my legs stiff. My muscles also have a tendency to seize up on me when I really let the grief take over.
I stop to trace some of the names on the stones. Some are sharp and fresh, as if a knife carved them yesterday. Others are smudged with time, worn away by water and wind and snow, the flowers and candles are long gone. Near the back, at the oldest part of the cemetery are several mausoleums. Built, no doubt, by people who wanted to show how important they were with stone angels and iron doors to protect their dead, but no one cares. Nobody cares about you after you die.
Okay, so my thoughts are super-morbid, but that's what happens when one of your parents gets a life-threatening disease when you're a teenager. Still, I refuse to make the jump to full-on emo. There will be no completely black outfits with chain belts and combat boots. There will be no thick black eyeliner and random facial piercings. Yurgh.
Wandering a little more to compose myself, I go near the back of the cemetery, farthest from the road. It's older here, more wild. The ground is so uneven nobody mows it, so the grass is thick and tangled. Rocks are strewn about, and I have to tread carefully so I don't fall. Moss clings to everything, and it's like the air is different here. The oldest stones are nothing but crumbles of stone. No one bothers to come this way anymore, especially with the hulking mausoleums.
There are only five, built back when how important you were was determined by how ostentatious your grave was. What a stupid thing to spend money on.
I'd often wondered what it was like in there, but they're all sealed. I raise my cell-phone light to read the plaque over one of them, but the words are too small. I move on to the next one and stop. The doors are wide open, the two angels standing guard having failed in their duty. I hear two voices. Taking a step back, I consider trying to go back without being noticed.
“We go through this every year.”
“I know.”
The voices are both male. Using my amazing powers of deduction, I can guess they aren't here to visit a relative in the middle of the night. They're not here to cry their eyes out about their mother's terminal diagnosis, like me. So that leaves adolescent hijinks, my fave.
“She will never let you go.” I might as well figure out what they're doing so I can call the cops. My hand twitches on my phone. I'll have to get farther away so they won't hear me.
“I know.”
“Why try?”
“I have to.”
“Your success rate leaves a little to be desired.”
“I know.” They're speaking quietly, but I hear every word. They certainly don't sound drunk or adolescent. They sound... I don't know. Like they're reciting lines from a play or something. One of the voices is British, his accent sharp and clear. The other speaks in monotone, no apparent accent.
“Why don't you forget it for this year, and have a treat with me? I know you can feel her. Hear her heart. When was the last time?” Wait, is he talking about me? I try to breathe more shallow, and wish my heart would stop pounding. I'm far enough from the entrance that he can't have heard me. Maybe this is some sort of gang code. If so, I'm in more trouble than I thought. I should have just gone back to the damn car. Isn't there some kind of hand signal you can make so they know you're one of them?
My mind goes to some strange places sometimes.
“No.”
“Then if you won't, I will.”
One minute I'm trying to hear what they're saying, and the next there is a cold hand around my throat.
“Hello, pretty,” the British voice says in my ear. It takes almost a full second for me to realize there is something hard and cold around my neck.
A hand.
Clawing, I try to thrash and kick him the way they taught us in that one self-defense class I took in gym last year. The problem is that he's behind me. What did they say about that? Something about throwing them off balance. I try that, jamming my ass backwards, but instead of hitting warm flesh, it's like hitting a brick wall. I attempt to jab him in the eyes, but he's so much taller than me, I don't think I'm anywhere close.
“Nice try.” Going for the element of surprise, I make a fist and go for his face, but it isn't there. I get air. My muscles are starting to fail me, and lack of oxygen is seriously hampering my ability to think clearly. Black spots swim in front of my eyes. I can't even get enough air to scream. The last hope is my cell phone, but it fell out of my hand when he grabbed me. In other words, I'm screwed.
“Ivan.” A voice echoes out of the mausoleum. “Stop.” Yes, Ivan, please stop. I make out something moving in front of me, but I can't focus on it. My legs and arms thrash some more. I am not going down without trying. I am not dying in this goddamn place.
“Changed your mind?”
“Let her go.” I want to reach out to the second voice. It's calmer than the one choking the life out of me. I try to form the word please, but I don't have enough air. The world goes black for a moment, or maybe it's an hour.
“Why would I do that? Don't you want her?”
“Yes.” I hear the words, but they have lost meaning.
“Then have her.” With that, I'm released. Of course I fall to the ground coughing and sputtering like an old car engine. A wheezy sound accompanies my attempt at breathing. I'd love to make my escape, but it's all I can do to get air back into my body. I'll try for the escaping in a second.
“Not tonight.”
“Then I will.” A shadow covers me. I should have gone for that escape. A few drops of rain fall on me. It's really the least of my worries, but I kinda hate getting wet.
“Please,” I say. I sound like a lifetime smoker. I cough again, looking up. There are two faces above me. I search for any kind of sympathy. I don't understand why they're hurting me and what they're talking about. All I know, and I feel it with every cell of my body, is that if I don't do something, they're going to kill me. It's one of those feelings, like when you leave the house and you think as you get in the car that you should have brought your raincoat, and then it downpours a few minutes later, only multiplied so much it crawls across my skin like fire ants.
“You have ten seconds to make a decision.” I assume that's the guy who strangled me. The moonlight bleaches his hair to white. Frantic, I reach out with my eyes, trying to pluck a string of humanity in one of them. The other one has dark shaggy hair that hangs in dirty strands in front of his eyes that almost glow in the weak light. He's not as strong-looking as the other. I might have been able to take him. His eyes reach into mine. He doesn't even blink, and I can't look away, even when I try. He snags me with his eyes, and doesn't let me go for several seconds. I hope it's enough.
“Time's up.” Icy hands wrench my head back, and I finally black out.
***
Every year on the same day I came. To end my existence, the way it should have been. My box was here in the mausoleum, empty. They never found my body because there wasn't one to find. I traced the letters of my name with one of my fingers, over and over. The death I wished for, would have had, if it were not for her. She didn't ask my permission, but I would have given it. I didn't want to die. I would have done anything to stop myself from facing that, even if it meant this, but I could not have imagined what eternity would mean. I was still learning. I also did not know what promises meant. How they could bind and break you.
I talked to them, allowed myself to think of them on this one day a year. I wanted to believe in ghosts, to see their pearly forms drifting around me, enveloping me. Whispering the things they'd forgotten to tell me. I miss you. Don't forget me.
Don't worry, I didn't forget you. I couldn't.
I wanted to be alone, but it was not to be. Ivan found me. He always did. Those first few years it was both of them, but I had failed so many times, she no longer thought of it as a threat. If I hadn't done it by now, it could not be done. As usual, he mocked me. He hadn't tired of that, even after so many years.
There was something new, this time. The girl. We both sensed her at the same time. Young, fresh. A pounding heart that crashed through the night like a drum and made it hard to think for a moment. I had not fed in weeks in preparation for this night. Ivan wanted her, that much I knew.
He grabbed her.
She struggled; I didn't want to watch. The only end I wanted tonight was mine. He played with her, and I couldn't stand it any longer. I used to be the same, but it had been many years since I had toyed like that, which did not mean I did not like a hunt. I did, but not on this night.
He threw her down on the ground. Her face turned up, bathed in the moonlight.
She stared at me and didn't look away. I was not used to being looked at. Seeing her made me remember bits and pieces of my life. Flashes. Bits of torn up pictures.
A laugh.
A walk on the beach. Holding my father's hand as we crossed the street, making sure I don't get hit by a carriage.
An ice cream, melting over my fingers and my chin and making my skin sticky. Our dog, Butterscotch with her missing ear and crooked tail. My mother putting on her pearl earrings.
The rain started. I always loved the smell of the rain and even more now. The scent of something new, of the washing away of sins. Baptism. I was baptized, a long time ago. Some days it felt like thousands of years, but it had not been that long.
I held her eyes without meaning to.
That surprised me. Nothing much surprised me and I got a thrill from it. I wanted her, but not tonight. Ivan moved to take her and she fainted. The movement of her eyelids shutting startled me. I didn't want him to have her, but he would not let her go. So I had to take her.