I quickly swallowed. “Oh?”
“It’s a tricky spice. Overpowering if one isn’t careful with the blend. I suppose I’ll need to pass down the recipe to Owen along with the shop.” She took a sip, savoring the taste with closed eyes before setting aside her cup. “Where were we?”
“You said Rose used to tutor you and your sister.”
“I don’t think she ever even saw anyone else, except on those rare occasions when she went into town for supplies. She certainly didn’t socialize. I know she must have been lonely, the cottage being so isolated. There wasn’t a road and barely a footpath. The terrain was difficult for Mott and me so Rose came to us most of the time. But every now and then, we’d venture to her place. She always made such a fuss when we visited. Treated us like little princesses. After everything we’d endured, Rose’s affection and unconditional acceptance meant the world to us.”
“She was a special person, sounds like.”
“Beautiful inside and out,” Nelda said, still with that misty smile. “And, as I mentioned, an avid photographer. For a time, she even had a darkroom in her house. Mott and I spent many a happy hour in that tiny space watching her work. She used to say that looking through the lens of a camera was like peering through a keyhole. All it took was an open mind to see many strange and fantastical things.”
I glanced at the stereogram, wondering if there were things in the images that I had yet to notice. Fantastical things. Ghostly things. “That’s a very intriguing observation,” I said.
“Oh, Rose had a lot of such notions even before she became so ill.”
“What was wrong with her?”
Nelda’s dreaminess turned to melancholy. “What happened at Kroll Colony hit her very hard. And then only a short time later, we lost dear Mott. So many tragedies that year. It was all too much for her, I think. That and the loneliness. Something inside her snapped and she began to lose touch with reality.”
“She stayed on in Isola after your brother died?”
“Yes, in that same little house. Sister and I always assumed that Ezra had made provisions for her before he passed since she had no visible means of support. He was a generous soul, and like the rest of us, he had a soft spot for Rose. I’m sure she could have lived quite comfortably in town or anywhere she wanted, but she seemed to prefer the solitude. And, of course, she had her work at Kroll Cemetery.”
I leaned in. “What kind of work?”
“The locals were very vocal about not wanting to taint the public burial ground with all those suicides. Some believed it to be a mortal sin, you see. Rose made arrangements for the bodies, even the former soldiers, to be buried near her home so that she could mind the graves herself. She even went so far as to have walls erected around the cemetery and a maze planted at the entrance to keep out the gawkers and mischief makers.”
Or to keep something else in, I thought with a shiver. “Your family didn’t mind about the cemetery? It was built on Kroll land, I assume.”
“No one objected. It seemed the right thing to do and I think Louvenia was glad to have someone else take care of all the details.”
“Was Rose also responsible for the headstones?”
“Yes. She had each carved and engraved to her precise specifications.”
“I’ve seen photographs of the cemetery,” I said. “All those numbers and keys etched into the headstones—I’ve never come across anything like them. Do you know what they mean?”
“Rose had a fascination, a fixation, if you will, with keys. She must have collected dozens, if not hundreds, of lost keys over the years.”
“Did she ever explain her fascination?”
Nelda shrugged. “I don’t recall that we ever asked her.”
I stared down into the teacup for a moment. “Dr. Shaw said there are those who believe the cemetery is a puzzle or riddle that no one has ever been able to solve.”
Nelda smiled. “Perhaps because it’s unsolvable. You have to take into account Rose’s mental state when she designed Kroll Cemetery. What made sense to her would undoubtedly seem nonsensical to the rest of us. By the time the cemetery was finished, she was already living in her own world. Withdrawn and paranoid even with me. At some point, she suffered a complete breakdown. That’s the only way to explain why she did what she did.”
“Build the cemetery, you mean?”
“No, dear. Rose killed herself.”
My hand jerked slightly, clattering the porcelain cup against the saucer. “How tragic, especially after all those other suicides.”
“You’ve no idea. I was the one who found her hanging in the tiny dark room, a key still clutched in her lifeless fingers. I’ll never forget the way the blood dripped down her face like crimson teardrops.”
“There was blood?”
Nelda lifted her gaze to mine. “You see, before Rose died, she used that key to put out her eyes.”