Adventures of a Graveyard Girl (3 page)

I went to visit my mom at the graveyard most Sundays. In the spring, I planted flowers. I wasn't a gardener by any means, so I planted whatever was decently priced and pretty and hoped it would all look nice in front of the headstone. Mostly, I hoped they would make it through at least one season. I knew my mom wouldn't care anyway about what kind of flowers I'd planted. She'd just have appreciated my effort. Then, in the summer, I tried to keep the plants alive in the muggy and super hot heat. The fall had me trying to help them survive for as long as it stayed warm enough and when it finally turned toward winter, I brought cut flowers when I could and just laid them in front of the headstone.

When it was nice outside, I actually brought my lawn chair and a book and just spent the day with my mom at the cemetery. Is that weird? Maybe it was a little different to most people, but it was not totally unusual, actually. Culturally, people did it. Okay, maybe they didn't do it in American culture, but other cultures did have more rituals and customs concerning the dead and their spirits and the afterlife. Consider the Latin American holiday Dia de Los Muertos or in English, The Day of the Dead, where the celebrants build elaborate alters to the deceased and celebrate with their favorite foods and beverages. The intent is to encourage the spirits of the dead to visit their living loved ones. I think that sounds pretty nice, having my mom come and visit me. Still, I wanted to visit her more than once a year. I'd take what I could get on her part and just hoped her spirit stopped in when I was there.

Today, I planned on just sitting with my mom for the day at the cemetery. It was always quiet and serene there. It was probably a good place to meditate actually, if you were into that kind of thing. I needed to think. Originally, I planned to share the details of my date with my mom and the romance of the Homecoming Dance to make up for the lie about the one I went to when she was alive, but the murder at school the night before had shaken me up. I had even dreamt about it. I was a detective trying to solve the case, but just as I was about to uncover the real killer, I woke up. Figured. I hoped Ethan wouldn't be mad at me for dreaming about solving the case. I knew there was a part of me that wanted to do it in real life too, but I had promised.

I hadn't even gone home to look for Madison Brown in my school yearbook, like I wanted to. I stayed off of Facebook and her wall and didn't look at my Twitter stream to see what my fellow classmates had been posting about the dance and the murder. I had changed into my pajamas, taken the pins out of my hair, washed the make-up off my face so I wouldn't get a zit, and went to bed, cuddling with my cat, Scarlett. So, I had been good so far about keeping my promise to Ethan. Well, except for the dream where I had been a detective.

I set up my lawn chair, sat down, and turned on my brand new e- reader. My dad thought I'd love it and gave it to me when I was in the hospital. He was right. I was super excited about getting it. In fact, I was so excited, I didn't know what to download first. I mean, I loved my book, books and I'd always have a bookshelf of the real deal. The cool thing about the e-reader, though, was that it let me carry around a gabillion books at once. I could have my whole bookshelf with me at all times. It was almost as great as Wired's peanut butter banana milkshake. Almost. I had downloaded four books so far. Not that many for a week spent relaxing, but Ethan had distracted me for part of that too, well, him and getting ready for the Homecoming Dance.

I perused my books. I was going to read Amanda Hocking's book
Switched
first. It was inspiring that she had become an indie bestseller and besides, I loved paranormal romance. So, if it was anything like
Twilight
or
The Vampire Diaries
, I was in. I was just about to start on the first chapter when I saw one of my graveyard friends. No, not one of the walking dead - zombies aren't real.

It was this little old lady who came to visit her husband's grave. Her name was Leonora Viola and she had to be in her late eighties, although I had never actually asked her specifically. She and her husband, Jacob, had this great love affair. They met as kids in the 1930s or something like that and he was the only boy she ever dated. They got married after high school and they lived happily ever after...until he died. She had never felt heartbreak until that day and it almost destroyed her. He was the love of her life and since now he was dead, she made it a point to visit him and keep him as a part of her life. It was the only way she could deal with it. Leonora complained about her kids, who tried to urge her to move on. She didn't want to move on or meet someone else. She was eighty plus years old. She didn't want to wash another man's socks and cook him dinner. She was done with that. Jacob had been the love of her life and there wasn't going to be another one like him. She had no urge to settle. Leonora wanted to spend her free time reading, knitting, and watching old movies, especially ones that she and Jacob had watched during their lifetime together. The rest of her time Leonora wanted to spend at the graveyard, chatting with her husband.

I know a lot of people would think that was totally weird and that Leonora should see a psychiatrist, but I thought it was sweet. Besides, she was eighty something and she didn't seem depressed or anything otherwise. Leonora knew she had a great life. She always talked about how lucky she was that she had met the love of her life so young, married him, and had a wonderful life with him. She still wanted him in her life, even if it was just chatting with him at the graveyard. Like me and my mom, this was the closest Leonora and I were going to get to a relationship with the people we had loved and lost.

So, despite the age difference, we had become great friends. We understood each other. While Leonora wanted to chat and spend time with her husband, I wanted to spend it with my mom. Most of the people in my high school didn't get that. I didn't blame them. Funerals, graveyards, and the like are creepy when you have your whole life ahead of you and don't even think you could possibly ever die. Most of the kids my age had never really known anyone that had died. Even if someone like their grandparents did, they considered them a billion years old and it didn't quite reach them that it was real and a part of life. I knew about real death, though, because of what happened to my mom. So did Leonora. Her kids misunderstood her too, just like the people in my high school. We weren't morbid, wanting to spend a day or two a week in the graveyard. We were visiting the people we loved.

"Morning, Kait," Leonora said, walking over to me after she said hello to her husband.

"Morning, Leonora," I said, putting down my e-reader.

"I read the story in the paper about the high school. Did you go to the dance? Are you okay?" Leonora asked.

She didn't know anything about the whole Ethan's half sister's murder mystery and that I had been shot. I hadn't been to the cemetery in weeks, actually. I had been too wrapped up in crushing on Ethan and solving the murder mystery. If Leonora had known about that, I knew she'd freak out. She liked me a lot, sort of like a granddaughter, really. It was sweet and I felt the same way about her. She was like my grandma and I didn't want to give her a heart attack or something by telling her. So, I just answered her question, without going into details about the real things I was thinking about - like Ethan, solving the murder, and my promise.

"I'm fine," I said. "And, I was at the dance."

Leonora grinned, ignoring the whole murder aspect of the Homecoming Dance immediately, "With a boy? Is it like I said with my Jacob? Did you feel that spark I told you about? Like the one I felt that day Jacob walked me home and I just knew?"

I tried not to smile too big. Leonora had known Jacob was the one since he walked her home from school one day when they were kids. Well, teenagers. It was hard to think of Leonora as my age, but she must have been about the same age when Jacob walked her home, give or take a year, and she fell head over heels in love with him that day.

Things were different now. Nobody walked girls home from school anymore. Well, basically nobody walked. And, Ethan and I had just started going out. I mean, I didn't know if we were technically even dating. How did you know? I mean, we had gone to the dance together and he had kissed me a few times before that. Was that dating? And, then if we were dating were we boyfriend and girlfriend? I mean, I thought you'd just know, but I didn't. It wasn't like we had decided on it or anything. It was all so confusing. Was it supposed to be as easy as just knowing like Leonora said? Was it bad that I didn't already know? Were we doomed? Now, I was suddenly worried. Wait, I didn't need to be worried. Ethan like liked me. I think.

I ignored my inner turmoil, not wanting to bother Leonora with my mental battle about the status of my and Ethan's relationship, so I smiled and said, "Um, I don't know. I mean, I like like him, but we just went to the dance together, so..."

"Maybe bring him by sometime?" Leonora asked hopefully.

I nodded before I thought better of it. Sure, Ethan knew I crashed funerals, but he didn't know I hung out in the graveyard and had graveyard friends. Did I want to introduce him to that world too? I wasn't so sure. He had been so accepting of the funeral crashing. That was one thing. Hanging out in graveyards was another. Still, I couldn't disappoint Leonora. All of my grandparents were dead. She was the closest thing I had to a grandma. It seemed kind of fun thinking about her meeting Ethan, eventually. Like, after we decided if we were really going out. I was a little afraid she'd interrogate him, actually, now that I thought about it.

"So, are you going to that girl's funeral?" Leonora asked.

"Who?" I asked and then remembered after I said it. My brain had been on Ethan, which sometimes glitched my brain into forgetting everything else. Leonora knew about my hobby crashing funerals.

"The girl from the high school who died," Leonora reminded me. "So sad. She was so young. Too young. In this day and age, I can hardly believe it when I read a story like that. You be careful, though. Sounds like some nutcase is on the loose."

I hadn't thought much about it. I mean, even if I wasn't investigating, should I go to Madison Brown's funeral? My brain had been focused mostly on Ethan and the dance in the last week and now, it was mostly on Ethan and the mound of homework from school that I was going to have. Well, and ignoring the fact that I wanted to investigate the murder. Normally, I'd have already found the girl's obituary and started doing research on her for the funeral. Since she went to my high school that would have been easy enough. I just had to pull out my yearbook and check Facebook and Twitter. Madison was bound to be somewhere in one of those online mediums.

"Maybe," I said, wondering if Ethan and I might make plans instead. "Depends on what else is going on."

Leonora looked at me knowingly, "Sounds like love to me."

I felt my cheeks turn pink. I wished I could hide my emotions better. This was embarrassing. I hoped Ethan couldn't read me like that yet. I wanted to be cool, sexy, and mysterious to him.

Leonora frowned, "Just make sure he treats you right. A gentleman should always open your door. And, don't let him kiss you right away. And, make sure you keep him on his toes. Make him work for your affections. And, don't always do what he wants you to - be your own woman."

"Okay," I said, almost choking on my saliva at the last piece of advice.

Leonora did have a lot of life experience and she was pretty much telling me to go with my gut on what I did with my life. Currently my gut really did want to solve this murder mystery. Was this life's way of telling me to go for it, despite my promise to Ethan?

I decided to clarify, to be sure, "So, Leonora, are you saying that you didn't always do what Jacob wanted you to do?"

Leonora looked at me incredulously, "Goodness no. If I did, we would never have done anything exciting. He was a homebody, always happy to stay at home and read the paper when he wasn't at work. I was the adventurous one and booked vacations for us and forced him to get out and see the world."

"Didn't he get mad at you, though? Like when he wanted to just stay home?" I asked.

I wasn't quite sure that investigating a murder was like getting your husband out of his lazy comfort zone and off the couch and into the world, but I was curious now about what Leonora would say. She did have a lot more life experience on the subject than I did.

Leonora sighed, "Sometimes. But that's the thing about love. He always forgave me, no matter what."

I nodded, pondering. That was a true enough statement, I thought. If Ethan really like liked me, he'd see that I had to investigate and find out what happened to Madison. I had even dreamt about it. I wanted to help, just like I had wanted to help Ethan find out what happened to his half-sister. It hadn't been all about my crush that time either. I genuinely wanted to make things as right as they could be in this messed up world, by giving the grieving left behind some kind of closure. He'll love me no matter what, I told myself. Or, well, at least like like me, since I didn't exactly know where we stood just yet on the whole love thing or even the dating thing. How did you find that out anyway?

Feeling immensely lighter at deciding to break my promise to Ethan, for his own good, and to keep us out of a comfortable box, I went straight home from the graveyard, dug out my yearbook and looked up Madison Brown. Even from her photo, it was hard to believe she was dead. She had this contagious smile and lopsided grin, like she was always smiling. She had short brown curly hair that looked like maybe it was permed, but it could have been natural with the help of some hair products. She was a senior this school year, so I didn't really know her and she wasn't in any of my classes, but besides recognizing her name from the night before, I found that she did look familiar for some reason. I stared at her picture, but nothing came to me. I looked at the list of activities under her name, wondering if that might give me a clue. Maybe she was a cheerleader or something, she kind of looked cheer-y.