Creepers (10 page)

I SAT IN THE GRASS IN FRONT OF THE CEMETERY ENTRANCE,
Memento Mori
above my head like a banner.
As if somebody living next to a cemetery could actually forget death
, I thought peevishly. I was a half hour early for my rendezvous with the Geyers, but I wanted to make sure that I did not miss them. I had so much to ask.

I leaned my back against the iron posts of the fence with the envelope in my hand. I knew I had to give it back to them for safekeeping. We were sort of our own little team now in our quest to help the Geyers and the cemetery.

I glanced down the road and saw Dad's red pickup truck cruising slowly in my direction. A blue car that was idling behind him beeped as Dad turned left to pull into the apron of the cemetery entrance. He frowned as he muttered, “I had my turn signal on. Road rage is supposed to be a city phenomenon.”

He switched emotional gears when he turned his attention back to me. “Courtney, are you okay? You bolted past Mom and me at breakfast and you were so quiet during dinner last night.” He scrunched his freckled nose in concern. “You even agreed to do all the weeding in the back of the house without so much as a dirty look.” He sounded playful but I could detect the caution in his voice.

“Dad, I'm fine, really. Planning this cemetery protest is a great service project for school, don't you think?” I smiled brightly at him. He squinted at me. Obviously he did not buy it.

“Courtney, I know you and Mom are really excited about this, and it is a good thing that you're fighting to preserve the history of Murmur.” He glanced at
Memento Mori
. “It's just that you seem sort of preoccupied or worried about something.”

“I
am
worried, Dad. What if we lose our fight for the cemetery?” My reaction this time was genuine.

We both seemed to lift our heads as if to welcome the gentle breeze. It smelled of the cornstalks that it tickled. “Courtney, it's the fact that you're fighting a battle that you believe in that's important. Not whether you win or lose, okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I want to win.” I
needed
to win, I thought—for Margaret, for Mr. Geyer, and for Prudence. I was unsure whose side the witch was on.

Dad suddenly grinned. “With Mom fighting on your side, you should come out on top.” He peeked at his watch. Watch checking every five minutes was wired into his being. “Okay. I have got to go. Get up and give me a kiss,” he demanded teasingly.

I jumped up and kissed him good-bye on the cheek. It was smooth and smelled of his lime aftershave.

“Love you, sweetie. See you at dinner.”

I waved as I watched him drive down the road toward Murmur.What could I tell Dad? We could probably use at least one practical guy in this battle.

“Courtney!”

I turned to see Margaret waving enthusiastically as she and Mr. Geyer walked along the swale. She sounded excited and relieved to see me. Today she was wearing shorts and a red tank top, and her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. She looked great. Mr. Geyer was wearing another pair of his seemingly endless supply of old-man plaid shorts and a black shirt and socks. His glasses glinted in the morning sunlight. A black backpack hung loosely from one shoulder, bouncing lightly as he walked. This morning I did not wince at the spectacle, I was so glad to see him.

When they were only a few yards from the cemetery entrance, Margaret ran up and hugged me. I was surprised by the fierceness in her voice.

“I'm so glad that you're here, Courtney, and that you are all right.” She pulled away to fix her probing green eyes on mine.

A shiver of panic ran through me.
All right? Did she think that the witch would hurt me?

“Of course I'm okay.” I brushed my own fear away with a false bravado. I was a little embarrassed by my behavior in the woods.

I turned to Margaret and offered her the envelope. “I wanted to give this back to you. Mom would have loved to have gotten her hands on it.” I laughed.

Margaret smiled knowingly. “So that's where you get your inquisitive nature,” she added impishly.

“Did these help you at all, Courtney?” Mr. Geyer asked, still serious.

“A little bit, I think,” I answered honestly. “But do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” I asked softly. Margaret was searching my face with those wide green eyes. I was nervously fingering the hem of my shirt.

“Of course,” Mr. Geyer replied. He was looking into the cemetery now, as if he was assessing the kingdom of monuments that we were fighting to protect.

“Did the witch put a spell on Christian that was passed on to you?” I whispered, afraid to ask the question in a normal voice.

Mr. Geyer nodded. His larger-than-life eyes, forever trapped behind those lenses, were moist. “Yes, and on to Margaret, too. Although Christian did not have direct descendants, all who share his bloodline are touched by this spell.”

My heart picked up speed. “How can you break the spell, then?” All spells could be broken, I thought.

Mr. Geyer smiled sadly, then visibly sagged. Margaret grabbed her father's hand.

“We have to find the remains of Prudence and Christian and reunite them,” she said almost matter-of-factly, as if it were the most perfectly normal thing in the world.

“Christian?” I echoed. I had never even wondered about Christian's burial place. “You mean he's not in this cemetery?”

Mr. Geyer and Margaret shook their heads. “No.There is no record of his death.We've been searching a number of known family plots for years, without any luck.”

Another thought struck me. Again I was jolted that I had never questioned this before. “What about Prudence's mother?”

Mr. Geyer sighed before answering. “We don't know
anything about Prudence's mother. Record keeping back then was not quite as good as it is today,” he added wistfully.

“Christian never even mentioned her in his journal?” I asked, incredulous.

“No,” he replied soberly. “It doesn't make sense, does it?”

I stared into the cemetery. Christian had spent a good deal of his life carving memorials for people who died before him. Remembering was his job. How could he neglect to make sure that Prudence's mother would not be forgotten or that his own resting place would be known to his descendants? Was it because of the spell and the witch?

“What about the witch?” I asked boldly, ignoring my instinct that I was pushing all bounds of decency. Each of my questions seemed to knock Mr. Geyer in the gut.

Margaret's grip on her father's hands tightened. Mr. Geyer patted her arm reassuringly.
Is Margaret afraid of the witch?

“We don't know much about the witch, Courtney, except from what we have gleaned from Christian's journal.” He pulled Margaret closer to him and gave her a gentle hug. “Neither of us has ever seen her, although she makes her presence known to us from time to time.”

My jaw must have dropped.

“Then why did I see her?” I asked, fighting goose
bumps despite the early-morning heat.

“We don't know, Courtney, but I prefer to take her appearance as a good sign.”

Margaret looked at him, a question in her eyes. I looked at Margaret, searching for some reassurance. She reached out and grasped my hand.

“Perhaps because you are not a member of our family.” She smiled, as if this reason alone should provide me with comfort.

We took the jitney, as Mr. Geyer called it, into Murmur. Although its seats had lost their spring and the true color of its interior had long ago faded, it was air-conditioned. A few older women with cloth shopping bags clutched against their laps sat in the front. Probably to better position themselves to be the first into their targeted stores.The three of us were fairly quiet as we bounced our way into town. I could not stop thinking about the witch and about what Margaret had said.
Why wouldn't the witch want to appear to Christian's family? Wouldn't she feel closest to them?
But when I had opened my mouth to ask Margaret about it, Mr. Geyer shook his head just enough for me to see.
Not
now
, his eyes had beseeched, seeming to float confoundedly behind his glasses.

Murmur was already familiar to me, thanks to my trips to the grocery store and library with my mom. We passed more farms, thatched with cornstalks and some other long, brown, wavy crop that I could not identify.

“Wheat,” Margaret said into the air. She was staring out the window, as if hypnotized by the fields that flowed into the horizon.

I was beginning to believe that she
could
read my mind.

The landscape began to change as we approached Murmur.The road suddenly began to gently weave and dip between the thick maple trees and homes that resembled farmhouses but without the farms. Instead most of the homes were surrounded by bushy, trimmed hedges thicker than walls.

Plain stone churches anchored a number of corners, with their glassed-in announcement boards blaring daily reminders to passersby.
Now is the Time. Believe and you will touch Heaven.
It was nice to think that life could be so simple. I bet these ministers never had to deal with missing remains and witches.

The jitney slowed as it turned onto Main Street. It pulled to a stop in front of the post office, its door swishing open to introduce the noises of the little town—horns
beeping, people laughing, and a church bell ringing. I could hear the sound of locusts in the trees, invisible but obviously numbering in the millions. At home, the cicadas were our one-instrument orchestra.

“This is the corner,” Mr. Geyer announced. The shopping ladies did not even glance our way as they clogged the exit of the jitney. We thanked the driver, and he gave me a friendly nod.

We crowded around the mailbox as Mr. Geyer unzipped his backpack and removed a folder. He gently unclipped the stack of flyers.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked proudly.

Margaret and I stared at the paper. It read:

A photo of the cemetery's
Memento Mori
entrance graced the top of the page.

“Do you think it says enough?” I asked. I knew nothing about putting a flyer together.

Margaret's eyebrows were scrunched in study. “I like the photograph,” she said.

Mr. Geyer laughed. “I'll have you know, Courtney, that I worked on this text with your mother. She told me to keep it short and simple, particularly since her article will appear in tomorrow's newspaper.”

I smiled. I should have known Mom would have had a hand in this.

“Here, let me give you each a short pile.We'll split up, going up and down these few blocks to post them.”

Margaret and I each extended our hands as if we were receiving a gift. It was then that I noticed a number of people eyeing me curiously as they entered and exited the post office. Maybe they were already wondering what the flyers were all about. Good. I pressed them against my chest as if they were a secret.

“I'll begin at this corner,” Mr. Geyer directed as he pulled three small rolls of masking tape from his backpack. “Courtney, why don't you start across the street at the coffee shop? They have a community bulletin board in there. Margaret, you head on over to the next block.
Try the realty office and the library. Only hang them on bulletin boards. Telephone poles are not an option in Murmur.”

I was excited as I crossed the street. I felt like I was doing something tangible to save the cemetery. As I entered the coffee shop, the aroma of hazelnut pinched my nose. I was surprised to see that the little tables and chairs were filled. Judging from their clothes, they were tourists and businesspeople. I quickly pinned a flyer smack-dab in the middle of the board.

“Cool! Why don't you leave one at each table?” the young guy behind the counter asked. He was looking at the photo on the flyer. I looked at his Grateful Dead T-shirt.

“Sure,” I replied in my friendliest voice. Every person helps.

Outside the coffee shop, I stood for a moment to select my next target. I smiled as I watched Mr. Geyer exiting the post office, a small stack of flyers draped over his arm. He gave me an encouraging wave, but there was something strange about him, stranger than usual.

I kept staring at him as he walked down the sidewalk toward the grocery store. He dropped his tape. As he bent down to pick it up, a guy walking in the other direction nearly walked right on top of him. The guy didn't slow
down or even look back to apologize to Mr. Geyer. Mr. Geyer seemed unfazed.