Page 2 of The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
But it was not the men, nor yet a spirit, but a boy of flesh and blood.
No, not a boy. A young man. For a home of the dead, the cemetery was well trafficked by the living that night. What was he doing here? Over the last week, the cemetery had become a sort of home, her home, and he was trespassing.
Though he wasn’t much taller than Alice, he must have been at least sixteen, and was lean with fair hair that fell over his temples. If Tabby hadn’t been so stricken with fright, she might have thought him terribly dashing.
Had he crossed paths with the grave robbers? A tear ran down the length of his breeches, and an angry bruise was blossoming across his cheekbone. He was leaning against a large column dedicated to the memory of those lost at sea, eyes squeezed shut as he gripped his right leg. He must have been fighting hard not to let out any noise, though she could see his throat working convulsively.
She should have gone back to the crypt and left him alone. He was part of the world of the living, and she was all but a spirit herself now, a being that lived in shadows and forgotten memories. But he had such a kind face, and she was so starved for kindness, for human contact. Besides, he wasn’t an adult, not like her aunt and uncle and the others.
“Are y-you hurt?” It had been so long since she had used her voice that the words came out thin and cracked.
The boy’s eyes flew open, but he did not so much as move a muscle as he studied her. Then a slow, brilliant grin crept across his face.
It did something to her, that grin, warming her all the way from her empty stomach to her frozen toes. It made her feel as if someone had seen her for the first time after being invisible for her entire life.
“Be a love and help me, would you?” He gestured at his torn breeches, revealing an angry red gash that ran the length of his thigh. “It’s not much more than a scratch but damned if I can stand on it. Must have grazed the spikes scaling over the fence.”
She blinked at the exposed skin and swallowed. She’d never touched someone like him before. Once upon a time her mother must have bounced her on her knee, and her father must have playfully tugged on her braids. But since those forgotten days, the only touch Tabby knew was Alice pressed tight against her at night to keep warm, and the clammy hands of clients she was forced to hold in her aunt and uncle’s parlor.
When she realized that he was staring at her expectantly, she finally sprang into action, commandeering his neckcloth and tearing it into strips of bandaging. There was something in his smile, the easy openness of his demeanor that made Tabby absurdly eager to please him. He could have asked her to cut off her thick red hair, and she would have asked him how much he would have. Her head told her that she couldn’t trust him, not completely, but her heart wanted more than anything to earn another smile from him.
As she dabbed at the wound, the question of how he’d come by his black eye burned on the tip her tongue. As if reading her mind, he said, “Found myself a bit down on my luck after a night of cards, and without the snuff to pay my debt.” Then he cleared his throat and carefully shifted his gaze away. “There, uh, might also have been the matter of a kiss stolen from Big Jack Corden’s sister.”
Card debts! Stolen kisses! This boy—no, thisyoung man—brought a sense of worldly danger and excitement into the cemetery with him. Tabby pressed her lips together, knowing that anything she might say would only give her away as a country bumpkin in his eyes.
Yet there was something in the way he kept clearing his throat, the downward shift of his gaze, that made her wonder if there wasn’t another explanation, something not nearly so dashing, that he wasn’t telling her. Tabby was well versed in the language of violence, and how adults visited it on the small bodies of children. She did not for one moment believe that his injuries were the result of an overprotective brother.
Tabby was silent as she wrapped the bandage around the cleaned cut, the shadowy images of the grave robbers receding in her mind as the sky continued to lighten. “Didn’t think I would meet an angel in the graveyard when I stumbled in here,” he said, giving her another grin.
Heat rushed to Tabby’s cheeks and she ducked her head, concentrating on tying off the knot. She should have been frightened of him, frightened that he might somehow know her aunt and uncle and toss her over his shoulder and deliver her back up to them, or tell the caretaker that there was a filthy girl living in the graveyard. But there was a warmth in his soft brown eyes and she felt a camaraderie with him.
“Well,” he said, inspecting her rather sloppy handiwork, “that will have to do.” He tested his weight on the leg, grunting a little as he righted himself. He cast a reluctant look at the brightening horizon and sighed. “I suppose I should be going.”
But he made no move to leave. He was gazing hard into the distance, as if he was determined to stop the sun from rising by sheer force of will. When he spoke again his voice was so soft, so different from his previous bluster. “Do you...do you ever feel as if you don’t matter? That your life is already mapped out for you, and your wishes are inconsequential? And that even if you accept your lot, bow down and take it gladly, it’s still not enough. Just by virtue of beingyouyou’re a disappointment, with no hope of redemption.”
It was a rather grown-up speech, and though Tabby didn’t know the source from which it sprang, she did know what it felt like to not matter. She might have told him as much, but he was already smoothing back his curls and clearing his throat. “Well, I should be going back,” he repeated with resigned conviction. “I won’t ask what a little thing like you is doing all alone at night in a graveyard, if you forget that you ever saw me.” Then he gave her a heart-melting wink, and was gone.
Tabby stood in the cool night air, her blood pounding fast and hot. It stung that he referred to her as “a little thing,” but one thing was for certain: Tabby would never, ever forget the dashing young man with kind eyes.
Every night for the next week, Tabby crept out into the cemetery, waiting with her heart in her throat to see if the young man would return. She knew it was foolish, knew that it was dangerous, but she couldn’t help herself. Even just to catch a glimpse of him would help staunch the flow of loneliness that threatened to drain her completely. As far as she knew, Alice had never returned for her, and whatever little flame of hope had flickered in her heart was well and truly extinguished now.
So on the eighth night when Tabby heard the rustle of weeds, she hardly thought twice before stealing behind the column and waiting for the young man to appear, her lips already curving into a smile in anticipation. But her smile faded as a sinister figure dressed all in black materialized out of the gloom. A sinister figure whom she had seen before.
The next day, Tabby watched as the caretaker stood by the empty grave and rubbed a weary hand over his face. After the robbery the previous week, he had walked the perimeter of the cemetery, repairing the fencing and checking the locks on the gate, but had not summoned the police. But it seemed that fences and locks could not stop the grave robbers. She had developed a sort of affinity from afar for the gentle man with the long, careworn face, and it made her bruised heart hurt to see him brought so low.
She had known that there was evil in the world, had seen the darkness and greed that had driven her aunt and uncle, had felt the devastating injustice of being robbed of her parents. But she had never known the depth of depravity that could lead men to steal the bodies of the dead. The trials of this world were bearable because of the promise of divine rest, of reuniting with loved ones on the other side; how could anyone endure life otherwise?
As she watched the caretaker heave a sigh and get to his knees to clean the gravesite, Tabby vowed that someday she would see the men that did such vile deeds brought to justice.
2
IN WHICH THERE IS A REUNION.
Boston, June 1856
THE CARRIAGE JUTTEDand lurched over the steep cobblestoned hill, threatening to bring Caleb’s lunch up all over his neatly pressed suit. Perhaps if it did then he would have an excuse to bolt. Caleb hated funerals. Well, he supposed that no one reallyenjoyedfunerals, but it was more than that. They were just so...somessy. All that sobbing and wailing, and never mind the ridiculous costumes. (Caleb drew the line at those absurd weeping veils that men insisted on putting on their beaver hats—better to leave all that frippery to the ladies.) They were public displays of what should be private. When he died—which, God willing, wouldn’t be for decades yet—he hoped that his friends would just quietly put him in a grave, raise a glass to his memory, and be done with it.
Across from him, his mother was exemplifying just the kind of fuss that Caleb was sure his father wouldn’t have tolerated. She was burying her face in his last clean handkerchief, bawling and carrying on with seemingly endless stamina. He gave her an awkward pat on her knee. “There now, Mum. All shall be well.”
