Once upon a time, the house next to the cemetery belonged to the only undertaker in town. But we Talbots haven’t been undertakers since great-uncle Laurence got shot in a hunting accident. It’s been just Pa and me in the house ever since. But that’s fine. The house likes it better that way.
At least once a week, I walk through the cemetery and clean up the headstones. Moss grows quickly on the granite, and the grass clippings love to find their way into the etchings on the stone. We may not store bodies in the cold room anymore, but we are still the caretakers of the cemetery.
My great-great-great-(great?)-grandfather Absolum built the house for his wife, Lavina, and their eight children, before the cemetery was there. Their youngest son, Edmund Thomas Talbot, was the first grave dug; he was two years old. They planted an apple tree behind his headstone at Lavina’s request. I’ve never tasted a sweeter apple. Over the years, the trees have spread. There are now more than a dozen apple trees between the house and the cemetery.
The grass is almost knee-high when I leave the porch, but there’s a path beaten down from my trips. A bucket containing a brush and a scraper swings from my left hand. Long blades slice at my legs, but I barely feel it anymore. I pick one of the apples from a tree and tuck it into the pocket of my sweatshirt.
The breeze blows, and one of the wind chimes on the porch sings. The summer air is thick with the scent of pine trees and wild thyme and the coming thunderstorm.
Over the centuries, a few hundred people have joined Edmund Thomas. It became the official cemetery for the town, but when your family has been in one place as long as mine has, eventually you’re related to everyone. Go far enough back in the family tree and they’re all Talbots.
In total, the cemetery covers about two acres, so I can make quick work of my task if I want to. But most days I go slowly.
I don’t say their names. Pa always warned me not to say their names out loud, that it keeps the dead from resting.
“We have enough guests in the house as it is, we don’t need to welcome any more,” he’d say.
But I still talk to them. I wish them “Happy Birthday” and I tell them about their living descendants. One, Minerva Talbot, was a writer, and I always tell her about the latest book I’ve read.
I always stop by Prudencia Talbot’s grave. It’s beautiful. She was one of Absolum and Lavina’s children, and she never married or had any children. Her headstone is carved with roses and vines. It was incredibly elaborate for the time, and I’ve never seen another like it.
At some point, a hydrangea bush was planted behind it. The bush is massive now, more like a tree, and it would have overtaken her headstone if I didn’t trim it back occasionally. In spring the bush explodes with pale blue and bright pink blossoms, and the petals scatter all across the cemetery.
Hers is also the only grave where I find mushrooms. There’s a ring of them, right over where her coffin should be. And it doesn’t matter how many times the mower cuts them down; they always sprout right back up.
“Are you there?” I call softly.
The bush rustles before a little snout pokes out of the bush. A black nose twitches before the rest of the fox’s head peeks out from where bush meets headstone.
The fox seems to live in the bush. I’m not sure if it’s always the same one, or if a family of them lives there. Pa said the fox has been there at least since he was a boy. Some days it’s curled up against her headstone, sometimes in the circle of mushrooms, and other times it hides in the bush. But I’ve never not seen it near her grave.
When I reach my hand out, he comes further out of the bush and nuzzles against my hand.
“Do you want an apple?” I all but whisper.
As if he understands me, he looks up at me with his amber eyes, and his ears perk. He stills, and then he sits.
I pull the apple from my pocket and hand it out for him. He takes it gently, careful not to nip my fingers with his sharp teeth, before laying down on his belly to eat. He does so slowly and with a grace that a wild animal shouldn’t have.
“Did you know her?” I can’t help but ask. I feel silly immediately.
But the fox looks up at me and I could swear that his eyes look sad. He stops eating, and he bows his head toward Prudencia’s stone.
I pet the coarse fur along his back, and he sags.
“A storm is coming,” I whisper, “be careful.”
He makes a sort of huffing sound as if to say, “I’ll be fine,” before going back to his apple. It’s gone quickly, and he lays there, licking his chops.
The wind chimes sing at both ends of the porch. The house is warning me to come back, that the storm will start soon.
“I’ll come back to see you tomorrow,” I whisper to the fox.
He stands and I watch as the tip of his bushy tail disappears into the hydrangea.
I pick up my bucket and make my way back across the yard. I can see the dark clouds rolling in, and thunder rumbles in the distance.
The porch sags beneath my feet. The house is relieved I made it back before the storm began.
Pa is sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, a steaming mug of black coffee in his hands.
“All good?” he asks, his voice gruff.
“Yeah.” I set the bucket beside the front door, but I pause before going inside. “The fox has been there as long as you can remember, right?”
“Yep,” he drawls. “Been there at least since my granddaddy was a boy, but it coulda been longer.”
“And always at the Hydrangea Grave?” I ask because I can’t say Prudencia’s name out loud.
He nods. He pushes his blue ball cap up so he can scratch the side of his head before readjusting it. “Does he scare yuh?”
“No, not at all,” I start. “Actually, he makes me kinda sad.”
“A’course he does. Yuh always were a tender-heart,” he says in a fond way. But his face goes hard and he says, “That fox out there is in mourning. Has been for a hundred years, at least.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Granddaddy always said it was ‘cuz he felt guilty. He blamed the fox.” He shakes his head, his dark eyes staring out into the cemetery. “But I never did. I don’ think he’s guilty. I think he jus’ misses her is all.”
I nod because I’m not sure what else to do. The wind changes direction and I catch the scent of whiskey in with his coffee. But I don’t say anything about it. It won’t change anything.
The door creaks on its hinges when I open it, and it swings shut with a click as the latch catches. The house doesn’t like it when doors are left open.
As I make my way through the foyer and up the stairs, the fox’s sad eyes flash through my mind. Pa’s words echo in my head.
It’s not a regular fox. I’ve always known that, but hearing Pa confirm it makes the truth weigh heavier in my bones.
The door to my bedroom swings open before I reach it. Rain starts pelting the window. Lightning flashes.
“Prudencia?” I whisper into my bedroom.
She wasn’t the first “guest” I saw. Marcy Talbot was often found in the kitchen, where she’d turn the stove off before food burned, and great-grandmother Ruth was known to fold crumpled laundry, and then there was great-uncle Laurence who would split wood so the house would never be cold.
But Prudencia was different. She has always been in the house, as far as anyone knew. Marcy and Ruth and Laurence had been called back, but Prudencia never crossed over and returned. She has wandered the halls of the house next to the cemetery ever since her final day.
Prudencia’s form shimmered into view at the foot of my bed. She was a young woman when she died, her face smooth and bright even through the mist of death. Her smile when she sees me is small and sad.
“He’s still there, you know.”
Her face crumples and I can see the silvery tracks of tears on her plump cheeks.
“Do you blame him for what happened to you?”
She shakes her head “no” because the dead cannot speak.
“Does he keep you here?”
She nods.
“Has anyone told him before?”
She looks uncertain before shaking her head.
“Then you need to come with me and we need to tell him together. Because he will never leave, otherwise. And you both need to move on.”
I turn and snag a cap from the hook near the bedroom door. It swings open and I race down the stairs. I don’t need to look behind me to know that she’s trailing after me.
The front door swings open for me, and Pa hollers after me to come back before I get struck by lightning, but I never break stride. I’m across the field in record time, slipping on the soaked grass.
I slide to a stop before the massive hydrangea bush.
“Come out!” I shout, even though you’re supposed to whisper in a cemetery, else you’ll wake the dead.
The fox pokes his head out. A moment later he’s out of the bush and bowing before Prudencia’s swirling skirts.
She stoops and places her hand on his back. Her mouth moves but I can’t tell what she’s saying. She’s crying again, her face shining silver.
“She can’t rest as long as you’re mourning her,” I say. “She can’t pass on.”
The fox whines up at Prudencia, and she smiles back down even as she swipes at the tracks on her face.
Lightning flashes and I’m blind for a moment. When my vision returns, the fox is gone and in his place is a young man. They clasp hands, and she smiles wide for the first time. The man who was once a fox turns to me. He bows deep at the hips and I return the gesture.
They join hands again, and together they walk into the hydrangea bush. The wind chimes on the porch ring their alarm and I race back to the house.
I never saw the fox again, or Prudencia. But every time I come back from cleaning the headstones, there’s a blue hydrangea bunch sitting on my bed.
