Chapter Text
Let's just get this out of the way. I wasn't in the graveyard in the rain to sulk. I also wasn't there to brood, or to pout, or to do any other dramatic thing you do in graveyards in the rain. I had work to do. Yes, I admit, I was also doing plenty of sulking and pouting and brooding, but I could have done that just as easily in my warm, dry apartment with an ancient kitty on my lap crying because I wouldn't let him have a sip of whatever caffeinated drink I'd found for myself this time.
But regardless of the weather, I had work to do. Grass had to be cut. Headstones had to be cleaned. And ghosts had to be banished.
Okay, fine, there aren't any ghosts either. But I felt a little bit like a ghost buster, standing in the ancient tool shed armed to the teeth to fight back a thorny menace. Literally. I carried a trowel, huge garden shears, and any number of other potentially useful tools in my tool belt and many, many pockets, and I approached my enemy with grim determination. A few of the rose bushes near the front of the graveyard had thrown out runners, and, if I didn't tackle them now, Mr. Ngo would try to take care of it himself.
And though I was a cool, collected, recently-single young women in a college town full of other young women ready to mingle, I wasn't about to let a sixty-year-old man with arthritis try to fight back rose bushes. Better to just keep him ignorant of the whole thing.
So off I go, on my own, in the rain, alone and miserable. I pause for a second, just before leaving the tool shed, to wonder if I ought to take the golf cart. The graveyard itself is massive, dating back over 200 years, with wild roses growing thick in the oldest corners of its grounds. But the plants I was after had grown close enough that I'd have no issue walking over to them on a clear day. I should take the golf cart. I'd stay cleaner and dryer, and, more importantly, it would be better for the metal tools. But would also ruin the mood for my post-breakup wallowing. In the end, it's not a hard decision at all.
I took off, letting the rain wash down my face and ruin my recently-redone pink hair dye, as well as dripping off my various facial piercings. Perfect.
The town had newer graveyards, with fewer ghost stories and questionable histories, but this one was a staple of Sutton. The first grave dated back to the late 18th century, when Joseph Sutton and his party first arrived in the foothills of these mountains to set up a logging operation, intending to service the various settlements along a nearby river as it traveled down to the valley below.
As the surrounding cities grew, so did Sutton's settlement, and the town was officially founded in 1804. Someone found ore in the mountains, which started a mining boom in the 1860s, and the population exploded, even after the logging industry dried up in the 40s. People kept moving in, Sutton's great-grandkids founded Sutton College -- which I unfortunately still attend -- and now we have three whole modern graveyards, as well as zoning laws, indoor plumbing, and cell service. It's great for day-to-day life, but nothing will ever quite beat an old, miserable field filled with dead people and rain to make me feel better about how miserable I am right now.
There's a flash of movement off to the side, and I stop in my tracks. The graveyard isn't 't open to the public for another two ours, so it should just be me and the skeletons. But I swear I saw something. Even as I turn, however, my headphone wires snag on the shears hanging at my waist, yanking an earbud out. I flinch, and scramble to save it from falling into mud. By the time I recover, however, all movement is gone.
Nobody's there. Nobody had ever been there. It's just the old tree in the center of some older headstones, looking as ominous and spooky as always. It's creepy, especially now with most of its leaves fallen off for autumn, but there's nobody actually trying to trespass.
Sutton's historical graveyard was well-trafficked, with wide gates on two sides allowing access between university campus and the newest apartment buildings meant largely for off-campus student housing. It was all too common to folks to cross through it on their way to school, or for students to spend time here, sitting on the grass between classes or doing homework in the shade of the old trees, but only from 8am to 6pm. The rest of the day, the gates were shut and locked, and there's only a small chance I'm speaking from personal experience when I say the fences surrounding the cemetery grounds were too difficult to climb, especially in the rain.
Nobody's here but me and the dead. I tip an imaginary hat at the old spooky tree with its remaining yellow and brown leaves, and make my way over to tackle the roses.
#
By the time I got the runners pulled up and the holes filled back in, I was exhausted, covered in mud, and soaked to the bone. But I felt better. Manual labor -- gardening especially -- always got my mind off things -- even Josie. She'd be at the Emporium by now, a curio/antiuque shop combo, hard at work and hopefully no longer wallowing in her all-consuming guilt and apologies when she had to cancel plans yet again. For the past two months, we've been trying to figure out a time for her to come get her things from my place, but if it's not one thing, it's another. And god forbid anything gets done about it. No, Josie just crumbles under her own guilt, and throws out a thousand apologies. Then I get pissed off and mean, which only makes things worse for everyone involved.
And so her box of crystals and ghost hunting tools and shirts and shit still sit on my kitchen table, waiting for someone to take it home.
It's almost noon, marking the end of my shift. I figure the older graves can stand to wait a day or two before the grass around them gets mowed. Of course, I stop for a minute, contemplating the furthest reaches of the graveyard, where the ancient church ruins mark the beginnings of a forest of historical graves and overgrown wild rosebushes. Every day I tell myself I'm going to do something about them, and every day, that's a lie.
Instead, I hum pleasantly as I put the tools away, and stomp the mud off my feet before making my way for the small building at the north end of the grounds. on the way there, I ran into Mr. Ngo, the current manager and also my boss. He likely arrived a few hours ago, and now he was making his way around the graveyard in a golf cart.
Being a grandfather, Mr. Ngo has had decades to perfect the disappointed dad stare. He levels me with one now, and asks, "What's happened to you now, Karen?" Being a grandfather, he also knows exactly when to use my given name to its full, disappointed effect. Normally, I'm Kaz to him, same as I am to everyone else -- well. Everyone except for my actual disappointed father, but I only speak to him on holidays.
For the record, I only ever called Mr. Ngo dad five times since I started working here three years ago.
"Morning, Boss," I said, then, glancing at the plastic watch I still wore, correct myself. "Afternoon, boss."
"You look like a zombie that just crawled out of the ground." Though he lost most of his hair decades ago, Mr. Ngo hung on to two things -- his Vietnamese accent, and his love for campy monster movies from the eighties. Zombies are a favorite of his, and I have him to thank for my own love of horror, as well as half my DVD collection.
"I could definitely go for a skull fill of brains right now. How are your knees holding up in this rain?"
His expression didn't change, which told me that they were indeed hurting and didn't like that I knew. "I'll tell you when it's your business."
"Sure thing, boss."
"Anything left to do today?"
"Nothing that can't wait until the weather clears."
He paused, looking at me in a soft way that made my insides squirm. I hated when he got sympathetic and fatherly. "Phan made banh-mi today. Clean yourself up, and I'll meet you in the office."
I feel stupid and impulsive, and I'm soaked to the bone as it is, so I store my tools then use the old hose to spray myself down. A few visitors stopped to stare, but they weren't getting paid to care about some weirdo in the graveyard, so they didn't do anything to stop me.
The office itself sat near the west gate of the graveyard, closest to my apartment. It was a fairly new building, only about eighty years old, with two large doors opening up to a wide foyer that's needed renovation for three decades now. On one side of the building is a lovely room for funerary services, and on the other are my two favorite doorways. One is the janitorial supplies, and the other is the main office, where important shit gets done. It's a pleasantly modern beige, with stacks of filing cabinets and a cheap table off to one side, and a ten-year-old computer on a desk on the other. I drip rainwater on the linoleum, making a beeline for the little coffee machine on the table, and break into the paper bag that's been left for me.
Phan Ngo always made something for me, since my own family was half a country away. She's an angel, and her kids are lucky to have her.
Mr. Ngo joins me after a few minutes, and, luckily, doesn't say anything at all. He still hasn't totally accepted that Josie and I were properly broken up, and he's definitely in denial that neither of us had any intention of ever getting back together. There's some hope of friendship, but things keep getting drawn out, and we keep fighting in the middle of almost every conversation.
I can't help but bristle, just thinking about her, much less having to talk about her.
But he didn't. Just shuffled a few things around and did some work while I ate.
I told him to thank Phan for lunch as always, and, now that I was off the clock, I let myself brood broodily back home.