Chapter 4 - Marjorie Sees a Ghost Behind the Hedge
Marjorie did not know how to explain that she’d felt afraid in her bedroom - for the first time in her life.
Table of Contents:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17
At the end of the chapter, be sure to read my Author’s Note, where I tell some of the backstory surrounding The Graveyard House!
Marjorie’s bedroom on the first floor evidenced a childhood rich with stories and magic. Pink floral wallpaper gave it a spritely appearance, with antique furniture that had been painted white by Mama. She had done so in order to give old wood new life, and the change had its desired effect, adding grace to an otherwise plain room.
Papa stepped aside, motioning for Marjorie to enter first. Doing so, she approached the bed and knelt beside it. Reaching under it, she lifted the floorboard beneath which she had concealed the grimoire. She stood once more with a pang of unease, surrendering it to him.
She hoped that he could see the remorse in her eyes, since she could not muster a verbal apology.
Papa saw the apology, she knew, for he sat at the edge of the bed and motioned for her to do the same. In silence they stared at the red cover, the leather belt, the tarnished silver clasp securing pages together.
“I know you think I should be angry about this,” he said, as she stared into the corner. “On the contrary, Margo, I am proud. I waited too long to begin teaching you, and your thirst for knowledge was too much. Even your mama’s protectiveness could not quell the desire in you to know the magical world, and we now see that the magic was calling you as well, for you have described being drawn to the book as if it had summoned you.”
He chuckled, a sound that brought her comfort, before continuing:
“That is what surprises me most. I thought I’d hidden it well, disguising it with the other red books on my shelf, of which there are plenty. However, you are my daughter; I suppose your very inheritance guided you to the grimoire.”
Marjorie swallowed, forcing herself at last to speak.
“I read it at night sometimes,” she admitted, “but if my inheritance was supposed to help me understand it, that did not happen. I can’t make heads or tails of most of what is written here.”
“The inheritance can only do so much,” he replied. “It can guide you to a magical object, but even wizards must be taught their craft. The light arts are delicate and fascinating; however, they do not reveal themselves to a person without effort. I have compared magic before to a stubborn cat that only comes out when it so desires. I hold to that analogy, though much has changed since I last said those words.” This last bit he added with a wry smile.
He unlatched the book, lifting the cover with gentle hands. Marjorie noted that those hands trembled, all of his nerves on edge after their whirlwind of a day. On the first page of the grimoire were collected signatures of ancestors, some men and some women. The last signature was that of her own father, and there was space enough for it to be passed on for many more generations.
“One day,” Papa told her, “you will sign your name under mine, little rose, and it will be your turn to fill the pages with your discoveries. It is high time that you begin training in the arts. Your mama and I have already discussed it. She balked, you see, because she wished for you and your brother to have gentle childhoods.” He shook his head. “Light magic such as ours might be content to wait until a person is ready to learn, but dark forces are different. We can no longer afford to put it off. Truly, it is a blessing that I will be able to teach you, myself. Other young witches or wizards spend years wandering before they find magicians experienced and willing to help.”
He offered the book to Marjorie, who took it with hesitation. She imagined signing her name underneath Papa’s. The thought sent a rush of anticipation through her tired body. She would no longer be struggling to understand the book in secret. If Papa was willing to teach her the arts that he had refined, then she would understand the formulae and incantations on these pages. She would understand the context of magic and the role that it played in their world. She knew so little of the world, having grown up in the middle of a graveyard, their visits to town being so rare…
“I would be your apprentice, then?” she asked, looking up at him with wide eyes as the realization dawned.
“You are my daughter,” said Bamoy softly. “That is a beautiful title, little rose. But yes, when you wake up in the morning, after you’ve had your breakfast, we will begin our lessons. At first, they might amount to little more than paging through this book and answering your questions. In time, I will invite you to join me in the greenhouse.” Amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Your mama always says that I’m a dreadful housekeeper, but she refuses to go inside and pick up after my experiments. It might be for the best, since I wouldn’t be able to find a thing if she organized. You could help me keep track of things without uprooting my system.”
Marjorie found herself laughing. “If you’ll explain to me what the ingredients are, I’ll be glad to help you keep them in order,” she said. “Could you let me go with you into town to deliver what you create? I spend most of my time here and in the woods, but I would like to know more about what it is like there.”
“Of course,” he said. “Your mama has given her grudging blessing, so you are invited to join me on my excursions. You shall witness first-hand how clumsy I am when making small-talk with other people.”
She knew he was attempting to make light of things in order to make her smile. It was a valiant effort, considering that she could see the defeat in his eyes. It must be a challenge for him to smile; his very human mistake had led to a night of chaos, and a predator now lurked in their back-yard.
“There’s got to be a way to drive that Fae out of the cemetery,” Marjorie said, when the silence had become too heavy. “Entire books have been written about their kind and how to deal with infestations…”
“Certainly, there will be something,” said Papa wearily. “Fae can be gotten rid of, but it’s never done without a battle, and those battles often last for years. The creature has claimed the graveyard as his realm, and he’s got plenty of places to bide his time until he catches us off-guard. You and Adam are forbidden from stepping beyond the limits of the barrier that I am going to set. It’ll circle the house, leaving enough room for your mother to step into her kitchen garden.” After some consideration, he added, “Winter will be starting soon; you’ll be less tempted to go outside and wander, when it’s so cold that the air hurts your face.”
Marjorie said nothing. She was not excited about the approach of winter. It meant long periods of hibernation, locked away in the house with only books to keep herself entertained. Although she reckoned that life would be more interesting now, since Papa had agreed to train her. If she was to be kept indoors for the winter, it would not be a waste of time. Cold weather offered ample opportunity to study the words of the grimoire by candlelight, organizing Papa’s ingredients, and perhaps learning to brew potions of her own.
“I’m going downstairs to help your mother tidy the mess in the kitchen,” said Papa, standing and tucking the grimoire under his arm. “Join us for a cup of tea. You ought to retire to bed shortly after; it’s going to be a long day tomorrow, what with the precautions we’ll be setting.”
“Are you going to sleep?” Marjorie asked, as he made his way to the door.
Papa paused with his hand on the doorknob. She knew the answer to his question before he troubled himself to verbalize it.
“I must protect my house, Margo,” he said. “I can’t afford to sleep tonight. It’ll be enough for me to know that you are safely tucked into your bed.”
With that, he stepped out and closed the door, leaving Marjorie alone with her thoughts.
Her heart fluttered in light of Papa’s kindness. She did not deserve to have been forgiven so quickly, having hidden something so personal to him. Perhaps, under different circumstances, he would have been angry. He must have decided that, in light of all that they had been through, it was not worth punishing her tonight.
Marjorie reached for her dressing-gown at the foot of the bed and slipped it on, struck with a sudden chill. She frowned as she secured the belt around her waist, wondering where the draft came from. It hadn’t been cold when Papa was with her, or perhaps it did not seem that way because his presence made her feel secure.
Sudden drops in temperature, she decided, were the least of her problems at the moment. Turning to ensure that the window was properly shut, she frowned.
From her bedroom window, she could see the hedges that blocked away the oldest part of the cemetery. Mama had insisted that they be planted when Marjorie was born, so that she would not grow into a child afraid to open her curtains. Papa planted them, then placed an enchantment to speed their growth. As a result, they shielded most of the graveyard from her view.
Marjorie had never been frightened by the scenery. Something was different now, though. She thought that she saw a faint glow behind the hedge, as if someone were holding a lantern as they made their way through terrain that had long been abandoned.
Did Fae need lamps in order to walk at night? Was their new enemy scouting the area, biding his time until the family was asleep, in order to creep in and resume his feverish search for Papa’s book?
All of a sudden, the light vanished. Marjorie stood, hugging herself, this time not because of the cold. She had long suspected that spirits roamed the graveyard at night, but they never came near enough to the house to trouble her.
Had she just witnessed a ghost? Was there a soul on the other side of the hedge, peering through the twiggy branches into her room?
Lunging forward, she grabbed hold of her pink silk curtains and pulled them shut. Tell Papa about it, said the voice in her head, that little-girl’s voice that still relied on him to keep her safe from the things that she did not understand. He’ll know what to do. He’ll drive it away.
But grown-up Marjorie knew her father had enough to cope with. She sensed he was on the verge of exhausted tears that he would never allow his children to see. She could not bear to tell him that a spirit had been near enough that she’d seen it through the hedge. Her hope was that the spirit might stay on the other side, not deciding to enter their house.
Besides, Papa would have set protective measures to keep spirits out. He’d made sure to secure his home when he chose to start a family here.
Marjorie put on her slippers and hurried out of her room, hoping that any fear in her expression would be attributed to what had happened with the Fae and nothing more. She did not know how she would begin to explain that she’d just felt afraid in her own room for the first time in her life.
Author’s Note:
Hello, dear readers! I hope that you’ve been enjoying The Graveyard House. I can’t believe we’ve made it to Chapter 4! I’ve been playing for years with the idea of a story set in a graveyard. There are two more chapters scheduled for the next two weeks, and I’ll be writing more during November for NaNoWriMo. Eventually, it will be published as a proper novel, and the chapters here will be placed behind a paywall, so read them while you can!
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I thought that Chapter 4 was a good point at which to share some of the background for this story. It’s gained momentum, after all; I’ve had some wonderful readers following the tale. My muse prodded me, saying, “They might like to know what inspired it.”
This is the offshoot of another idea that’s been dancing in my mind for almost a decade. I kept putting off the main idea, telling myself that my writing style isn’t up to task yet, or that the subject matter was too far from my comfort zone.
When I first decided I wanted to pen a ghost story, I hoped to write it using the old Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris as a setting. It was to have a Dickensian feel to it, as we all know his story, A Tale of Two Cities.
As I sat down at the age of nineteen to do my research, I began to fear that the Pere-Lachaise was too large in every way for the kind of tale I wanted to tell. You see, I did not only want to write about the cemetery, but the catacombs underneath it. I wanted to write a ghost story with humor, a story about the city of the dead. The idea was so great at the time (really, it still is) that I quit before I started.
This centuries-old cemetery is full of history. It serves as the resting place for hundreds of famous artists and politicians who have changed the world. Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin, and Honore de Balzac are among the famous who live ‘in the neighborhood,’ so to speak.
The notion of writing a fiction where all of these people gathered as neighbors was thrilling, but again, daunting. I have not yet given up on the notion. I could later return to that premise, getting to know these beloved historical figures as I write them.
However, for this story—the tale of Bamoy, a magician and father who loves his family—Pere-Lachaise did not work as a setting. It would distract too much from the centrality of family, and besides, I don’t know how I’d get a house in the middle of Pere-Lachaise for them. I wound up picking a different country entirely.
For the setting, I picked an abandoned parish graveyard in Scotland. It’s not based on any real church that I know of. You could plug in any saint’s name and there would be hundreds of abandoned graveyards to fit the bill. For Bamoy’s story, anonymity is good.
The Pere-Lachaise neighborhood might be my magnum opus one day, when I am confident enough to reassume that idea. For now, I am enjoying my time with Marjorie and her family.
If you’re enjoying The Graveyard House, I ask humbly that you spread word about it. Tell your friends; share the link. For an indie author, word of mouth is the surest way of building an audience. It also helps me to gain confidence.
I expect that the story will continue for at least a few months.
Don’t miss Chapter 5 next week—it’s about to get really really good…and ghostly!
That bigger idea sounds very intriguing!