Young Writers Society

No one knew who had hired the new groundskeeper, but there he was.

Harrington’s mayor assumed the director of the cemetery had hired him. The director, perhaps naively, assumed the board of trustees had hired him because they’d noticed she needed help. The board members assumed the mayor had hired him, considered pursuing some sort of action to discourage her from overreaching in the future, and then decided they had enough on their plates with the other cemeteries they oversaw. The mayor’s secretary wasn’t sure they’d needed a new groundskeeper in the first place.

Harrington, Ohio collectively shrugged and accepted his presence.

If they’d paid more attention, they might have noticed two things:

1) The groundskeeper could talk to plants.
2) The groundskeeper could talk to ghosts.

“This book should get an F,” she said. “The writer forgot to capitalize his sentences.”

Sayid peered over her shoulder with interest until he saw what it was. “Oh. e.e. cummings. Yeah, that’s kind of his thing.”

“Mrs. Albright says you have to capitalize every sentence,” Samira insisted, flipping further through the book as if trying to determine exactly how low a percentage grade e.e. cummings should get for his failure to follow grammar conventions.

The groundskeeper chuckled. “Poetry plays by its own set of rules, near as I can tell. There, lass. Read that one there to me.”

His face had gone all soft and sad. Smiles suited him better, the groundskeeper thought.

He hesitated. “You do get used to it, eventually.”

David looked at him. “Who was it for you?”

“It was a long time ago,” the groundskeeper said.

David nodded to himself. He glanced inside his lunch bag, gave it up as lost, and crumpled it in his hands.

“So,” he said, “how long are we talking? I’d love to get a timeline on this whole ‘getting used to the silence’ thing.”

The groundskeeper snorted. David giggled.

“Sorry,” he said. “Things were getting a little depressing there. Truth be told, I hope I never get used to being alone.”

“Why not?” the groundskeeper asked. “It’s easier.”

“Maybe,” David said, “but it’s sad.”

The spirit shuddered, shifting uneasily from side to side. Fragmented images shuttered through the groundskeeper’s mind at top speed, like someone was clicking too quickly through a presentation. The sun overhead, too bright, glaring on the dirt. The sky so brightly blue it was almost white. Elijah’s hands on the wheel of the tractor. A flash of dizziness, of blackness, and then confused images of the earth tumbling end over end, the groan of metal crumpling, and then nothing but pain, pain. Elijah was reliving his death.

The spirit shuddered harder. The smell of rot worsened, felt so strong it seemed to invade the groundskeeper’s whole body until he felt it inside him.

“Hsst,” he said under his breath. Elijah latched onto his voice, something not associated with his death at all, but he was still fearful, feeling the phantom pains of nine months ago in a body he no longer had.

***

The groundskeeper had not made it past the veranda when he felt the ghost. He stopped in his tracks, staggered by the overwhelming love here. It permeated every molecule of air, every beam of wood, the glazing of the windows, everything, everything. The ghost—Isaiah, if the children who visited were any authority—loved this place with every fiber of his being. Loved it so much it fair glowed, to the groundskeeper’s eyes.

He had to stand there on the porch for several minutes, wrestling himself under control: the spirit’s love washed over him and through him, reminded him, despite his great efforts over the years to forget, of how much he still loved everyone he’d ever lost. Reminded him of all the affection he’d had for various people throughout the last century despite his attempts to feel none, of all the times he’d fled when he’d realized he felt too much. Reminded him of how little affection anyone had felt for him in all that time, because he’d made sure they didn’t. It wrapped him up tight and warm, put tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat.

It was wonderful and terrible, and it was several minutes before he felt equal to stepping inside.

***

The spectral face appeared before her, so close she jumped and scrambled back, pressed against the door as if she could sink right into it. He was angrier than ever, not a general rage at all of Harrington but a sharp point directed at her in particular.

Many, many people had been angry at her in recent months, but never like this.

Her mouth went dry.

“It’s you who says we’re friends,” he hissed, “and it’s you who turns around and betrays me?”

“No,” she whispered. “No, I—”

The face rushed at her. She flung her arms over her head with a cry, but too late: something rushed right through her, turning her bones to ice.

It had been near two hundred years since then, and still, every year around this time, no matter where he was or what he was doing, he grew jittery and anxious. Even if he didn’t think about it. Or anyone he’d left behind. He’d be doing his work—planting, coaxing weeds into being something prettier or growing somewhere different, resetting an old headstone—and suddenly he’d come over all cold and shaky, mouth dry, heart pounding, chest tight, skin prickling. Lightheaded and dizzy, like the world was a rug that had suddenly been yanked out from under his feet.

He’d hunker down on the ground, clutching his head in his hands, and count blades of grass, or identify bird calls, or focus on the feel of damp earth beneath his trousers and the breeze on his skin until he calmed down again.

Sometimes he’d shut his eyes, but that was a mistake: when he shut his eyes, he saw the fire, and his neighbors staring at him in shock, or he saw the dark woods and Katherine sprawled on the ground. The image, whatever it was, would loom up before him, surround him, crash over him, until he was gasping and clutching at the grass and terrified to open his eyes again, because what if he opened his eyes and it was still there? What if he was back there, back then, but nothing had changed, and he had two hundred lonely, miserable years ahead of him?