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The
door of the car opens and Sam gently leads Claudia up and out.

“Feeling okay, babe?”
he asks.

“Yes,” she says, eyeing
the yard with trepidation.

“Sam, I really don’t
want to be back here. Can we please stay somewhere else? Or at least put the
house on the market?” she says.

“Honey, I took care of
it. I promise,” Sam says confidently.

For the first time in
so many years, he feels closure.

“But how?” Claudia asks.

“Just trust me. I’m
taking care of you and the baby and I will never let anything happen to you,”
he responds.

“Okay,” Claudia says.

But he can tell she’s
still not convinced.

“I’ll make a deal with
you. Give me a month, and if you are nervous or uncomfortable at all by the end,
then I will do whatever you want. I will move,” he says.

She smiles.

Sam takes out the
infant carrier and looks at his baby daughter, so beautiful and precious.

He thinks of Ainsley
and her pain and longing to have a child, but pushes it out of his mind.

It’s time to move on.

Inside the house,
Claudia feels a change.

“Something’s different,”
she says.

Sam smiles, but it
freezes on his face as he feels an unexpected chill run across the back of
neck. He turns quickly to find the source—

It’s just an open
window. He chuckles to himself quietly.

They bring the baby
upstairs to her nursery, but Sam still feels a chill in the air.

Claudia has missed the
rocking chair.

They lay the little
girl in her cradle and watch her drift off to sleep in her new room.

Moon cradle…

After making sure she’s
settled, they move to the living room, placing baby monitors nearby.

Claudia asks him
directly, “Sam, what did you do?”

“I talked to her,” he
says.

“What?” Claudia asks,
shocked.

“I resolved things
within myself, Claudia—that’s really where it all starts and ends. I
needed closure. That’s all you need to know,” he said.

“But, how did
you—?”

“I just…did,” he interrupts.

Claudia is quiet for a
while.

“Sam, can I ask you a
question?” she says.

“Yes.” He already knows
what she needs to hear.

“Did you sleep with
her?” Claudia asks.

The night. The dark.
Her skin. Her sighs. Her need. Her love. Their love.

He winces with
emotional and physical pain.

“Yes,” he says,
quietly. “Only once…on the day she killed herself.”

“What?” she responds
incredulously.

“I think she’d planned
to kill me. None of that day was planned. But it happened. And I do think she
truly loved me. I think she killed herself to spare me,” Sam admits.

I wish she had not spared
me again
, Sam thinks
resignedly.

Claudia turns to the
wall to prevent Sam from seeing the white-hot rage flaring in her eyes.

She sits in a plush
armchair, and, in the same motion that’s brought her comfort for the last few
weeks, rocks.

The sound and sight
unnerve Sam. It’s too methodical…too manic.  He attempts to justify what
he’s done. And what he has not said.

“She had a tough life,
Claudia. Her husband left her because she was unable to carry a child to term.
She miscarried twice,” Sam explains.

Thinking of her baby
sleeping upstairs, Claudia forces herself to be quiet.

She imagines Ainsley’s
spirit watching this happy family unfold in her house—the house all her
dead dreams are buried in.

“I’m sorry for her,”
she says.

But maybe she
is
a monster,
Sam thinks.

Claudia’s arms are
wrapped around herself, and she rocks.

Moon cradle…

Maybe we’re all
crazy.

The baby monitor is
turned down low enough that they don’t hear the chair rocking in the nursery.

It’s
been weeks since the baby came home.

The family spends
time together, harvesting the vegetables from my yard.

They take walks on
my long driveway.

Claudia has taken to
my house—though she still jumps at creaks and noises.

Today they are having a
party.

I watch from the
hill.

It must be the baby
girl’s Christening.

I want to be there,
but there’s no place for me.

There never has
been.

Sam is happy.  He
is in the sun w
here he belongs. His hair shines in the sun. His laughter
is summer.

The sun hurts my eyes.

I can hear him
laughing. His laugh is warm, like a flame.

He talks with his
friends. Everyone loves Sam.

“Doesn’t it feel weird,
man, living here?” one of them asks.

“Why?” Sam retorts.

“Well, come on, you
know,” the friend says, gesturing to the backyard and the gravestones that are
now an accepted part of the yard’s landscape.

“Nah, we’re used to it
now,” Sam responds.

“I don’t know. I could
never get used to that,” the friend says.

Claudia approaches out
of the corner of Sam’s eye and he gives his friend a pointed look. “Drop it,”
he says.

The friend drops it.

Claudia hugs Sam and
hands him another beer.

“Having fun, honey?”
she says.

“Yes—the best
time,” he says.

My fingers dig into
my palms.

I watch them cut the
cake.

The baby is passed from
one set of loving arms to another.

I wish they were
mine. I wish
she
were mine.

I feel the
Blacksmith standing behind me. He puts his strong hands on my shoulders.

A wild wind whips
through the party, knocking over paper goods and causing party guests to
scramble after them.

Behind me, the
Blacksmith smiles.

I watch
Sam—happy, laughing, carrying on a life without me.

I watch the healthy,
cooing baby.

I sometimes visit at
night, but I don’t rock her like Jessie does.

I just watch.

And wait.

Because Sam is
wrong.

I am patient. I can
love. But there’s no question about it, regardless of Sam’s romantic, angelic
vision of me—I am a monster.

Oh, did I tell you
the baby’s name?

If you’re quiet, you
can hear it in the wind that rustles unexpectedly through the party—the
breeze that causes Claudia to shudder with a chill.

Sam pauses for a
moment and listens.

“Ainsley…”

Her name is Ainsley.

And we are waiting.

One
day—soon—she will be mine.

Just like me, her
name is Ainsley

And she will live
among the dead.

“
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against
its hills, holding darkness within; it has stood so for eighty years and might
stand eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors
were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood
and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

—The Haunting
of Hill House,

Shirley Jackson

A baby bird fell. It toppled from
the nest and was caught in string its mother had gathered for nesting. Now it
hangs, rotting on a tiny gallows. It drifts in the breeze. Each day, it rots
away more.

I rock in time to the swaying of the baby bird’s dying.

My gray hair is in braids.

I am an old woman.

The air smells of winter, but it will not imprison me this
time.

I will be gone long before.

Emily Dickinson’s words echo within me—I, too, am a
lonely woman bearing the brunt of these bitter New England winters.

And I, for one, am tired.

I rock. Back and forth.

The empty nest, its occupants long flown, have forgotten
about the rotting baby bird.

Much like the world has forgotten about me.

I rock. Back and forth.

Unlike Dickinson, there will be no immortality for me.

God has forgotten me, too.

The driveway is overgrown now—you can’t see it from
the road. Not even if you try to look for it.

And you won’t.

You shouldn’t.

Death has stopped on this hill for many.

I am the last.

My last garden dies on the wall.

The dirt still lingers under my yellowed fingernails.

I futilely can my tomatoes and dutifully make jams and
jellies.

But they are in the pantry.

I won’t go in the cellar anymore—that’s where I hear
them.

I can’t escape it—where I have been, where I have gone,
what I have done.

I am ready for it to be over.

The sun is setting in the distance—and I shield my
eyes from it.

I never belonged in the sunlight.

The night calls—my darkness welcomes me.

Don’t worry for me; I am not afraid.

I am where I belong.

A dark cloud swallows its beacon of light just as death
swallows my last breath.

Finally.

I am but a shadow across the moon’s rebirth.

When it is very quiet, listen in the dark—through the
night’s wind—for my whispers.

I am Jessie.

I am Lila.

I am the Blacksmith.

I am Ainsley.

My name is Susan.

And in your darkest winter night…

We live on within you.

September 7, 2015

Susan
Shultz is a writer/journalist living in Wilton, Connecticut, with her husband
and two children. Susan is the editor of 
The Darien Times
,
 a Hersam Acorn newspaper located in
Darien, Connecticut.

You can find Susan on
Twitter,
@SusnShultz
, or on her blog:
https://susanshultz.wordpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

F
ull Fathom Five Digital is an imprint of Full Fathom Five

Tales From
the Graveyard: The Complete Collection       

Copyright ©
2015 by Susan Shultz

All rights
reserved.

No part of
this text may be used or reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of
brief quotations in review, without written permission from the publisher.

For
information visit Full Fathom Five Digital, a division of Full Fathom Five LLC,
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Cover design
by Fiona Jayde

ISBN #
978-1-63370-090-1

First Edition