Drawtober 2023: Overgrown Cemetery

I’ve always quite liked the House’s cemetery. It doesn’t even seem strange to me anymore that the House has one. Of course it does. It sits on the crossroads after all. A cemetery is probably a requirement.

The sun is just starting to peak over the distant hills, tinting them a burnished gold, when I let the back door fall shut behind me with a clatter. The path is a little muddy—it rained last night—and my boots sink into the soft earth as I step off the porch. It’s late autumn, and the oak, ash, and willow trees throughout the graveyard have dusted the graves with yellow leaves. The ivy, too, has become overgrown during the summer months, twining around gravestones and mausoleums as though trying to pull them beneath the earth. I should have trimmed it back earlier in the year, but I’m not as young as I once was, and the cemetery is fairly large.

Shouldering my rake, I walk all the way to the end of the garden path, the last row of graves. These are the newest, their spirits the most restless. As I pass, the dryads that live in the trees titter and whisper, their green hair turning to brown with the oncoming cold.

“She emerges at last.”

The voice should surprise me, but I’ve long grown used to the spirits who linger in the cemetery. “Good morning, Argus,” I sigh, continuing up the walkway. The ghost—a tall, wiry man with a cap on his balding head—grins at me from where he’s appeared, perched atop his grave. He’s been buried here for seventy years or so, but hasn’t yet moved on. Not all the spirits do, not at first. That’s what the House is here for, after all. It’s the last stop.

“You’ve been neglecting us,” he says, following me. “I’ve had lichen growing in my cracks all month.” He cackles as if this is a particularly good joke.

“There’s a lot to do in the House,” I reply, reaching the end of the tombs. A few mushroom sprites, frolicking in the damp grass, go rushing off into the hedges as I draw near. “The House and its Keeper have a duty to more than the dead. We—”

“Guard the crossroads between the worlds,” Argus parrots. “You sound just like Jack. He used to say the same thing. Can’t you think of any newer phrases to lean upon?”

“Do you have something to say besides complaining about your neglect?” I ask, beginning to rake up a large pile of flame-colored leaves. The dew leftover on the grass makes the leaves stick in the rake’s teeth.

“I do, actually.” He leans forward, bracing his hands on the grave. “When are you going to move on, Keeper?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been here for nearly fifty years,” he says. “And you’ve never even talked about where you’ll go next. But you’ve got to have things you want to do, don’t you? Why not leave?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

“Well, I like it here, don’t I?” he says belligerently. “Whereas, I think you just stay because you think you have to.”

“The Keeper does not abandon their post,” I reply.

“It wouldn’t be abandoning, its—” Argus breaks off with a frustrated rumble. “Ah, never mind. Forget I said anything.” He floats off, muttering under his breath before vanishing like so much morning mist.

I keep raking, even as his words unsettle me. I have never given much thought to moving on. The House is my home, and I am the Keeper. The last Keeper to hold this position, Jack Grim, took me in when I stumbled upon this place. He trained me up to the task of maintaining it. Once that task was done, he laid down and died. I’d buried him the next day, hopeful that his spirit might come back to visit me. But it never did.

Leaning on my rake, I look around the cemetery. I can’t leave the House, I decide, until I find an apprentice. And I can’t take on a spirit or one of the fair folk. The Keeper must always be mortal. Fae and ghosts are far too flighty to stay tethered to one place for very long. But no one from the mortal realm has wandered this way—and decided to stay—for as long as I can recall.

I rake up three rows of graves before I’m out of breath, pausing to pull dead ivy from overgrown tombs. Wiping a hand over my brow, I shoulder my rake and start back up toward the house. A glass of lemonade will set me right, and then I’ll begin again. I’m halfway up the path when the whispering of the dryads stops me. They murmur urgently above my head.

Keeper, they call. Keeper, wait!

“What is it?”

Turn thine eyes to the soil, Keeper. Look to your path!

Sighing, I look down at the muddy ground, trying to parse out what they’re saying. I freeze.

In front of me is a set of boot print dug into the soft earth. Leading into the House.

I grip my rake tighter, trying to regulate my breathing. Creatures come and go from the House all the time. Another set of boot prints leading in where mine only lead out shouldn’t give me such pause. But the House usually tells me when someone new has arrived so I can greet them properly.

And these footprints aren’t coming through the front door.

“What came this way?” I demand, but the dryads have already flitted away. Setting my jaw, I march up to the porch and inside. The muddy prints track into the house, all the way to the kitchen, where I see a pair of discarded boots near the sink. My heartbeat quickens. I don’t recognize those boots at all.

“House!” I call. “House! Someone has come in uninvited. Tell me who is here without my invitation.”

The kitchen light flickers, as though the House is thinking. After a moment, I hear the chalk on the chore board move over slate. I turn to look at it, hoping for an answer.

I do not know, Keeper.

The chalk clatters to the counter. The House says nothing more.

I clench my fists. I am the Keeper of this House. I’ve watched over this place for fifty years. And now, there is something here that I did not invite in.

Shaking myself, I hurry to the stove and put the kettle on. Jack always said that every problem looked less dreadful with a cup of tea in hand. I force my shaking fingers steady as I pour a mug of chamomile tea, taking a calming sip. Looking up through the steam, I survey the sunny yellow kitchen, the well-worn counter tops and much-loved copper pots. My resolve grows greater with every sip. I am the Keeper of this House. I will find whatever got in without my say-so.

And I will make it wish it had asked for an invitation first.