I wanted to scramble to my feet, hurry from the cemetery and never look back.
The ghost’s childish trickery disturbed me in a way I didn’t yet understand. I found myself once again reaching for my talisman, but the key was gone. Frantically, I clutched my neck while tracking the mischievous entity. She giggled again before fading back into the shadows.
I was still crouched on the ground with my gaze pinned to the spot where the ghost had vanished when I realized someone had come upon me. Not a ghost this time, but a human presence. I didn’t jump at the intrusion. I’d learned long ago to keep my nerves steady, so I took only a moment to recover my poise as I turned slowly toward the cemetery.
A man dressed in a faded black jacket and tattered jeans stood no more than five feet from me, head slightly cocked as he observed me with surly indifference. I had never met him before, but I recognized him from the description I’d been given by my contact in the group that had hired me. His name was Prosper Lamb and he was the cemetery caretaker, a term I used loosely in his case because not much care had been given to Woodbine over the past several decades. The grounds were overgrown and littered with trash, the graves in bad need of weeding. He hadn’t even bothered to pick up the empty beer bottles at the entrance, making me wonder how he managed to keep his job. I’d been told he lived across the road so perhaps proximity was the only requirement.
His gaze on me deepened and I suppressed another shudder as I took in his countenance. I guessed his age to be around forty, but a hard life had carved deep lines in his face. A scar at his neck and another across the back of his hand hinted at a violent past. He was tallish and lean with a hairline that had receded into a deep widow’s peak. He hadn’t said a word to alert me of his presence or to put me at ease. I had a feeling he enjoyed my discomfort.
I got quickly to my feet as I brushed off my jeans. “Mr. Lamb, isn’t it?”
“You must be the restorer,” he said in a countrified drawl. “They said you’d be stopping by today.”
“Amelia Gray.” I offered my hand, but then let it fall back to my side when I saw that his attention was already diverted.
He nodded to the ground at the base of the tomb where I had risen. “Looked like something knocked the wind out of you just now.”
“Nothing so dramatic. My shoelaces tangled in a vine and I tripped.”
“They’re everywhere,” he grumbled. “Briars, ivy, swamp morning glory. Pull one up, half a dozen more grow back in its place. No offense, ma’am, but this seems like a mighty big job for such a small woman.” His eyes narrowed as he gave me a cool appraisal.
“I appreciate your concern, but I assure you I’m up to the task.” I returned his frank assessment. “And what is it you do around here, Mr. Lamb?”
He merely shrugged at my pointed question. “They call me the caretaker, but I don’t touch the graves. Not anymore. These days I’m more of a watchman. I keep an eye on things. Chase away the riffraff that has a tendency to gravitate to places like this.” He put his hand on his waist, pushing back the wool jacket so that I could glimpse the gun he wore at his hip.
The knowledge that he was armed and quite possibly dangerous did nothing to put me at ease in his presence. I couldn’t help noting the isolation of our surroundings. Despite our nearness to the hustle and bustle of downtown Charleston, I doubted a car had strayed this way in a very long time.
His expression turned sardonic as he continued to watch me. His speech cadence and manner of dress put me in the mind of an old-time traveling preacher, also not reassuring.
“You’re off the beaten path and not in the safest part of town,” he warned. “If you run into trouble, just holler. I’ll be around.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lamb, but I don’t anticipate any trouble.”
“No one ever sees it coming. And you can call me Prosper. Or Prop. We’ll likely be seeing a lot of each other if you don’t get scared off.”
“Scared off by what?”
He grinned, displaying a toothy overbite. “Cemeteries can be frightening places, ma’am.”
“Not to a cemetery restorer.”
He shrugged, letting his jacket fall back into place as his gaze moved to the stone crib behind me. “That one there...she’s a strange one.”
For one crazy moment, I thought he meant the ghost and I glanced over my shoulder in dread. Then I realized he referred to the stone crib and the portrait of the dead child. “There’s no name on the monument. Do you know who she was?”
“Never heard tell,” he said. “But that’s not the only grave in here without a name. Woodbine is where the well-to-do used to bury their secrets.”
“What do you mean?”
His gaze turned sage. “Their bastards and mistresses, if you’ll pardon my language. People they kept on the fringes of their lives. They erected all these fine monuments to honor the dead, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t give them their names. So they laid them to rest here in Woodbine, close enough to visit but separate from the respectable family plots in Magnolia Cemetery.”
“I never knew that,” I said, intrigued in spite of myself.
“Now you do. Who do you think pays me to watch over them?”
“I assume the same trust that hired me.”
He leaned in. “Who do you think sits on the board? Who do you think made the donation to restore this place? Years and years go by and all of a sudden someone is mighty interested in getting this place cleaned up. That doesn’t strike you as curious?”
“Not at all. The neighboring cemeteries have been undergoing revitalization for years.”
“Maybe that’s all it is,” he said. “Then again, maybe someone has developed a guilty conscience.”
I knew better than to encourage his gossip, but I couldn’t help myself. “Who?”
“Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” He lifted his head to sniff the air. “Smell that?”
I took a quick breath, drawing in the lingering scent that had been stirred by the ghost. “You mean the woodbine?”
“Nah, that stuff won’t bloom again until next spring. I smell something dead.”
My gaze darted inadvertently to the spot where the ghost had vanished.
Prosper Lamb walked all around the tomb, testing the air like a bloodhound. “It’s fresh. Barely any rot. But I’m never wrong about that smell. I’ve had a nose for dead things since I was a kid.”
My senses had evolved along with my gift, but evidently he was even more sensitive than I was. I didn’t smell anything.
“Are you the superstitious type?” he asked suddenly.
“Not really. Why?”
“You’re not bothered by corpse birds?”
“Corpse birds?”
“That’s what my mama used to call dead birds found on or near graves. She claimed they were signs.” As he talked, he reached inside the crib bed and carefully parted the purple blossoms. A second later, he extracted a dead crow, holding it up by the claws so that he could assess the glistening carcass. Even in the shade, I could see the sheen of black feathers and the dull glint in its beady eyes. There was something odd about the way the head dangled...
“Still warm,” he said. “Must have just happened.”
Foreboding tingled through