Page 33 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
“Okay, okay, I need a minute.” I stopped the rider from saying anything else so I could think. He stood his ground, unmoving, seemingly uncaring now if it was held against its will. Or maybe it was all a ruse. Twisted spirits could be clever. The Tewberry twins are prime examples. I turned to face Phil and the people watching the livestream, chewing on my lower lip as I pondered. “The rider says it was brought forth by a patient. Did anyone out there discover the employment records?” I asked.
I watched as Phil listened to Tray speak into his ear while I listened to the undead. I wagered Tray had a far warmer voice.
“No, nothing. Seems the records were sealed when the place went under,” Phil explained.
“Hmm, okay, that’s not surprising.” I shoved my hand into my front right pocket to juggle the gris-gris while I thought. “I’m assuming the patient who brought forth this resurrected wraith did not use a name, as that would have given the spirit too much power over its creator.”
“We can maybe look for patient records Tray says,” Phil offered.
“They can look, but I’m sure those were sealed as well to protect the wealthy. There may be a list somewhere of the indigents sent here, but that’s also a long shot since many of them were used as lab rats.” The sound of whispers from those gathered tickled my ears. “Sorry, not rats, but experiments,” I apologized over my shoulder, then went back to chewing on my lip. “We’ll have to verify if what he says is true about the mass grave first, I think. Then that will lend some credence to what he is telling us.” Phil bobbed his head, eager to get out of this damn place and out into the clear air. I, on the other hand, was not as keen to take a stroll through the graveyard. I spun to speak to the ghosts, but they were gone. All of them—poof. “Okay, well, we’re not going to ask the phantoms that were here, as they’ve all left. So, you stay there.” I pointed to the towering male form in the blue circle.
“As if I would not have left if I could have done so.” Good point. Still, it needed saying.
“While the tech team is searching for patient records or death certificates that were supposed to be filed, Phil and I are going to step outside and see if we can find any kind of evidence of a mass grave.”
We left the game room, leaving the rider pacing its confines but not sending out aggressively upset vibes. He seemed to be patient. When one was bound to a place for who knew how long, one learned restraint.
Phil and I made our way outside, the glow of ghostly forms moving along with us, Timothy among them. They stopped just at the doorway. Residentiary ghosts then. Stepping outside felt liberating in many ways, but the heaviness still lingered on my heart.
“What do you think?” Phil asked, pausing to shine a light on the snow-coated grounds and then bringing the camera back to me.
“I think we need to investigate the cemetery before we go back to speak with the rider again. If there are spirits who can corroborate his story about a mass grave, then we have to follow that to its conclusion.”
“Which means what?”
I started walking, stepping into snow about a foot high, wishing I did not have to do this. Graveyards were always so overwhelming. So many spirits that wanted to be heard.
“Which means we speak to a few residents, find out if they know of a communal grave, and then we turn that over to the proper authorities. Because if the staff here just chucked people into a hole without any identification, that’s beyond horrid.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s really terrible.” Phil crunched along at my side, his longer legs making the trek through knee-deep snow a little easier.
We moved through overgrown gardens, arches and trellises with last summer’s wild roses hanging off them, brown and frozen. We picked a path through some trees, tall stately pines that gave us some protection and less snow to tramp through. Neither of us was especially talkative. What the hell could you say at a time like this? Being witty seemed crass. Spouting out supernatural tidbits felt gross. So we just pushed on, around the back of the massive structure, until we found an acre or so with a dilapidated fence around several dozen headstones. Heavy clouds blew by, shaking snow from the boughs behind us. Stone angels, wings unfurled, watched us approach.
I could see them already, spirits, sensing a seer, levering themselves from their burial plots to move closer. A few men, but many women of all shapes and sizes. All pale as the moon glow falling down on us. Most of the phantoms were well-dressed in clothing of their particular eras. Top hats, derbies, corseted gowns, bustles, all that jazz.
I stopped ten or so feet shy of the fence. They floated closer, curious as cats. My headache was reaching a good level eight on the pain scale sheet you found at the doctor’s office. Nothing OTC would relieve either. Ah, the joys of being a psychic.
“Hello,” I called out. Many gasped. Some drew back. A tall gent with a slapping handlebar mustache pressed through the crowd of stymied specters to come to the fence.
“What matter of living being are you that you can speak to us?” he demanded, bristling up like a rooster. “I’ll have you know that I was not only a duly elected representative of this fine state, but I also was quite the pugilist. So if you’re here to indulge in some sort of rowdiness, I shall be forced to give you a sound thrashing!”
He held up two beefy fists. I turned to Phil and the viewers. “Okay, so there is some big guy in a trilby hat and a killer handlebar mustache threatening to engage in fisticuffs with me if I’m here to engage in any rowdy manner.” I had to smile. “He claims to be a state rep, so if anyone out there would like to check this dude out…”
“Do not speak to your hired hand as if I am not here, you upstart!” he barked, bringing my attention back to the well-to-do patients who were eyeing us up with concern.
“Okay, so for starters, this is my boyfriend and not my hired hand,” I hurried to explain. Two women fainted right out of existence. Several more gasped. Two men sputtered. And Beefy Mitts lowered his fists to fish out a monocle attached to a gold chain. He leaned over the fence as much as he dared, bound to the cemetery as he was.
“You don’t look like a fairy sort of man. Well, your boyfriend doesn’t, but perhaps you do have the gilt of a molly now that I see you more clearly.”
“Right. Enough with the slurs,” I asked as the crowd whispered amongst themselves, several of the female phantomspulling out fans to cool their shocked faces. “Can you tell me if there’s a burial site for the indigent on this property?”
He squinted at me through his monocle for a moment, furry brows knitted, clearly unsure if he should speak to a man who enjoyed the company of other men. Old ghosts could be so bigoted.
“And why should we tell a deviant such as you?” Beefy Mitts asked. I threw my hands up and started to stalk off. “Hold now! You! Oriental sodomite. Surely you have been trained to listen to your betters!”
I held up a cold middle finger as I thundered on. Phil was wide-eyed as he jogged easily to catch up to me. “That’s not at all the way to reply to a man of my station. I’ll have you know I am quite the liberated man. I’ve employed several freed—”
“Sir! Sir! The grave…it’s behind the incinerator outbuilding!” a woman called out. I stopped and turned and saw a slim young woman with a parasol standing by the gate to the cemetery. Gaunt to the extreme, more skeletal than human phantom, her death was either the result of starvation or an eating disorder. Many women were locked up with “female hysteria,” which, yeah, is a pretty broad term that men used to cover a multitude of medical issues in women. “They took children there, little ones. It wasn’t right. Not even if they were Negro or Catholic.”
