Page 64 of Poe: Nevermore

For a long time, I just stared up at his tormented countenance, my eyes wet with searing hot tears. Then, I looked away in shame. I wrenched my hand from his and wrapped my arms around myself in self-loathing and pain, my shredded stomach screaming in protest against my sobs. Slowly, Frost gathered me into his arms, holding me as tightly to him as he could. Softly, oh so softly, he brushed his thumb soothingly against my upper arm. After a long time, I gasped, “He tried. After I found out about the affair. She left him…she left him and he…took it out on me. He tried to….” I broke off and shook my head violently, screaming once in agony and self-disgust. “I fought him off. I fought him off and he cut my neck with a hot knife. He said if I told, he’d come back and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. And he’d shoot me.”

“You were fifteen?”

I nodded. I couldn’t see through my tears and was glad. I never wanted to see anything again. If I went blind, would the images in my mind go away? Is it possible to forget those things?

If blindness would make the images fade, I would claw my eyes out without a moment’s hesitation.

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The next morning, I woke up early beside Frost. He was still fast asleep and I watched him for a while. Supposedly people look younger and more peaceful when they are asleep. Wrinkles lined Frost’s forehead and mouth and his muscles were tight, as if he were listening for intruders, ready to grab his gun. He looked to be fifty years old.

I left him to shower, then brushed my teeth and put on a thin swipe of mascara. That done, I dressed in a pair of black slacks along with a simple black turtleneck and black boots, my best outfit and one I wore rarely for fear of injury to any of the pieces. In the kitchen, I found a pad of paper and wrote a note for Frost that I left on the pillow beside him.

I stopped at a flower shop and, with the last of the tips I had collected several weeks back at the restaurant, bought a dozen long-stemmed roses that the florist had dyed to a deep shade of purple. I had never seen anything like them in real life; only in my nightmares. With the roses tucked in my arm and my pockets clean of any trace of money, I started down the street again.

I had decided to spend Christmas with my family.

It was a long walk from Frost’s apartment to the cemetery, but I had all day. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to be. It was Christmas Day and nearly everyone else in the country was going to be ripping open presents and cutting up turkeys with all their relatives. I would not be among them. I was no one’s relative.

Over an hour’s walk later, I stood before the wrought iron gates of the cemetery. It was a picturesque Christmas morning, like something out of a movie. Through the bars of the gate, I could see the graveyard and a light dusting of sparkly white snow laid atop the headstones and the path through the grounds. Large, soft snowflakes slowly dropped from a white sky and caught in my hair and on my coat.

I stepped into the cemetery and respectfully closed the gate behind me. Then I walked solemnly down the path, my footsteps leaving shallow prints in the fresh snow. I had not visited the cemetery in ages. Obviously, I had been here for the Frosts’ funerals, but I had not come to visit in a long time. It felt strangely like coming home. Maybe there is something wrong with feeling at home in a graveyard, but to me it made perfect sense. Cemeteries were always peaceful and quiet. Everyone you talked to listened to what you had to say and did not contradict you or think badly of you. No one there would ever hurt you. To me, it was the safest, sanest place in the world.

It did not take long to find the Frosts. A large marble statue of a cross had been erected with the last name in the center, before which each family member was lined up with individual plots and stones. There were a few plots open to each side of the Frost memorial and, though my stomach twisted at the thought, I knew one was waiting for Caleb Frost when the time came.

I unwrapped the roses from their bouquet and knelt first before the stone marked as Jerry Michael Frost. Reverently, I laid the first rose at the base of the headstone and bowed my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you well and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked you. I don’t like controlling people. But I think you were a good man. I think you just wanted what was best for your family and for Frost.”

Moving to the next stone, I bit my lip sadly and laid a rose before Anneliese Lyn Frost. “You were one of the sweetest women I ever met and probably ever will meet,” I whispered to Mrs. Frost. “What I didn’t realize until too late was that under all that sweetness, you were strong like me. Losing Anastasia must’ve been your worst nightmare, but you pulled your family through it somehow. They never healed, but the fact that they survived at all is a testament to you. Most people would’ve known you for your baking, but you were a hero, too.”

Swallowing back tears, I went on to Madelyn Anneliese Frost and gave her the next rose. “Maddi…I’m so sorry, sweetie. I wanted you to believe in something better. I wanted you to have hope. I’d give anything to give you that, but I can’t. I’m so sorry, honey.”

Next came Ryan Gerald Frost. “I didn’t know you well, Ryan, but I know you loved your family, even your sisters, more than I could ever begin to imagine.” I gave a sad half smile, but it faded immediately when I moved to the next stone, Katrina Lyn Ann Frost. I tightened my eyes and mouth into a grimace as I laid the rose across her grave.

“Oh God, Trina…. Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. I wish…” I shook my head and sat back on my feet before her headstone, resting my hand on her name etched into the marble. “There are all kinds of things I wish. I wish you didn’t have to watch your sister Anna die. I wish you didn’t have to watch your brother torture himself over that. I wish you could’ve been a normal little eleven-year-old girl. Not like me. I wish to God you didn’t have to be so much like me.” Tears began to fall over my cheeks, icy in the December air. “As hard as it is to think with you being so beautiful and graceful, inside you’re just like I am, aren’t you? You were so much older than eleven. You didn’t really get a childhood, did you, sweetie? Believe me, I know. And I wish that could’ve been different. I wish you…I wish you didn’t have to die like you did. I wish you could’ve lived to be an old woman going to her granddaughters’ ballet recitals. And…” I shook my head, finally letting the tears stream down my face and the sobs come. “I wish you were here. To tell me what to do. I don’t know, Trina. I don’t have a clue. I guess that’s what made us different. You still believed in love. I don’t know what that is. I don’t think I’d know it if it hit me between the eyes. And…I’m so scared. I’m so scared, Trina, of finally finding out what love is and then losing it all again. I’ve lost so much, been hurt so badly…I don’t know if I can risk being hurt again. I don’t know if I could heal again. But I also don’t know if I’m even capable of feeling enough that I could get hurt. Trina, I’m just an empty shell. Pain and sadness and loss…that’s all I am. I’m cold and hollow, like a ghost. Is there anything there to love? Anything capable of love? I don’t know! God, I’d give anything to have you back, just so you could tell me, because I know you were just a little girl, butyou knew.” I wiped my eyes and shook my head, brokenly whispering, “I know you knew. I just wish you’d told me. I told Frost I don’t know what I believe in when he asked about my faith, but the truth is I don’t know if I’m capable of believing. In anything. I need your guidance. Give me a sign, any kind of sign. Then you can rest in peace for the rest of eternity and shoo me to Hell for disturbing you, but please. I need you.”

I leaned forward and softly kissed the top edge of the headstone, like I’d kiss her forehead. “I loved you like my own baby sister, Trina. I want you to know that. Please help me this one last time, then sleep tight, sweetheart.”

Standing, I turned, hurriedly wiping the remaining tears from my cheeks. My brow creased and I knelt once more before another headstone titled Anastasia Genevieve Frost. I hadn’t noticed her headstone at the funerals, but it made sense that it wouldn’t have registered. I was too busy coping with the grief and guilt. I laid one more rose on her grave and struggled for words. Finally, I found some. “I never knew you, but I know you meant a lot to Frost. You have to know what your death did to him. He still hasn’t forgiven himself. Please help him to let you go. Don’t let him torture himself anymore.” I frowned curiously. “I would give anything to know what you tried to tell him before you died, when you screamed his name. What did you mean to say? Were you going to try to help him? Tell him to protect Trina? Give him your last words? Tell him you loved him?” I sighed and stood. “I guess we’ll never know, but please give him closure. Rest in peace, Anna.”

I continued down the row only a few plots to a grouping of smooth marble headstones, near which a wrought iron chair had been placed long ago. Time had sunken the feet of the chair into the earth. Walking slowly down the aisle, I laid a purple rose beneath each of the four stones, my brother, my sister, my mother and my father. Then, keeping the last two roses of the dozen in my hand, I sat down on the wrought iron chair near my family. It was a little twisted, I suppose. You could probably compare the line of headstones and me next to it in the chair to the rest of the people of Baltimore lined up at fancy dinner tables, cutting into their Christmas turkeys. But this was my family’s Christmas. This was all that was left of that tradition for us now and I was going to hold on to it.

Twirling the roses between my fingers, I looked out at the cemetery stretched before me as I began to talk to my family. I did this every time I visited, talked to them as if they were sitting in chairs next to me instead of sleeping six feet under. It was a little like therapy, a little like the family time I’d never had. I told them everything. After I’d get teased at school as a kid, I had come here every time. After I found out about Mr. Aaron’s affair and after he’d attacked me, I came straight here, the carved letter ‘A’ on my neck still bleeding. And every time, it had worked. Even after Lex, after telling my parents and my older siblings what he had done and what I had failed to do, I had felt a weight lift from my shoulders and had been able to breathe again. Because I knew that, dead or not, my family was supporting me and helping me and loving me from wherever they were.

“I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been here,” I began. “A lot of things have changed. I know about the Edgar Allan Poe stuff. I don’t know everything…I don’t think I ever will, but I know who I am and what that means. I know you bore the same curse as I do now. I have all the letters and manuscripts now and I’m looking through them for some help, some clues, I don’t know. Some answers, I guess. I think I’m just going to find more questions, though.

“This place has been Hell on earth for the past few weeks and I know it has something to do with the curse, but I don’t know what I can do about it. I can’t begin to tell you how much I wish I could stop it, but I can’t. I don’t know what I’m doing. How can he expect me to be able to do this?” I asked in frustration. “A month ago I didn’t even know I was related to him, but now I’ve got the blood of five people on my hands? And it’s only the beginning!”

I stopped, tightened my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I know there’s nothing shouting will do to help, but I’m just feeling so overwhelmed. Things will get better now, though, right? I mean, could they honestly get much worse?”

After that, I told them about my fears for Liz and Justin, about Trina and all the others that we’d already lost. I told them about Mr. Aaron. And I told them about Frost. I still didn’t have the slightest idea what to make of Frost and where we stood. What did that mean? Just like I had with Trina, I asked my family for guidance.

I think they wanted me to figure it out myself and let things happen, whatever those things were.

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I spent the entire morning at the cemetery, not necessarily talking constantly to my companions six feet under, sometimes just enjoying the peace and quiet. It was nearly one o’clock when I recognized Frost approaching me through the cemetery. He walked slowly past my family’s plots to stand beside me, looking down at the headstones. Finally, he said quietly, “You have two left.”

“Yes,” I whispered, gazing down into the petals of the roses. “But to tell you the truth, I have a feeling I’ll be short more than that by the time this is over.”

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