The Autobiography of Gayle Hunter

In the Churchyard

...There aren't the words to describe a thing, a...to describe what you've lost.  What you've fled.  What you've feared.  All of it...

Stones stared back at me.  Their squat forms rose silently from the grass.  Waiting.

I pushed myself to better posture, staring back.

...Why had I come here?

Of all the places I could have gone...why here?

I don't know how long it was before I convinced myself to stand, and then, though every fiber of my being wanted nothing more than to walk back through the gate, out into the streets, out of Kilborough forever, my feet took me only closer, and my eyes that wouldn't close fell upon each name as I passed: one...and a step, and another...and a step, and another and a step—names I didn't know—and then—

MacCallow was there.

My progress halted as I stared at the stone.  His rough face filled my mind's eye, that constant grimace, always a complaint on his tongue: the wheel of his cart was out, or his horse had thrown a shoe, or someone's goat got into his field...  He never seemed to mind the work, though.  Too stubborn even to waste energy on proper anger.

...and here he was.  Reduced to this.

My foot stuttered on the step as I forced myself past.  Pietr was beside him.  I could hear his laugh, some distant echo in my ears, how his whole face creased with delight even at my own nonsensical jokes when I was barely old enough to reach his knee, my oversized grin in return...  I put a hand to my mouth as I found Old Ruth, her tales of the gods leaping unbidden to my mind, and I forced them away, forced myself onwards—Ivan Fletcher.  Not far past, Ivan Tanner.  Name after name that I knew, faces swimming to the forefront of my mind, all of them—all of them—

With too long a stride my toe caught my cloak and I stumbled and caught myself on hands and knees, pushing myself up—and fell back on my heels.

Marla and Bogdan Hunter.

The names stood stark against the stones, and wouldn't change, and wouldn't leave, and how I wished for tears to blur my vision!  But I sat there and stared, as stiff and still as the stones, and nothing changed at all.

They were weathered, even.  The stones.  As weathered as mine.

"How could you leave?"  I almost surprised myself, the words little more than a whisper.  "I came back," I went on.  "I came back, I kept my promise—I'm home again!"  I crawled forward to touch the stones, though my hand stopped an inch before their surface.  "How can you be gone?  What home have I returned to?"

The graves, of course, were silent.

"I love you..."  Slowly, my hand sank, until it brushed the surface—a flash of warmth.  I jolted backwards, stumbling over my cloak as it bunched behind me, and I stared at the graves, and they were silent, and the air was still, and I remained the only disturbance.  I reached forward, hesitated, continued, with trembling fingers, and touched the stone.

My mother's arms were around me.  And Papa...  We were there.  We were all there.

And then it was gone, and I was alone in the field of graves.

I sat, drawing my knees up to my chest.  "I love you," I whispered.  "I know you loved me, too.  I know I broke your hearts...too many times.  I know it hurt to love me.  ...I know you did it anyway.  You were...you were the best I could've asked for.  I think you knew that.  I hope you did."  I reached out, brushing my hand over the stones.  "I'll carry you with me," I whispered.  "Always."

The air was still.  A bird fluttered past, halting on a stone to tap at a seed it had brought there.  I listened to its pecking—a quick series, and a pause, and again, and a pause...  There was clover growing in among the moss.  And the moss itself, all shades of green and red and brown...  The thought crossed my mind to leave several times, but...where would I go?  So I stayed.  The bird left.  The sun climbed higher in the sky.  The day swelled, and ebbed, and I stayed.