Graveyard Kids

Graveyard Kids

K. Osborn Sullivan

Copyright K. Osborn Sullivan 2013

Published by Kissing Frog Books at Smashwords

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Dedication:

For Lois A. Metcalf

November 22, 1847 - April 28, 1927

Cover design by Book Graphics

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any similarity to actual events, locations, or people, living or dead, is coincidental.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my husband Chris for liking old cemeteries as much as I do and taking long walks with me in the one near our house. When the Realtor first showed us this property, she seemed apologetic as she explained that there was a graveyard next door. Apparently that's something a lot of homebuyers shy away from. But not us. Chris and I were thrilled. We had the world's best neighbors! They were quiet, wouldn't mind if we occasionally made noise, and wouldn't complain if our pets sometimes explored outside our own backyard. The cemetery also promised a place to walk and learn about the history of our new hometown.

Also, many thanks to my Cousin Arnetia, the Osborn Family genealogy expert. She sent me some excellent tips on researching genealogy, which was something I knew nothing about. She very generously shared her vast knowledge on the subject with a clueless distant relative.

Both the Circuit Clerk's and County Clerk's offices in Kane County, Illinois provided me with the records I needed to complete my genealogical search and answered a lot of my questions. And since I was completely new to this subject, I had plenty of questions. I also got help with cemetery records from the Dundee Township Historical Society. Sallie Hane with the Society even sent me a fascinating document related to my search. It was key to unlocking the mystery I was researching.

Finally, many thanks to Scott Kaufman, an attorney and fellow author who answered my questions about probate.

I'm so grateful to everyone who offered assistance while I was writing this book. I learned a lot and managed to complete the manuscript I'd envisioned. Thanks!

Chapter 1

I spent the summer before seventh grade thinking about dead people. Maybe it's understandable since my family lived in a cemetery and I didn't have any actual living friends to keep me busy. But looking back, it was probably a little strange. Of course, lots of strange things happened that summer. It was years ago, but my brother and I still talk about how we teamed up to solve a mystery. The only problem is that those conversations make me feel guilty because my brother doesn't know the whole story behind our mystery. I've never told anyone the whole story. Part of me is afraid they wouldn't believe me. Another part is afraid they would.

Creepy! This one died the same day as you, Viv! Boris called.

That got my attention. I hurried over to where my little brother squatted in front of a crooked tombstone. Boris's hands were cupped over his dirty knees, and he was grinning up at me. I could see his tongue through the gap left by a missing tooth.

I knelt in the grass next to him and read the hundred-year-old headstone. Oh, you mean she died on my birthday, I said.

Yeah, that's what I meant, he agreed.

October 4. It is strange to see my birthday written on a grave, I said. It says her name was Sarah Fields. And she was young. Born in 1871. Died in 1877. Can you tell how old she was?

Boris's brow furrowed and he worked his fingers. Math wasn't Boris's strong subject. He mostly liked gym and recess. He was pretty good at art, too, even though his stuff freaked out the teachers sometimes.

She was six! he finally cried. That's only two years younger than me. Creepy, he said again.

Remember how I said you don't need to subtract all the numbers to figure out how old most of these people were? Just subtract the one or two numbers at the end that are different, I reminded him.

My younger brother stared up at me with his mouth hanging open. I might as well have been speaking Greek.

I shrugged and turned back to the little girl's tombstone. Those must be her parents next to her. They didn't die until the 1900s, though.

Do you suppose she wanted to be buried by her parents? Boris asked. I mean, don't you think they'll bug her about keeping her grave clean and not tracking mud into her coffin after she goes out haunting?

I just shook my head. Boris had that effect on people.

At least her parents couldn't make her move anymore, he continued. No one has to go to a different cemetery once they've been buried.

The kid was weird, but sometimes he made a good point.

The rumble of an engine carried over the neatly cut cemetery grass. Boris and I turned to look. A faded red pick-up truck was pulling through the open gates of Catesville Cemetery. The truck belonged to the two brothers who were in charge of burying people.

We waved at Jose and Julio Hernandez. They waved back and kept driving to the big shed behind our house.

We have to get out of here, I told Boris with a heavy sigh. It looks like Jose and Julio are wearing clean T-shirts.

Not another funeral! Boris cried. They just had one yesterday. What's with everybody dropping dead around here, anyway?

Sure enough, the Hernandez Brothers began hauling white folding chairs out of the work shed and stacking them in the back of their battered pick-up. They would set them up around the gravesite so the dead person's family would have somewhere to sit during the funeral. Everyone else had to stand.

I figured that getting to sit down during a funeral was the only advantage to having a close relative die. Boris believed that getting to lie down during the funeral was an advantage of actually being dead.

I could see Dad on his tractor, way back in the cemetery's new section. That's where all the new graves were dug. It was far away from the blacktop road because all the really old graves were at the front of the cemetery. The new section was where Boris and I had been headed today, but now we couldn't.

We can go inside until the funeral's over, I suggested.

We both looked over at an old, two-story, red brick house huddled in the middle of the graveyard. It was the cemetery caretaker's house, and since our dad was the new Catesville Cemetery caretaker, it was home sweet home for Boris and me.

I don't want to go in, Boris whined. Mom'll make us take care of Judy, or clean the bathroom, or something stupid like that. I want to stay out here.

Let's try the old part of the cemetery at the front then, I suggested. That way we won't bother all those funeral people.

Cause some of them might decide they'd rather play with us than sit through a boring funeral, Boris added. He paused, then said, I have a better idea. Let's go to that separate part in the woods. We never go there.

The spot he was talking about was attached to the old section of the cemetery. It was on the graveyard's eastern border and was surrounded by trees on all sides. Not to sound like a coward, but the spot gave me the shivers. We couldn't see our house or the road from there. It was just us and dead people and a lot of rustling branches.

I don't know… I began slowly, but Boris cut me off.

Come on! You never want to go there, but it's the only part of this whole place that we haven't been to a thousand times. Then he went in for the kill. "What's wrong, Vivien? Are you scared?"

I'm not scared! I'm just worried about being bored.

Boris stared at me in that way he did when he didn't believe me. I was left with no choice but to go, otherwise I'd be labeled a chicken.

All right, fine, I conceded. "But if you decide you're scared, don't blame me."

We trudged toward the woods. Dad did a good job keeping the grass cut, but the old section of the cemetery was still tricky to get through if you weren't watching where you were going. Some of the headstones had toppled off their foundations and were on the ground. A lot of graves didn't have regular headstones at all, but just slabs of marble or rock that were embedded in the ground. Many were at least 100 years old – some had been there for 150 years. Sometimes when it was cloudy or just before sunset, the gray gravestones poking crookedly out of the ground made me think of rotting teeth in a giant's mouth.

I wonder what this guy looks like now, Boris mused as we passed the marker for Harold M. Jones, who had died in 1883.

Probably not too good, I said with a grimace.

When we got to the other end of the cemetery, we faced a line of woods. Boris led the way along a gravel road that punched through the trees. The opening was only ten feet wide – barely enough to drive the cemetery's tractor back there.

Once we got through a row of trees and brush, the little section opened up in front of us. We were in a separate area of the graveyard where all the graves were marked with big, expensive-looking hunks of marble or granite. A lot of them were taller than I was, and some were carved into shapes like angels or crosses.

I like it back here, Boris commented as he skipped among the stones. I can understand why people wanted to be buried in this section.

It's peaceful. You can't hear cars on the road, and when everyone else's families come to see them in the big cemetery, you wouldn't be bothered. I paused and looked around at the towering monuments. I'll bet only rich people got to be buried here.

Yeah, it's like the pyramids where they used to put Egypt's pharos, Boris told me.

I was stunned that my little brother knew anything about Ancient Egypt's kings. How do you know about pharos?

What? I read! he retorted.

No, you don't.

Okay, so I saw it in a movie, Boris admitted with a shrug. It was about a mummy who came to life and attacked people.

That was more like it.

As we argued, Boris and I wandered deeper into the isolated section. I tried not to worry about being out of sight of our house. I figured that if scrawny Boris wasn't afraid, how could I be?

We started playing one of our usual games where we would read the tombstones and try to guess what had killed the people they belonged to.

This says Mary Polk. She was born in 1838 and died in 1899. How old was she? I asked.

You know I can't do the big ones, Boris said with a scowl.

Fine. She was 61. And look around here. There are a bunch of other Polks. There's her husband, who died in 1888. And a couple of sons who died before her, too. I'll bet she died of a broken heart when she lost her family.

Viv, you're not playing fair! Dying of a broken heart isn't a real thing, Boris insisted. You have to pick something that could happen, like a horse and wagon ran her over, or her parachute didn't open.

"I don't think they had parachutes in 1899. I don't even