excerpt Sins Of Angels

Another excerpt from an unpublished work.... tomorrow a full story of scares! But that will not be my own. 

The cold fingers of the tombstones clutched at the darkening skies as if in warning of the coming abomination. The crosses once whitewashed now leaned together in a wretched purgatory of gray neglect and misuse. The cemetery seemed to shiver beneath the icy shadows of Black Golgathia Castle. And although the vast city of Lotus Shire shuddered under the castle’s threat, the graveyard seemed to nearly convulse at its presence.

Unprotected by the loving arms of the great elm lie a grave forgotten. This person had been buried well away from the other plots. This grave stood as alone in death as the occupant had stood in life. While others had been buried in a direction opposite the menacing castle, this poor soul had been buried as if facing the desolate building, for none but the mad could look upon it and in her life Elizabeth Ness had been quite, quite mad indeed.

It was said that as a child she had burned down the schoolhouse, with her classmates still inside. It was said that she had conversed with the unclean spirits that while away the hours in cobwebs. It was said in some parts that she was a witch and in still others that she had been the wife of the devil himself. It was said that she had killed her own daughter. It was said that she was a mental patient. It was said that she was a victim. It was said that she was a martyr. Many things were said of Elizabeth… but only the long, dead shadows of the castle knew the truth for sure.

She was no longer a threat. She was no longer able to lure children to their fiery deaths nor smite newborns with cursed deformities. Her powers had died with her. To the people of Lotus Shire if that meant that the truth about her had died also then so be it. Fine! Fine… so long as she was good and dead.

The wind became frost when it pushed its warm breath upon her tombstone and in the skies a storm seemed to gather above her grave, even in the most agreeable weather. When the wind bellowed loudly and screamed her name, no one was near enough to notice… for no one mourned her. When the veiled figure of a young woman passed through the dark fog that gathered itself above her plot… not one visitor to the cemetery noted it, for they stood always with their backs to her grave. When a voice whispered across the grave, they refused to hear. They refused to hear the voice that murmured, “Arise dear Mother, for I have need of you.”

When the soil split apart and spit up her body not a soul stirred to turn in the direction of the grave. They dared not turn after 200 years. They dared not turn and face the truth… for the truth is sometimes ugly. And as it has always been the truth refuses to stay buried for very long.