4
Swan Point Cemetery was at the north end of Blackstone Boulevard, a very ritzy section of Providence. H.P. Lovecraft is buried in a smaller cemetery just a little further to the north, a stone's throw over the wall in Swan Point.
Nettie brought us toward the family plot but had to stop a couple of small paths away. I could see the crane that was normally used to lift the cover of the vault over a large section of the plots. A group of three angels stood guard over the section that the crane was overseeing.
Maintenance men -- known in another age as grave-diggers -- were standing around. Nettie parked the car and got out of it. At first I told her not to bother, but I glanced back at Roger. He only shrugged and got out. I was the last one.
Roger and I walked a little bit behind Nettie. I pulled out what looked like a small stick, about three to four inches long. It was the length of my palm, and I tucked my right index finger on top of it. The index finger is a finger of power, which is why it's used for pointing. It's assumed that if you point, your power would expend from that finger. That was very true.
I tucked my middle finger under the stick and rested my ring finger on top of it. The ring finger is that of Apollo, and would give added power to the index finger. With that, and the measure of my palm, I could sense disturbances at a distance easily.
We got to where one of the maintenance trucks was parked and I jerked to a stop. Nettie kept right on going. She was yelling at them. Roger stopped with me. "What is it?"
What is it? It was a slight disturbance of darkness that felt like colder air. I put my hand into it, and it was like putting my hand into a tub of cool water, that got colder the more I put my hand into it. If the limit of that darkness was here, about maybe twenty feet from the graves, then I could imagine what a chilling feeling it would be for a normal person. Even for mundanes, it would be a sense of "I don't want to stay here."
I walked the perimeter, trying to sense the extent. It bled out toward the north wall, to the other cemetery. Roger stayed close to me, and would put a hand on me to reassure me. Nettie came running over. "Did you find anything, Tam?"
I waved my free hand at her. "Shh." I walked into that cold stream of darkness.
Roger was right behind me. "Something's wrong here," he said.
"I know," I said, and followed the stream toward the wall. As I did, I looked down. There were indentations in the ground. They looked like a ball and four bars above it. I turned on Nettie. "How long were they dead?"
"Ten, fifteen years?"
I looked at the prints. "These are a skeleton's foot print."
She gasped and stepped back. I moved my hand around, trying to find if there were more footprints. I saw boot tracks, sunk deep into the mud, along with the skeleton. Then I walked sideways, trying to keep those two in sight, before I finally saw the skeleton disappear and just the boots. Before us was a thick layer of thorn bushes, used to discourage wall-jumpers. Papers, Styrofoam, and other urban trash had also been caught in the thorns, as well as clothing.
I used my left hand and grabbed at a piece of yellowish clothing. I unhooked it gingerly from the thorns, and then took in its scent.
