Conversations with the Dead

In her spare time, Miss Clara tended the cemetery behind the chuch, bringing fresh flowers, planting and re-planting borders, gathering fallen leaves and wayward tree branches. She kept a small polishing rag in her apron pocket and would go from headstone to headstone, wiping away smudges of dirt while her painted pony contendedly grazed not far away. And Clara sang while she worked, old Baptist hymns and Buddy Holly songs, show tunes she'd learned from the radio, old time gospel and forgotten blues. When she wasn't singing, she was talking - long, involved, one sided conversations with the dead - cheerfully bring them up to date on their families and island goings on, birthdays and the weather, the latest gossip and news, births and deaths and who was keeping company with who. She told of Willie Foot's latest adventures, of the revenuers and their raids on the island's well hidden stills, of what was playing at the picture show that week, Rowena's new foals and kittens, Miss Hilda's newest battle with Mr. McIntyre, and the progress of the new post office building. When she was done, she packed away her pocket knife and gardening tools, brushed the dirt off her knees and apron, and rode the painted pony home again.

Clara's house was the only one in Flower Cove. It consisted of three rooms and a tin roof and was accessible only through a path that wound its way through the dark trees for nearly a mile. John Sullivan had added the wraparound porch over several summers, hand carrying the lumber through the woods, several boards at a time and never complaining. On it, Clara kept her window boxes of flowers, tubs of ferns and ivy and spices, a matched set of rocking chairs. Several iron caldrons sat on one side and she had fashioned a clothesline on the other. A battery operated radio played continuously, other than the ever present sea birds and the far off seal colony, it was Clara's only companion. No one, save Long John Sullivan had ever seen the interior of the house and when pressed for details, he remained stoic and silent as ever.

The little house was built on the edge of the woods and Clara's front yard was coastline. We often played there, collecting shells and driftwood at low tide, racing the waves at high, gathering firewood for Clara's little wood stove while she served gingerbread. Sometimes she let us carry water from the well and would reward us with tales of shipwrecks and pirates and the ghosts that haunted the surrounding woods. They only visit at night, she would say, As a rule, ghosts are very shy. They were, so Clara told us, spirits of sailors and whiskey makers long dead and buried, A rowdy bunch, they can be, she said with a wink, always lookin' to make a mite of mischief, but mostly friendly seein' as they know I mind the graveyard.

Do you talk them, Miss Clara? we asked breathlessly, Do they talk back?

Clara smiled patiently, adjusting her long, black skirts and putting one wrinkled fingertip to her lips. Ain't nuthin' worse 'n' chatty spirit, she laughed gaily, 'Ceptin' if I was to start listenin'. And with that she turned to watch the sunset and would talk to us no more of ghosts. The painted pony grazed peacefully at the edge of the trees until Clara nodded off in her old rocking chair, then he picked his way toward the porch and stood motionless, keeping watch over the old woman as dark shadows began to stretch over the rocky sand. The path through to the woods was a shorter route home but we decided to follow the coastline instead - not that we actually believed, we told each other, it was just that a scolding seemed harmless against the unlikely possibility of waking the dead and we had not been raised to be reckless.

The painted pony watched us go with a shake of his mane and a soft whinney that sounded like goodbye.