Night in the Graveyard
As I rounded the sharp bend of Mountain Road, I had my first glimpse of the college campus in the valley below. With the exception of a few additional buildings on the perimeter, it looked much the same as it had the last time I saw it. When I left after graduation, I swore to myself I would never come back, yet here I was; but it had taken me twenty years to get here.
It was spring, and the eastern redbuds, which for decades had battled the French lilacs for supremacy in an annual floral beauty pageant, were proudly showing off their magenta blossoms. The park-like grounds of the small, private, all-girl college were beautiful in all seasons. Even in the dead of winter, the snow and ice—normally present from late-November to mid-March—gave the campus a timeless, Currier and Ives façade.
As I drove down Nathan Hale Boulevard toward the eighteenth century, Federal style administration building, I desperately tried not to think about the autumn of my freshman year. What had happened then nearly caused me to leave school. Only at my parents' insistence had I remained. My resolve not to recall the events of that night did little good. Whether at the forefront of my mind or lurking somewhere in my subconscious, those memories had stayed with me for twenty-three years.
I pulled into the parking lot and into a spot marked VISITORS ONLY. Although I turned off the engine, I did not immediately exit the car. Instead, I sat in the driver's seat and stared out the windshield, trying to summon the courage to return to the past.
What was I doing here? Why was I breaking my vow never to come back? Was it because my publisher felt it was good public relations to give a lecture on creative writing at my alma mater? Was it because an old friend, now head of the literature department, had issued the invitation? Or was it the need to face my fears and hopefully conquer them?
Finally, I opened the car door and got out. My legs felt like rubber as I walked across the parking lot toward the entrance to the administration building. Unlike most educational institutions in the post-Columbine world, there was little security, just a common Yale lock on the door—probably the same one that was there when I was a student.
After taking a deep breath to calm my rattled nerves, I stepped inside. Tiffany Rapalje, my old dorm roommate, was there waiting for me.
"Hello, Rena," she said as she stepped forward to greet me with a hug. "I'm so glad to see you after all these years."
Ever since agreeing to the lecture, I had been trying to come up with something clever to say when I arrived. I had considered and rejected dozens of witticisms, but when the time came for me to deliver my well-rehearsed lines, my knees gave out from under me and I fainted just like a character out of a Victorian melodrama.
* * *
"I'm sorry to cause such a fuss," I apologized once my head cleared.
"Don't be silly!" Tiffany said. "I know it must be a shock being back here after all these years. To be honest, I wasn't sure if you'd actually show up."
"It's only the second time in my life I've ever fainted."
Both women knew about the previous occasion, but neither commented on it.
"Why don't we go get a cup of coffee? It'll calm your nerves."
"Caffeine calms the nerves?" I asked with a laugh.
"Sure it does. You must have been out the day they taught that lesson in our health and nutrition class."
"Is there a Starbucks nearby?"
"Are you serious? This is Wiltshire Academy. It's as close as you can get to the Middle Ages in New England. We don't even allow boys here."
"Let me guess: the school cafeteria."
"You got it."
Since the last of the lunches had ended half an hour earlier, we had our choice of empty seats. After getting two large coffees, we headed for a table near the window.
"The place hasn't changed much," I noted.
"Neither has the food, unfortunately. The overcooked hamburgers are still as hard as hockey pucks."
I took a sip of my coffee and nearly gagged.
"You actually drink this stuff?"
"Not if I can avoid it. I keep a jar of instant in my room."
I added another pack of sugar to my cup, hoping to diminish the bitterness. It helped a little but not much.
"So, how does it feel being a bestselling author?" Tiffany asked.
It was a question that had been posed to me many times, one to which I always gave a pat answer. For some reason, I felt the need to be honest with my old friend.
"The money's good; there's no denying that. At the same time, it's a lonely profession. I spend hours every day locked away in my writing room, mentally chained to my laptop. When I'm not writing, I'm editing what I've written. And when I'm in-between books, I spend my time doing research."
"It doesn't sound like you have much time for a personal life."
"A personal life? What's that?" I laughed and then became serious. "I did have one once. In my late twenties, I was married for two years, but it ended disastrously. And before you ask: no, there were no children. What about you?"
"Not to brag, but I did better than you. My marriage lasted twelve years. Then he left me for one of his students. Likewise, no children."
For the next two hours, conversation turned to old friends. Having attended every class reunion since graduation, Tiffany proved to be a fountain of knowledge when it came to the lives of the Wiltshire Academy alumni. She knew who had successful careers and who had failed, who were married and who were divorced, who died young and who were terminally ill. She was also privy to the latest gossip, knowing who was having an extramarital affair, who was gay and who battled alcoholism or opioid addiction.
"Maybe you should have been the writer. You can make a boring New England girl's school seem like Peyton Place."
At half past four, several classes came to an end. Fifteen minutes later, the cafeteria began to fill up with hungry, noisy students.
"Feel like another cup? I didn't think so," Tiffany answered her own question when I made a grimace.
"I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. I drove all morning to get here and didn't stop for lunch. Is there any place to eat other than the cafeteria?"
"Antonio's Pizzeria."
"It's still there?" I asked, my face pale and my voice strained.
Neither Tiffany nor I brought up the reason why I never returned to Wiltshire. We had apparently both decided to let the past remain buried.
"Antonio's son took it over when his father died. It's just a pizza place, Rena. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary ever happened there."
"I know that," I admitted sheepishly.
"Look, if you don't want to go, we'll eat here. I can ask one of the cafeteria ladies to make us both a salad. Some lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and a splash of oil and vinegar. They can't screw that up."
I remembered my resolve not to let my fears get the better of me.
"No, let's go to Antonio's. I have a sudden craving for a stromboli."
* * *
Stepping over the threshold, putting my foot on the rubber welcome mat on the black and white linoleum floor, was like traveling back in time. It was as though I were suddenly eighteen again and a freshman at Wiltshire Academy, for the first time living away from the safety and security of my parents' home.
Tiffany took the lead and, after waving to a young waitress and acknowledging the presence of nearly a dozen of her students, headed across the room to a booth. Following quietly behind like a docile dog on a leash, I fought not to relive that long-ago Halloween night. After we took our seats, the waitress brought us silverware and menus.
"That's one thing that's changed since we were freshman," Tiffany laughed. "The prices!"
I couldn't laugh. The best I could manage was a half-smile, a slight rise of the corners of my mouth. As Tiffany perused the menu, my eyes raked the room, all the while my brain was making a comparison between the past and present.
The tables, chairs and booths were still the same as were the salt and pepper shakers, napkin holders and candleholders. How could nothing have changed in twenty-three years? The waitress brought our drinks out in the same red plastic glasses. Surprisingly, even the jukebox—still in its original location between the ladies' and men's room doors—featured the same selections. Green Day, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., U2, Oasis, Creed, Queen, Guns N' Roses. Where were the artists of the current generation?
The most striking feature in the room, now as it was then, was the mural on the wall. Painted by a trio of art students when Antonio opened the place, long before I arrived at Wiltshire Academy, it was a view of the Rialto Bridge from the Grand Canal in Venice. To the right of the center of the scene was a gondola. Its gondolier, wearing a striped shirt, black pants and straw boater hat adorned with a red ribbon, was propelling his vessel toward the bridge with a pole. I considered how many decades he had stood in that boat, his eyes always on his destination, but never getting any closer.
My eyes went from the mural to the waitress who was approaching our table, order pad and pen in hand.
"Can I take your order, ladies?"
"This is sort of a special occasion," Tiffany replied, "so I'll forego my usual slice and a salad. Instead, I'll have the veal parmigiana."
"With a side order of linguini?"
"Sure, why not?"
"And I'll have a stromboli with sauce on the side," I added, finally managing a smile.
The waitress collected our menus and headed toward the kitchen. I heard the front door open and turned my head. The smile froze on my face when I saw who stood on Antonio's welcome mat.
Oh, my God! I thought and felt the same sheer terror I'd felt twenty-three years earlier.
* * *
Tiffany and I, both freshmen, had known each other for only two months, yet we were already the best of friends.
"I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to attend Wiltshire," the vivacious blonde complained after closing her sociology book for the night. "Could I have picked a more remote place in all of New England?"
"I know what you mean," I agreed. "It seems as though we're a million miles away from civilization."
"No mall, no movie theater, no McDonalds and, worst of all, no boys. I don't know if I can take four long years of this without going insane!"
The fact that Wiltshire Academy had arguably the finest English curriculum in the East no longer seemed to outweigh the social shortcomings.
"The Delta Kappas are hosting a costume party in Adams Hall on Saturday night," I announced.
Tiffany faked a retching sound.
"A sorority party? Really? I think I'd have more fun getting a root canal without Novocain."
"It's something to do. Besides, it's Halloween, my favorite holiday."
"Why don't we just go trick-or-treating?" my roommate teased. "We can dress up and go door to door in the dorms."
Despite our shared aversion to the Delta Kappas, desperate for any kind of nightlife, we decided to attend the Halloween party. With no department stores nearby, we had to be creative in our costumes. Tiffany painted a black zigzag stripe on a yellow T-shirt and went as Charlie Brown, while I used a cheap make-up kit to transform myself into a credible zombie.
When we arrived at Adams Hall, I was greatly impressed by the Delta Kappas' decorations. The walls and ceiling were festooned with black and orange crepe paper streamers and balloons. More than a dozen flickering jack-o'-lanterns either smiled or frowned at the party guests. There were also fabric ghosts, rubber bats, plastic spiders and cardboard skeletons hanging over the refreshment tables. The most notable decoration, though, was the witch—once a department store mannequin and now the property of the school's theater department—who was appropriately dressed in black gown, cape and pointed hat.
"My guess is that she's here to pledge Delta Kappa," Tiffany whispered in my ear.
Unfortunately, the effort that went into the Halloween make-over did not extend to other aspects of the party. The food consisted of bowls of slightly stale pretzels, potato chips and cheese puffs and two liter bottles of generic soda: cola, lemon, orange and root beer. The only thing that looked remotely appetizing was the tray of chocolate-frosted cupcakes.
The musical entertainment also left a lot to be desired. Whoever planned the party provided only two cassette tapes. One offered a selection of eerie sound effects: a piercing scream, clanking chains, creaking doors, discordant organ music and maniacal laughter. The second was a collection of songs including "Witchy Woman," "Ghostbusters," "Werewolves of London," "Black Magic Woman" and my personal favorite, "Monster Mash." Although both cassettes admirably set the atmosphere for a Halloween party, they were played over and over again. By the fifth time I heard "Monster Mash," I was ready to swear off Bobby "Boris" Pickett for life.
In addition to eating insipid snacks and listening to the limited audio repertoire, guests could participate in one of the two games the Delta Kappas offered: bobbing for apples or musical chairs.
"Do they think we're eight years old?" Tiffany complained. "What's next: pin the tail on the donkey?"
"At least no one has brought out a Twister game."
"Not yet anyway."
Although the party was scheduled from seven to eleven, we made it only as long as half past eight.
"I can't take any more of this," I groaned, tired of pretending to enjoy myself.
"Me either," my roommate concurred. "Why don't we head over to Antonio's for some pizza and then go back to the dorm and watch horror movies?"
"Sounds good to me."
Twenty minutes later we were sitting beneath the mural of the Rialto Bridge, waiting for our pepperoni pizza to come out of the oven, when two girls from our dormitory—Blair McClellan and Lindsay Stoltz—entered the pizzeria. Like us, they had attended the Delta Kappa revelries and left early.
"What a waste of time! We should have thrown our own party," Blair said.
"You can always come back to our room and watch horror movies," Tiffany suggested. "We're going to begin with Psycho, then watch Friday the 13th and end with Night of the Living Dead."
"I've got a better idea," Lindsay announced. "It's Halloween. Let's do something really daring and frightening."
"Like what?" I asked. "Hold a séance or try to contact the dead with a Ouija board?"
"No, that's for gullible adolescents. Let's spend the night in the old graveyard."
It was hard to believe, but Wiltshire was once an actual town, not just the location of a college. Although too small to appear on most maps of its day, it did have its own post office, a one-room school and a population of roughly two hundred. As more people moved to the cities or heeded Horace Greeley's advice to go west in hopes of making their fortunes, the town slowly died of attrition. By the time our second president was assassinated in 1881, Wiltshire Academy and the cemetery were all that remained. Although the college managed to grow over the years, there was little development in the surrounding area other than a few dozen houses for the faculty, a gas station and Antonio's Pizzeria.
Tiffany and I were hesitant, not because we feared the dead—or the living, for that matter. Our fears were of a more practical nature: wild animals and the New England October climate.
"There are no bears or other dangerous predators in the area," Blair reassured us. "The worst thing that could happen is that we get sprayed by a skunk."
"And as for the cold," Lindsay added, "all you have to do is bundle up. Put on your coat, hat and gloves, and bring some nice warm blankets."
I looked at Tiffany questioningly. I would go if my roommate did.
"At least it'll be more fun than the Delta Kappa party," she said.
We went back to the dorm for supplies. In addition to my warmest outerwear, I took a flashlight out of my closet. I did not bring food or water since I satisfied my appetite with pizza and did not want to add any more liquid to my bladder for fear of having to urinate during the night. There was no need for a pillow since we had all agreed to stay awake until morning.
As the four of us were leaving the dorm, we met another student sitting alone on the porch swing. She had apparently gone to the Halloween party and was still wearing her costume: bell bottom pants, a fringed buckskin jacket, love beads and a peace sign necklace.
"We're going to spend the night in the old cemetery," Blair called to her. "Want to come along?"
None of us had ever seen her before, but that hardly mattered. We were freshman and hadn't had the opportunity to make many friends yet.
"Sounds groovy! Count me in," the stranger replied in keeping with her hippie costume. "My name is Larissa Emerson, by the way."
"You might want to go up to your room and put on something warmer," I suggested. "We'll wait for you."
"No need. I never get cold."
On our trek to the cemetery, which was located a little over a mile from the academy's track field, we talked about the subjects that most concern teenage girls: clothes, music and boys. Although Larissa was friendly, she was also shy, contributing little to our conversation, other than giving monosyllabic replies to our questions and laughing at our jokes.
"This looks like a good spot for us to camp out," Lindsay said, spreading a blanket over a patch of dry grass between two evergreen trees and hanging her Coleman lantern from a low branch.
We made ourselves comfortable—as comfortable as one can be sitting on the hard, cold ground. I realized I should have brought a pillow after all, not for under my head but to put under my posterior.
After a lull in the conversation, Tiffany suggested we tell ghost stories.
"It is Halloween!" she emphasized.
We took turns telling the usual urban legend tales: the vanishing hitchhiker, the maniac hiding in the back seat of a car, the babysitter receiving telephone calls from a killer inside the house. We had heard them all before. They had become as tedious as the Delta Kappas' entertainment.
Bored, I turned on my flashlight and aimed the beam at the nearest headstone.
"Malvina Dawkins, born 1802, died 1849," I read.
"Isn't it sad that all that's left of most of us is names and dates?" Tiffany asked.
"Yes," I replied. "It doesn't even say if she was married or had any children."
"Or even what she died of."
"Considering she lived in Wiltshire," Blair joked, "she probably died of boredom."
"No," Larissa said. "She died in childbirth, having already borne fourteen children, all but six of whom died before the age of five."
The four of us stared at the stranger, wondering what made her say such a thing.
"I get it!" Lindsay finally exclaimed. "You made that up. Hey, this could be fun. Let's read some more grave markers and try to create stories about the people buried beneath them."
As one who excelled at creative writing, I thought it was an excellent idea. Since I had the flashlight, I led the way through the cemetery. The other girls followed closely behind me. I stopped in front of a grave with a headstone partially obstructed by overgrown vegetation.
"Silas Bunting, born 1782, died 1813."
"I got this one," Blair cried. "He was a sailor in the American Navy during the War of 1812. Although he fought bravely and was instrumental in Captain Perry's defeat of the British during the Battle of Lake Erie, he was struck by a cannonball and died."
"I know you're a history major, but stop showing off," Lindsay good-naturedly chided her friend.
"His death was not nearly as glamorous as that," Larissa claimed. "He was a farmer who died of consumption, leaving behind a wife and three children who later lost the farm and moved to New Bedford."
"You're good at this game," Tiffany observed. "Have you played it before?"
The girl in the Sixties costume smiled but did not answer.
"Here's another one," I announced. "Amaryllis Cryer, born 1831, died 1840."
"How sad!" Blair said. "She was only nine years old. I can't even imagine what happened to her."
Only Larissa hazarded a guess.
"Her house caught fire during the night. Her father saved six of his children, but before he could go back into the house for Amaryllis, the roof collapsed. She was the only one to die in the blaze."
Tiffany shivered, and declared, "This game is getting depressing. Let's go back to our campsite. I brought a box of chocolates we can share."
"Wait a second!" I called as I saw a grave adorned with a marble angel. "This headstone looks a lot newer than the others."
I shined my light down on the stone: Larissa Emerson, born 1950, died 1968.
"That's odd! She's got the same name ...."
I turned, looking for the girl in the hippie costume. My three classmates were as stunned as I was. The girl in the bell bottoms and buckskin jacket was gone.
* * *
The waitress returned with Tiffany's veal parmigiana and my stromboli, and my mind returned from that Halloween night in the graveyard twenty-three years earlier.
"Aren't you going to eat?" my old friend asked.
I realized I had been searching the restaurant, looking for a familiar face. Had she really been there or was it only a trick of my imagination?
"Yeah," I replied and picked up my knife and fork.
"You saw her again, didn't you? Here in this room."
"Is it that obvious?"
"To me, yes. I've seen her, too—several times since that night."
"You have? Then why have you stayed here?"
"Because she doesn't frighten me like she does you."
I didn't deny her allegation; it was true. Seeing a ghost had terrified me, and the memory of that experience continued to haunt my dreams for more than two decades.
"After I came back to Wiltshire Academy to teach, I did some research on Larissa Emerson," Tiffany explained. "Back in 1968, she was a freshman here. She lived in the same dorm as we did, in fact."
"What happened to her?"
Part of me wanted to learn about her tragic death, but another part wanted to run from Antonio's, to get into my car and get as far away as possible.
"By all accounts, Larissa was a sweet girl, a proponent of the ideals of the Sixties: peace, love and brotherhood. While she would have fit right in at Woodstock or Haight-Ashbury, here at Wiltshire, she was an outcast. She spent most of her free time playing her guitar and writing poetry. Then some girls from Delta Kappa approached her about joining."
"You've got to be kidding!"
"Unfortunately, I'm not."
"It's hard to believe. The Delta Kappas have a long-standing and well-deserved reputation for being spoiled rich kids, snobs and outright bitches. They were mean girls before Mean Girls."
"I know, but they recruited Larissa; she pledged and was accepted. Then came the hazing during Hell Week. Normally, pledges had to do something harmless and silly like wear their pajamas and slippers to classes for a week. But they devised a new ritual for Larissa. They drove her out to the cemetery, blindfolded her, tied her hands behind her back and told her to find her way back to the dorm."
"Those bastards!"
"When she didn't show up for class the next day, a search was conducted. Her body was found in the cemetery. It's assumed that she tripped, fell and hit her head on a gravestone. The dean notified her parents, and they decided to bury her here, hoping the angel above her grave would be a constant reminder to the sororities of the deadly consequence of hazing."
"Do you think that's why her spirit is still seen around the school? Is she still trying to bring attention to her cruel death?"
Tiffany gave my question a good deal of thought before she answered.
"No. I think she's searching for what she wanted back in 1968: acceptance and friendship."
After finishing our dinners and topping them off with a cup of cappuccino and a slice of Antonio's delicious tiramisu, we left the restaurant. Although neither one of us discussed the bizarre compulsion we suddenly felt, we made our way to the old cemetery.
I can't believe I'm here, I thought, more with a sense of wonder than of fear.
Tiffany and I didn't speak until we stood in front of Larissa Emerson's grave.
"Funny thing. I'm not afraid anymore," I said.
A deep feeling of warmth and serenity engulfed me. I looked down and saw a peace sign necklace lying at the base of the marble angel and smiled.
Salem once wanted to spend the night in a graveyard, but at midnight the ghosts begged me to take him home.
