The Witch's Grave by Phillip Depoy Read Free Book Online

respects; one of those traditions was the uncharacteristically pagan practice of having sex in their fields on every solstice. Four times a year these churchgoing grandparents would wait until midnight and sneak out to the acreage behind their house. They’d spread a quilt and lie together in as passionate an embrace as weather and advancing age would allow. I knew this because their amorous noises had been so ferocious one night I’d heard them halfway up the mountain. I’d been walking late in the summertime, years ago; drawn by the sounds I had made my discovery. I’d never told them, they’d have been mortified, but I’d always admired the concept.

    The practice was a well-documented folk custom traced to pre-Christian farming. The more fertile and enthusiastic a husbandman’s behavior with his wife, the better the crop yield: sympathetic magic. Giant ears of Cotage Silver Queen corn were the envy of the county, considered proof of the theory.
    There was nothing in the academic literature, however, to suggest the vigor, the sheer volume, of Hek and June’s magic. The corn spoke for itself, but the true value of the practice was, it had always seemed to me, more domestic than agricultural.
    â€œThese noises you heard last night in the graveyard,” I began, jotting down a few notes in the spiral pad, “are the continuation of a phenomenon that goes back years, you’re saying.”
    â€œAfter a while,” he answered, “rumor becomes fact; gossip takes on the shine of history. I know that. I’m ashamed to admit it I’ve done my share of telling stories. Makes it harder for you to believe me now.” His right shoulder twitched again, a memory shiver.
    He was right: I’d heard stories about that graveyard my whole life. Every town has its haunted places; I think there must be something in the human spirit that needs darkness, a tangible place for fear’s repose. Nightmares have a boundary then, a definition, and are easier to bear. But there was more to Hek’s chill.
    Time to ask the real question.
    â€œWhy rekindle those stories now, Hek? What’s got you so scared?”
    He sucked in an echoing breath, let it out like a death rattle. “Okay, then.” He leaned forward on his elbows, reached into the breast pocket of his coat, and laid a torn bit of peach-colored cloth on the table in front of us. Tiny roses dotted the fabric in a strange pattern; I’d never seen anything quite like it.
    June gasped, covered her mouth with both hands, froze, eyes wide.
    â€œWoman in the graveyard held her hand out toward me,” Hek rasped, “something in it.” He turned to his wife. “I can’t find my glasses; you’re right. Honestly couldn’t make out who or what it was.” Back to me, voice hushed. “I headed her way; she ran. This was on the marker when I got there.”

    The torn swatch lay curled on the tabletop, a petal. They glared at it, June had stopped breathing.
    â€œThere’s something about this material?” I asked her.
    One curt nod, she took her hands away from her bloodless face.
    â€œI’ve never seen any other like it,” she whispered. “Looks to be from the dress I was wearing when Hek and me was wed. It’s long since gone to dust.”

Three
    June was upset enough to excuse herself from the table; Hek made apologies. Within five minutes I was back in my truck, headed for home. It wasn’t at all unusual that a sensible couple like the Cotages could find themselves worried about visitors from beyond the grave. Their daily lives were filled with religion; a spirit that might find mansions in the sky could just as easily be lost on earth. In truth I scarcely knew a soul in the mountains who didn’t have a strong spiritual appreciation of the occasional event beyond the natural. June and Hek had more proof than most. I didn’t believe that he was lying or