Ghosts Don't Stay Buried
Rosemary POV
The train ticket crackled as I fed it into the bookshop's fireplace, first-class paper curling into ash like expensive dreams. The flames reflected off the windows, turning my reflection into something ghostly and insubstantial. Someone had wanted me gone badly enough to spend money on my escape. Too bad for them—I'd never been good at running from fights.
The phone call with that journalist still echoed in my head. Lucas Barrett from the Denver Post, asking questions about my transition to small-town life. Something about his voice had been off, too careful, like he was reading from a script. But his interest felt genuine, and right now I needed all the allies I could get.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. Time to get some answers.
Main Street stretched before me like a Norman Rockwell painting with all the warmth drained out. The morning sun should have made everything look cheerful, but shadows clung to the storefronts like they were afraid to let go. I pushed open the door to Hansen's Hardware, the bell jangling overhead with false cheer.
"Morning, Ms. Decker." Old Henrik Hansen looked up from his inventory sheet, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "What can I do for you?"
"I was hoping you could tell me about the harvest festival. I keep hearing people mention it."
His pen froze mid-stroke. "Harvest festival?"
"Someone mentioned it happens around the eclipse. October thirty-first?" I kept my voice casual, like I was asking about the weather.
Henrik's face went carefully blank. "Don't know about any eclipse. We usually just have a small Halloween celebration for the kids. Nothing fancy."
The lie sat between us like a third person in the room. I could see it in the way his shoulders tensed, the way he wouldn't meet my eyes.
"My great-aunt's journal mentioned something about it. She seemed to think it was important."
"Your great-aunt kept to herself mostly. Especially toward the end." Henrik turned back to his inventory, dismissing me. "If you need anything for the shop, just holler."
I tried three more businesses with the same result. At the grocery store, Martha Kellins suddenly remembered she had inventory to count when I asked about my family's history. The pharmacist developed a mysterious phone call that required his immediate attention. Even the teenager working at the gas station found urgent business in the back room when I mentioned the eclipse.
By noon, frustration burned in my chest like acid. I sat on a bench outside the post office, watching people hurry past with their heads down. A few nodded politely, but no one stopped to chat. No one met my eyes for more than a second.
The Denver Post journalist's card felt heavy in my pocket. Maybe talking to an outsider really would help. At least he'd actually listened when I mentioned the strange behavior.
"Rosemary?"
I looked up to find a woman about my age approaching hesitantly. She had the kind of ethereal beauty that belonged in Renaissance paintings—pale skin, flowing auburn hair, dressed in layers of flowing fabric that suggested either artistic sensibility or complete detachment from practical concerns.
"I'm sorry, have we met?"
"Luna Morrison. I run the herb shop on Elm Street." She glanced around nervously before sitting beside me on the bench. "I heard you've been asking questions."
Finally. Someone willing to talk.
"People seem uncomfortable whenever I mention my family or the eclipse."
Luna's laugh had a bitter edge. "That's one way to put it. Look, I wasn't born here, so I don't have the same... loyalties as some folks. But even I know there are things you don't discuss in broad daylight."
"What kind of things?"
She studied my face for a long moment. "You really don't know, do you? About why you're here. About what they expect from you."
My pulse quickened. "Tell me."
"Not here." Luna stood abruptly, smoothing down her skirt. "Meet me tonight. After sunset. There's a path behind the old church that leads to the cemetery. Follow it all the way to the back, near the tree line."
"The cemetery? Why there?"
But Luna was already walking away, her hair streaming behind her like a banner of warning. I watched until she disappeared around the corner, leaving me with more questions than answers and the growing certainty that nightfall in Thornwick Hollow held secrets I wasn't sure I wanted to discover.
The afternoon crawled by with painful slowness. I tried to lose myself in organizing the bookshop, but every small sound made me jump. Footsteps on the sidewalk. The creak of old wood settling. Even my own breathing seemed too loud in the oppressive quiet.
Around four o'clock, I noticed something odd. The shops along Main Street were closing. Not just locking up for lunch—actually closing, with metal grates pulled down over windows and "Closed" signs flipped with decisive finality. By five-thirty, the entire downtown looked abandoned.
I pressed my face to the bookshop window, watching the empty street. A few cars drove past, but their occupants stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the lone figure in the storefront. It felt like being trapped inside a snow globe, visible but untouchable.
Six o'clock. Seven. The sun sank behind the mountains, and Thornwick Hollow transformed. Lights came on in houses, but they were dim, curtained. No one walked the sidewalks. Even the usual sounds of evening—dogs barking, televisions murmuring, the distant hum of traffic—seemed muted, as if the entire town was holding its breath.
At eight-thirty, I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed a flashlight and headed for the old church Luna had mentioned. The building sat on the hill overlooking downtown, its Gothic spire reaching toward stars that seemed dimmer than they should be.
The path behind the church was barely visible, more of a deer trail than an actual walkway. Branches caught at my jacket as I climbed, and more than once I stumbled over roots hidden in the darkness. The cemetery appeared gradually, headstones emerging from the shadows like broken teeth.
Luna wasn't there.
I called her name softly, but only silence answered. The beam of my flashlight swept across weathered marble and granite, reading names and dates that stretched back over a century. Many of the older stones were so worn the inscriptions were illegible, but some details were still clear enough to make out.
That's when I saw them.
Six headstones clustered together near the back of the cemetery, newer than the others but still decades old. The flashlight beam trembled as I moved from one to the next, reading the names and dates:
Margaret Riley - 1957-1982 Elizabeth Decker - 1932-1959 Charlotte McKenna - 1906-1933 Amelia Hartford - 1879-1906 Isabella Thornwick - 1853-1880 Eleanor Blackwood - 1826-1853
But it wasn't the names that made my knees buckle. It wasn't the dates, each marking a death in the prime of life. It was the photographs embedded in each headstone, protected behind glass that somehow remained clear despite decades of mountain weather.
Six different women from six different eras, all staring back at me with my own face.
The flashlight slipped from numb fingers, clattering against stone and going out. In the sudden darkness, I could have sworn I heard whispers—six voices speaking in unison, welcoming me home.
I ran.
Branches tore at my clothes and skin as I crashed through the underbrush, but I didn't stop until I reached the bookshop. I slammed the door behind me and turned every lock, then collapsed against it, gasping.
The photos burned in my memory. Not similar faces—identical ones. The same dark hair, the same bone structure, the same eyes that stared back at me from every mirror.
Six generations of women who looked exactly like me.
All dead before their thirtieth birthday.
All buried in the same cemetery where Luna Morrison had sent me to find answers I wasn't sure I could survive knowing.
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: You shouldn't have gone alone. Some family reunions require proper preparation. - L
Luna. She'd known what I would find. She'd sent me there deliberately, knowing those headstones would shatter whatever illusions I still held about this being a coincidence.
I was in Thornwick Hollow for a reason. A reason that had claimed six generations of women before me.
And in twenty-five days, when the eclipse reached its peak, I had the terrible feeling I would understand exactly what that reason was.