Chapter 4. Richelle's story

After school we went straight to Craigend. Matron was our constant customer. She often asked us to help with old residents, or with the huge garden, that surrounded Craigend, or to do something else. So it wasn't surprising that she asked us to escort two old women to the graveyard.

'Miss Plummer and Miss Jenkins are ready and waiting for you in the garden,' she said when Liz poke her head round the door of her office. 'Um… I must warn you. This Miss Jenkins is slightly deaf. You have to talk to her as loudly as possible. And please, don't say anything about her deafness. She doesn't like it. Okay, follow me, please.'

We went out into the garden, where Miss Plummer and a tall, skinny woman were sitting on a bench, chattering.

'Miss Jenkins,' Matron said. 'Let me present these young people to you. This is Teen Power Inc. I told you about them, remember? They'll help you.'

'It's very nice of them,' the old woman said flatly.

'Liz and her friends are wonderful boys and girls,' Miss Plummer cooed.

A swarthy woman in a nurse uniform came up to us and handed a handbag to Miss Jenkins.

'Your handbag, Miss Jenkins,' she said.

'Thank you, darling,' the old woman nodded dryly.

I stared secretly at these two women. Miss Jenkins was so elegant and arrogant, tall and wore full make-up. The woman in a nurse uniform was quite the opposite. She was plump, didn't wear make-up at all, her face was bright red and her hair stuck out from under her cap. I felt a strong desire to draw them together. This contrast between them appealed to me.

'This is Sally, our new nurse,' Matron said, noticing me staring at the woman. 'By the way, Sally is my relative. She's a ward of my late sister of my late husband.'

'Who?' I shook my head, completely confused in abundance of Matron's late relatives.

'Shut up,' Nick hissed in my ear. 'We'll work it out later.'

'I want to know it right now,' I muttered back. 'I don't understand what she means.'

'Beans? The young man wants to eat some beans?' Miss Jenkins looked up at me. 'You know, young man, I'd like to eat some baked beans, too. Come on,' she stood up. 'On the way we'll drop into a shop to buy a can of baked beans.

'Very good, Miss Jenkins,' the swarthy woman obsequiously cooed. 'Baked beans are good for your health.'

'Come on, dear,' Miss Plummer took Liz's hand. 'Ruby doesn't like it when people are late. I don't want to disappoint her.'

Miss Plummer is a nice old lady, but sometimes she's hard to handle. She's got a very bad memory. I mean she remembers her past quite well, but she often gets confused about the present. I guess today was one of her wafty days, as Liz called them.

'Ruby and I are invited to dinner today,' Miss Plummer went on chattering. 'Why haven't you come earlier?'

'We couldn't come earlier,' Liz mumbled, blushing. 'We've come straight from school.'

'Straight from Spain?' Miss Jenkins exclaimed, flinging her arms into the air. 'Oh, when I was young, I was in Spain with my husband. See, dear,' she turned to Matron and Sally, 'modern high schools send their students to study in Europe.'

'That's amazing! Wonderful! To study in Europe,' Sally agreed with the old woman.

'Madhouse,' Nick muttered. Sunny snorted and dug him in the ribs. I noticed her beginning to quiver with laughter.

'You're right, darling,' Miss Jenkins nodded to Nick. 'There are a lot of madly beautiful houses in Madrid. So, young lady,' she turned to Liz. 'Tell us what you saw in Spain.'

Liz stared at her, not knowing what to say.

'You go,' Matron said, hiding a smile. 'They'll tell you on the way.' It crossed my mind that she was glad to get rid of these two women for a while.

Miss Jenkins slipped her arm through mine and we went towards the gate. Liz with Miss Plummer and the others trailed after us.

###

We'd been wandering to and fro all over the graveyard for about two mortal hours. I couldn't even imagine that people could have so many dead friends. They lingered by every second grave for ten minutes or so, remembering how much this man or woman was wonderful.

The graveyard was isolated from church and everything else by clustering trees and tall bushes. To our happiness, trees created cool shadows, where we could hide from the sun. The graveyard was quiet; there weren't a lot of visitors at this time of day.

During another stop, while the two old women were standing in front of a headstone, looking mourning, we crowded underneath a big tree, enjoying its shadow. We all were tired, thirsty and hungry. I felt as if my legs were about to fall off and my guts were about to stick together with hunger. All what I wanted was eat something. Elmo and Sunny were dreaming about a glass of water.

Nick and Richelle kept whingeing that they were tired and wanted to go home. Liz ordered them to shut up quite rudely. She wasn't in very high spirit either.

'Listen, I can't stand it any more,' I pleaded finally. 'My foot's gone to sleep.'

'It's a wonder that your foot's gone to sleep, not your stomach,' Nick reacted immediately.

'I'd like to eat something,' I sighed. 'Actually I would kill for a hot dog and a glass of juice!'

'Oh, what's that?' Sunny suddenly exclaimed. I looked at her. She was pointing at an odd headstone. It was about fifty paces from us. The headstone was really interesting and weird. It was quite tall, taller than other headstones, and its top was decorated with a big marble pigeon, which spread its wings as though it was about to fly up.

'How beautiful,' Liz gasped. 'Let's come closer to see.'

She and Sunny went towards the grave with the beautiful headstone.

'No, wait!' Richelle called them out. 'Don't even think to come closer to this grave. People say that this grave is cursed.'

'What?' Liz and Sunny froze.

'How cursed? Who cursed it?' I stared at Richelle.

'The woman, who is lying there, did,' she replied.

'Rubbish,' Nick snorted.

'No, it's not rubbish,' Richelle insisted. 'That's the truth. I heard some girls at school talked about it. And there was even an article about this grave in a newspaper. If you heard me more attentively, you'd know,' she glanced reproachfully at Nick. 'The reporter, who had written this article, even interviewed the old sexton and his wife.'

'And what did this old sexton and his wife say?' Nick drawled.

'Oh, they said a lot,' Richelle sulkily looked around at us and went silent.

'Tell us then!' I demanded.

'What for?' she shrugged. 'You don't believe, all the same.'

'Oh, come on, Richelle!' Liz exclaimed. 'We want to listen!'

Richelle shook back her hair and unhurriedly smoothed it, making us wait. 'Okay, listen,' she finally put on an important look. 'The sexton said that this woman, who's buried here, was from the city and…'

'From the city? Here?' I opened my eyes wide in amazement.

'Yeah,' Richelle nodded impatiently. 'She was from the city and was buried here. And her lover, too.'

'He was from the city, too or he died, too?' I interrupted again.

'Should I go on?' Richelle angrily stared at me. 'Or maybe you want to tell this story instead of me?'

I grinned. 'I was just asking,' I said.

'You'll be asking when you grow up and start working in the police,' Nick jeered.

'I'm not going to work in the police,' I turned to him, grinning.

'I don't understand,' Sunny giggled. 'Are we listening to Richelle's story or choosing Tom's future profession?'

Nick put his hands around Richelle's waist. 'Go on,' he said into her hair, hiding a smile. 'Who out there was from the city?'

'She was,' she jerked her head towards the grave. 'And her lover was from there too.'

'What's her name?' Liz asked.

'There's no name or surname or date on the tombstone,' Richelle replied. 'There's only one inscription "RIP I love you, my darling". You can read this if you want to, but only from a distance.'

'Why?' Sunny and I asked in chorus.

'Because this grave is cursed,' Richelle repeated for the hundredth time in the past ten minutes.

'Okay, we'll read it later,' Sunny waved her hand desperately. 'Richelle, can you tell us what's wrong with this grave'

'I'm telling you,' Richelle exclaimed. 'She was from the city and her lover was too…'

'Will we go further?' Nick snorted.

'You don't let me tell!' Richelle pouted.

'Okay, it's clear about the city,' Sunny grinned. 'What else?'

'Well, at first they were in love with each other,' Richelle finally began to tell. 'But then he cheated on her with another woman. She told him to get out of her life. Then this guy understood his mistake and came back, intending to beg for forgiveness, but it was too late. She'd already died.'

'And then he died too? And they were buried together forever?' Nick twisted his lips in a sarcastic grin. 'Another sob story for you and Liz.'

Richelle crossly flicked back her long, blonde hair. 'No, he didn't die,' she scowled. 'That is he died, but much later. At first he gave her a splendid funeral, ordered this odd gravestone. But about six months later he was killed. He was blown up in his own car.'

'Blown up in his car?' this tragic love story finally arose Nick's curiosity.

'Yeah,' Richelle nodded. 'In his car. The sexton's wife watched news on TV and recognized the guy. But it's not the end. After that guy had been blown, this woman's brother came here to visit her grave, brought a huge bunch of red roses and told her that her offender was dead.'

'It's an interesting story,' Sunny said. 'But why do you think that the grave is cursed? Such stories happen all the time.'

'Because it's not the end of the story,' Richelle started speaking again. 'In a couple of months another guy started to come here to this woman's grave. He came and brought flowers. Then he came again. And again. And then he suddenly disappeared and no one knew what happened to him until the police had found him in a gully with a hole in his head. When the sexton's wife learnt about it, she immediately realized that he was killed. The marble pigeon from the cursed gravestone pecked him on the head. As she put it, all these deaths happened because this dead lady hadn't forgiven them before dying. And when people die with angriness in their heart, their souls can't rest peacefully. And that's why the grave or other place becomes cursed.'

'That's right,' Liz nodded. 'Why do you think places become haunted?'

'Very funny,' I muttered, trying not to look at the cursed grave any more. I can't say that I believed in this stuff about ghosts and haunted places, but strange things happen all the time, you know. And I'd rather stay away from such places.

'I also heard about this story,' Elmo nodded thoughtfully. 'No, not about the cursed grave,' he added hurriedly, noticing Richelle nodding vigorously. 'I mean I heard about these murders. There was a short article in the Pen about it.'

'It's weird,' Sunny said thoughtfully. 'I wonder what the police think about all these cases.'

'The police say that this second guy just tripped over something, tumbled down into the gully and cracked his head against a sharp stone on the bottom,' Elmo replied. 'But I can assure you that there're no such sharp stones in that gully. I think he also was killed.'

'I think that we should go away from here right now,' Richelle looked sideways at two old women, who were still standing at one of the graves, talking to each other. Unlike Richelle, they didn't seem to want to go at all.

'Liz, you promised that it would take just a couple of hours,' Nick groaned. 'We've been here for about four hours already! I'm tired and I want to go home.'

'Ask them to go then,' Liz snapped.

Waiting for the women, we lazily looked around, but I noticed that no one had desire to come closer to the cursed grave. Even Nick tried not to look in its direction. I sighed and sat down on the ground. Time seemed to stop. My stomach was turning over, demanding some food, my throat was completely dry. I felt as if I was going to die.

Finally the women called us. Miss Plummer said that they were very tired and asked us to take them back to Craigend, what we did with great pleasure.