Ghosts of Graveyards Past Read Online Free Page B

rain had slackened to a drizzle pattering softly against the tree leaves. As it grew quiet, another sound became audible in the distance. The drone of a motor, followed by a car horn that blared long and loud in the afternoon air. The main road , she realized, with a surge of relief and elation. Now she had a way to pinpoint where she was in this tangled mess that seemed less friendly the darker the skies grew.
    She stood hastily, forgetting the branches overhead until they showered her with droplets. This was a small annoyance compared with her excitement, and she brushed them aside without caring. Her knapsack flapped as she picked up the pace, moving in the direction of the motor sounds. Dodging another low hanging branch, she failed to see the shape that jutted up from the path, until her knees hit it, sending her forward with a gasp of surprise.
    Pain shot through her as she landed, hands shielding her face from the impact. Damp earth clung to her skin, mud streaking the front of her jacket. She scrambled to a sitting position, her breath coming in short, hard gasps. “It’s OK,” she told herself, eyes fluttering closed in an attempt to calm down. There was no damage done, no sprains or broken bones. Tentatively, she shifted position, testing weight against the injured leg. At the same moment, her hand brushed something buried in the leaves. Debris from the thing she had tripped over.
    A wall of stone, packed together with sand. Parts of it had collapsed, fragments still visible running in an L-shape among the trees. The remains of a building’s foundation? No, it was the wrong shape, more like a fence. Meaning there must have been a yard for it to protect at one time.
    Her pain already forgotten, Jenna scrambled past the stone barrier. She searched the ground, hurriedly pushing aside leaves and soil with a sense of anticipation. Moving from one spot to another, her efforts were finally rewarded. Layers of dead foliage gave way to a piece of stone, flat with carvings that were more easily felt than seen.
    Jenna stared, heart pounding with disbelief. There were more, a cursory check of the yard revealing graves that were leaning or broken off at the base. Limestone and slate were filled with cracks, the flat stones faring better than ones that stood upright beneath the piles of fallen tree limbs.
    It seemed the phantom cemetery was real after all.
     
     
     
     

4
     
    “You could’ve been killed! What if there were wolves out there? Or a coyote, at least.” Jenna’s agent was using her ”mother” voice, or maybe it was more like an older sibling, considering only twelve years separated them. Whatever the case, there was a definite scolding in her tone as she learned of the nocturnal adventure.
    “It was fine,” Jenna said. Her sore leg was propped on a pillow, and her mud-spattered clothes and boots had been exchanged for a camisole and pajama pants as she rested on the hotel’s four poster bed—although part of her wished to be back in the woods, a flashlight in one hand as the other parted thick branches to find a gravestone hiding beneath. “I just lost track of time after I spotted the first grave. And get this—there are a dozen at least. Probably a lot more hidden beneath the storm damage, as well.”
    “It’s hard to make out anything from these pictures you e-mailed,” Joyce said. “Except that most of them have been smashed into about a hundred pieces.”
    Her tone was skeptical, her expression easy for Jenna to picture after two-and-a-half manuscripts together. A trim, orderly figure in business clothes, Joyce Edel disliked surprises as a general rule, but especially those involving a client’s manuscript. No doubt, she envisioned this discovery as interfering with the New Orleans site the editors were so keen on having featured.
    “I know the markers are in rough shape,” Jenna began, a defensive note creeping into her voice, “but it’s amazing that anything could survive those