Unhallowed Ground by Heather Graham
Prologue
Then, during the War of Northern Aggression
St. Augustine, in northern Florida, was beautiful, especially by night. It was the image of everything graceful and lovely in the Deep South and, when seen by the gentle glow of the moon, as serene a place as one might ever hope to see. Spanish moss dripped from old oaks like the sweep of a gentle lace blanket, and a low ground fog swirled in a faint breeze that seemed to carry with it the whisper of a moan. The silver mist curled around the mournful beauty of the cemetery, caressing the cheeks of stone angels and cherubs standing atop newly dug graves, as well as those that had been there for centuries.
The moon that night had a haze promising rain the following day. The misty halo around the full orb cast an eerie glow over the earth, turning the cemetery into a magical vision with its praying virgins, weeping guardians and majestic display of marble statuary, all bathed in the pale and eerie light.
Two women came with a lantern, one with purpose, and one carefully picking her way around the gravestones and funerary art.
“This way,” Martha Tyler said, lifting her lantern higher.
“How much farther?” Susan Madison asked nervously as the moon slipped behind a cloud and the shadows deepened.
Martha paused to stare back at her, contempt in her eyes. “If you are afraid, there is no reason to go any farther at all.”
Well, of course, I’m afraid, Susan longed to shout. She hadn’t been afraid before; it had all seemed like a lark, and why not? Life was a mess right now, and maybe Martha did have some kind of wonderful power to make everything better.
But now she was afraid. The beauty was gone from the night.
Only death seemed to remain.
Yes, she was afraid. She was walking in a shadowy graveyard by night, hearing nothing but the rustle of the leaves and the moan of the wind in the branches, and she was a fool ever to have thought that this would be an adventure.
She had convinced herself that she had to play this game, had to skirt the edge of social and moral insanity. The news in her life was always terrible, all about the war, death, advancing armies, defeats.
There was no guarantee that Thomas Smithfield would be alive in a matter of months, much less have anything left of his home, finances or wits. A love ritual might well be useless.
“We’re here now, anyway,” Martha said.
“We’re here? Where is here?” Susan demanded, looking around. They had passed the MacTavish mausoleum, the giant sculpted dogs that guarded the eighteenth-century entrance to the section containing the graves of children, and even the oldest and most chipped and broken stones in the cemetery. They were standing by a small broken wall, where trees grew tall and broad, breaking through the stones of the dead, and the moss dripped almost to the ground. The earth itself didn’t seem as if it belonged in any place created by man at all. It was more like a pit of churned dirt and broken pottery.
“Right here,” Martha said, pointing. Her voice dropped to a whisper, so soft that Susan could barely hear it. “We’re outside hallowed ground here. This wall—or what’s left of it—marks the boundary beyond which they buried the indigents and the…the unhallowed.”
Susan felt a sudden chill. It was summer, and even the nights could be sweltering here in the humid lowlands, with only the occasional breeze off the ocean to alleviate the wet heat. But tonight she was suddenly cold with a bone-deep sensation that came from far more than just the temperature.
Of course she was cold, she told herself. Martha was frightening her. That whisper she was using, the cemetery itself, bathed once again in the unearthly glow of shimmering moonlight filtered through haze and fog.
“You still have it? You didn’t drop the sacrifice?”
Susan told herself that the ominous tone was all part of Martha’s act, but even so, she shuddered as she reassured herself that she still had the little vial of blood, wrapped so tightly in her hand that she had practically forgotten she was carrying it.
“Yes.”
“You killed the creature yourself?” Martha asked.
“Yes.”
Martha approved her answer with a solemn nod as she took the vial of blood from her. “Now the black drink.”
Martha held up a small bottle filled with an inky liquid.
Susan stared at her.
“It’s herbs, child, just herbs. But they create magic.”
Susan wanted to refuse.
What was the matter with her? she wondered. All her friends had gone to Martha for potions and palm readings. Martha did have a talent for knowing what was going to happen. Not only could she foretell the future, but sometimes she could also actually make things happen. And always she was an amazing show-woman.