Chapter 3
The Gravesite
About halfway down the terraced slope, Marie realized that she was lost.
The jumbled mass of old stones and monuments bore no resemblance to the neat,
precise layout of the cemetery map. If the map could be counted on at all, then
Blackthorne's grave had to be somewhere off to her left, about a hundred feet.
She would just have to search around until she found it.
Beneath the tall, sheltering oaks, the grass grew sparsely. Most of the
ground was a muddy gruel. She took her sandals off and stepped between a row of
tombstones, feeling the cool mud squish up between her toes as she moved to her
left. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, she realized, almost sensuous, in fact.
Some of the tombstones were surrounded by rusty, iron fences with spear
points. Others were gray slabs laid upon the ground or coffin-shaped sepulchers
presided around by a host of simpering angels and naked, winged, smiling cupids.
To Marie, the smiles seemed malevolent rather than comforting. She moved among
them cautiously in the slippery mud, with her camera case slung over one
shoulder and her shoes held in her hand, her breath fogging the still, misty
air. Far off, she heard the faint caw of a crow.
She wandered about for close to an hour, then, almost without realizing it,
she found herself standing before a tall, Latin cross made of white marble.
Climbing vines had been carved into its surface. On the base she saw the name,
Blackthorne.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and began removing her camera from its case.
There was an inscription on the base, a prayer, it seemed. Some of the
words had been erased by the passage of years:
~where time has no memory . . .
breathless before new seasons,
new joys . . . before drowning in
your holy fire, give us one more
day~
The subject was obviously Death, Marie thought. She wished the inscription
had not been so badly faded, and she wondered if the words had been penned by
Blackthorne. That was the most likely assumption, she guessed. But, if so,
why did he think he would be going to hell? As far as she knew Blackthorne
hadn't been an evil man.
Since the lighting was so bad, Marie decided to use flash bulbs. She took
several shots from different angles using various settings, in case some didn't
turn out right.
She was so intent upon what she was doing that she didn't notice the stocky
man with a scruffy beard and beer belly watching her.
