Muriel
written by: Rex Fausett
Muriel attached herself to me in Springhill Falls cemetery last year when Amelia and I took our kids, Milo and Henry, up to the graveyard to celebrate Halloween and marvel at the decorations. It’s a tradition in our community to celebrate the week leading up to October 31st with massive displays of carved pumpkins, candles, ghosts, and all sorts of things that have been imagined since the first time I walked through the cemetery about thirty years ago.
People install figures that light up – six-foot high witches and ghosts, which are really impressive in the dark. Mainly chicken wire and plaster with costumes. They bring the figures along on the first night of what we call Halloweenie, always the 25th of October, and hope to God it doesn’t rain for a week. Speaking of hope, Donald Hope had a series of bogus tombs and graves made about four years ago, and people regularly pop up out of those to give out treats disguised as fingernails, rotten apples, and detached fingers. Kids love the candy maggots.
And, of course, people need to eat and drink at these events, and this year, around fifteen stalls selling such goodies sprang up in the grounds, and there was no doubt that the multicoloured lights and piped music added to the atmosphere. The year before last, a small stage was put together, and now we get live music too. Monster Mash is a favourite.
My family usually visits the cemetery on maybe two, sometimes three nights, but definitely on the night of Halloween, the night of the biggest crowds and an evening of out-of-control mayhem. That night, I make a point of visiting my parents, who are buried up near the top of the gentle slope that defines the entire graveyard. Olaf Retemeyer donated the land, cutting the plot off from his farm for two, no, three reasons. Firstly, the old town cemetery was full.
Let me explain about Springhill Falls. The first store, a trading post for sure, opened in 1846, and that store was around halfway between Athens and Farmington. Because it was a logical geographical stop, a stable soon appeared next to the store, and then a rooming house and, inevitably, two hotels, and next thing there were wooden buildings being thrown up everywhere as exponential growth took over. The next steps were a doctor, a morgue, and, a little too late, a sheriff. People got buried on the edge of town in a plot of land originally of around two acres, but with no boundary on the side where you would head from if you were going to California. Eventually, they built a fence along that side because the cemetery was starting to encroach on Barney Trimble’s farm.
The town had no industries, such as mining or making things, and the land wasn’t the best for farming, so it didn’t retain the population, which eventually drifted away.
Did I mention the Falls? No? There was a river that passed right through the town, and it seems the local tribe had a name for it that translated roughly to Springhill, and yes, we do have falls, which are around five feet high, just where the river comes into town. A river? Not really, more of a stream unless we’ve had a lot of rain.
The second reason is that Olaf wanted to have a place to rest near where he lived, so that house at the top of the slope is his old house, now housing the sexton. Thirdly, I think he got a tax break when he donated the land, which slopes down nearly to the stream, separated from the water only by a hiking trail.
Halloween last year was the usual full-on party, and just before midnight, I left Milo and Henry with Amelia and wandered up the slope to where my parents are sleeping, a synonym for being dead. The thing was that in a practical, pragmatic way, they had sometimes talked about moving on, a synonym for dying, so when they did pass, I was used to the idea. They moved on about ten years ago. Yes, I did miss them a bit, but I was married with kids, so I had plenty of family in my life. I wouldn’t have minded a sibling, but there were none. Fortunately, Amelia has three sisters and two brothers, so Milo and Henry have a ton of aunts and uncles, like I wanted them to have, and eleven cousins.
I’m an only, as I said, and my visits to my parents take the form of a greeting, a brief summary of what’s been going on since my last visit, followed by a farewell and a promise to return. This night, I was just talking about Milo’s tonsils when I became aware that there was a woman standing quite close to me.
‘How is he now, this Milo?’ she asked.
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Muriel Foster,’ she said, pointing to the headstone two along from my folks. Yup, it said Muriel Foster died October 31, 2009.
‘Should you be out of, um, bed?’ I asked her.
‘I get a pass every October thirty-first,’ she explained. Muriel looked really good for a dead person, and I wondered if I wasn’t being pranked. Okay, she was really pale but well-dressed and immaculately groomed. She wasn’t like, decayed or anything like that.
‘Watch,’ she said, and she faded away, reappearing about five seconds later. ‘Still have doubts? It’s normal, um, sorry, what’s your name?’
‘Will Hall.’
‘Hall, of course. That would be why you’re talking to people in the Hall plot. My neighbours.’
‘Ah, do you talk to them, Muriel?’
‘No, they aren’t communicative. Only a dozen or so of my fellow internees interact with each other. Near as I can figure out, it depends on how you died.’
‘So how did you die, Muriel?’
‘I tried to surf over the Falls on a refrigerator door, hit my head, and drowned.’
‘I have to ask if you’d been drinking.’
‘Well, obviously. No-one surfs over the falls on a refrigerator door after consuming a kale smoothie.’
I shook my head. ‘I have to rejoin my family, Muriel. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you. Maybe we can talk again at Halloween next year.’
‘Oh, we can do better than that. If you say the words “Follow Me Home,” I can be free to permanently wander away from my grave and talk to people. Well, some people. The important thing is I wouldn’t be required to go back to my cold and slightly damp coffin.’
Without thinking, I inquired, ‘Is that right? Follow me home?’
‘Thank you, Will. I am so appreciative. Is there anything I can do for you?’
I thought, firstly, what have I done? Then, secondly, ‘I’m a writer, Muriel. Do you have any good stories about being dead?’
‘Do I have good stories about being dead? I can make your hair stand on end.’
Now Muriel visits me as I write and tells me those stories. Yes, sometimes my hair stands on end.
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