Charlaine Harris: Many Bloody Returns

She’d been so afraid he wasn’t going to like it, that he’d be angry at her. It had taken some effort to prove to her her that he considered the Choice to be better than a lifetime pass to Disney World, and one of his other manly wiles was showing the strain by the time she was convinced.

They reached the entrance, an open iron arch with the name “Spivey” overhead.

“Spivey was your name?” Like most vampires her age, Stella had changed her name more than once.

“No, Spivey was Mama’s maiden name. I’m a Boyd. Mama didn’t get along with Daddy’s people, so she had me and him buried here.” She hesitated.

“Are you sure you want to go in?”

“It would be right silly to come this far and not go in,” she said.

“It’s silly to go to monster truck rallies, too, but that never stopped me.”

She smiled briefly, then stepped through the arch. Mark followed closely in case she needed him and because her night vision was considerably better than his own.

“Stella Boyd,” he said experimentally. “Not bad.”

“Try again. My old name was Estelle,” she said, putting the emphasis on the first syllable. “But nobody calls me that now. Ever.”

“Message received.”

They kept on for a few minutes, Stella pausing now and then to read the words on tombstones that were nothing but black blocks to Mark. She finally stopped by a wide monument, with room for two names. “Here’s Mama and Daddy. I didn’t find out about her dying until a long time afterward, but I figured she’d be buried here, with Daddy and me.”

Mark moved close enough to make out the inscriptions. “Caleb Boyd. Beloved Husband and Father. Oveda Boyd. Beloved Wife and Mother.”

“Mine is over by that tree.”

“What tree?”

“Sorry, by that tree stump. It was a tree when I was here last. But there’s my stone.”

“I’m guessing your epitaph includes ‘beloved.’”

“I don’t know. It hadn’t been put in when I left—there was just a big fieldstone marking the place. I imagine Mama had to save up to pay for a tombstone.”

Stella walked over to the grave, then went as still as only a vampire can.

Mark, thinking she must be feeling like Scrooge had when confronted by the price of his sins, put an arm around her, but she didn’t respond. He looked down at the stone, then blinked.

“It says ‘Jane Doe,’” he said. There was no birth date, and the only date of death was the year.

“I know what it says.”

“Then where’s your grave?”

“You’re standing on it.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here, right? And the circumstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you forget the exact location.”

“I’m sure. A person doesn’t just forget something like that!”

She stayed there while Mark wandered over toward the neighboring graves, hoping to find the correct one, but there was no Estelle Boyd. Eventually he came back to where she was still standing.

“Maybe your mother moved you somewhere…” He stopped before saying nicer. “To another cemetery.”

“She wouldn’t have moved me and left Daddy here. I was a Daddy’s girl from the day I was born—she wouldn’t have separated us.”

“Well, maybe nobody realized you were already here. I mean, you said there was no tombstone.”

“Are you saying my own mother didn’t buy me a tombstone?” she said, an edge in her voice.

“No, I’m just saying—Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He looked around helplessly, but there was no night watchman to bespell and question. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I’ll hit the web and see what I can Google about Jane. Okay? We’ll find out what happened.”

Fortunately they’d already fed, so they could go straight to their hotel, where Mark immediately booted up his laptop. By searching for “Allenville, NC” and “Jane Doe,” he found a hit on the Allenville Sentinel ’s website archives.

“Here we go,” he said. “Story dated a year and a half ago. Jane Doe to be buried in Spivey family plot. Unknown murder victim. Believed to be between sixteen and nineteen years old. Found raped and strangled in Allenville six months previously. No funds in the budget for burial, so Officer Norcomb offered room in his family plot. He must be a relative of yours.”

“I suppose so. The Spiveys always were a fertile bunch. Mama would have had a house full if Daddy hadn’t died so early.”

Mark continued reading. “Ongoing investigation. Norcomb still hopes he’ll be able to identify her and her killer. There’s a photo of the funeral, complete with locals paying their respects.”

“Nothing about relocating the previous inhabitant of the grave?” she asked.

“Nope. Shouldn’t they have found your coffin?”

“There wasn’t much left of it when I broke out of it.”

“Vilmos didn’t dig you up?” he said, appalled. Stella had arranged it so that he’d never been buried, but sometimes it was necessary to placate the human world. In those cases, the vampire’s sire dug up the coffin as promptly as possible.

“He was late. It took him longer than expected to find some men to bespell to do the digging. I could have waited, but I panicked.”

“No wonder. Why didn’t he dig for you himself? He could have done it faster than bespelled humans.”

“Vilmos get his hands dirty? Please!”

Mark supposed it wasn’t surprising that he disliked Stella’s sire so intensely.

“At any rate,” Stella said, “the coffin was broken up pretty thoroughly. Vilmos splintered the rest, tossed it back into the grave, and had it buried again. I don’t know how long it takes wood and cloth to rot, but I don’t expect they found anything when digging Jane’s grave that would have told them I’d been buried there. Only there should have been a marker of some sort. Let me see that picture.”

He moved the screen so it was aimed toward her.

“No tombstone, no fieldstone, no nothing,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would Mama have moved the marker? Why didn’t she get me a real tombstone? I know they’re expensive—she had to save for a year to pay for Daddy’s—but…I guess she decided not to bother.”

“Hey, don’t make assumptions! Tell you what—tomorrow I’ll go back and see what the story is. There must be records of who’s supposed to be where.”

“Probably not. When Daddy died, Mama just picked a spot and buried him. I’m not even sure who owned the land then, let alone now.”

“I bet Officer Norcomb will know. I’ll track him down and ask him.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. You were right. It was stupid to come back.”

“I didn’t say it was stupid—I said it was morbid. And I’m going to find that guy tomorrow and see what happened.”

She shrugged, saying only, “I am a little curious.” Then she reached for the TV remote control. “I wonder what they’ve got on pay-per-view.”

They picked out something violent and mindless, and when it was over, Mark produced the birthday present he’d hidden in his suitcase. Stella demonstrated her appreciation for the sapphire pendant ardently, proving once again that her years had given her skills beyond safe driving. Still, Mark could tell her unbeating heart wasn’t in it, though he certainly enjoyed her efforts on his behalf.

As the night ended, Stella got into bed, and after making sure the door was locked, the windows thoroughly curtained, and the DO NOT DISTURB sign was in place, Mark joined her. An instant before dawn arrived, he felt her start to cry. Then they both stiffened in death.

At some point, Mark shifted from a vampire’s death-sleep to human sleep, and he woke when it was nearly eleven. Stella would remain cold and unmoving until dusk, but his body was still fighting off the vestiges of humanity.