Sarah opened her eyes and stared at the empty vase. She had prayed in the last five minutes for it to be filled with fresh flowers, but again God had ignored her. Nobody filled the vase anymore. Nobody filled any of the vases in the graveyard anymore.
Even on Sundays, when people walked up and down the path leading to the church, the vases were not filled. She could hear them now, singing the last hymn for Mass before marching out again to return to their secular lives.
She stood up and brushed the bits of twigs and cut grass off her overly large skirt and shirt. She always leave before anyone sees her, and that day was another Sunday that she had to go back to her mother empty-handed. It used to be that she could collect arm-loads of flowers from the graves, especially on Sundays, but ever since people had stopped paying her mother to sweep their lawns, they had also stopped putting flowers at the graves.
Sarah ran out the gates then hurried down the road before turning into an alley beside the old pub her mother usually sold flowers in.
“Nothing?” her mom Diana asked on seeing her.
Sarah shook her head in reply.
“Well, I guess it’s time to find a new place,” Diana said as she put away their meager belongings. Before turning to fold down their tent, she asked, “Did you talk with anyone at the church?” Diana asked.
“No, mama. Everyone didn’t see me.”
“You mean nobody saw you.”
“It wasn’t exactly like that,” Sarah frowned as she tried to explain, “They just looked everywhere but at me.”
“That’s alright, baby. Nobody wants to see us anyway,” Diana said then looked away and concentrated on packing the faded tent and their single sleeping bag. After helping Sarah strap a small schoolbag filled with their clothes, she piled a backpack onto her back. They walked out of the town and along a highway leading to the woods beside Bridgewood Cemetery. Once there, Diana began to set up camp.
She started a fire by striking a flint against a knife. When the tinder began to smoke, she placed more twigs atop it then blew lightly on the ember. Soon a fire began to show and she added more branches. Sarah drew closer to the growing fire, glad for its warmth. Her mother went into the woods and returned two hours later with a bagful of wild mushrooms, which she cooked in two beer cans that had their tops cut off.
That night, Sarah went to bed with a full, warm stomach. Her mother woke her before dawn and they went to the cemetery. The gates were closed but not locked. They crept in and moved as quickly as they could between the tombstones and sarcophagus. Here too, there were barely any flowers, and the ones that they found were all too far gone to be resold.
On their return to the campsite, Sarah felt as though they were being watched. However, the feeling disappeared like a mist when the sun came out. Again Diana went into the woods to look for food but only returned with pine cones. The woods, it seemed, was also as unwilling to sustain them as the cemetery. They roasted the cones over the fire and ate the nuts that popped out of it. Sarah was still hungry when they were done, but she did not complain. Instead she went to sleep in the tent, for that was the only cure she knew for hunger.
When she woke up in the afternoon, her mother was gone. She waited and waited but Diana didn’t return. The fire had gone out while she slept and now she was cold and did not know how to light one in its place. The day darkened, and again she felt the presence.
A decrepit, bent old woman came out of the woods. “Hello Sarah. Why don’t you have a fire?”
“I don’t know how to light one.”
“Where is your mother?”
“I don’t know.”
The old woman reached into the ashes of the campfire and instantly it sprung to life, lighting and warming the night about them. Sarah moved towards it and held out her palms.
“Not too close, dear. You might burn your fingers.” The woman sat down across from the fire and watched her. Then she said, “Are you hungry?”
Sarah battled with her painfully empty stomach but finally gave in and nodded. The old woman went into the woods. Soon she returned with a bar of chocolate and a can of soup. After stripping the top off the can, she warmed the soup over the fire.
Sarah stared at her until she asked, “Don’t you like chocolate, honey?”
“You won’t mind if I eat your food?”
“I got these for you, dearest. You should finish the bar. Then you can drink the soup.”
Sarah smiled for the first time that day. She finished the bar and as she sipped the soup she asked, “Who are you?”
“My name is Margaret. I am like you too. I eke out a living from graves.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I will go before morning, but I will come back again at night. That is, if your mother and you will let me.”
“But I don’t know where she is now.”
“That’s alright. I will come back until she returns for you, and then you can ask her.” A pause. “I need a little favor though.”
“What is it?”
“Can you bring people here at night?”
“What do you mean?”
“You are such a pretty girl. You can walk into the city in the morning and come back here with someone at night. I guarantee, we will eat better.”
“Are you going to steal from them?”
“It is only stealing if you take from people who won’t give. I promise I will ask them, and we will only take what they give us.”
Sarah thought for a moment and decided that the old woman was right, it wouldn’t be stealing if they ask. Early the next morning, she walked to the town and returned that evening with a middle-aged man. Margaret waited in hiding and when they reached the campfire, she appeared before them. The startled visitor stopped his protestations after a few moments and he allowed her to lead him into the woods. An hour or so later, she returned with a bag of burger and fries.
Every night for the next two weeks, the same thing happened, and after each Sarah would get a good meal. A few days later, Sarah noticed that Margaret was no longer decrepit or bent, and that her skin had begun to look younger and rosier. She also bought new clothes for them from the money the men gave her. At the end of the second week she drove up to the campsite in a trailer home.
“Come with me, Sarah,” Margaret said the following night. “I can’t leave you here alone.”
“But what if mama comes back.”
“She hasn’t.”
“But I prayed to God. I asked Him to bring her back.”
Margaret looked into the woods, into the empty shadows and said, “Does He ever answer any of your prayers?”
Sarah shook her head and looked down.
“Then He will not answer this one too.” She reached down. “Come,” she said, and Sarah took her hand.
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