Found

Winner of the 2018 Tudor Ghost Story Contest

Found
By L.H.

Inside, Peterborough Cathedral is cool and pale with winter sunshine. The faint shadows of falling snow glide down ancient walls and vanish. I can hear a bitter wind push up against the windows; beg entrance, shelter from its own ferocity. But its howl goes unheeded, and Peterborough stands firm, as it always has, against time and the elements. I am the only one here now, save the Vicar, who has seen enough of me to know when I want to be left alone. He has gone and busied himself elsewhere, for which I am exceedingly grateful.
Unthinking, I make my way to the far side of the church, where an iron fence fashioned with scrollwork blocks the public from accessing private chambers. Beneath its heavy form, carefully polished gold letters spell out “Katherine Queen of England”, and beneath them is a narrow slab of dark stone, elaborately engraved. For the first time since I stepped out of my home, the dark cloud retreats and I can breathe deeply. Someone has lain a soft pink rose on the cold tomb, another a bright sprig of daisies. Cold fingers fumbling in pockets, I pull out my own gifts to the long-wronged lady: a pomegranate and, as always, a folded note. Stooping to lay them just at her head, I catch a whiff of exotic spices, and the tail end of a warm wind not felt in England for months. My skin prickles as a presence draws up behind me. I can feel it, looking at me, curious: strangely familiar, yet remarkably alien all the same. I freeze, my body enveloped instantaneously in the primordial need for fight or flight. But a voice, warm as the wind, pushes back the flap, and infiltrates the panic.
“The Pomegranates, they are my favorite. They remind me so much of Spain, and of my mother.” It is a deep voice, rich like velvet. It puts me in the mind of port wine and cloves. I straighten, turn to face it. She is strangely more human than I expected; there is no ethereal light, no chorus of angels, no cloak of gold. Only a woman with a soft oval face framed by an old fashioned gabled hood, her form draped with heavy damask and silk. Before I can think about it, I find myself dropping into a curtsey; it is somehow instinctive. She smiles as I rise, “Please, such formality is not necessary. I have not been Queen for a long while, not since my husband died.”
It is only now that I catch the hint of an accent, a reminder of her status as a foreigner in her own realm. “Come,” she gestures to the long aisles of the church, “walk with me awhile. It has been many years since I have had company.” And what can I do but oblige? As I walk towards her I realize how absurd the situation is. But something in her demeanor, in her sense of reality, keeps me from being afraid. She takes my arm in a familiar way, and I am startled by the warmth of her. All the stories say ghosts are cold, but she feels as if she has just come from sitting in the sun.
With a sense of purpose she starts away from her grave, towards the back of Peterborough; I can hear the click of her shoes on hard floors. For a minute we are silent, and it is like walking with an old friend. As we pass a window she stops to take in the snowy grounds,
“Winters in England, they were not so endearing to me. I suppose it is my Spanish blood, but the cold never suited me well.”
“They do take some getting used to.” I admit, almost laughing at how natural the conversation sounds.
“My Henry, he enjoyed winters. He loved to hunt game in snowy fields and traverse frozen stream beds.” She chuckles, “I remember how the ice hung in his beard, and the cold colored his cheeks.” She presses a hand to the window, and shivers, “Even now, when it cannot affect me, I dislike it.” For a moment she is still, then, with a sigh, she turns away and we continue our stroll. “I have been receiving your letters for some time now; I am so sorry about your son.”
The black cloud that has followed me so closely these past two years takes back over, and I am again engulfed in the sickeningly familiar feeling of having a vortex rip open inside of you and suck up all the light and warmth; like a Dementor who has infiltrated your soul. I can feel her gentle gaze on me, and somehow I know she does not expect me to respond,
“That feeling, it is one a mother never forgets. It never leaves her, not fully. It follows her all of her days, like a shadow at her heels. I think, sometimes, that it even lingers over her grave. In all these many years I have been unable to fully rid myself of it, even though I now have all my little ones close to me again.”
The words are heavy and hard with truth. I think them over, and wonder how I can live the rest of my life with a shadow always following behind. Then I think of all the shadows that follow her: five lost babes and one child grown to adulthood. “How did you do it? When Nate died I couldn’t get out of bed for a week. There were entire days I couldn’t even speak. Friends had to go out and buy smoothies just so I ate something. At his funeral I nearly fainted. How did you go on running a court? Running a country? I could barely keep my job.”
She is silent, her face tight with emotions I know all too well: grief, shame, embarrassment, anger. She seems lost, far away in her thoughts, then,
“I had no choice. I had thousands of people depending on me. I had decisions to make, people whose livelihoods were in my hands. As much as I sometimes wished to, I could not stop living because it pleased God my babes should do so.”
Somehow those words are heavier than her sentiment about shadows. The idea that I have to keep living, that the world will not stop turning just because my boy was hit by a car, is a bitter one to swallow. “Jamie dealt with it so differently than I did. He got out of bed, drowned himself in work, went to the gym, went to the park… for hours. Anything to not be home, not stare down that closed door. He wouldn’t even look at it. Wouldn’t go in and look at any of his things. Just let them sit there, as if Nate might come bursting through the door any moment. It made me so angry! I felt like he was moving on without him, like he was trying to wipe Nate out of existence. It’s part of why we divorced; we couldn’t help each other grieve, we were so wrapped up in our own loss.”
She nods, “With Henry and I, while I cannot say the experience was the same, it was similar. He would mourn with me at first, but soon was back to his hunts and his games and his masks. And I thought sometimes then …and now even more so…that he was truly mourning the loss of his heir, not of his child. He saw a son as an item: a thing to keep in his possession and secure his legacy. One was the same as another to him. But to me, they were all so unique. In the womb they behaved so differently, each giving me different pains, different joys. I had so looked forward to meeting them in life, to watching those little motions blossom into an entire being.” Tears brim in dark eyes and, instinctively, I reach out to comfort her. The damask of her sleeve is stiff: gold patterning on a red background, studded with gems that wink and snap even in the dying light.
“I’m sorry you never got to know them. I can’t imagine what that’s like.” Her own hand squeezes mine and our eyes meet.
“Thank you.”
Our walk continues in soft silence, around to the front of the Cathedral where Christ and His apostles look down on us. Their faces framed in gold halos, they sit on a background of robin’s egg blue, run all over by pastel leaves and vines. We have passed the velvet rope meant to keep us back, but somehow I doubt the Vicar will mind. Katherine stops under the figure of Jesus, fingers a diamond laden cross at her neck,
“My faith gave me much comfort during my life, and in my death. I am sorry that it has not been so kind to you.”
I shrug uncomfortably, trying to shake off the awkward feeling that religion has given me ever since Nate’s death. Ever since the Pastor presiding over his service had said God had a reason for taking him from me. I am still furious about that. That someone, let alone a man of God, had the gall to insinuate that the violent, bloody death of a child was ordained. That his suffering was predetermined, smiled upon even. “How could you be so sure the death of your babies was the will of any god? It seems so cruel, so unholy.”
She breathes in, lets out a long, tired sigh, “I have asked myself that many times. In my life I struggled so often with the love I bore my children and the love I bore God. But to think that their deaths were meaningless, to think that the world was so cruel as to tear a babe from my arms before it truly had a chance to live, it seemed impossible. Or, I suppose, I did not want it to be possible. And so I accepted, and I still accept, that God had a plan in taking them from me. After all, He took His own son. What are my children compared to His?”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“And besides,” her voice is warm again, full of golden honey, “I had my Mary. My sweet girl. Often, especially as the years wore on, it was the thought of her alone that kept my spirits high.”
“All the books say she was a particularly clever girl, good at music and language.”
She smiles, “Oh, she loved music. Dancing, singing, playing! Sometimes, when she danced, I thought her feet did not truly touch the ground, she was so nimble!”
I smile with her, chuckle at her memories, “Nate was learning piano… it’s a bit like the virginals. He played it so much I had to lock it at bedtime, otherwise I’d find him up at 3 A.M. trying to learn a new song.”
“Mary enjoyed the virginals greatly! She often played for me after her lessons. And the organ at church always fascinated her! I shall never forget when Dionysus Memmo came and first played for us! She was so enchanted she kept saying ‘Priest! Music! Music!’, over and over again. Of course she was only 2 at the time, so it took the poor man a moment to realize what she meant!”
We sigh in tandem, and I can feel relief tinge the air. It has been so long since I’ve been able to talk about Nate without almost breaking down. Even in the support group his name brings tears to my eyes. But with Katherine all that grief is somehow eased, and I am able to focus more on all the happy memories 12 years of life brought.
From high above us the tolling of the bells interrupts our thoughts.
“I cannot stay much longer. It takes more effort than you might think to traverse the gaps in mortality.”
My heart sinks. I knew she couldn’t possibly stay forever, but I was hoping for just a bit more time.
“Walk me back to my grave. It is easiest to come and go there.”
And so, arm in arm with a former Queen of England, with a fellow mother, with a fellow mourner, with a fellow divorcee, I walk once more to the iron railing.
“I am so glad we were able to meet. It has given me great comfort. I am glad to know that motherhood has remained much the same, even if the world has not. And talking to you… it has eased my soul somehow. I am glad you began writing me letters.”
I am floored: with all her visit has done for me, I couldn’t have imagined that I had the same effect on her. “I am too,” is all I can manage to get out.
All too soon we are at the dark, polished slab. She turns to face me, “I do not think I shall be able to come again.” my heart sinks further, “But I shall never forget you. And, should I ever find your Nate in the vastness of the Afterlife, I shall take him under my wing and keep him safe until it is your time to join us.”
I can feel tears welling in my eyes, and for the first time in two years they are not from sorrow.
“Until then, remember that there is a mother always cheering for you, and comforting you in turn.” She draws me in to an embrace, and I feel her soft, rounded form beneath all the layers and trappings. I wish, so, so dearly, that I could hang on forever, but already I can feel her fading away. “Farewell, my friend. I look forward to your next letter.”
Then, with one last breath and the scents of an exotic land, she is gone. I am left looking at a quiet grave, with only a lingering warmth surrounding me. As the wind blows outside and the snow falls in heaps I offer a low, well deserved bow to Katherine, Queen of England. And, before I leave, I summon the only words I can think of, “Goodbye Your Majesty, and thank you. Give the children a kiss for me. I hope to meet them one day.”