First Chapter

Here is Chapter One of Winter Roses Never Die. :)

CHAPTER ONE: MONDAY


The doors of wood and glass rumbled apart, and a sweet-faced young woman appeared in the opening. Under one arm she clutched two coffee-table sized books, their covers sparkling with the magic of flower-decked nymphs and elfin-faced sprites. With her free hand she fiddled with the key in the lock until both doors were bound together.

She turned and gazed at the cold, grey July world. Like the bony apple tree that grew between the footpath and the asphalt road, everything appeared hard and cold. Jennie seemed untarnished by the harshness of the climate, for in her expressive face was warmth and a childlike lack of inhibition. She screwed up her nose at the extreme drabness and chuckled. Extremes sometimes amused her. Against the nondescript winter town she stood out like a neon sign. Her bright, bulky green cardigan, brown pants and navy handbag indicated she was neither concerned about appearances nor the stigma of opportunity shops. The red beret that pushed her fringe into her eyes crowned her efforts to be shabby chic. The distracted way she meandered down the steps and then stared up at the emerging patch of colour in the sky indicated her inner life was richer than her outer one.

Near the foot of the stairs, the small, leafless apple tree appeared lonely. Jennie felt sympathy for the tree, the only one in the street to buffer the wind and climate. To her it was more like a dear friend with moods and fruits she knew and appreciated. The tree always looked woe-begotten in winter, but in spring it radiated happiness.

“Good night, my friend,” she whispered, smiling as she passed.

The wet, shiny road had less traffic than usual during peak hour, but Mondays were also less active in the library where Jennie worked. A small, forlorn group shivered at the nearby bus stop waiting for the five-thirty. She decided not to join them and waited at the curb for the cars to pass. In the grey sky the expanding purplish and crimson streaks gave a surreal element to her predictable life.

The promise of the unexpected that lingered in the crisp air and pervaded the surreal sky made her restless. As she hurried across the road, she was glad she'd decided to take the scenic route home. She was also glad of wearing her clodhopper shoes as the road and pavements were slippery and sloshy. Her trademark red beret might prove useful if she was rained on during the homeward trek.

Jennie's pace slowed as she walked into the shadow cast by the length of bluestone wall enclosing the old cemetery. During previous visits, she'd discovered there was a wide pathway that snaked through the grounds until reaching the exit gate on the other side. From there she lived a street, a rural road and a paddock away. She stopped at the arched opening that contained two iron gates. Again, she glanced at the darkening sky then stirred the contents around her shoulder bag. After pulling out a small torch, she experimentally flicked the switch on and off. Then she pushed open a creaking gate...

...and slowly entered.

On the inside of the high walls was a different atmosphere to the harried world outside. The grounds had a slow, haphazard rhythm in the rustling leaves, the sound of water dripping from foliage into a puddle and the occasional short whistle from a hidden bird. While a gentle, sleepy atmosphere pervaded the grounds, there was also vitality and abundance. Nature had overgrown nearly everything with weeds and creepers. Even the wall she stood next to was entwined with various foliated climbers. Some parts of the coverage were so dense the climbers looked like a leafy jungle with stems as thick as branches twisting in and out. Layers of cape cod ivy reached up and trailed down from some of the largest branches. Jennie speculated on how long it might have taken for the climbers to turn the wall into a jungle. She also wondered if it supported an eco-system with little animals and bird nests hidden in there. Perhaps a village of pygmies and miniature huts also flourished on different levels of a tribal high-rise.

She stepped onto the crunchy gravel path winding between graves and monuments on the left and the lush bushes and trees on the right. The ornate gravesites and monuments still had an old-world charm which imparted a timeless aura to the cemetery. Marble, polished granite, sandstone and wrought ironwork were the popular materials for these resting places of the dead. In modern cemeteries the deceased were lucky if their cremated remains didn't end up in a concrete box.

The area on the right of the path was meant to be a parkland for visitors and a place for potential cemetery expansion. However, beyond the impenetrable wall of gorse bushes, speckled with millions of yellow flowers, the parkland had become forested with gum trees. The ever-present gums loomed over the gorse, dripping bunches of dark aqua and olive green leaves. To the right of the pathway, a row of dirt mounds were also overgrown. Their white crosses were almost invisible behind weedy grass and clumps of bright jonquils. The jonquils also grew along the aisles and in the spaces between the graves. Jennie gratefully inhaled their fresh, sweet aroma.

She tried sensing the energies around her. What was there about this place that she couldn't see but could feel? She switched mindsets to stem the flow of thoughts and allowed her instinctive awareness to rise. She detected not only a sleepiness, but a loneliness, a lack of caring. But then, maybe, this was just an impression created by the neglected state of the graves. She tried to focus her feelings again. There were also secrets hidden here, perhaps some mysterious occurrence which had led to the cemetery becoming abandoned. Jennie wrinkled up her nose. It was always hard to work out what was genuinely intuited and what was just imagination. Still, it was fun to try.

As she followed the curving path, she noticed the older graves with marble coverings were discoloured by black streaks caused by time and weather, while the stonework on the newer graves had patches of spongy moss or greenish-brown fungi . Some of the concrete stonework was cracked or had partially collapsed. Not to miss an opportunity, nature triumphantly arose from the openings in the form of spiky thistles or small shrubs. Rusty-red wrought iron fences surrounded many of the larger grave sites. A nearby rickety fence was bejewelled with diamond raindrops that were studded around a spider web. Some of the other fences were attired in morning glory ivy. Although none of the purple and blue flowers had bloomed, she recognised the tenacious climber as plenty of it grew at home.

Inside one fenced gravesite were masses of snow drops. Jutting above the flowers from the middle of the gravesite was a curved, grizzled headstone. The graceful, drooping stance of the flowers and their tutu shaped petals made the snow drops appear as the ballerinas of the cemetery. Like the jonquils near the entryway, the snow drops grew everywhere not covered by the man-made. In the deepening twilight the white flowers had a faint, luminous glow. She glanced around the grounds. All the self-sown winter flowers growing on the grounds appeared untouched by winter's deathly presence. How ironic that in this place of death and decay, life was more abundant than anywhere else.

She was brought out of her reverie by something swooping over her head and making a repeated snapping sound as it passed. The black and white bird flew onto the branch of a nearby gum tree where he, or she, perched and watched. It wasn't the season for nesting, so he couldn't be trying to protect a nest. Jennie conjectured whether he might be a kind of guardian of the cemetery.

"Hello," she called out. He tilted his head as if listening. She observed his beak. It looked plenty strong and pointy. He resembled a magpie, but wasn't. He had too many black feathers and was slightly smaller than a magpie.

When she turned and continued down the path, he swooped again. This time she felt a breeze as he just missed the top of her beret while making the same unnerving snapping sound. It seemed as if he was trying to prevent her from going further.

"Do you mind?" she rhetorically asked him. "I have to get home."

The bird burst into loud whistling that sounded like a cranky retort. He was a feisty little chap. She continued past the tree where he watched her watching him. After a few moments, she looked back to see if he was still there. The branch was now empty. She sighed, relieved.

While following the path Jennie wistfully imagined she was in a special place where the magical race of fairies still visited. The bird was their guardian, instructed to keep humans away from where these folk came and went. The luminous flowers and lush weeds helped to make this pretence seem more like a possibility. As she didn't remember experiencing so much vitality on her visit last year, she wondered if it was just the light cast by the purplish sky.

Admiring her surroundings, Jennie congratulated herself on the inspired decision to take the shortcut home. She also congratulated herself on overcoming any fears as she was squeamish of whatever lurked in the dark.

The mass of gorse bushes on the right of the path were gradually replaced by native she-oaks with dark, needle-like foliage and some smaller wattle trees. In contrast to the grim looking she-oaks, the vivacious wattles had begun to acquire a few fluffy, golden blooms. Dwarfing everything in sight was a ghost gum that stretched white skeletal limbs above the graves on the other side of the path. Around the gum's broad trunk was built a wooden seat now scattered with leaves and bark and encroaching tendrils of ivy. The back of the seat had almost disappeared beneath Cape Cod ivy. Even the broad trunk of the gum tree was invisible within a leafy overcoat.

It occurred to her that there was a silent war going on between the man-made and the natural. Nature was intent on reclaiming the grounds for herself, and while there was no human intervention she would win. The man-made constructions had a limited life-expectancy whereas nature could replace herself.

When Jennie spotted the life-size statue near the path on her left, she grinned and thought, here's the man-made fighting back. Nothing dared to cling or climb over the mighty exterior of the warrior angel. His strong looking arms held up a sword that pointed into the heavens, while his powerful wings almost reached the concrete block upon which he stood. Jennie admired the determined expression on the sculptured white face staring into the sky. Not to be completely outdone, nature had the statue surrounded. The concrete pedestal was almost hidden behind long-stemmed plants with clusters of magenta flowers, the likes of which grew in her grandmother's garden long ago.

Time and weather had hardly touched any of the life-like statues that had 'peopled' the grounds for longer than she remembered. Most of the statues were supposedly crafted from a composite of finished marble and concrete making them look as luminous as the white flowers in the twilight. Further down an aisle, Jennie spotted an exquisite girl. As the light was growing fainter, she turned on her torch and followed the light for a closer look. Wearing a long skirt and simple blouse, the girl held a posy of stone rosebuds that rested on her other folded arm. Jennie thought the statue was of a young Saint Therese, probably the most loved of all Catholic saints. In life, Saint Therese had been a shy person but wrote in her autobiography that when she forgot herself and focused on others she found happiness. Like the warrior angel she gazed heavenward with an incandescence of someone who could see beyond the earthly veil.

On the other side of the Saint Therese was a headstone of uneven grey stone which sat atop a similar gravestone. Eroded lettering carved into the headstone proclaimed: 'If tears could build a stairway and memories could build a lane, I'd walk right up to Heaven and bring you home again.'

"Oh-h-h," Jennie said, touched that someone had created this homage for a loved one.

The cemetery was brimming with love and creativity – and a competitive spirit.

It was amazing how the ambience of the grounds changed when the purplish patch of sky faded into blackness. The heavenly world of angels, saints and elementals was becoming a gloomy Hades. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flicker of movement in the trees. Her heart rate accelerated as she shone the torch into the overhead branches on her right. Nothing but the shadows lurked behind the leaves. She felt another panicky reaction as she passed two willow trees with thick foliage that swept the ground. Anything could be hidden behind that green curtain.

She inhaled slowly and deeply as she walked away, backwards, while focusing the light upon the hanging branches.

As she approached the centre of the cemetery, Jennie realised if she lost her nerve it was too far to go back to the main entrance, and the exit gate was about another five minutes away.

A sumptuous wattle tree, soft and golden in the torchlight, arose from the darkness. Despite the cold and dark, the air was pervaded with a strange, sweet aroma. Where the tree overlapped the path, a few lower branches had been lopped to allow passage. As she walked beneath the wattle, she felt a cold, tickling sensation on the back of her neck and something touching her hair. Frowning, she held up the torch. For a moment in time an eerie, lovely image was frozen in the white beam. A raven-haired girl with skin and facial features as flawless as the stony flesh of the statues reclined upon a twiglike branch. She was adorned in a gossamer gown as green and glittery as her sloe-shaped eyes, eyes that held such power, Jennie went into sensory over-load and couldn't move.

Deciding to test this creature, she said the prayer that always drove away her fear, "I plead the Holy Blood of Jesus Christ."

As abruptly as the lady had appeared in the torchlight, she vanished. Jennie was too stunned to be afraid. If the vision hadn't appeared in a dark cemetery, it would not seem scary but fantastically beautiful.

Could the lady have been some kind of spirit? As the lady didn't look the least insubstantial or as if she had ever been human, she couldn't have been a ghost. Nor was she a nature spirit as Jennie once thought she'd seen faint silhouettes of light that was all a nature spirit was composed of. This lovely vision was a different creature entirely.

Could she have been one of the mythological races of Faerie? Strange as this option might have seemed to most people, Jennie felt this was a strong possibility. The various fairy races were sometimes pictured as having slanted, almond-shaped eyes, too. Another indication was that the girl's eyes and gown had been green. In fairy mythology green was a popular colour. Jennie tried to recall her expression and realised there was something regal and delicate about her. Her head was held high on her slender neck; and the way she draped her slight figure over the branch, graceful and yet erect, was poetry for the eye.

Perhaps nature has brought in the Big Guns to help win the Battle of the Cemetery. The thought of Mother Nature recruiting help from fairy champions made Jennie chuckle. She sternly reminded herself that she must not let her imagination run away. She might have just imagined the fabulous girl, although this was unlikely. However, the cemetery grounds contained an atmosphere which encouraged the imagination to run as wild as the natural world.

She had wanted more excitement by taking this shortcut, but now she was having more than she'd hoped. Into every tree she passed Jennie shone the torch, but no more visions appeared. Several rows of ancient headstones emerged, each one resembling chalky, grizzled teeth. They reminded her of those she had seen in old horror films. All the scene needed was the spooky music.

She had barely finished thinking this when music actually began to play. Jennie whirled around, frantically shining her torch this way and that, trying to spot the source. Just single notes from a guitar began the song, and then the sound swelled as more instruments joined in. The music sounded very modern consisting of acoustic guitar, mandolin, tambourine and rhythmic percussion sounds.

The music grew louder as Jenny took a deep, uneven breath which helped suppress the scream threatening to undo her self-control. She softly repeated the prayer said earlier. As her terror scaled down, she became enthralled by the beauty of the music. The melody with its slow, heavy beat had sadness, yet, also, richness and sensuality. The acoustic guitar began a solo that was joined by the mandolin. The two played a series of rapid riffs and melodies as if they were taking part in a musical duel. The rhythmic effect was compelling, tempting her to move faster and more extravagantly. However she was too focused on her surroundings and what might be contained in the shadows either side of the path.

She realised this music had too much power and spontaneity to be the kind played through a portable CD player. This music was being played live. Tentatively she crossed the path to her left and flashed the torch around. A tall, dark monument with a concrete square base and a narrow, tapering tower emerged. No one was behind it. She crossed the path to her right and looked behind some of the trees.

There didn't appear to be anyone around.

Jennie shivered, though not from cold. Visions and unexplainable events normally didn't happen to her. Well, there was the incident when she thought she saw the faint silhouettes of nature spirits moving around a pot plant but that was an isolated one.

Jennie began to suspect that the music wasn't coming from a single source – or even the same place – because no matter how far she went the sound never faded. With all senses on full alert, she continued warily down the pathway. From what she'd read of the supernatural, ghostly visions and sounds had no power to do harm, unless those being haunted panicked and inadvertently did harm to themselves. It was the old battle of mind over matter, and she was determined to win the fight. She clenched her teeth together, focused on the path ahead and kept striding along.

But then the singing started. A man's voice seemed to follow wherever she went. It was a beautiful voice: powerful, deep, expressive. The voice always seemed to be coming from the trees on her right. She shone light into the branches of a huge maple, the only tree in the cemetery to have lost its leaves. The bony branches appeared haunted and empty.

Jennie's heart-rate accelerated and panic tickled around her throat, but she willed herself to keep calm and maintain rationality. Meanwhile, the man sang of being just a shell full of sand, and hiding behind lies, and there being too much pain, too many tears, sweat and blood.

Despite the cold, Jennie was now sweating as she strode down the winding path. And still the voice followed. He sounded so close that she stopped and swung the torch around, half-hoping, half-dreading to see the owner. In the process one of her library books fell. She bent down to retrieve it, and when she stood again, the torchlight illuminated a large gravesite several graves away. Both the headstone and gravestone appeared covered with an explosion of deep red. She peered down the aisle towards the creeping briars and the many roses. Like large rubies they lay luminous and gleaming upon their leafy bed. Their vibrancy added a warm, velvet glow against the inky backdrop. She had thought the other flowers gorgeous, but these were the jewels of the cemetery. She then noticed an aroma like one you might find in a forest of exotic flowers that was carpeted with rotting mulch.

The aroma became odious as the thought came it was disgusting for a sweet, yet overripe perfume to pervade a place of the dead.

She flashed the torch down the path and ran.

A gigantic man loomed out of the darkness. As his appearance coincided with a dramatic moment in the music, Jennie – well beyond the limits of her courage – screamed loudly. Then she recognised who it was or, rather, what it was. The statue of the Christ was the largest and the most marvellous of all the statues throughout the cemetery. Unlike the marble statues, this one had been stained in full colour. Standing upon a five feet high pedestal, the tall figure was garbed in a maroon cloak that tumbled from his shoulders to just above his feet. Jennie had touched the hem of that cloak on previous visits as it appeared so real. Unlike the many unrealistic paintings portraying Jesus with blond, wavy hair and movie star features, this statue portrayed a man with dark hair and eyes, a thin face, and a long hooked nose. It wasn't a handsome face, but the gentle, knowing eyes and the calm, compassionate expression made it an unforgettable one. The arms were extended as if inviting anyone willing into their embrace. The delicate hands and feet bore the marks of the crucifixion.

The music now seemed out of place. While the melody held a haunting sadness and the lyrics were of pain and emptiness, the expression on the Christ told of peace and love. And, yet, the song played rudely on.

Jennie kept running until she had left the cemetery behind and was passing the dark paddocks that led to an acreage on her right. Here she lived beside one solitary neighbour, also on an acreage of land. She whipped open the old-fashioned farm gate and dashed down the uneven, cracked concrete leading to her front door. After stumbling up the wooden steps, she opened her already unlocked door, slammed it shut and then deadlocked it – something she never needed to do in sleepy Sycamore. She tripped over a boot lying in the hallway where the light bulb didn't work as she hurried towards the lounge room. When she flicked on the light, normality rose from the darkness to greet her. She tossed her bag onto the green vinyl couch and switched on the small electric heater.

"Un-be-lievable!" she exclaimed, then burst out laughing. But this quickly dissipated as she puzzled over the night's events.

During her journey home, she had stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone, complete with its own haunting theme. She couldn't wait to tell the girls at work and hear what they had to say. They wouldn't believe her, of course. They already thought her a little bizarre, although Jennie wasn't sure why. On second thoughts, maybe the evening's events were better kept to herself. Damn! She had to tell someone. Perhaps her mother...? Unfortunately, her mother had as little appreciation for the unusual as everyone else in Sycamore. Perhaps she could email her young cousin who lived in Sydney?

There came a soft thud from the next room. Jennie looked toward the open doorway and waited expectantly. A grey and white cat poked her head around the bedroom doorway, and a pair of round eyes stared up at the woman looming over the heater. When assured this really was her companion, she padded over to where Jennie stood and performed the ritual greeting of rubbing against legs.

"Are you hungry, Honey? Fancy a bowl of warm milk? I might have a glass, too," she muttered.

While absent-mindedly stroking Honey's back beside the glimmering heater, Jennie again followed the gravel pathway. She pictured the over-grown cemetery and saw the lovely girl in a green gown staring down from an overhead branch, and then heard the dolorous melody and the darkly seductive voice moaning a gentle harmony to the strumming of guitar and mandolin. And, finally, she was confronted with a display of radiant roses that belonged more to an enchanted garden than an abandoned, winter cemetery.

Could it be possible that fairies haunted the old cemetery? Partly because she read fairy stories during story sessions in the library, Jennie had devoured every mythological reference to fairies she could find. She straightened and looked at a large poster on the opposite wall with the fairy art of Cicely Mary Barker. Jennie loved the way this artist painted each picture with a life-like flower personified by an exquisite fairy with the same coloured wings and garments. The fairies haunting the cemetery were of a different breed entirely, more powerful and, perhaps, more sinister. Beside the poster was an old-fashioned frost-edged mirror and on the other side of that was a laminated Star Wars movie poster featuring the characters from The Phantom Menace. Her reflection in the old mirror showed how pale and bedraggled she now looked. Her long hair had partially escaped the pony tail and hung in wisps around her face. Although she unconsciously arranged her features to appear at their most attractive, she decided that pretty she definitely was not. Her elongated face and pointy chin made her appear rather witchy; and if this wasn't bad enough, her poor skin turned blotchy at the least embarrassing thing and at the slightest exposure to sun.

Oh, well, I won't give up the day job just yet.

Honey, protesting about the lack of service, brought her back to the present moment. She bent down again to rub under the cat's chin, and then hurried into the kitchen to get some milk. While Honey appreciatively lapped her milk in front of the heater, Jennie stared out the lounge room window where the view wasn't obscured by curtains as she didn't have any. Moonlight and the light from the lounge room illuminated the tree tops outside. This side of the house was built over the garage so the wide window looked down over the sloping bush block where an old corrugated tin woodshed, a pump shed, holly trees, tea trees, gum trees, ferns, couch grass and a tangle of morning glory and jasmine still had plenty of room to expand.

While gazing out the window she noticed a darkling creature flit past in the moonlight.

Ohmigosh! I've brought the strange and wonderful home with me! She could have easily drifted off into an imaginary scene involving black-winged birds, but Honey, now finished with her milk, clawed at her pant leg for some attention.

Jennie bent down and picked up her best friend.