McDougal Cemetery sits on a hill in the woods 10 miles outside of Murray. The single-lane road that one must take to get there is cut into the hill and is known to often wash out after a hard storm.
There are many ghosts here for Ellie. She remembers coming here with her parents as a child. Once, she had enjoyed how the cows in the field would come and watch them when they were there, standing in a row side by side chewing their cud like people eating popcorn in a movie theater. Behind them the land would roll for miles.
Now, the cows are gone, and there is a house that blocks the view. Ellie wonders if the people inside are watching her visit her family. She wonders if they are standing around chewing like the cows did.
There was a time that her family came to the cemetery about once a month. Mama would clean the graves of those they knew, pulling weeds, sometimes putting out silk flowers, but mostly, she’d just sit quietly. Daddy seemed unable to stand and watch, so he’d walk around. Ellie would follow, and together, they would make their way toward the back of the cemetery, where the graves became smaller, almost fading into the woods. Daddy would read out the names as he walked, noting whether or not they were relatives of someone she knew.
Now, Ellie walks through, noting some of the newer stones where a newly paved drive bends between a few old oaks. There are several covered in sprays of flowers, some with wind chimes, and two with stone benches for those who must come to visit long enough to need a place to sit. Now, in her 30s, Ellie recognizes many of the names much more than she did as a child.
Ellie decides to wander around before visiting her family’s plot, the way she remembers doing when she was young. It doesn’t take long to reach the edge of the woods, where the stones are so worn by time she must wonder if it’s a grave or just a rock stuck in the mud. Some obviously were once smoother stones, but many are conglomerate red rock, reminding her of the gravel driveway that leads to the single-wide trailer she grew up in. There are no silk flowers, no benches or ornaments in this part of the graveyard. Ellie wonders when was the last time someone pulled weeds here.
“Which grave is the girl’s?” Ellie always asked Daddy as they wandered.
Daddy didn’t have to ask what girl. He just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Probably one of the unmarked ones in the back. Those are the oldest graves,” he said.
Ellie thought so, too.
“Tell me the story again,” she would say.
It was the story she asked for every time they came to McDougal.
Daddy always made sure they were far enough away that Mama couldn’t hear them. Mama didn’t like Daddy’s ghost stories, especially when he told them at the cemetery, which she said was disrespectful.
“Back a long time ago, when your grandma’s grandmama was about your age, there was a church here,” he began.
He told her it was where a pavilion with the wooden picnic tables now covered in chipping white paint sat.
“When they’d get out of church, the grown folks would talk, and the kids would play. Annie—that’s your great-great-GREAT-grandmama’s name—started playing with a girl about her size. The girl didn’t talk; she was real quiet like, but they ran around for a bit. Then Annie’s daddy told her to get in the back of the wagon ’cause it was time to go home. So, Annie jumped into the back of the wagon, and the little girl jumped up into the wagon too.”
“Did her mama and daddy not see the little girl or know she was there?” Ellie always asked, even though she’d heard the story more than once.
“Nah,” Daddy said. “Anyway, they started to pull the wagon away from the church, and Annie turned to tell her mama and daddy they’d picked up the little hitchhiker, but for some reason, they didn’t hear her, and they kept driving. When Annie turned around again to look at her new friend, she was shocked to see that the little girl no longer had a head.”
With this, her daddy always turned and looked at Ellie, his eyes going wide.
“Annie was too scared to talk or scream, but then, the little girl’s body just jumped off the wagon and waved goodbye. They say ever’ now and then, when people leave this place, they look in the mirror and see a headless little girl in the backseat.”
Ellie thinks of the story now as she looks at the nameless old graves. She wonders if there is really a small headless child underneath any of the stones here. The thought sends a chill up her spine and makes her nervously laugh out loud. She can’t help but peek over at the new house to see if she’s been caught—a woman laughing in a cemetery, alone.
While walking back toward the small area where a few stones carry her maiden name, Ellie spots a small white grave with a lamb on top of the stone, and she remembers another time here.
Daddy stopped in front of a small, rounded stone. He got down and tried to read the writing.
“This one here is a little kid’s grave. Do you know how I know?” he asked her.
She didn't. The letters and dates on the white stone had been impossible to make out.
“This little lamb on the top,” he said as he patted the lamb as if it were real.
Behind him, Ellie repeated his gesture and softly patted the lamb before following.
“You know, I think that might be Annie’s sister’s grave,” he said. “She died young. Her name was Americus. That’s a weird one, huh?”
Ellie looks now, many years later, but the name is even more faded and even less legible.
She continues to the spot where her mother used to pull the weeds around a small gray block. It’s much smaller than the ones around it, but the words are still clear.
Ellie sits down on her knees and pulls the tall grass that has grown up around the small stone and the ones around it, which have become more numerous with time. Before she goes, she makes sure to pat the small lamb yard ornament she once insisted on bringing to her brother’s grave, years ago, and she leaves a fresh bouquet of red silk flowers for Daddy.
She checks her rearview mirror over and over before she makes it home.
By Kacie Lawrence | Kirksey (Calloway County)