Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings by Gaby Triana

Author:Gaby Triana [Triana, Gaby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

A Superfluity of Nuns

JOHN KISTE

F rom behind the bushes, I watched a murmur of nuns trickling a jug of bourbon into the cemetery cistern while decrying its evils in sibilant whispers. As the final golden drop escaped the container, they straightened their habits, shifted their wimples, and vanished down the darkening path, leaving me cold, unseen, and most amused. Or rather, mostly amused. That had been my bourbon. I had rested it on a tombstone while I relieved myself in said bushes. I had not heard the crisp shuffling of the nightmare horde of zebra-hued ladies until they had already gained possession of the unattended liquor.

No matter, I was drunk enough. It was time to face my uncle.

Heavy flakes of snow had begun to flit earthward, and their swishing in the icy air muted all sounds beyond the distant gates of the graveyard. Yet here a gelid wind sliced through the leafless trees and skirted the mausoleums, keening like baby banshees still learning their craft. The many ornate stones already wore caps and scarves and mufflers of white, and in the deepening twilight I could make out a string of letters on one slouching marker. It read: RIPARIG. “Riparig?” I repeated aloud.

Suddenly, a clammy hand touched my ungloved one. I whirled about in a mad start and came eye to eye with a straggling sister. And what eyes they were—enormous and liquid and piercing blue. These disturbing orbs were truly level with mine, for the girl (and little more than girl she was) stood the same six feet as me. Her rosary beads clattered against her jet-black tunic. As I stared, frozen in body and mind, a great wisp of raven hair fell jauntily across her left eye. She nearly smiled at my fright, without actually doing so, and said in a soft voice, “It means ‘rest in peace and rise in glory.’” And she was gone. I trembled along my limbs, for I could not seem to remember her going.

Still shivering, and not entirely from the cold, I picked my way to the exit gates and found the half-deserted city street a haven. This entire day of Christmas Eve had forced its peculiar, ethereal quality into my brain. All this borough was unfamiliar territory, and my alcohol-addled sensibilities oddly blended the strangeness of my physical surroundings with the nonsensical happenings that had engulfed me since I had arrived by train this afternoon. I had not been to St. Swithins in two years. A codicil of my dead father’s will specified that biennially I must travel here at Yuletide and negotiate my allowance from a trust fund that was being administered by Uncle Myron, my father’s only surviving brother.

This old bachelor relative had always exuded kindness and jollity, except when it came time to hand me my money. He was not a miser—hardly that; I believe it had been his idea to make the required visits at Christmas so he could share his holiday table with me. He simply despised my decadent lifestyle, and the degrading use to which I put my inheritance.

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