Explain It Like I'm Tree

Graves

Just to her left, the fence broke rank with a gate that led to a path. Intrigued, Vivi put her hand to the gate, then stopped. Further to the left was another path with no fence, and that one led to what looked like... she let her hand drop from the gate and walked along this second path. Past a picnic table and a long-abandoned bike. Past ancient lantern hangers, some with rusted-shut, long-empty lanterns still swinging from them. Down and around a path carved out of rock that wound between smaller, solemn trees. Into the cemetery.

Vivi laughed softly as she read names off the tombstones. "Shadow. Daisy. Burpy. Durpy. Churpy. Just pets. Wow, they went all out for their fur babies." She squatted near Daisy's granite headstone, engraved with the cartoonish outline of a cat's head. "And Bailey gets a solid stone doghouse, huh? How'd the rest of you feel about that?" She grinned, lifting her head.

The grin faded. The path didn't stop here. Her apprehension crept back in as she stood, dusting her hands on her knees, and followed the path to the next section. It was a smaller, circular area with headstones arranged around a central tree. A wooden sitting platform encircled the tree so you could sit and stare out at any one of the headstones. Unlike the previous section, these headstones all bore first and last names, and all last names were "Finch". Each headstone had elaborate decorations attached to them; a saw, a moon with a spaceship hanging off it, a book with letters springing out of it.

Vivi exhaled hard. "Family cemeteries are normal. Mhmm. Putting them by your house is a little weird, but that's just what I think. The family's probably really, really old school. Old-world, probably."

If you drag the old world with you, you're dragging the good and the bad together. How much bad stuff did they drag with them?

Vivi shivered. The path still didn't end. It curved upward, past a strange stone monument divided into two parts. A man and a woman in a boat on the left of the path reached out, horror-stricken, toward the right side of the path. Across from them was a stone house that appeared to be sinking into the ground. A man stood on its roof, like a grizzled sea captain determined to go down with the ship. From there, the path stopped just ahead at a telescope, pointed out to sea.

No, it kept going! She turned completely around to see that the path also did a hairpin curve, leading to a different section. There were more headstones there, two more sections in groups of three or four, with either stone or wooden benches facing them.

A kid was sitting in the final section. He looked to be about eleven or twelve years old with short, milk-chocolate colored hair and a hoodie. He had a book splayed on his lap and his right arm was wrapped in a cast from wrist to elbow.

Vivi approached, unsure whether he was an intruder or if she was. "Um... hey..."

The kid's head jerked up. A smile lit his face. "Oh! Are you... you're Vivi, right? With the Mystery Skulls?"

He already knew her name and their group. Vivi's heart sank as a hunch took hold. "Uh... yeah... and... look, please tell me you're not, um... Mr. Finch? Who contracted the Mystery Skulls to check this property for a curse?"

The smile turned a little sheepish. "Well, um. I kind of... really needed some help. Figured you wouldn't come out just for a kid, so..."

That was a pretty high-pitched voice. He probably hadn't even hit puberty. Fuddling muck rudders, Artie's not going to like this. She raked fingers through her hair, sighing.

The kid dug into his pocket with his good hand. "But I can pay! I've been saving for, like, a year. I'm not pranking, please!" The smile turned into something desperate-looking. Something scared.

Vivi paused her hair-raking, then dropped her hands to her sides. Sighing, she muttered, "Scoot over, would ya? We can talk about pay later. We're already out here so no sense running off before we check everything out. What's your name, Mr. Finch?"