Tell Me A Story

Chapter 2: Seth

   I froze in my place. I realized I'd squeezed my eyes shut. I slowly opened them. He had me. His hand was still on my shoulder. Hang on... His hand was solid. I mean, ghosts aren't solid, right? But then, it was a human. They'd tell my mom what I've been up to late in the night. Having a ghost behind me now sounded better.

   Finally, I mustered all the courage I could and turned back. It was a boy who had taken hold of me. "Are you human, I mean, who are you?"

   "I'm Seth. Now may I ask you the same question, along with another one - what the hell are you doing here?"

   So he was a human being. But that still didn't help me. He looked younger than me, probably 10 or something but his demeanor was intimidating. "I'm Chris. I'm new to here." Not exactly, but still...

      "This is not a place to mess around. You could get into trouble."

   "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to create any problem. I was just curious. I know it's none of my business but, what are you doing here?"

   "Of course, you wouldn't know. We're The Guardians."

   I shot a quizzical look at him.

   "We guard The Old Cemetery. It's a tradition. Followed by our family. It's more of a responsibility, actually. Ever since the church was demolished, my great-great-grandfather, who was an exorcist, performed a ritual here, to strengthen the protection of the place. The ritual requires that a member of our family should patrol the place every night. It's my turn tonight. Everyone here  knows that."

   I realized the crickets had stopped crying and the whole place was dead silent. The mist I noticed on my arrival had vanished into thin air.

   "Do you want to see around the place?" His question broke my train of thought.

   "Yes," I said.

   He smiled. And for some unknown reasons, a kind of fear was induced in me.

   We began walking between the graves.

   "Nearly every grave here is in a bad shape. It's no longer in use, you see," he said.

   "Yeah, I know."

   "It feels relieving... To finally talk to a human."

   I stopped dead in my track.

   "You don't mean - "

   "That I've been talking to spirits?" He laughed. It was quite creepy. "No, of course not. In fact nobody has ever seen a ghost here. It's just that we follow the tradition. What I was saying that nobody here talks to us much. Because of who we are. They are afraid to be with us. They don't want anything bad to happen to their family."

   "And why would they think so?" I asked.

   To which he replied, in a whisper,"This is a very old place, Chris. People here would believe anything. Years ago, my grandfather had a conflict with someone. He threatened that man's family... That he'd curse them. He said it out of anger, he never meant it, but the effect of it still hasn't worn off."

   He looked at me. I felt sympathetic. He must have had a troubled childhood. Everyone must have avoided him. Nobody would have played with him. And having your childhood ruined is one of the worst things in the world. Even though I wanted to leave, I decided to spend some time with him, if it made him happy.

   "Don't worry, it'll change," I said.

   "Don't worry, it won't. It doesn't matter anymore. We're used to it."

   That sounded even worse. He seemed lost in thought. "So you got any siblings?" I tried to keep the conversation going.

   "Nope. I'm the only child of my parents. That helped me to grow up in solitude. What about you?"

   "Have a sister. Irene, her name is. Mom is a divorcee."

   "Oh," he muttered. "Why did that happen?"

   "I dunno. It happened when Irene and I were young. Mom never speaks about it and we never ask."

   We reached the steps that led to the church and we both sat down. For a moment, we both were silent and then I suddenly asked,"Who's Abraham Coller?"

   He looked at me. "I thought you might have figured that one out yourself."

   I narrowed my eyes. And then it hit me," He's your great-great-grandfather!"

   He smiled. I was feeling really excited, as if that was my great-great-grandfather. "How did this church get demolished?"

   "That's another story. Do you know anything about The Palace of Doom?" He asked enquiringly.

   "No, haven't even heard of it. What's that?"

   "That's a long story. Can't tell it now. It's 12:00 already. Time to end my patrol. Gotta go." He stood up and turned back.

   "Where do you live?" I asked.

   "On the other side of the church," he said as he walked away. Before he vanished from sight, he turned to me and said,"Don't ask anything about anything to anybody else. All these are banned topics."

   I stared into the darkness for a while, contemplating what he said. It made no sense to me. But I decided to stick to what he said. I started to walk back too. Before jumping the wall again, I looked at the grave of Abraham Coller once again. Outside, the moonlight was shining as brightly as ever. Inside The Old Cemetery, it was difficult for it to penetrate the thick bushes of leaves of the trees.

   On my way back, I kept thinking over the events of this night. Seth, his childhood, the ritual... At last I was standing before my house. I unlocked the door and entered and locked it again. Everything was silent. No surprises there. I went to my room, undressed and toppled on to my bed at once.

   Of all the late night outings I've had, this was the weirdest. Never before had I ever met a person let alone talk to them. In fact I now had certain doubts about him but I barely got time to ponder over those before I fell prey to sleep.