George Warner Is Waiting
A fictional short story. Join us in the cemetery
George Warner sat on top of his grave and watched his granddaughter walk away. She lifted an arm, perhaps to wipe at her eyes that had filled with tears as she talked to the air beside him. She still couldn’t see him. He’d told her it would take time, that she’d get there. He’d run his fingers over her hair and attempted to hold her hand. Erica had shivered, wrapping her coat tightly around her.
“You can feel me. I’m right here,” he’d whispered to her but she’d given no sign that she’d heard.
“Good evening, George. Look at that sky.”
George kept his eyes on Erica’s back as she found the path and began to follow it to the cemetery car park. At she vanished from sight, hidden by the trees, George looked up at the pinks and oranges of the sunset.
“Stunning,” he told the Edwardian gentleman behind him. “Off on your evening stroll?”
“Indeed. Will you join me?”
George shook his head.
“No. Not tonight.”
The ghost walked past George and continued on his evening jaunt, and as he passed, other figures became visible. Men, women, children. There were no age barriers when it came to death or the afterlife.
George scanned the line of trees and waited. He’d always been good at waiting. Patient to a fault, that’s what his wife had once told him. He’d wait until the sun vanished beneath the horizon, taking the light with it. He’d wait until the cemetery emptied and the gates were locked. He’d wait for her.
Minerva wasn’t as spry as she had been. When they’d first met, she’d climbed over a wall to fetch a ball accidentally kicked over by a small child. On their first date, she’d started an argument with a man who had been shouting at his girlfriend. After a month, she’d sat George down and told him she could speak to spirits. He’d laughed. Of course she could, at that point he was adamant that Minerva could and would do anything she set her mind to. Which included breaking into the cemetery at night, despite being in her late eighties.
On their wedding day, she’d arrived an hour late, stunning in her elegant dress, cussing the traffic on the roads. When their daughter was eighteen months, George had seen his first ghost, gently knocking over the building block towers and making his child giggle. Even then, he’d sat back and waited to watch his daughter laugh and clap her hands.
So George waited for dusk to take over and for the first stars to appear. The spirits around him talked and laughed and wandered, until he was once again left alone. Watching the line of trees where his granddaughter had disappeared only hours before.
Out of those trees stepped a living woman. Still stunning, in wellies and a large overcoat, striding over the carefully mown grass towards him. She studied the pathways, keeping vigilant, and when their eyes met, she lit up.
“Good evening, George,” she said gently as she reached him.
“Good evening, Min. I wasn’t sure if you’d come tonight.”
She gave him a sad smile, although there really was no need.
“I thought I’d come say hello,” she told him, glancing back.
She didn’t need to explain. He knew why she’d come.
“I reckon I have time,” she added, looking down at the grass and pulling a face.
“Let’s go to the bench,” said George, leading the way.
They sat, wife and deceased husband, on that bench for perhaps thirty minutes. It was enough, for now. They talked about their days and George informed his wife that Erica was unhappy.
“I know,” she said. “But change is coming.”
“Oh? How do you know that?”
Minerva looked into his eyes and gave him a cunning smile. He grinned back.
“The fae have told you?”
“And so it shall be,” she said, before her smile dropped. “I’m an awful wife,” she murmured. “To come here and talk to you and then…” She didn’t finish the sentence, she didn’t need to.
“Not awful,” said George. “Wonderful. I never wanted you to be unhappy or alone.”
She looked up at him with watery eyes and slid her hand into his. They couldn’t touch and she shivered being so close to him, but still, she kept her hand in place.
“I miss you,” she whispered.
George leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“I never left,” he whispered back. “But I want you to be free.”
Minerva searched his eyes as a figure approached. The tall, elegant woman stood back, waiting politely.
“Go on,” said George. “Live.”
Minerva blew him a kiss and stood, straightening her clothes before approaching the tall woman. Eolande, the fae, nodded to George and he nodded back.
He’d get his wife back one day, he knew with utmost certainty. But for now, he was content to sit back and watch the sky, listen to the birds, and wait.
This story is set before Beginnings, the first book in the Erica Murray series. Check out Beginnings here.
