Eight

Next morning, Merle’s father discovered that she was missing, and had not returned as usual from the graveyard in the early morning.

He organized a search for her, but though they searched the whole island over, and over again, all they found was her clothes, lying in a crumpled heap on the grave of the fisherman.

Her father collapsed on the grave, weeping.

From a short distance away, a hare watched the man crying.

After a while, the hare saw some other people pick the man up from the grave, and they all walked away.

*   *   *

The hare was alone. It hopped into the graveyard, across to one particular grave, the one where the man had been.

The hare seemed bothered, disturbed. It hopped around the grave, as if agitated, looking this way and that, looking, searching, searching for something, something that should have been there, and was not.

Finally, the hare sat on the grave, and waited.

And as it waited, a voice sang to it, from beneath the soil.

This was what it sang.

You crave one kiss of my cold clay lips;

But my breath smells earthy strong;

If you have one kiss of my cold clay lips,

Your time will not be long.

Tis down in yonder meadow green,

Love, where we used to walk,

The finest flower that e’er was seen

Is withered to a stalk.

The stalk is withered dry, my love,

So, will our hearts decay;

So make yourself content, my love,

Till Death calls you away.

*   *   *

The story ends now, in tragedy.

For watching the hare, on the grave, was another pair of eyes, and they belonged to the huntsman, out that night with his gun, seeing what game was to be had.

As the hare slept on the grave, he took aim, and fired. He smiled, because he knew his wife would be pleased with him, with a hare to stew. He slung its body into his sack, and walked home through the dark, whistling an old folk melody.

*   *   *

With a last few whispered words, Laura finished her story, then she was silent.

The children stared at her, even wider-eyed than they had been before. Brother looked at sister, and sister looked at brother, then they both looked back at Laura.

Even in the dimness of the moonlit room, they could see she was crying.

Sister looked at brother, and brother looked at sister, and the twins decided without exchanging a word that they needed help.

They climbed out of bed, and tiptoed downstairs to find their parents.

“Did you notice?” they asked each other as they trod softly on the dark boards of the staircase. “Did you notice her dress?”

They found their parents sitting in the drawing room, with another lady, one whom they hadn’t met.

“Mamma. Pappa,” they said, together. “Laura’s crying. We think you should come up and speak to her.”

Herr and Frau Graf looked puzzled. Embarrassed.

“Who, dears, did you say is crying?” Frau Graf asked.

“Laura. The lady you have to look after us at bedtime. She was telling us a ghost story, and it wasn’t even a proper ghost story. And now she’s crying.”

Herr Graf stood.

“This is some kind of silly joke,” he said. “One of your games. I want you to apologize right now and go back to bed.”

Then the twins began to cry.

“But it’s true!”

“Children,” said their mother, more gently. “This is Laura, here. She wasn’t able to join us until today. I told you all this, don’t you remember? Her mother has been sick, and she has only just arrived now.”

The twins turned to each other, then back to their parents. They looked at Laura suspiciously.

“Then who is it in our room?”

Now, their parents’ eyes widened, and Herr Graf suddenly stormed upstairs. He was gone a little while, and then returned.

“Nothing,” he said. “No one. As I said, one of your games.”

The children were too bewildered to answer.

“And did one of you spill your water? The boards are damp, at the foot of the bed.”