The Witch’s Grave

Bill, severely wounded in Afghanistan, limped from shrapnel lodged in his left leg. Suffering from PTSD, unable to find a job, he welcomed the forgiving obscurity provided by alcohol. The preacher got him into AA, and found him a job as the caretaker of an old cemetery.

He lived in the caretaker’s cabin. He cut the grass in summer and raked the leaves in the fall. His only companion was a little black cat with a splotch of white fur on her chest. He named her Josephine.

Bill whistled as he began to rake up the leaves covering the graves. He stopped to brush crumbling cement from the tombstone of a woman who had been buried in 1783, when a cold shiver suddenly darted down his back like a shockwave. He felt uneasy. Bill whistled a little louder.

“You know it’s bad luck to whistle in a cemetery.” The voice came from behind him and made him jump. A woman was standing there. She had long black hair and was dressed in a simple long skirt and white blouse. “Whistling summons the spirits — and you are standing on my grave,” she said.

She told him her name was Juliette, a voodoo priestess who practiced her art in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She made healing potions and cast spells to bring good luck. She fell in love with the handsome soldier who came into her shop looking for a love potion.

After a whirlwind courtship, they were married, and returned to South Carolina to live on his plantation. Alas, he was killed a few years later during the Battle of Cowpens. Bill was mesmerized by Juliette’s beauty, and fascinated by her stories. At first, he thought he must be going crazy, but Juliette continued to appear each evening at dusk to recount her life.

After her husband’s death, the women in the town resented Juliette and began to whisper rumors that she was a witch. There was a trial and Juliette was hanged. She had been buried outside the church’s “hallowed ground” but as the cemetery expanded, people forgot, and her grave was now almost in the center. Her grave had been covered with a large slab of cement so she could not rise, but it had been destroyed by a bolt of lightning in 1983.

Juliette explained that, according to voodoo beliefs, she was not dead, she continued to live by taking on a “familiar,” in this case, Josephine the cat. Juliette existed in a kind of suspended animation while she searched for her true love.

Bill enjoyed his rendezvous with Juliette each evening, but feared he was losing his mind. So, he spent days at the library researching the practice of voodoo. He learned that with the proper herbs, a silver candlestick, and a full moon, the dead could be restored to life. His search through the church archives turned up an old photo of Juliette on her wedding day. The couple was standing on a porch, and Bill was shocked to realize her husband looked exactly like him, right down to the battle scar on his hand clutching the porch railing.

The next evening, there was a full moon. Bill stood at Juliette’s grave, nervously rubbing the scar on his hand. He carried a bundle of herbs and a silver candlestick. He heard her laugh softly and turned to see her face, lovely in the moonlight. “I knew you’d come,” she said.

Bill marveled at how this old cemetery, full of the dead, had given him a new life.