Penny and Damien walked under the starless sky where the clouds grumbled and lightning sparks tried to escape every time the clouds clashed against each other. There was a possibility of heavy rain with the way it looked right now but the two people walked towards the cemetery which was surrounded by low barbed wire which was curled around the wooden post to hold them still.
Stepping inside the cemetery, Penny followed Damien while looking left and right to make sure no one saw them. It was highly unlikely that anyone would find them as it was quite late in the night right now with the tower bell which had rung an hour ago when the clock struck twelve at night.
“Is this the one?” asked Damien who previously not stepped inside and had stayed out the last Penny had come to visit her mother.
“Yes,” Penny breathed out the answer looking at the headstone and the name that was etched on the stone shabbily.
With no one who was going to help them, Penny and Damien would have to do the digging to avoid bringing a third person to pull out suspicion. The time right was such that suspicion ran high amongst the people who were quick to jump to conclusions and cause a riot. Walking to the hut which was built on the far corner, Damien brought out two shovels with him. Handing one to her and keeping one for himself both of them started to dig the grave.
Digging the mud out and the grave was not easy in Penny’s opinion. It took more than an hour where they had to remove the mud one after another before little droplets of water started to hit the top of their heads which fell from the sky.
The drizzle started to slow by the time they had almost removed most of the mud but the weather had its own plans. Not waiting for the two people in the cemetery, the rain started to fall as thunder growled shaking the week windows of the houses that resided in the village. Reaching the hollow box that stopped from going any further both Penny and Damien looked at each other.
“Let’s move you up,” Damien suggested over the rain.
Pushing Penny up to stand on the higher ground as the rain continued wetting the ground further along with the mud they had just dugout. Penny who stood up and above looked down at Damien who pulled out the top of the coffin. Once the lid was opened and pushed away from the bottom part of the wooden coffin, Penny stared at the coffin with her eyes taking in what was in there. Searching for the person who wasn’t there as the coffin was bare and empty. The raindrops had wet her hair, letting the hair stick to her face and her neck. Water droplets moved from the top of her head to trail down one after another before it left her face to fall on the ground.
Finding the empty coffin, Damien looked up at Penny to see the confusion and shock on her face. Had she perhaps got the wrong coffin?
“She’s not here,” whispered Penny over the sound of the rain and thunder which tried to drown her voice. She went to the headstone which had been moved, reading through her mother’s name ‘Shiela Ivory’. This was definitely her mother’s headstone and it was supposed to be her mother’s coffin but where was her mother?
Feeling Penny’s panic, Damien sat down to touch the bottom of the coffin box which had looked clean until the rain came along to pull the mud, invading the coffin box. When Damien had opened the coffin box, he had noticed how clean it looked. Like a fresh coffin box. The normal wood which was used by the lower class of humans wasn’t made of good quality which often dulled, leaving a mark of the body that would have started to decay within it.
How many months had Penny told since her mother had passed away? Six to seven months? But that would have been before she was brought to her relative’s house. That should have been more than enough time for the body to start corroding to leave a mark along with the decayed smell of the body. But right now, there was neither the scent of decay nor was there a mark on the coffin.
There was no question of moving, thought Damien looking back at Penny who had her back against him as she must have gone to look at the name of the headstone.
How strange though. To have a grave being used without a body in here. The first suspicion would go to the people who belonged to the villagers who were hostile to her and her mother. It could have been possible that the people would have tried to remove the person as they would have felt that people who they didn’t agree with had no place in and around the village but if it really were true…they would have never kept the headstone either. Which was why it didn’t make sense of what must have happened. Why would one keep an unused space of grave for any reason which in turn went to point what Bathsheba said. His eyes narrowed at the conclusions his mind drew out.
With one punch towards the coffin, he pulled the broken piece in his hand. He believed there was something that could be used from here, the coffin.
Having inspected the coffin which was now getting filled up with rainwater as the force it came down in was getting more, he stood up and jumped out of the grave.
“She was supposed to be there…” came Penny’s voice, her eyes filling up with water that went unnoticed due to the rain that had wet her face, “I saw her being buried. What happened?” asked Penny. How long had the grave been empty that she had been visiting her mother’s grave now to only find out that her mother’s body was not here anymore?
