THE ORPHAN OF CEMETERY HILL
Author: Hester Fox
ISBN: 9781525804571
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Publisher: Graydon House Books
The
dead won’t bother you if you don’t give them permission.
Boston, 1844.
Tabby has a peculiar gift: she can communicate
with the recently departed. It makes her special, but it also makes her
dangerous.
As an orphaned child, she fled with her
sister, Alice, from their charlatan aunt Bellefonte, who wanted only to exploit
Tabby’s gift so she could profit from the recent craze for seances.
Now a young woman and tragically separated
from Alice, Tabby works with her adopted father, Eli, the kind caretaker of a
large Boston cemetery. When a series of macabre grave robberies begins to
plague the city, Tabby is ensnared in a deadly plot by the perpetrators, known
only as the “Resurrection Men.”
In the end, Tabby’s gift will either save both
her and the cemetery—or bring about her own destruction.
1
IN WHICH WE MEET OUR YOUNG HEROINE.
Boston, 1844
Tabby’s legs ached and the wind had long
since snatched her flimsy bonnet away, but she kept running through the night,
her thin leather shoes pounding the cobbled Boston streets. She didn’t know
where she was going, only that she had to get somewhere safe, somewhere away
from the bustling theaters and crowds of the city. Every time someone shouted
at her to watch where she was going, or ask if she was lost, she was sure that
they were one of her aunt and uncle’s friends. Would they drag her kicking and
screaming back to Amherst? Tabby shuddered. She wouldn’t go back. She couldn’t.
Her weary feet carried her up a hill lined
with narrow houses, and gradually she left behind the streets choked with
theatergoers and artificially brightened with gas lamps. After cresting the
hill, she paused just long enough to catch her breath and survey her unfamiliar
surroundings.
It was quieter here, the only sounds the
groaning of ships in the harbor and the distant call of a fruit hawker trying
to sell off the last of the day’s soft apples. Going back down into the heart
of the city wasn’t an option, yet a wrought-iron gate blocked her way any
farther, forbidding pikes piercing the night sky. Pale headstones glowed
faintly in the moonlight beyond the gate. A cemetery.
Tabby stood teetering, her heart still
pounding. Dry weeds rustled in the thin night breeze, whispering what might
have been a welcome, or a warning. Behind her was the land of the living with house
windows glowing smugly yellow, the promise of families tucked safe inside. In
front of her lay the land of the dead. One of those worlds was as familiar to
her as the back of her hand, the other was only a distant fairy tale. Taking a
deep breath, she shimmied through the gap in the gate.
She waded through the overgrown grass and
weeds, thorny branches snagging at her thin dimity dress and scratching her.
Panic gripped her as she heard the hem tear clean away; what would Aunt
Bellefonte say if she found that Tabby had ruined her only frock? Would she
smack her across her cheek? Would Uncle lock her in the little cupboard in the
eaves? Aunt Bellefonte isn’t here. You’re safe, she reminded herself. As she
pulled away to free herself, her foot caught in a tangle of roots in a sunken
grave bed and she went sprawling into the dirt. Her lip wobbled and tears
threatened to overflow. She was almost twelve years old, yet she felt as small
and adrift as the day she’d learned that her parents had perished in a carriage
accident and would never step through the front door again.
This
wasn’t how her first day of freedom was supposed to be. Her sister, Alice, had
planned their escape from Amherst last week, promising Tabby that they would
get a little room in a boarding house in the city. Alice would get a job at a
laundry and Tabby would take in mending to contribute to their room and board.
They would be their own little family, and they would put behind them the
trauma that their aunt and uncle had wrought, making a new life for themselves.
That had been the plan, anyway.
When she and Alice had arrived in the city
earlier that day, her older sister had sat her down on the steps of a church
and told her to wait while she went and inquired about lodgings. Tabby had
dutifully waited for what had felt like hours, but Alice never returned. The
September evening had turned dark and cold, and Tabby had resolved to simply
wrap her shawl tighter and wait. But then a man with red-rimmed eyes and a
foul-smelling old coat had stumbled up the steps, heading right toward her.
Tabby had taken one look at him and bolted, sure that he had dark designs on
her. She had soon become lost and, in a city jumbled with old churches, hadn’t
been able to find the right one again.
Another thorn snagged her, pricking her
finger and drawing blood. She should have taken shelter in the church; at least
then she would have a roof over her head. At least then Alice would know where
to find her when she came back. If she came back.
Tabby stopped short. Toward the back of the
cemetery, amongst the crooked graves of Revolutionary heroes, stood a row of
crypts built into the earth. Most of them were sealed up with iron doors and
bolts, but one had a gate that stood just enough ajar for a small, malnourished
girl to wriggle through.
Holding her breath against the damp musk,
Tabby plunged inside. Without any sort of light, she had to painstakingly feel
her way down the crude stone steps. Lower into the earth she descended until
she reached the burial chamber.
Don’t invite them in. As she groped around in
the dark for a resting place, Tabby tried to remember what her mother had
always told her. Memories of her mother were few and far between, but her words
concerning Tabby’s ability remained as sharp in her mind as words etched with a
diamond upon glass. The dead won’t bother you if you don’t give them
permission, if you don’t make yourself a willing receptacle for their messages.
At least, that was how it was supposed to work.
The only other thing she had learned
regarding her gift was that she should never, ever tell anyone of it, and the
lesson had been a hard one. She couldn’t have been more than six, because her
parents had still been alive and had sent her out to the orchard to collect the
fallen apples for cider. Their neighbor, little Beth Bunn, had been there,
picking wild asters, but she hadn’t been alone; there was a little boy Tabby
had never seen before, watching the girls with serious eyes from a branch in an
apple tree. Tabby had asked Beth who he was, but Beth insisted she didn’t know
what Tabby was talking about. Certain that Beth was playing some sort of trick
on her, Tabby grew upset and nearly started crying as she described the little
boy with blond hair and big green eyes. “Oh,” Beth said, looking at her
askance. “Do you mean to say you see Ollie Pickett? He used to live here, but
he’s been dead for three years.” That was how Tabby learned that not everyone saw
the people she saw around her. A week later she had been playing in the
churchyard and noticed that all the other children were clustered at the far
end, whispering and pointing at her. “Curious Tabby,” they had called her. And that
was how Tabby learned that she could never tell a soul about her strange and
frightening ability.
But even in a place so filled with death,
the dead did not bother Tabby that night. With a dirt floor for her bed and the
skittering of insects for her lullaby, Tabby pulled her knees up to her chest
and allowed the tears she’d held in all day to finally pour out. She was lost,
scared, and without her sister, utterly alone in the world.
Excerpted from The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
by Hester Fox Copyright © Tess Fedore. Published by Graydon House Books.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hester
Fox is a full-time writer and mother, with a
background in museum work and historical archaeology. Most weekends you can
find Hester exploring one of the many historic cemeteries in the area, browsing
bookshops, or enjoying a seasonal latte while writing at a café. She lives
outside of Boston with her husband and their son.
Author
Website: http://hesterfox.com/
TWITTER:
@HesterBFox
Insta:
@trotfoxwrite
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17440931.Hester_Fox
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