The prompt this was written for:
Location: a graveyard. Tell us about the graveyard– what it looks like, and who might gather there? Who’s there right now? Does it have bad or good memories surrounding it? Feel free to approach this however it makes sense to you.
Ain’t like me to be down at Buffalo Hill at night. Since I was kneehigh to a tumbleweed, Ma tol me to steer clear of the abandoned cemetery in our back 40. But then I, bein’ as tall as my Pa but not nearly as wise, had some lessons to learn, ‘specially where a pretty face is concerned. That night I sure learned one or two I’m not likely to forget.
Adalea Conklin was a queer girl, with long blonde braids full of feathers and other earthly parts that caught her fancy. Hadn’t seen her since I’d left school for the fields several harvests ago. Now her legs were as thin and graceful as willow canes, bringin’ her nearly shoulder high to me. That October night when I spotted her crossin’ our field to Buffalo Hill, despite all Ma’s warnings, I followed ‘er.
I never did understand the arts of nature. Some call it witchcraft, or heathen doings. Reverend Matthews said the works of the devil are ugly, and we would know it by the cloven hooves of the deceiver. Can’t say I ever saw a thing more beautiful, though, when I found Adalea settled on Buffalo Hill, on a quilt of the deepest blue, placid as the Neuces.
Sittin’ cross legged atop the grave of some old settler, she was naked as the day she was born. As if it’s how she was always meant to be. The breeze gusted honeyed lemons and sage from the smoking bundles at her feet. Candles flickered on the tops of crumblin’ headstones, and the amber light danced on her nakedness like some divine aura come down. Pale arms outstretched to me, she called my name.
“Jacob.” Far from the squeaks of the gangly girl with the broken slate at the back of the schoolhouse, her voice was as smooth as buttermilk. “Join me.”
Sage and smoke filled our lungs, and she moved the truth in me. On Buffalo Hill I learned the secrets of Adalea, from her pagan smiles to her stitchless sighs. In the sight of spirits and God I learned that I’d never known a woman. It is then I understood that fate is a word the tongue does not know, and to tell it is to whisper.
In the late summer Adalea bore me a son. We called him Eli, after the settler in the grave. I ‘spose I should’ve felt ashamed, or embarrassed, but I didn’t. For I had learned more than my Ma and Pa ever had at the top of Buffalo Hill.