'The Secrets of Grable Cemetery'

My back tires kicked up a plume of dust as I rode along on an old gravel road north of town.

I knew where I was, but honestly, it could have been anywhere. It could have been everywhere.

What I was looking for has been abandoned for more than a century. It rests in the middle of a field, the wheat catching in the breeze as it remembers a tale of the lost. Just beyond my windshield, at the peak of a low hill to the east of the road, was what I was looking for. Grable Cemetery, once forgotten in the wild thicket of trees and ivy, a final secret etched in the stone that marked the graves of the fallen, had been found.

I arrived around 1:15. The two women had already begun, cleaning headstones and spraying for weeds in the heat of the day. In the past seven months, they had managed to clear all of the trees. Now it resembled not a twisted forest, but a deserted wasteland.

I watched from afar for a moment, attempting to grasp the image of someone trying desperately to reach into the past to save the lost. She bent down and flooded another weed.

I watched my feet as my camera hung around my neck, as if it was pulling my head down to see what was beneath me. I was careful with how I stepped. Left foot here, right foot there. Step forward. A broken headstone is in front of me, lying helplessly in the earth. Whose name is it? Who’s beneath me? I step forward again.

Later on, after I would shake the hands of the two women and got in my car, I thought about what it meant to be haunted. I’ve been haunted before, but not by a spirit, ghost, ghoul, or demon. I think most times, people allow themselves to be haunted, by their own past, their fear of the future, their own demons.

For a moment, I wished that I could be haunted by the residents of Grable Cemetery. I wished that I could speak to them. For most, 150 years have passed since they uttered their final words. I wondered if someone would one day stand in front of my own grave and wish to speak with me.

I stepped forward once again. I saw two gravestones, side by side, both marked with the last name Ferrel. I waited for a moment, wondering if the two women were watching me. No one was. It was only me.

I crouched down and bowed my head, almost like I was taking a moment of silence, but all there was in that field was silence. I was directly in front of a gravestone now. I was above, he was below. He died on October 13th, 1853.

He was nine when he lived his final day on Earth.

His name was Peter.

I wondered who he was, but my question was left unanswered. Only the wheat made a noise, moving gently in the breeze, once again keeping the secret of the lost.

I took my time leaving the cemetery. I walked between the rows of wheat and some other unidentifiable, green plant. There was no road that connected to Grable.

The sunlight poured into my car as I drove north. Once again, my tires kicked up the plume of dust, floating in the light before vanishing in the wind.

I wondered who he was. I wondered what he was like, what toys he played with, if he played ball with his friends. I wondered what his final days were like, if it was an accident or, maybe, a disease.

But I know that I’ll never find the answers. They are left to those who keep the secrets of Grable Cemetery.

All I know is that he was Peter Ferrel. He was nine years old when he died. And that he is no longer lost, but found.