A Grave Marked 'Murderer'

In the graveyard, the tyrant of silence reigned absolute. All the natural sounds of the peaceful night were hushed here. Fear ran her cold fingers up and down my spine, and the wind of Death's passing bristled the tiny hairs along the nape of my neck. The moon barely shone from behind the scudding clouds that hid her silver light. The chill wind whistled eerily among the graves, which sprung up from the ground at odd angles, like legions of mossy and crooked teeth.

This was the domain of the dead, no place for a living human woman in this lonely haunted burial ground. This was a prison graveyard. No peaceful dead here, the restless souls of murderers, theives, rapists, and one innocent man did not sleep easy.

I reached the grave I had come to visit, and knelt on the frozen earth, my black skirts pooling about my knees like a tide of blood. I dared not leave the roses I had brought here, flowers on a murderer's grave would arouse suspicion, even if I was not implicated someone would suffer for it. Still, I laid the white roses in front of the headstone, which read simply:

Nathaniel Weaver
Born November 4th
Died September 13th
Murderer

Murderer. That one word had condemned him to death, me to a life of loneliness and pain. That one world had torn asunder our love, and kneeling on his grave, shivering, I remember. It was ten years ago...

First the body, a nameless stranger lying a pool of his own blood behind the town hall, every detail of his slit throat and the once-bright eyes, blank and milky as glass orbs, wide open in terror illuminated by the lurid glow of the streetlamp. Then the accusations, the pointing fingers, the lies.

'It was him,' they say, 'It was Nathaniel Weaver. We saw him. He was running away.'

No, I thought, it wasn't him. He was not the man who fled. He was with me.

But I did not speak. How could I? I would happily burn beside him--for fire was the death that awaited an adulteress and her love--but he forbid me. I never got a chance to speak to him after that last night, that last 'I love you,' that last goodbye. Passing by me in chains, while I struggled to keep my face blank, he pressed one finger to his shut lips. Be silent, the gesture said, clearer than words, tell no one. And so I kept silent, condemning him to hanging and not to flames.{i/}

A burning tear slowly found it's way down my frozen cheek, to land, glittering, in the snow. It froze almost immediately, a perfect, glittering sphere of grief immortalized in ice. Another tear follows the first, and then another, and with the tears come the memories I have tried to forget for so long, a relentless torrent of the past...

Nathaniel was given a trial, the barest hope of survival. I was forced to attend, the whole town would be there and my absence would be conspicuous. He stood alone, tall and straight, before the judge, in chains. New lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes and his mouth, his hair, once shining black as a raven's wing, was streaked with bold slashes of silver.

The judge was kind, he knew Nathaniel was a good man, perhaps at some subconscious level knew he was innocent.

'Son,' he said, wearily, almost sadly, 'You claim to be innocent. What is your alibi? If you were somewhere else, you don't have to die.'

He said not a word, though it cost him his life.

Standing there in the back of the courtroom, my heart aching for my Nathaniel, I almost spoke, almost cried out, 'Halt! It is I you want, not him, I who have sinned! Spare his life, I beg you, spare him!' But as if sensing my impulse, he slowly raised one arm, weighted with iron chains, and placed his finger again his lips. He held it there for a moment, his arm trembling with the strain, and let it drop to his side, with a clatter of cold metal.

And so my silence was not broken.

'Guilty,' said the judge, almost regretfully, and the gavel descended with a deafening finality, 'Guilty of premeditated murder on one count. Sentenced to hang by the neck--there was an almost imperceptible pause--until dead.'

He did not flinch, but simply nodded, for he had known all along there was no hope for him. I felt tears welling in my eyes, desperately told my husband I was not feeling well, and rushed out of the courtroom, running and running until I could run no more, and then I sank down and wept until my tears ran dry.{i/}

And then the worst memory, the one I had feared for so long, the one I had forced into the darkest corner of my mind, praying that the wound would heal were it not re-opened...

The crowd shouts and jeers as he passes, chained hand and foot, gagged with a dirty rag, eyes covered. The gallows stood silhouetted stark against the setting sun, the noose dangling, empty, ominous, whispering dark significance and evil purpose.

He was led blindfolded to the scaffold, his head placed in the noose. They removed his chains, gag, and blindfold, tying his wrists and ankles loosely with thin rope to prevent any desperate bids for freedom. His clear grey eyes, like the sea after a storm, scanned the crowd assembled to watch him die, rested on me. I wanted to turn away, did not want to watch this, but I would not let him go to his death seeing only a shoulder turned from him, a face turned away in cowardice and fear. He would see the love in my eyes even as he was taken from me by Death's strong arms.{i/}

I did not weep for him then, nor have I wept for him in the ten years that lie between that day and this. Today is the first time I have shed a tear for him. But at night I wander the hills in a long veil, a lonely windblown figure, returning always to the silent grave in the prison cemetery, the grave marked 'Murderer.'