PARANORMAL | ❝Nothing is stranger than believing...❞
Cath knows a thing or two about Will Byers. Daphne, on the other hand, knows virtually nothing about Tonya McCarthy. Still, none of that changes the fact that both of them have up and vanishe...
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TUESDAY 8th NOVEMBER, 1983
THE Hawkins cemetery can look a grim place this time of year — trees barren of their leaves, the sunlight obscured by sullen grey clouds, casting shadows over the tombstones lined up in uniform rows. When she was a kid, Daphne remembers trembling and clenching her father's hand like a vice during one of the first, dreadful visits. "Nothing to worry about honey," he'd told her. "You're safe as long as she is here." Since then she had managed to find tranquility and a place for reflection, mostly in the warmer days.
Her mother is tucked snugly into the best part of the cemetery. Right at the end, in the right-hand corner, the willow tree cranes over her spot and safeguards it throughout the year. It always looks particularly beautiful in the summer when dappled spots of sunlight illuminate her name.
She meanders calmly past the other rows, names she's memorised over the years flashing by her like memories of a life gone. Every now and then she'll see the occasional visitor — some of them new, some of them old, but every one of them sticking to their routines religiously — but today, it looks like she will be alone. Good. Daphne was hoping for some alone time with her mother, anyway.
"Hi Mom," she smiles with thinned lips, shrugging her coat off her shoulders and flattening it out on the damp grass. As she takes a seat cross-legged opposite her, her eyes drift across the words etched into the stone:
Martha Elisabet Delaney July 6th, 1944 – February 21st, 1971 "A beloved mother, daughter and life companion."
"Sorry I'm a little late," Daphne sighs, "these past few days hit me like a truck." Her attempt at visits every fortnight would usually fall on a Sunday — not for any particularly religious reason, or anything.
Her mother died on a Sunday.
Sometimes she wonders if it's an unhealthy habit. As far as she knows, it isn't — it brings her some comfort to know there is always someone in there who she can tell anything, and they won't judge. Just like she was when she was alive. But Daphne doubts over if every fortnight might be teetering on the edge of excessive. Her father visits once a month, she knows, and sometimes they even end up there together out of coincidence. Cath only ever goes when she has to; she never seems to handle it all too well, her face always washing over with a pale, blank expression when they go for anniversaries.
At least it's not once a week, she thinks to herself. Otherwise you wouldn't have anything to talk about.
