I go through the gate and step into the graveyard in Hope Falls with a man I just met. The evening sky is an agitated palette of black and blue, as though it can’t decide what to do with itself. A bit like me. A flight of swallows soar and swoop and dance high above us, making the most of the dying light, and it brings another wave of forgotten memories to mind. My mother taught me that swallows always find their way home, and I touch the swallow tattoo on my hand, as though doing so might turn back time.
I used to play in this cemetery when I was a child, I remember that too. It was a short walk from where Mum and I lived—much closer than the playground—and memories of reading books while sitting among the headstones fill my mind. I’d make up stories about the people buried here, whisper their names out loud and play hide-and-seek among their graves. The pointlessness of playing the game alone didn’t bother me until I was older. It didn’t occur to me back then that if nobody knows to look for you, you can’t be found.
I remember the last time I was here. It was for my mother’s funeral when I was ten, so it’s hard to forget. I never came back to Hope Falls after that. A plump lady from the council—whose nameand face I don’t recall—collected me straight after the funeral. She drove me to meet a foster family in London, and left me with a woman who used me as a human ashtray when I didn’t do what I was told. I’ve never forgottenherface, or the scars she left on my skin and my soul. Being back here after all this time feels strange. Dreamlike. Almost as though my sad and lonely childhood wasn’t really mine, but something that happened to someone else. I don’t tell Carter any of that—it’s none of his fucking business—and I only followed him here out of morbid curiosity about “the woman who died twice.”
Our hands accidently touch as we walk side by side through the cemetery and I hide mine in my pockets. Rows of ancient headstones line up, or in some cases fall over, all the way to the cliff edge with panoramic views of an unforgiving ocean. My mother is buried here somewhere and I have a sudden urge to find her, which is frankly ridiculous after all this time. I think maybe we love some people more when they are gone.
“This graveyard has been full for years,” Carter says, oblivious to the thoughts whirring around my head. “There are no more plots available, but your grandmother already had one.”
“You mean she had reserved a space?” I ask.
“Not exactly.”
He stops in front of an ancient headstone and—even though I knew to expect it—I am still shocked by the sight of my own name. I frown at the two sets of dates carved beneath it. The headstone looks very old, and I don’t understand how if my grandmother died recently. The name and first set of dates were clearly engraved years ago, so weathered by sea and sky that they are barely legible. The second date and the epitaph are much easier to read.
Olivia Bird
1926–1944
1944–2025
THE WOMAN WHO DIED TWICE
“According to my grandparents, Olivia Bird—your grandmother—died at age eighteen when she received news that her fiancé had been killed in the war in 1944. She read the telegram then dropped dead on the spot, as though her heart had literally broken, and was buried here the following day. The Bird family—your ancestors—were relatively well off, certainly compared with the rest of the villagers. Most people struggled to make ends meet during the war, but Olivia’s parents paid for the most expensive silk-lined coffin money could buy. Her body was dressed in the finest clothes and apparently she wore rings on all of her fingers,” he says. Something else I seem to have in common with Granny. “Her family wanted a big send-off, so they splashed out on a huge banquet so that lots of hungry villagers would attend the funeral. The vulgar display of wealth—especially the huge ruby engagement ring on your grandmother’s hand in the casket—was the talk of the town. And unfortunately, or fortunately as things turned out, robbing graves was big business back then.
“That night, as soon as it was dark and only a few hours after Olivia was buried, two men came here with shovels to dig her up. They ripped the earrings from her ears, snapped the necklace from around her neck, and started to slide the rings off her fingers one by one. It was the ruby engagement ring they wanted most; they knew it was worth a small fortune, but no matter how hard they tried, they could not get the ring off her hand. They decided to cut off her finger with a fishing knife, but as they sliced into Olivia’s flesh and bone her eyes opened and she screamed. The grave robbers screamed too—it’s not every day a corpse comes back to life—then they ran through the graveyard to the edge of the cliff where they jumped into the sea to get away from her.
“Your eighteen-year-old grandmother was discovered sleepingback in her bed the following morning at Spyglass. She had all of her rings but was missing a finger—her marriage finger—and she wore those rings for the rest of her life. Like she was making a point. She gave her family a fright when they found her alive at home less than twenty-four hours after they buried her, her bedsheets covered in mud and blood. They were scared and confused for lots of reasons, including that all of the doors were locked overnight, so nobody could understand how she got back to her bedroom or which parts of her story were true.”
I stare at Carter and wonder what my face is doing.
“You surely don’t expect me to believe all that?”
He shrugs. “I’m just telling you the story I was told. All of this happened long before I was born. After dying the first time, your grandmother rarely left Spyglass. She became a bit of a hermit. Old Mrs. Bird outlived the family who accidently buried her alive, and by all accounts preferred living with dogs instead of people. She never married but she did have a daughter—your mother—who was another woman nobody really knew, until she…” He skips over the part where my mother killed herself. “Old Mrs. Bird left clear instructions in her will that when she did die again, she wanted to be remembered as the woman who died twice. She’s a Hope Falls legend.”
“I guess not a lot happens around here.”
He laughs. “Your new home isn’t as uneventful as you might think.”
“I’m not staying,” I say, perhaps too quickly. “I’m going to put the house on the market. I just wanted to see it for myself first.”
“That’s a shame. If there is a more beautiful corner of the world than Hope Falls I’ve yet to find it,” Carter says.
“Have you looked?”
He smiles again. “My family and friends are all here. I’ve never wanted to leave.”
I stare at him. “You’veneverleft Hope Falls?”
“Why would I? I watch the news and I’ve seen what a shit show the rest of the world has become. Some people spend their whole lives searching for something they had all along, but I know how lucky I am to live in Hope Falls. It’s beautiful, safe, familiar. It’s home.”
How can anyone be so happy leading a PG-13-rated life?
I think I’d die of boredom if I lived somewhere like this now.
“And I love my job, which is another reason why I’ll never leave,” Carter says. “This isn’t the kind of place where bad things happen. There has never been a case too difficult to solve—nobody has ever beenmurderedhere—and with a village this size there could never be many suspects! I don’t know why my bosses think the area needs a senior detective. There’ll be nothing for them to do, which is probably why nobody has bothered to apply.”
“Murders aren’t really difficult to solve,” I say, teasing him. “I’ve seen enough true crime documentaries to know it’s always the husband.”
