Tempted

Temptation
Chapter One: The Graveyard
“May he rest in the earth with peace”

I stood there weeping in the familiar graveyard. Down below me was a name engraved in stone: Charles P. Wylox. The years written on it where 1812-1838 and the words bellow read, “May he rest in the earth with peace.” Rest, the word made me think Charles P. Wylox was just asleep in the warm earth. He was just in the embrace of the roots and dirt. “May he rest in the earth with peace.” It said nothing of who the man Charles P. Wylox was. I looked at the words again tracing their indents and I let a few tears escape.
Black, silk flowers lay at my feet along with a small steal cross. It was tradition to leave a cross at the gravesite to keep the bad spirits from disturbing the dead from the eternal sleep. I had laid the flowers and the cross there for most people would not come near the grave of Charles P. Wylox. I was the only one brave enough to come near and wait for something to tell me he was still here.
Charles P. Wylox, the man to rest in eternal sleep, was my best friend, my protector, my life and my husband. I cherished every moment I had in our small cottage. We were to grow old together, we were to never be separated; “to death do us part”. He was dead. He was in the grave where his heart did not beat, where his lungs had no air and yet somehow I still felt he was here.
I saw Charles’ shadow in the doorway and behind the alleyway. I heard his voice in the rain and in the dark but most importantly of all I could feel and hear him in my tears right before my sleeping hour. How was I to believe he was the man in the ground if he was still here, still with me now?
“Charles” I whispered as I lay down beside the grave. I lay down to rest, my hand pressed upon where his chest ought to be. I missed him so much it hurt. I heard him, I felt him, yet here he was in the ground. I was not sure if I believed he was among the living or the dead. My thoughts came to a sudden stop as the first tear fell from my eye. The feel of the tear was heavy and black yet it was as any other tear.
One tear became many as they began to fall like raindrops on the cold hard ground. I close my eyes in tiredness and in eagerness for the arrival of Charles into my subconscious state. He would be here soon and one day he would take me with him into the earth’s motherly embrace and we would sleep eternally.
“Evelyn” The wind seemed to whisper to me.
“Yes, my love?” I replied knowing he had come again tonight. My selfish wish continued to come true as he returned to me.
He turns to me with the face of eternal youth and took my hand to help me off of the cold December grass. His hand cold as ice yet his hand was tangible all the same. He moved his cold hands to my face and lifted my head to kiss me instantly knocking the breath from me. I looked into his cold gray eyes looking for reality even though reality is not what I wanted.
“This is real, love. You are rewarded for coming to visit me when all my companions in the world are too afraid to visit me even though I lay cold and dead.”
I continued to stare into his gray eyes not able to look away and replied. “I could never leave you even when you are thought to be so cold and so dead I still come back and see you again day after day.”
The moon grew brighter and the gravestones shone marble white from the light of the moon. The once dead grass became lively and spry as new spring grass and the overgrown garden soon became weeded and full of black silky roses. I looked down at myself knowing I was wearing such a plan drab dress but in this moonlight it turned into a diaphanous, black, silky dress.
A tear fell from my face. This ominous moonlight had turned everything beautiful. Even Charles who was the most beautiful thing in the world seemed to glow with an inner array of beauty tonight.
“May I have this dance?” He asked as he took my silky white, glove-covered hand.
“You may have as many dances as you would like.” I said letting myself be led into his strong arms where once again I felt safe.
Music that could only be described as the beauty of the angles began to play. The piano mixing with the violin and chorus making a sound so godly indulgent I never thought I would hear true beauty again. The words to Mozart’s Requiem sang softly through the midnight sky.

Although I knew the meaning of the words I did not understand how or why they went together. It was a jigsaw puzzle that foreshadowed the days ahead. I put the words out of my mind and continued the dance with Charles. The song soon ended and as I closed my eyes to lean up and kiss his lips I kissed nothing but midnight air, as he was gone. I looked around me to see in disappointment all the beauty of the magic moonlight gone. Everything seemed so terribly real again and for now I swore to live in my own reality, to be separated from the world and to only see the magical world I had created.

Chapter Two: The Old Man
“She sees death with a craving, but it is her soul that needs the saving.

I awoke from my slumber. My body still lay near his, my hand above his chest that lay six feet below. A few tears escaped me unwillingly. The night sky was still silky black with only small droplets of light shining from the stars. Mist now began to cover the graveyard suffocating the night sky making it dim.
Shadows began to play around the graveyard and I could hear the song of a small child:


The child’s song drifted away with the mist of the night. The night sky was clear, the small stars’ light now shone through once again. My breathing calmed as I listened to the whistle and whipping of the wind against the trees.
I stood up slowly hugging my chest to keep me warm. I began to follow the path of stones leading back to the slumbering town but something stopped me. A short old man in a tattered raincoat walked slowly from the path to a grave that was overgrown and almost invisible under the tree roots and weeds. He was so frail I fear that he would soon wither away with each step he was taking.
The old man looked up and into my eyes. His look was one that could never be forgotten by any living person. He looked at me with cold gray eyes so dead that it was hard to believe he was alive. His eyes where sunken into his head so much so that they where almost invisible in his skull.
I turned away from his gaze, as I could not look into his eyes any longer. Something about him seemed familiar, scary yet comforting. I began to watch as he bent to the hidden grave and kissed the gravestone whispering something so quietly I could not hear it. His eyes began to leak tears and his body crumbled against the gravestone. He was swallowed by grief for the person who lay colder than ice six feet below our touch.
He got up as soon as he regained his composure and limped away quietly into the night. I could not help but go to the gravestone at which he had found such grief for. I cleared away some overgrowth and the gravestone read, “Eleanor, a woman so sweet, so fragile.”
I crossed her grave wishing her rest and began to walk away from the graveyard. A hand from the night air grabbed my arm. It was so old, so wrinkled, and yet so strong. It grasped onto me burning my flesh and making me want to scream in vain yet something held me back. Soon the pain overtook me and I blacked out, but before I did I saw the face of the old man looking at me with sunken eyes and pity that could not be described in a thousand words.

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