Black Rose

bees, stinging her eyes, her throat, her belly.
    The ground was damp and slippery where she stood. Over it a thin, fetid fog crawled, smearing the black dirt, the wet grass with dirty tongues of gray.
    She plunged the shovel through that fog, into the earth and grass, filled the blade. Then threw the earth into the grave.
    The eyes of the dead opened, gleaming with madness and malice. Lifting a hand, bones piercing horribly through rotted flesh, it began to climb out of the earth.
    Roz jolted, and slapped at the hands holding her.
    “Easy, easy. Just breathe. Nice and slow.”
    “What happened?” She pushed at Mitch’s hand again when she realized she was on the ground, cradled in his lap.
    “You fainted.”
    “I certainly did not. I’ve never fainted in my life.”
    “Consider this your first. You went sheet white, your eyes rolled straight back in your head. I grabbed you when you started to go down. You were only out about a minute.” Trembling a bit himself, he lowered his brow to hers. “Longest minute of my life, so far.”
    He took a long breath, then another. “If you’re okay, would you mind if I just sat here a minute until I settle down?”

    “Well, that’s the damnedest thing.”
    “I didn’t mean to upset you. We’ll just table the theories. Let’s get you inside.”
    “You don’t think I passed out because you had me thinking my grandfather might’ve been born on the wrong side of the blanket? Christ. What do you take me for? I’m not some silly, spineless woman who questions her own identity because of the actions of her ancestors. I know who the hell I am.”
    Her color was back now, and those long-lidded eyes were ripe with irritation.
    “Then you want to tell me why...” Now he went pale as polished glass. “God, Roz, are you pregnant?”
    “Get a hold of yourself. A few minutes ago you’re calling me a grandmother, now you’re going into shock thinking I could be pregnant. I’m not going to present either one of us with a midlife baby, so relax. I had some sort of spell, I suppose.”
    “Care to elaborate?”
    “One second we were talking, and the next I was standing—I don’t know where, but I was standing over an open grave. She was in it. Amelia, and she was not looking her best.”
    She couldn’t stop the shudder, and let her head rest against him. That good, strong shoulder. “More than dead, decomposing. I could see it, smell it. I suppose that’s what took me down. It was, to put it mildly, very unpleasant. I was burying her, I think. Then she opened her eyes, started to climb out.”
    “If it’s any consolation, if that had happened to me, I’d have fainted, too.”
    “I don’t know if it was here, I mean this particular spot. It didn’t seem like it, but I can’t be sure. I’ve walked by here countless times. I planted that pachysandra, those sweet olives, and I never felt anything strange before.”

    “To risk another theory, you were never this close to finding out who she was before.”
    “I guess not. We’ll have to dig.” She pushed to her feet. “We’ll have to dig and see if she’s here.”

    THEY SET UP lights and dug beyond midnight. The men, and Roz, with Stella and Hayley taking turns between shovels and remaining inside to mind the sleeping children.
    They found nothing but the bones of a beloved dog.

    “COULD BE METAPHORICAL.”
    Roz looked up at Harper as they walked the woods toward home the next day. She knew very well why he was with her, his arm slung casually around her shoulder, because Mitch had told him she’d fainted.
    She’d barely had five minutes to herself since it happened. That was going to change, she thought, but she’d give him and the rest of her honorary family a day before she shooed them back.
    “What could be metaphorical?”
    “That, you know, vision thing you had. Standing over her grave, shoveling dirt on her.” He winced. “I don’t mean to wig you out.”
    “You’re not. Who used to have nightmares after watching that Saturday morning show? What was it, Land of the Lost ?”
    “Jeez. The Sleestak.” He shuddered, and only part of the movement was mocking. “I still get nightmares. But anyway, what I’m saying is you never stood over her grave, never buried her. She died a long time ago. But if we do the metaphor thing, we could say how you’re trying to open her grave—but by missing something, not finding something, whatever, you’re burying her.”

    “So, it’s all in my