Lilly Harper leaned back against the creaky desk chair, squinting at the amber eyes glowing from the screen in front of her. Her long, tawny blonde hair fell around her shoulders in a messy heap, brushing against the faded material of her black hoodie. An oversized hoodie bunched on her frame, worn from too many washes, did little to keep out the persistent chill that crept through the gaps of her drafty apartment. It was just one more inconvenience in a life full of too many: barely scraping by as a full-time college student juggling part-time jobs that never seemed to pay enough. And then there was the rent.
Lilly let out a deep sigh; her fingers rubbed her tired eyes as glaring job listings on her screen blurred together. Babysitting, waitressing, dog walking—none other than pocket change. Every click felt like a dead end, every job another reminder that her bank account was perilously close to zero, and the rent was due in a week.
She looked at the small, glowing digital clock on her laptop screen. Past midnight it was. She should have been working on her sociology paper due in two days, but her mind wouldn't let her focus on anything. She needed money, and fast.
She stretched her legs out beneath her desk, the floorboards groaning under her weight. Cold bit into her bare skin where her shorts left her legs exposed, but she didn't move. She had lived with worse discomforts than the cold.
With an impatient huff, Lilly scrolled past yet another job that paid too little for too much work. Her eyes were heavy, and she was just about to shut the laptop and call it a night when something odd caught her eye.
Grave cleaner and companion for the dead. One night's work. $800.
Lilly straightened a little more in her chair, blinking at the screen as if she must have misread something because that had to be some sort of typo, right? But $800 for one night's work? Her pulse quickened; that would cover rent with a little left over in reserve. The lack of heat in the apartment suddenly became a great deal more tolerable.
She clicked on the job posting. Curiosity got the better of her. The details were brief: West Wood Cemetery. Arrive at nine p.m. Work until dawn. Cleaning graves and watching over the grounds.
No background requirements, no descriptions of any length—just the promise of quick cash. Lilly bit her lip, drumming her fingers lightly on the edge of her desk. Part of her knew this probably was too good to be true. Grave cleaner? Who posted jobs like that?
But then again, it wasn't like she had better options. And the other part of her—the part that spent one too many nights this way, hungry and stressed—was hungry.
She snickered to herself, tapping the screen with her finger. "Easiest money I'll ever make," she muttered.
The dead didn't scare her, not like they did other people. If anything, they were just part of the background noise of her life. Ever since she was young, Lilly had been able to see them—ghosts, spirits, whatever you wanted to call them. To most people, they were invisible, but to her, they were as real as the living. She had never told anyone, though. Who would believe her?
She shrugged and scrolled to the bottom of the posting, where a phone number was listed. Her fingers hovered over the dial button for a moment. This feels sketchy as hell, she thought. But rent was rent.
She jabbed the number up onto the screen with a spurred finger and brought it to her ear. Ringing three times, a gravelly voice answered.
"West Wood Cemetery," replied the man, in a few direct words.
"Hello," Lilly began, leaning forward slightly as she spoke, "I'm calling about the condition put up dealing with a grave cleaner. Is this position still available?"
"It is," the man replied, all business. "Can you start tonight?"
Lilly arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Uh, yeah," she said, glancing at the time. "I can be there by nine."
"Good," the man said, his body suddenly lax in relaxation now that was all he needed to know. "The caretaker meet you at the gate. Come after sundown, leave with the dawn, and don't mind the dead. They won't bother you."
Lilly almost laughed at that last part but kept her peace. If only he knew, indeed.
He hung up then before she could ask any more questions, and Lilly was left staring at her phone for a moment. Not knowing quite what to expect, the conversation had, nevertheless, left her feeling oddly unsettled. Still, the promise of $800 was too good to pass up.
She flung the phone onto her bed, tugged her jacket out, and slung it over her hoodie. One night in a cemetery? No big deal. She'd done weirder things in her life.
The streets were eerily quiet as she made her way away from the center toward West Wood Cemetery, her scuffed boots rubbing softly against the pavement. She could feel the cold in the air nip at her cheeks, but it hardly mattered. Her mind was already racing ahead to the job, what it would be like, this caretaker, and why anybody would pay that much money for something so weird.
And when she got there, the gates were tall, wrought-iron things towering over her shadowy under the dim streetlight glow. Beyond those gates lay West Wood: vast, misty, and shrouded. Headstones sat in their rows like silent sentinels, their faces worn and weathered by time.
The only light was a flickering dim glow from a small shack near the entrance, and an older man in a worn cap leaned against the doorframe of it, eyes steady as he watched her approach.
"You the girl for the job?" he asked, his voice gruff and coarse like gravel crunching underfoot.
"Yeah," Lilly replied, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. "I'm Lilly."
The man grunted, shoving the gate open—it creaked slowly on its hinges. "Clean the graves, mind your business, and don't bother the dead. They won't bother you." His words were the same strange reassurance the man on the phone had given her.
Lilly raised an eyebrow but did nothing more. She'd lived her whole life seeing ghosts—and if there was anybody prepared for handling a graveyard at night, it was her.
She stepped through the gate onto a path that wound across the graveyard between parallel rows of gravestones. The flashlight in her hand danced over the headstones, showing her the names of the long dead, sometimes almost unreadable as the letters and words had worn away into the stone. So still it was; the only sound was the slight crunch of her boots on the gravel path.
As she worked, brushing dirt and leaves from the old gravestones, the quiet wrapped itself around her like a blanket. The night deepened, and the cemetery remained silent, just as the man said it would.
An hour passed. Then two. Lilly found her catching into a rhythm, her thoughts drifting as she worked. The dead had never bothered her, and tonight was proving to be no exception.
But then, just as her flashlight sputtered once more, the air denounced something—just something. Lilly froze. A figure sat casually on one of the gravestones no more than a few yards ahead, as if he had been waiting for her to notice him. He didn't move; his dark hair rustled slightly in the breeze, and his clothes—neat but old-fashioned—seemed out of place. Lilly's eyes are slitted. "Nice night for a sit, isn't it?" The man closed his eyes slowly, the grin spreading teasingly on his lips. "Ditto," he replied calmly and smoothly. Lilly's heart was racing, but she didn't move or flinch. "You're Silas Mercer, aren't you?" she asked, nodding towards the name chiseled on the headstone beneath him. The man—Silas—smiled, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. "At your service."