Gwendy's Magic Feather

40

HOMELAND CEMETERY IS THE largest and prettiest of Castle Rock’s three graveyards. There are tall iron gates out front with a lock, but it’s used only twice a year—on graduation night at the high school and on Halloween. Sheriff George Bannerman is buried in Homeland, as is Reginald “Pop” Merrill, one of the town’s most infamous—and unsavory—citizens.

Gwendy drives through the ornate gates just as dusk is settling over the land, and she can’t decide whether the cemetery, with its rolling hills and stone monuments and lengthening shadows, appears tranquil or menacing. Maybe both, she decides, parking along the central lane and getting out. Maybe both.

Knowing where she’s going, she walks a direct route, punching her way through knee-deep snow to a scattering of grave markers that rest atop a steep hillside skirted by a small grove of pine trees. There are smudges of naked earth here where the tree’s thick branches have prevented snow from accumulating below. The treetops sway back and forth overhead, whispering secrets to each other in the cold breeze.

Gwendy stops in front of a small marker in the last row. The trees grow close together, blocking the day’s dying light and casting the ground in shadow, but she knows what’s carved onto the headstone by memory:

She drops to a knee in the snow, only several inches deep here, and traces the grooves with her bare fingertips. As always, she thinks whoever was in charge of the inscription did a pretty shitty job of it. Where were the exact dates of Olive’s birth and death? Those were important days to remember and should have been included. And what did “Our Loving Angel” have to say about the real Olive Kepnes? Nothing. It said nothing at all to keep her memory alive. Why didn’t it mention that Olive had an infectious laugh and knew more about Peter Frampton than anyone else in the world? Or that she was a connoisseur of all types of candy and bad horror movies on late night television? Or that she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up?

Gwendy kneels in the snow—feet numb despite her waterproof boots thanks to hours of fruitless searching earlier in the afternoon—and visits with her old friend until the pools of shadow melt together into one, and then she says goodbye and slowly walks back in the dark to her car.