the Veiled Woman

The Veiled Woman

Laura sat alone on the pews. She had felt alone before, but now she felt worse than alone; she felt abandoned. She glanced about her at the other people in the church: an old woman wearing deep black clothes, sitting quietly and praying. Up near the altar there was a man, dressed in a prim suit, his head lightly tapping against the steps in agony. What agony it was, Laura did not know.
She had run. It did not matter where from and it did not matter why. But she had just run. With a sad feeling in her heart, Laura wandered (without even an eyelash being batted by the two in the sanctuary), out of the sanctuary and into a small Sunday- school room just off of the main hall of the church. There were snacks kept there in a battered old cabinet. Laura reached high and pulled down the box of crackers. She stuck her head under the sink and drank deeply. Running had made her thirsty.
After eating, Laura sat on the edge of a wide table. It was strange how familiar it seemed to her. Once she had gone to Sunday school, too . . . that seemed so long ago. Laura searched in a closet in the hall and found a blanket. As the lights began to be turned out about the building, and the sun turned out outside the windows of the church, Laura curled up on top of one of the tables.
It must have been early when Laura was awakened by the sound of footsteps in the hall. It was a man dressed in a black suit with a short-brimmed black hat. He had thick, square glasses. With a sniffle, he glanced about the room. Laura hunkered down inside the plaid blanket, hoping the man would overlook it.
The man sighed heavily and shut the door. Laura heard a key turn and leapt from under the blanket, panicking. The lock was an old battered one . . . it didn't do much good, because Laura managed to pound the lock out of the padlock. The door swung open, ever so slowly. The man was on the other side of the outside door. The outside lock was more substantial, and the door was more substantial, too.
The man glanced up and saw the open door. Laura stayed safely out of view as he peered curiously at the open door. But when next Laura got the nerve to glance around the corner, and to the outside door, the man, hat and all, had disappeared. Laura wrapped the blanket around herself and walked to the front door of the church. The sanctuary was empty now. Laura crossed the floor and remembered with confusion that it was Sunday.
Laura came to the door of the church but found that it, too, was locked. She struggled with the lock before giving up. Laura looked dejectedly at the lock. For several long minutes, she felt sure that she would be locked into the church.
Then she saw another, smaller door with an indoor lock. Laura felt her heart rise to her throat as she undid the locks on the door. She found the little door led to a small maintenance shed. Laura wrapped the blanket further around her as she picked through trowels and mortar and grass seed. She sneezed, and looked out the window. There was only one car in the parking lot, and it was rolling slowly away, with the man in the black hat in it. Laura watched the black Ford rumble down the lane and stop in the middle of the road. Another car coming the other way had stopped the man in the black hat and had started to talk to him.
Once the cars were out of sight, Laura dodged out of the door. She looked around the church and saw the reason that the sanctuary was empty. "There will be no services today," read a hastily written sign.
There was nothing to do but wander. With a sick enthusiasm, Laura wandered towards the big mousellium erected over the tomb of some long-dead town notable. She remembered it vaguely. Once she had played there, she thought, with a friend, when she was very young.
Laura was beginning to get bored when she decided to wander about the graves and read names. She felt tingling up and down her spine. It was fun to be afraid the skeletons would pop from the ground . . . fear was preferable to no feeling at all.
There was a new grave. Laura bent down in the dewy grass that had been hastily returned to the spot where the shovels had dug a hole. She took one of the flowers and wrapped it into a buttonhole on her dress.
Laura looked at the name, hoping it was no one she knew. Then she paused, and tilted her head to the side.
"Laura Ether, 1952 to 1962. May you never leave out hearts."
Laura bit her lip and was startled to hear the sound of high heels on pavement. She looked up to see a dark-haired, thickset woman with a black hat and black veil. Laura stumbled backwards from the grave at this.
"Mama?" she said quietly. The woman walked with composure to the new gravesite and stooped down, frowning at the flowers. There were only three . . . and each she and her husband and there two sons had left one. The woman straightened and sighed deeply. She touched the headstone lightly.
"Suffocated," said the veiled woman lightly. She laughed without emotion and began to walk away. "Yes, it was suffocation," she mumbled as she walked, "an accident."