The Candles Are Burning (Into Shadow, #6)

by Veronica G. Henry

Maggie had a good husband who in recent months had become bedeviled by a series of bad decisions.

Between the two of them, she was the more levelheaded. And unlike other couples, when they were alone, her Francis pressed her to speak her mind. She had cautioned against each of these calls. But in a manner born of the streak of successes that had bought them their home and the ability to dine out every now and again, he had chosen to ignore her sensible counsel.

They prattled on about pedestrian things: a roof repair, their daughter’s recent growth spurt, a story in the Savannah Tribune about Congressman Powell’s tax troubles. Maggie knew it for what it was, a sort of tilling of the dirt before planting the seed.

He charged ahead, animated as a stalk of wheat caught up in a good headwind.

Aside from cleaning and nursemaiding, work for women was scarce as a blizzard in Savannah, but Maggie was as dogged as she was organized. A shy drill sergeant in heels, her father had joked.

pride straightened his back and lifted his dimpled chin. His was born of not arrogance but a staunch sense of accomplishment.

For both of them, solitude was like a moat, keeping everyone else at bay.

Savannah was a city built on top of its dead. Diners, gas stations, even schools squatted on blacktop and concrete that buried days gone by. But Margaret had a feeling that if the city’s residents had anything to do with it, the cemetery and church where her Francis was interred would hopefully be protected from the big-time developers intent on competing with the other port city, Charleston.

An eternity of yesterdays, amounting to three months and six days ago, Francis had died.

The only people who were truly dead were those who had been forgotten.

Maggie was a southern girl through and through, but she hated bugs like someone born and raised in a northern city block.

At first, her daughter protested about living so close to the dead, but she adjusted. It wasn’t Maggie’s first choice, either, but a roof was a roof, and she was glad for it.

In the distance, she could just make out workers digging a grave, the red-tilled earth opening the door to another loss. The air was autumn crisp but thick with the rotten-egg smell of sulfur drifting up from the paper mill downtown.

Another effect of her father’s death. The girl measured minutes like a human stopwatch.

Over the next couple of weeks, Maggie’s paranoia shrank from constant companion to occasional visitor.

She was wiping down the cooktop when she heard the music again. A somber, dreary note that jumped out of nowhere and landed at her feet like something gone bad.

You will see faces. And in time, you will feel bad. You will want to warn them. And they’ll change their routine. Move, run. The living fear nothing more than death. The way a soul dies matters. You change that, and you throw everything off balance. And you make my job unnecessarily difficult.