Free Writ on Water by Melanie Jackson Page B

sharpen the blades again tonight.”
    â€œI bet. Well, I’m going to go get my equipment and start on the . . .” Remembering that no one was supposed to know about—or likely even discuss—the family cemetery, she finished: “I’ll be on the other side. Mind if I borrow these shears?”
    â€œHelp yourself, ma’am. Sure you don’t want a machete? Some of these vines are fierce. And then there are those snakes.”
    Chloe couldn’t picture herself lopping off a snake’s head. It was all she could do to kill the slugs that attacked her potted daffodils.
    â€œNo, thanks. We have a work policy at my company that says we don’t use knives that are longer than the average human arm. I’ll just keep an eye out for things that slither.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    Ma’am?
Chloe shook her head as she walked away. Maybe it was time to update her wardrobe and consider a new hairstyle.
    Lethargy warred with anticipation as Chloe went to fetch her camera bag, portable computer, battery packs, tripod, GPS—though she wasn’t sure that she would use it—and MacGregor’s hand-drawn map of the graveyard that showedwhere all the tombstones were. When she finally staggered into the maze she looked like a beast of burden packing luggage into the Outback.
    It was oppressively hot under the trees where no breeze stirred, but she was absolutely itching to start work. This wasn’t simply a case of taking a few casual snaps for reference; this was making a visual history of great art. She didn’t kid herself that there would ever be a book in this, but she wanted to do a good job anyway. The monuments deserved nothing less than museum lighting treatment. She would use the digital camera for reference shots that she could check immediately on the computer and archive in the database when the time came, but the permanent and personal inventory would be recorded with her favorite old thirty-five millimeter film and camera. She might also shoot some slide film; it still had better resolution than either than either the digital camera or the print film could offer when it came to enlargements.
    Chloe shoved her way through the clematis wall and then paused at the head of the granite avenue. It would have made sense to start with the monuments closest to the gate that MacGregor had left open for her—after cautioning her that she needed to tell him when she was through so that he could lock up again—but they were covered over in vines that would require a few hours of shearing to clear sufficiently to record all sides of the buildings. So, rather than trying to be carto-graphicallymethodical, she headed for her favorite part of the cemetery that wasn’t hip deep in scratchy things and began there.
    The shade was more dappled than solid outside the death house that belonged to Calvin and Edana Patrick. The square granite building was obscured only by a light fall of browned oak leaves on the shingled slate roof. The acidic leaves apparently kept down the moss and other vines that grew on some of the other monuments, for this house was relatively clean of parasitic plant life.
    She found it surprising that so large a crypt had only two residents, but perhaps the couple had died before having any children. In the days of brisk epidemics, it was only too likely to have happened. Or they might have been brother and sister; the inscription didn’t say. Personally, she didn’t think that she would care to spend all eternity locked up with a sibling, but given the dates on the tomb, it was unlikely that poor Edana, being female—which in those days was considered another word for feeble-minded—was ever asked about the final arrangements.
    Chloe consulted her map and saw that she was at tomb forty-six. She took her pencil and made a small check by it and then added the inscription above the door:
We all a Debt to Nature owe.
It wasn’t