Mansions Of The Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

told him. His first paper for the seminar had been on mourning samplers and he’d drawn some interesting conclusions about how the process of cross-stitching a sampler helped girls—for it was girls who sewed the interesting little mourning items, complete with epitaphs and the name and date of the deceased—come to terms with death at a time when their own chances of eventually dying in childbirth were pretty high.
    “Thanks,” he’d said, embarrassed.
    “How’s the mourning jewelry one going?” He’d been working on Civil War–era mourning jewelry for his final paper and Sweeney had been looking forward to reading it.
    “Okay. There are a couple of things I’m trying to figure out, but . . . ”He’d stopped as though he was deciding whether or not to tell her something.
    “Let me know if you want to hash anything out before you start writing.”
    “Yeah, sure. Thanks.” He’d looked around at her walls—the office was so small that there wasn’t room for much. But she had posters from a few exhibits and photographs of gravestones and cemeteries. She’d typed a fragment of poetry from Robert Blair’s “The Grave” and pasted it onto a moody black-and-white photo of an English churchyard.
    Brad read aloud.
    “Well do I know thee by thy trusty Yew,/ Cheerless, unoficial Plant! that loves to dwell/’Midst sculls and coffins, Epitaphs and Worms: Where light-heel’d Ghosts, and visionary Shades,/ Beneath the wan cold Moon (as Fame reports)/Embody’d, thick, perform their mystick Rounds./No other merriment, Dull Tree! is thine.”
    “Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty grim.”
    “Didn’t I have you guys read some of the Graveyard Poets?” He’d shaken his head. “Hmmm. I’m falling behind. Next week. Anyway, that’s Robert Blair. He’s pretty interesting.”
    He read it again, thoughtfully, then he’d asked, “What do you think death is like?”
    “I don’t think it’s like anything,” Sweeney had said. “It’s unconsciousness.”
    “So you don’t believe in heaven or Judgment Day or anything like that? I thought that . . . ”
    “That because I spend so much time studying religious responses to Death, I must believe in the premises on which all that art is based? Nope. I’m a good old atheist. I think heaven is for children’s bedtime prayers. What I’m interested in, though, is why human beings need a heaven.”
    “I think we need it because when someone you love dies, it’s just hard to believe that they’re not
somewhere
. You know?” He’d looked almost wistful.
    “I think you’re right.” Suddenly she’d panicked. “I’m not offending you, am I?”
    “No. My dad always says we’re Episcopatheists.”
    “Ha.” She’d laughed. “I like that. Episcopatheists. I come from a long line of Episcopatheists myself.”
    “But I believe in heaven,” he’d said. “Or something anyway. I believe that there’s something else, after.”
    Sweeney had felt she’d been cruel and she’d blushed before saying, “You’re lucky, then.”
    He had been quiet for a moment, then he’d said, “Can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “I heard from some of the other kids about what happened in London. About your husband.”
    They had gotten that part of it wrong.
    “He wasn’t my husband. We were engaged.”
    “Oh. I’m sorry.” He’d hesitated, then he’d stammered on. “I heard about how it happened, about how it was an explosion and they never caught the person or people or whatever who did it and I was just wondering . . . ” He’d stopped there, as though he was trying to figure out what to say. “Have you ever, when you were doing research or something, have you ever found out something about somebody, something that would change everything, change the way people looked at things?”
    Sweeney had been confused. “Do you mean about a gravestone?”
    “Maybe, or about . . . I mean, have you ever come across information that could maybe hurt