The preacher shuddered as a chill ran down his spine. The church was usually cold, but this was getting to be ridiculous for an evening in July. He decided it was time to pack up and head back to the parish house and call it a night, as it was getting dark and he didn’t much feel like rummaging around for candles. He walked outside, amazed by the temperature difference between the drafty church and the beautiful summer night that was besetting him. He walked through the cemetery that separated the church and the house whistling a hymn to himself. As he entered the house he felt it get a great deal cooler again, similar to the church. No matter, he thought. He would put on a sweater and enjoy his evening. He lit the candles he had set up in his room (formerly Enoch’s room, but he surely didn’t mind now that he was dead) and began reading his bible for his night time routine. He did this for about an hour until suddenly he felt a chill again as the candles were blown out and he was left in pitch darkness. He had a torch lit out near the doorway to the house in the cemetery, but he would have to fumble his way down in the dark to find it. He stood up and began to walk forward but he tripped himself on the edge of the rug and stumbled forward, hitting his shin on the side of the bed frame. He winced in pain and felt out into the empty blackness for something that resembled the door. He opened it, expecting more darkness, but instead he saw a light slowly getting closer and closer until in walked a little girl about 7 or 8 years old. It was dark, but the preacher could see she had blonde hair french braided back into a ponytail and stood in a white linen nightgown. The preacher was caught off guard.

“Who… uh, Hello, sweetheart.” He said, smiling through the pain in his shin. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, Pastor Williams.” She said.

“And why did you come to see me?” He asked.

“Because you won’t bury Pastor Enoch in the cemetery.”

“Well,” he said, kind of flabbergasted, “That’s a very grown up thing to talk about.”

“Momma said I could talk to you.” She said. “Momma said I could make you stop.”

“Did she?” He said confusedly, “and where is your momma?”

“Behind you.”

* * *

Morning came just as it always did for Muriel: slowly, stiffly, and with the painful realisation that she was still alive and that Enoch was gone. She still had a pit in her stomach over the preacher not letting them bury Enoch in the cemetery. That he would have to be buried in some plain unmarked graveyard was heartbreaking for her. She decided she wasn’t going to wait for anyone’s permission. She knew where Enoch belonged, where he deserved to be. She marched out of the house still in her nightgown and grabbed a shovel from the garden. She marched all the way to the church and into the cemetery where she found an empty plot and started digging. She had gotten about three feet down and was covered in dirt and mud when the preacher caught a glimpse of her from the window. He felt quite ill today, and had what he was certain were feverish dreams all night involving all kinds of monsters and dark rituals. He knew what she was up to, though, and he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t allow someone who had given themselves over to darkness to be buried with children of light, so he stomped down stairs in spite of his sweat soaked brow and upset stomach. He flung the door open and shouted,

“Stop this at once!” but as soon as he stepped into the light his skin began to burst into flame. At first a little, it frightened him and he tried to pat it out, but the more he moved the worse the flames got until he was fully engulfed in flames. Muriel watched from her small hole as the man ran frantically around the cemetery trying to escape the flames, but they were too attached. He dropped to his knees and onto his stomach and began rolling around in the grass, but it was too late. His cries of agony resonated through the community as people began coming out to see what the commotion was. Pastor Williams was dead, and Muriel watched it happen, just like it had happened to her Enoch. She suddenly remembered her words from the other day.

“I wish this evil upon you so that you can know what it’s like to lose a good man and be abandoned by the people you thought would protect you!” Her evil wish had come true, though, not in the way she intended it. Instead of losing someone close to him he lost his own life in the same exact way she lost Enoch: fire by sunlight. Muriel was horrified but she also felt strangely justified. She looked down at her dirt stained hands, picked up the shovel, and kept digging Enoch’s grave.