legends · 4 min read ·
Plot 214, Section D
A cemetery plot is bought for a sister who was never buried, and then reassigned to the holder.
**Ravensmere Cemetery · Deed of Grant of Exclusive Right of Burial**
**Plot:** Section D, Plot 214 · **Grant date:** 2 May · **Term:** 75 years
**Holder:** Aileen Costa, 41 Fenner Street · **Purpose:** Burial of a family member
*Holder is entitled to bury one (1) person in the plot. Holder may add inscriptions subject to approval.*
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**Burial register extract (Section D)**
- Plot 211 · Thomas Ardley · 1931 · interred
- Plot 212 · Margaret Ardley · 1934 · interred
- Plot 213 · *unused, reserved*
- Plot 214 · *reserved · holder: Costa*
- Plot 215 · Edward Pryce · 1968 · interred
*Note: Plot 213 was reserved in 1931 under the name Ardley and has never been used. The reservation is renewed every five years by the family's solicitors.*
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**Holder's application for inscription (A. Costa, 9 May)**
Please inscribe the headstone for Plot 214 with the following text:
*In loving memory of Ruth Costa, who was taken from us at the age of thirty-eight. She was ours, and she is still ours. Rest now.*
**Registrar's note:** Ruth Costa does not appear in the burial register. There is no death certificate on file. Ruth Costa is not recorded as having died in this parish. The inscription has been returned for clarification.
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**Holder's letter (A. Costa, 14 May)**
*Dear Registrar,*
*You're right that she isn't on the register. She was never on any register, because she was never officially lost. She was in the house on Fenner Street with me, and then one morning she wasn't, and the police looked and looked, and they said she must have gone out. I know she didn't go out. She was in her bed, in the back room, with her blue cardigan folded on the chair.*
*I bought the plot because I'm the only one who can say where she is. I've been visiting the grave for three weeks. The grave is empty. There's a small mound of earth at the head, no stone yet, and every morning there's a new hole in the turf beside it, the size of a hand.*
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**Registrar's note (Ravensmere, 20 May)**
Holder has been visiting Plot 214 daily. Groundsman reports that the turf has been disturbed in a pattern around the plot's perimeter. Lines have been drawn in the earth, very neat, forming a square about one metre across, with the corners marked by small stones.
Groundsman also reports that the plot is warm to the touch, and that the mound is slowly lowering, as if something beneath it is being carried up, very carefully, from below.
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**Burial register extract (Section D, 3 June)**
- Plot 214 · *Ruth Costa · age 38 · interred 3 June · no certificate*
*Note: entry made by the holder. The registrar has not countersigned.*
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**Holder's letter (A. Costa, 5 June)**
*Dear Registrar,*
*Thank you for letting me bury her. I know you didn't want to. I know the paperwork's wrong. But she's home now, and she's tucked in, under a blanket of earth, with her name on the stone, which I've carved myself.*
*The inscription says "Rest now." I wrote it because that's what I used to say when she couldn't sleep, all those years we shared the back room. But she's not resting. Every night I hear her knocking on the lid of the coffin from the inside, very softly, the way she used to knock on my bedroom door when she was lonely and wanted to be let in.*
*I've started to answer her. I say "Not yet, love." And she stops. And then the knocking starts again, a little further away, as if she's moving down the path toward the gate, looking for the way out.*
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**Registrar's note (Ravensmere, 12 June)**
Holder found in the cemetery at 04:00, kneeling on the grave of Plot 214. The stone is in place. The inscription reads as requested. The text has been carved by an unsteady hand, in uneven letters, and has been filled with black paint.
Holder says she was told by the voice in the earth that the grave needs one more person to be complete, and that she is the only one who can make it so.
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**Burial register extract (Section D, 25 October)**
- Plot 214 · *Aileen Costa · age 41 · interred 25 October · no certificate*
*Note: entry made in an unsteady hand. Date of interment is the date of the registrar's last visit. The holder's home has been let to a new family, with a single occupant, a man who has been asked not to dig in the garden.*
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**Final notice (Ravensmere, 27 October)**
Plot 214 has been reassigned to the family of the next holder, subject to the usual terms. The headstone is in place, with the inscription *In loving memory of Aileen Costa, who was taken from us. She was ours, and she is still ours. Rest now.*
The next holder has asked the groundsman to cut the turf beside the grave so it can be seen from the path. The groundsman has agreed. The square has been reseeded, and the grass there is already greener than the rest of the section.