The Shrine on Suicide Hill by Jonathan Sweet
***
No roads from the town extended as far as Suicide Hill, save for an overgrown footpath cut into the hillside. Evelyn, a stranger to country life, thrashed through the thistles and tall grasses with the clumsiness of a newborn calf. Frankie capered up the path, naked toes jutting out from the holes in her canvas shoes. The wind howled and the sea foamed. Frankie stopped at the top of the hill, fists planted on her flat hips, and waited for her new lover to catch up. Evelyn finally pulled herself to the top and collapsed at Frankie’s feet. The girl knelt down and cradled Evelyn’s head in her lap. The salty perfume of the sea dripped from Frankie’s flesh and Evelyn drank it in.
“So you call this Suicide Hill?” Evelyn asked.
“Yes,” Frankie said with her head cocked to the wind, hair wriggling.
The hill rose several hundred feet above the highest roof in High Church. From the front of Suicide Hill one could see nothing but restless black water. The sea licked at the shore, each flow dipping closer to High Church. One day the sea will swallow this town whole, Evelyn thought. From the back, or western face of Suicide Hill, one could see nothing but the shrine and the scores of grey minion headstones crowded at its feet. The grave markers were rough slabs of limestone and marble with crudely etched faces. Most of these had crumbled into dusty heaps, victims of the wind and salt spray. The shrine itself poked out of the earth like the spire of a gothic cathedral—a rock monolith that pointed its jagged finger to the sky. It had stood for eons, and Evelyn guessed it might stand long after the last traces of High Church had been erased.
Frankie and Evelyn marched closer to the gnarled stone. Foreign words written in a choppy alphabet danced over the surface of the shrine. Evelyn pressed her palm against it and traced her fingernail through the grooves in a figure that resembled a winged fish. “What does all this say?” she asked.
Frankie shrugged. “Lots of things.”
“Like what?”
Frankie smiled and touched a finger to her lips.
Coy bitch.
Evelyn stood on a rock at the foot of the shrine and turned her head from side to side, following the path of the stark seaside horizon. She looked back towards the town and squinted to watch tiny cars scurrying past on the road she had traveled that morning. But none of the motorists crossed the bridge to High Church.
“Do you want to know something strange about this hill?” Evelyn said. “You can’t see the shrine from the road. You can see the graves and the hill. But not the shrine. It’s certainly tall enough. Don’t you find that strange, Frankie?”
Her companion shrugged. “This is a strange hill.”
“Why do they call it Suicide Hill? Do you only bury suicides here?”
Frankie shrugged again.
“I mean, is there another churchyard … closer to the road maybe? Where the town buries the rest of its dead?”
“We have no need for a churchyard.”
“You don’t mean that everyone in High Church dies by their own hand, do you?”
“We have no need for a churchyard.”
The wind kicked up and a chill bit through Evelyn’s coat. The sun sank to the west, peeking out through patches in the milky grey clouds. This is an evil hill. You must get down from here before dark—no matter what Frankie does. Nightmares live here. Yet in spite of these thoughts, Evelyn knew what Georgia wanted her to do.
“Take me to her grave,” Evelyn said.
The corners of Frankie’s mouth curled up in a naughty grin. “Follow.”
They meandered through the cemetery, weaving between the ancient headstones. Evelyn studied them as she passed. A rune or a series of runes—like the ones she had seen on the shrine—decorated each stone. But the stones bore neither names nor dates. No flowers from mourners fluttered in the breeze.
“She lies here,” Frankie said jabbing her finger to the ground.
Evelyn shuddered. I certainly wouldn’t want to be buried here. All these rocks and thistles.
“You were lovers?” Frankie asked.
“Yes. We were.”
“I’ll leave you with her,” Frankie said and grinned her tight feline grin. “Be sure to return to the inn before dark.”
“Right,” Evelyn said. “I shall.”
Frankie turned and disappeared down the face of the hill.
Evelyn knelt at the grave for a moment, wondering what to do. She always imagined that she would speak to Georgia and say everything that had gone unsaid between them. Once, she had gone so far as to write a speech to recite at Georgia’s grave. But now, as darkness crept up around the edges of the world, that seemed silly. Howling wind. Raging sea. Evelyn would have prayed, but no god she knew of would hold counsel on Suicide Hill.
“Poor Georgia,” she whispered. “How cold you must be.”
A snatch of white cloth streaked past her vision. Evelyn snapped her head to either side. Grey sky. Trembling thistles. White cloth floating on choppy air. Evelyn shot to her feet and jogged to the shrine. She leaned against it, balancing tiptoed on a wobbly rock. Nothing towards the sea. Nothing running down the hill. It’s not Frankie. She glanced back at Georgia’s grave. A girl wrapped in a white gauzy dress stood over the headstone. Waves broke loud as thunderclaps on the rocky beach below. Evelyn had memorized Georgia’s curves in a thousand sweat-drenched dreams since the day she hanged herself. Blue lips, hollow eyes. Wisps of black hair wriggled like the tendrils of a jellyfish at the bottom of the sea. A black scarf tied tight at the throat concealed the purple stains of the noose.