She comes back, in
the rain, at midnight.
Her pale hand, not
a branch, taps the glass.
Her thin voice,
poor Sarah Tillinghast
whines and
whimpers, chimes and summons you
to walk in
lightning and will’o wisp
to the hallowed
sward of the burial ground,
to press your
cheek against her limestone,
to run your
fingers on family name,
to let the rain
inundate your hair,
wet your
nightclothes to clammy chill,
set your teeth
chattering, your breath
a tiny fog before
you in the larger mist.
You did not see
her go before you,
yet you knew she
was coming here.
Soon her dead hand
will tap your shoulder.
Averting your
eyes, you bare your throat
for her needful
feeding, your heat, your
heart’s blood
erupting in her gullet.
You will smell her
decay, feel the worms
as her moldy
shroud rubs against you.
Still you will
nurse the undead sister,
until her sharp
incisors release you
into a sobbing
heap of tangled hair,
your heart near
stopped, your lungs exploding,
wracked with a
chill that crackles the bones.
The rain will wash
away the bloodstains.
You will hide your
no more virginal
throat like a
smiling lover’s secret.
Two brothers have
already perished —
the night chill,
anemia, swift fall
to red and
galloping consumption.
Death took them a
week apart, a month
beyond Sarah’s
first night-time calling.
Honor Tillinghast,
the stoic mother,
sits in the log
house by the ebbing fire,
heating weak broth
and johnny cakes.
One by one she has
sewn up your shrouds—
now she assembles
yet another.
She knows there is
no peace on this earth,
nor any rest in
the turning grave.
The storm ends, and birds predict the sun.
Upstairs, in
garret and gable dark,
the children stir,
weak and tubercular,
coughing and
fainting and praying for breath.
The ones that suck
by night are stronger
than those they
feed on, here where dead things
sing their own
epitaphs in moon-dance,
and come back, in
the rain, at midnight.
_____
Exeter, Rhode Island’s “vampire” case of 1799 ended with the exhumation
and destruction of the corpse of Sarah Tillinghast after four siblings followed
her in death by consumption. They burned Sarah’s heart and reburied all the
bodies.
