The Jews cemetery

Leaves crunched under our feet as we marched silently through the night following the thin rural unpaved pathway. The weather was cold and hazy, and the foggy sky was blocking the full-moon light causing it to reach us in thin yellow strings. I could feel my legs shaky with fright, as my breathing became heavy and shallow once the Jews cemetery was in sight.

But I couldn't back off now. Not without being drowned in humiliation and shame.

I could now see that we were the only ones out there, as the people in the village had no street lights therefore they rarely went out after dark. To Moha, it was prompting as he was always one to take the difficult road without any concerns for his safety or others. Me, however, I couldn't decide if fitting in with my cousins would be worth the trouble of sleeping out between the ghosts.

When my mother, first told me I will be spending the school break with my grandparents in the countryside, I was ecstatic.

There is nothing I loved more than waking up with the early birds and watching everything around me come back to life with the first rays of sunlight. Every morning felt like the first encounter with nature. And I continued to be amazed by her as she unraveled her secrets through the change of the seasons. A quality that made me my grandfather's favorite grandchild. And since I never knew my father, I needed that male recognition more than I liked to admit. My grandmother was also a very kind woman. She and I mostly bonded over milking cows and feeding the dogs. And usually, that was all I needed to be content, at least before my four cousins came along.

Unlike me, they were born in the big cities. They were a bit older, and a lot bigger than I am. They hated the country-life, and more importantly, hated me. all of them except for Imad, the youngest one, did everything they could to make my life miserable whenever they laid eyes on me. From calling me a bastard, excluding me, all the time, to even assaulting me when my grandparents weren't around. It made me sad, but I couldn't hate them though. I just wished they would take me in as one of their own. 

So when Moha, the oldest one, suggested we'd sneak out, I thought it was my chance to prove I wasn't the wimp they believed me to be. Turns out he had bet my other cousins that I would chicken out. He promised them I was going to regret it once I was there. Which made me even more decisive on proving him wrong, despite Imad's many attempts to dissuade me from going. 

 Occasionally, we would hear a wind whistle or a shuffled moan coming from the fields of wheat surrounding us. The adrenaline would kick in and Moha would prepare to throw rocks at whoever was threatening us while I flash my flashlight around. According to Moha, there isn't much to fear, the only threat we could face is that of a group of dogs.  

Two villagers were attacked by a pack of dogs lately. Since it was mating season, the males seemed to come from all over the village to mate with the female as if her scent was attracting them. And due to the lack of female dogs adoption in the village, the mating would involve the males impressing and competing over the female. This competition seemed to prompt even the most peaceful dogs in the pack to become maddeningly threatening. 

Luckily for me, however, the cemetery wasn't one of a creepy exterior. Like everything else around this village, it looked rusty and untaken care of. There was no gate, no fence to support its privacy and the only obstacle we found was the crumbled stone wall we easily hopped on. 

Once we were inside, I felt the hair in my arms stand up. There wasn't a way to explain it, but the dead silence made me wary. As if I was seeing it all through thick glass, as If I was starting to hallucinate. The moon was clearer by now. And while it still looked yellowish like rotten cheese, it allowed me to see further than what my flashlight would have.

The graveyard was vast and it went up the hills where a small white grave room was built. It was said that the tomb within it belonged to a Jewish witch, after whom the cemetery was named. The witch was said to have fought against the colonization and died while protecting the village from the outsiders. My grandmother believed she was still roaming around, as her soul was deeply attached to the land she was killed for.

For that, the villagers built her a grave room as a tribute to her service. And every day before sunset, the cemetery keeper would lighten up candles all around her tomb. A practice that was believed to help her soul stay pure and keep her away from the darkness. The challenge was for us to spend the night there. 

As we walked towards the room, I started noticing a few strange things I at first had overlooked. First of all, there seemed to be a scent in the air that kept on getting thicker and thicker the more we approached the grave room. It was rotten, decayed, and sickeningly sweet. The second was, the low muffled growls I would occasionally hear, I pointed it out to Moha but he didn't seem concerned at all. The third thing and the one that gave me the most discomfort was Moha's behavior. He was silent and wouldn't spear me a word. Occasionally I would catch him side glancing at me and I would pretend to not have seen it as I fought the anxiety building up within me.

Once we reached the last line of tombstones, he stopped walking and I felt my heart sink into the bit of my stomach, "I need a bathroom." He said calmly as he turned towards me, his mischievous green eyes darker than usual.

"Let's go back home then, I need to pee as well." I quickly blurted out, doing my best to keep the fear in my tone hidden.

He took a step back, and before I could add anything he started unbuckling his pants. A huge knife fell from his waistband when he did so, and it made an echoey metal sound once it hit the granite tombstone. Blood started rushing down my body once I saw it, but I couldn't move as if my legs were held down by an angry spirit.

When he noticed that I was looking at it he grinned a wide manic grin before letting himself out on the gravestone under his feet. I just sat there and watched him, feeling the adrenaline and the fear take over my weak heart causing my body to shut down. There is something about fear, it makes you ahead of time and If my organs cooperated I would've been sprinting down the hills and heading home. 

But I couldn't do that, as once I got over the knife, something emerged from within the darkness that made me lose all sense of time. From where I stood, I had a clear view of the grave room. The candle lights were now off, but I could make out what looked like a woman in a black dress standing in the door. 

"Someone's there.", I uttered struggling for words, yet Moha didn't seem to catch on as he kept on eyeing me in disturbing amusement.

"You know what I'm going to do to you? Do you? Bastard." He muttered as he started swinging his knife towards me.

"You think you belong to this family? You think you could claim my last name and my grandparents as yours. Heck, you even Thought you could claim me as your cousin. You're nothing but a mistake. You piece of filth." 

He went rambling on how much he hated me, and I didn't reply. And even when his blade cut my shoulder I didn't feel a thing or make a sound. My eyes were glued to the women in the black dress. She took a few steps out of the darkness and with that, I noticed she had a black veil over her face. Her silver-gray hair was gleaming under the moonlight and thought my hazy awareness I could see pairs of red eyes surrounding her. They were dogs or wolves I couldn't tell at first until they started slipping out of the room one by one.

It's the same pack that has been attacking villagers, the realization hit me. And before I could manage to make a sound, loud inhuman shrieks and gowls filled the air. The noises these animals made were unnatural, and it made me realize the ridiculousness of the mating story. There was no female dog, there was only a witch. And those weren't even dogs, I could see that despite my eyes slowly shutting down. The last thing I saw that night was a terrified look on Moha that would continue to haunt me for the rest of my life.

When I woke up in the hospital, Imad was sitting by my bed. His usually beaming face looked drained of light. He seemed tired, sorrowful, and guilty.

"I should've warned you." was the first thing he muttered to me before I urged him for the details.

 Apparently, that day, not only Moha was killed but the other two brothers as well. They were waiting for me in the grave room for whatever sick plan they had in stores. Oddly they have been found outside the cemetery, in the wheat field. While I was discovered in the exact spot I was initially stabbed in. The policeman seemed to believe they died of animal attacks, specifically dogs, and I didn't bother changing his mind either. 

Years later I still visited the countryside, but I had changed the way I viewed family. I no longer claimed those who didn't claim me. By liberating myself from what others believed, I found a place within myself to cherish my mother and admire her strength. Like the witch, she wasn't pure but she was divine and she has been always protective of me. Now, every time I would pass the Jews cemetery, I would light up two candles. One for the witch and one for my mom, hoping it would help them see the light whenever they struggled against the darkness.