The opening doesn't look like much...just a hole at the waterline, probably dug into the steep portion of bank by a water rat. The reality it disguises, however, is much more complex. The hole marks a larger opening just a foot below the water's surface. It is screened by enough rushes that it is difficult to see unless one's eye knows to look for the hole.

It took several days to establish burrows around the cemetery and cache the moved earth in discrete locations, but this exit took the longest. Digging the long tunnel to the lake and arranging it so there was the wet entry hole but dry further in took a lot of time. Luckily, I've had a few centuries to refine my techniques. Now, I am the King of the cemetery. I have several tunnels large enough for me to stand in without having to stoop and many more crawl-ways to move from sarcophagus to tomb, to simple grave. And, most importantly, I have my escape route, for the day when dallying is no longer an option.

I have been greatly enjoying my days in this cemetery, the bones speak so much to me. Miss St. Ives was just the preface to many happy communions with those who have passed. I have also grown to know the face of Madame Mildred Abhorgast who died just three years ago, falling down the stairs of her manor home, The White Breeches. The poor thing had been just returned from a round of lawn tennis and mounted the stairs to go freshen herself, when she slipped and came crashing down...landing in a manner most offensive to her graceful neck. There was young Theodore Cronby, a youth buried in the Year of Someone's Lord, 1608. 'Tad', as he was called by his father, was struck down by the plague, as were so many poor tots. And his little dog, too. And Father Cedrick DeWalt, an Anglican priest here in 1764, who rarely held the well-being of his paritioners in his prayers, so much as widows he could seduce and bilk of their savings to increase his own personal coffers. The Father failed to estimate the indignation of a widow's son at the improprieties, and the young man clubed the priest unconcious and dumped him into the lake here. He was found floating two days later.

Yes, this cemetery is rich in stories, and it is actually the tale of Father Cedrick that spurred me to the idea of one of my bolt holes being here at the lake. I have watched several of the spirits moving around the somber slabs, locked in the denial of heaven that their eternal neighbors have passed into long ago. The sot of a groundskeeper is such an inveterate innebriate that he wouldn't notice a herd of oxen being driven through the tombs, let along the subtle wendings and moanings of the unchained spirits.

Soon I shall start my tunnel up to the catacombs of the manorhouse called Drakesheath Hall. The bones of Miss St. Ives 'suggested' to me in that way of ancestral knowledge that a good repast may be found there.