This was not the first time that Lilah Romero had received an unusual offer, but it was the first time that she took one seriously.  Working the overnight shift at a hotel, even a high-end establishment like the Elk Grove Lodge, had made her accustomed to distasteful requests, particularly from men who otherwise presented themselves as upstanding members of society.  But this time was different, she told herself.  

Lilah stepped out of her vehicle, straightened her clothing, and crossed over to the adjacent sidewalk.  A beautiful woman who was accustomed to the attention of men, she always chose her outfits carefully.  At the hotel, she rotated through a wardrobe of conservative, understated looks.  Today, she decided to dress in a more chic, expensive-looking blouse and slacks.  She felt a jolt of confidence as she walked towards the building.

This was a reasonable decision, Lilah thought, agreeing to meet a strange man at his office downtown.  Certainly, she would walk away if anything seemed suspicious.  She would not put herself in a dangerous situation, no matter how promising the opportunity seemed.  But she also knew that if she ever wanted to make a better life for herself and her son, she needed to take some chances.

When the bronze elevator doors closed in front of her, she caught her reflection in the metallic surface.  She inspected her makeup and adjusted her hair.  When the doors opened again, she found herself in the reception area of Lachesis Global, facing a young, pretty woman behind the desk.  The receptionist used the desk phone to announce Lilah’s arrival, then escorted her through a set of glass doors.

The two women proceeded through a bullpen area filled with tidy, but unoccupied cubicles to a corner office whose door was left open.  Inside, Lilah found John Heiser sitting behind a large desk, an open laptop facing him.  

Heiser stood to greet her.  “Ms. Romero,” he said,  “please have a seat,” said Heiser, gesturing to the armchair on the opposite side of the desk.  “I’m so happy you agreed to meet with us,” he said.  The receptionist closed the door behind her.

Lilah was taken by the deliberate manner in which Heiser spoke and instantly realized that style played a role in her decision to accept his invitation to meet.  His initial success at lowering Lilah’s guard now put her on edge.   

“Ms. Romero,” said Heiser, “the founder of our company is a man named William Gottlieb.  He is 93 years old and has been battling health issues for many years.  He understands that he is near the end of his life.”

“I won’t sleep with him,” said Lilah, her interruption surprising even herself. 

Heiser laughed awkwardly.  He kept his eyes focused on hers the entire time.  “Nobody is asking you to,” said Heiser.  “Our situation is far more mundane.“

Heiser continued.  “Mr. Gottlieb has been tending to his affairs, finalizing plans for his estate.  This would include, of course, how he wishes to be remembered.  The plans for his memorial and his gravesite are all very conventional.  However, he would like to add a little spice to the funeral service.” 

“You see, Mr. Gottlieb has dedicated the vast majority of his life to building his company and running the charity foundation that he started with his late wife, Beatrice.  As a result, he has the reputation as a staid – some might even say boring – businessman.  He fully expects his funeral service will be forgotten soon after his casket is lowered into the ground.”

Lilah shifted in her seat.  She understood instinctively that this mundane situation was about to get weird.

“Mr. Gottlieb would like to hire a beautiful young woman to attend his funeral,” said Heiser.  “To sit in the front row in an expensive black dress, shed a few tears, and be mysterious.”

“Mysterious?” said Lilah, her tone revealing her skepticism.

“Mysterious,” confirmed Heiser.

“I don’t even know the man,” said Lilah, “and you want me to go to his funeral and pretend to care about him?”

Heiser turned the laptop on his desk to reveal the image of a wrinkled old man, his white hair splayed across a hospital bed pillow.

“You don’t have to know him, Ms. Romero,” Heiser said.  “In fact, the less you know about him, the more likely you are to succeed in your assignment.”

Heiser stood his chair, walked around to the opposite side of the desk, and laid open a leather-bound folder in front of Lilah.  Lilah glanced over and saw a page of dense legal writing with a line at the bottom for her signature.  

Heiser then stepped over to a cabinet situated against the wall of the office and revealed a safe with an electronic keypad lock.  “In exchange for your services, and your availability in the interim,” Heiser said, “ you will be compensated richly.”

Heiser returned to the desk and placed a thick white envelope in front of Lilah.  “One hundred thousand dollars,” he said.  “Lump sum, upfront, paid in full.”

Lilah looked up at Hesier with wide eyes, unable to hide her disbelief.  “This is real?” she said.  Her eyes shifted to the image of the Old Man on the computer screen.  She was surprised to see him blink.

“Very real,” said Heiser.  He pulled a pen from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on top of the document.  

The Old Man smiled.

Lilah looked down at the agreement, pretending to review its terms.  She pictured herself walking into a room of strangers gathered for the Old Man’s funeral.  Holding herself aloof as scandalized blue bloods whispered amongst themselves.

She thought of the freedom that $100,000 would buy.  The changes she could make if she wasn’t worried about paying bills.  How much better her life would be if she agreed to this one, weird request?

She picked up the pen and signed her full, legal name.

Over the next few weeks, Lilah tried to carry on as if nothing had changed.  She placed the money in a plastic bag in the back of her freezer and kept the same hours at her job.  After she was certain that John Heiser wouldn’t be knocking on her door to demand the money back, she started to spend it.

First, she enrolled in a management program at the nearby community college.  She then identified an after-school program for her son Michael near the campus.  A few weeks after that, she found an apartment and finally moved the two of them out of her mother’s house.

After she and Michael were settled in their new apartment, she took him shopping for some new clothes and two new games for his videogame system.  Nothing too extravagant, but still enough of a difference in their spending habits that it still gave Lilah pause.  But she definitely enjoyed the feeling of making her son happy.

With her busier schedule, Lilah began to notice more instances of fatigue, more times when guests at the hotel struck a nerve with her.   She noticed a change in her attitude whenever she steped foot on the premises and her tendency to feel annoyed when things didn’t go as smoothly as expected.  

After clocking out one morning, after a particular hectic week at work, Lilah detoured to a department store in town and wandered through the racks of clothes, imagining how she would redo her wardrobe once she had fully secured a better life.  Passing a counter in the jewelry section, her eye was caught by a simple but beautiful diamond pendant.  She cursed at herself for hesitating, then forgave herself and went back to look closer.  On her next shift at work, she wore her new necklace and left an extra button on her blouse unbuttoned.  

A few weeks later, Lilah was sitting in one of her college classes when she felt her cell phone vibrate.  She removed the phone from her purse and saw that the caller ID read “Lachesis Global.”  She absent-mindedly declined the call, then realized a moment later the significance of the words.  It had been nearly eight months since she visited that office downtown.

She set the phone on her desktop and waited.  Moments later, a message arrived.

Ms. Romero, please be advised that the memorial service for our founder William Gottlieb has been scheduled for this Saturday, at 1:00 p.m.  Pursuant to your Agreement, a hired car will arrive at your home at 9:00 a.m. to transport you to the location.  Please respond to this phone number if you have any questions.

She immediately turned off the screen and stowed the phone back in her purse.

On the drive home that evening, Lilah thought about the funeral she was expected to attend, and realized that it could end up being one of the worst experiences of her life.  That she would be shuffled to and from a boring event attended by people she would otherwise want no contact with.  But she had agreed to go, and she was in no position to return the money.

When she parked her car on the street in front of her apartment building, she noticed a dinged-up car parked nearby with a young man sitting behind the wheel.  As Lilah exited her vehicle, the young man also emerged, wearing a uniform polo shirt and holding a large, black garment bag.

“Ms. Romero,” she heard a man say.

She ignored him and continued on the path to her front door.

“Ms. Romero,” he said louder, “I have a delivery for you.”

“I didn’t order anything,” she said.

The driver stepped towards Lilah with authority.  “This is a special delivery, ma’am.”

Lilah turned to face him.  “I don’t want it,” she said.

The man held the satchel towards her as he neared.  “Refusals are not accepted.”

She took possession of the garment bag and watched him walk away.  “Have a nice day,” he said.

Lilah carried the delivery inside and laid it on the sofa.  She turned to leave the room, then hesitated.  She looked back at the garment bag, then stepped over and unzipped it.  Inside she found a beautiful black dress made of cashmere silk with overlaid panels of black lace.  It was the finest thing she had ever possessed.

Lilah considered the dress for a moment, imagining how it would feel to wear it.  She then sealed it in the bag and hung it in her hallway closet.

Over the next three days, Lilah tried her best not to think about the Saturday event.  But during every quiet moment in her day, her mind would be needled by the task that hung over her head.  By the knowledge that she was being forced into a deliberately uncomfortable position in order to be objectified for the amusement of a wealthy, but now dead, old man.  

When Friday night arrived, she transported the garment bag to the Elk Grove Lodge and stored it in the manager’s office while she worked her regular shift.  A typical flow of late-arriving guests followed, with only one or two complications that needed straightening.

Around 11:20 p.m., three men showed up in business suits and loosened neckties.  Liliah immediately sized them up to be patrons of the Fremont Club, a private establishment down the road from the hotel.  Over the course of her employment, she had grown accustomed to socially-lubricated men from the Fremont wandering over to patronize the hotel bar.

As these men crossed through the lobby, they each took a moment to glance over in Lilah’s direction.  Lilah made a point to turn her face towards her computer, but she nevertheless felt their individual gazes, one after the other, punctuated by the conspicuous pause of their annoying chatter.

Lilah sensed when they had left the lobby and turned to enter the front office.  She sat down at the night auditor’s desk and noted the time.  It would likely be another two hours before the men crossed back in the opposite direction.  She glanced over at her manager’s office and saw the garment bag hanging by the door.

By the time the sun rose the following morning, Lilah had resolved to not attend the funeral.

When her shift ended. Lilah grabbed the garment bag from the office and hurried out the side exit.  She walked calmly to her parked car, mindful of any bystanders who could be watching.    

She drove her car in the opposite direction of her home, repeatedly looking in the rearview mirror for any cars that could be following.  She had previously arranged for Michael to spend the weekend with his grandmother so now she had nowhere to go.

Following the county road as it led into the foothills, she drove through several miles of unadorned land before she happened upon a small diner with a gravel parking lot.  She impulsively pulled her car over and went inside.  Finding a row of booths along the front wall and an old-school counter on the opposite, Lilah selected the booth furthest from the door and sat with her back towards the wall.  

From there she could survey the situation as it presented itself:  a slender woman with weathered skin stood behind the counter, pouring coffee for a solitary customer, an elderly man wearing a brown suit.  A folded newspaper sat on the counter next to his breakfast.  Neither looked over in her direction.

Lilah retrieved her cell phone and placed it on the table top. The time was read 7:34 a.m. and the phone’s reception was minimal.  She pulled a laminated menu from the salt and pepper holder and considered ordering food.

At precisely 9:00 a.m., Lilah’s phone vibrated the table.  She looked at the screen and saw that it read “Unknown Caller.” Lilah surmised that this was the driver of the car that was hired to drive her to the funeral.  She rejected the call.  The phone immediately rang again, seemingly with a more insistent tone.  Lilah pictured a shiny black car parked outside her apartment building.  She rejected the call again, glancing over at the woman behind the counter, who avoided eye contact.

Two minutes later, the phone vibrated again.  This time the screen read “Lachesis Global.”  Lilah muted her phone, her hand shaking from the nerves.  A second call from Lachesis, then a third.  Each time, Lilah refused the contact.

The elderly man sitting at the counter took that moment to climb down from his stool, place his newspaper under his arm, and walk slowly out the front door.  Lilah watched him leave the diner, her hand poised by her phone.  It finally remained still.

Lilah returned home that afternoon and tried to sleep, but found that her brain wouldn’t allow it.  She spent the rest of Saturday thinking of the funeral, tracking in her mind as the event occurred and the likely consequences that followed.  She assumed that John Heiser, the man who hired her to attend, would know immediately of her absence.  She calculated the time it would take for him to drive back from the cemetery and wondered if he wouldn’t drive directly to his office.  

On Sunday, Lilah’s thoughts were focused on whether Heiser would send an employee to her home, or to her job, or whether he would show up himself.  She wondered if they would demand that she immediately return the money, or perhaps even threaten to harm her physically.  She remembered Heiser’s measured tone and wondered if he would be angry and yell.  

On Monday, Lilah left her apartment building to retrieve her son from her mother’s house and drive him to school.  Her head ached and an unrecognizable tune echoed in her brain.  She chalked up her condition to sleep deprivation and promised herself she could take a nap before work.  After dropping off Michael at school, Lilah drove to the nearby grocery store.  When she entered the store, she found the music playing over the intercom system to be particularly loud and discordant.  

Pushing a shopping cart into the first aisle, she nearly ran into an older man slowly crossing her path with his own cart.  She felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket, and paused to look at it.  The phone indicated that she had missed a call from “Unknown Caller.”  

She glanced back to the man pushing the shopping cart down the aisle and noticed for the first time that he was wearing a brown business suit.  She watched as he reached the end of the aisle and turned across the back of the store.  Catching a glimpse of his face, Lilah thought she recognized him.

She instinctively pushed her cart after him, moving quickly to catch up.  When she reached the end of the aisle, she turned and found no sight of the Old Man.  She paced quickly down the path, looking down each aisle, with no luck.  Finally, she doubled back the way she came and saw the Old Man on the far end of the store, walking towards the front door.

Lilah abandoned her cart and hustled down the aisle in the Old Man’s direction.  She scrambled to the door, stepped into the daylight, and found no trace of the elderly man.  At this moment, she was quite certain that the man she saw walking through the store was William Gottlieb, the man whose funeral she had been paid to attend two days earlier.

Lilah returned to work that night and every day that week.  She eventually caught up on her lost sleep but still felt as though the brain fog had remained.  By the time she arrived at her job two Fridays later, the skipped funeral was no longer top of mind.

When she began her shift she noticed how particularly quiet the hotel was.  Though the Elk Grove Lodge was not known for hosting a carousing clientele, weekends were still more active as patrons would come and go later into the night.

But not this time.  Nearly an hour into her weekend, Lilah noticed that she hadn’t set eyes on a single guest.  Intrigued but not alarmed, she tidied up the front desk area and retreated into the office to tend to lingering paperwork.  Just after midnight, her cell phone alerted her that she had missed a call from an unknown caller.

She looked closely at the screen to confirm that it was receiving a strong signal.  Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw an elderly man shuffle past the front desk towards the seating area in the center hub of the hotel’s lobby.  Lilah hurried out of the office for a better view.

Stepping around the front desk and looking into the seating area, she saw the Old Man from the grocery store, wearing the same brown suit.  He sat alone in an armchair, staring into space.  Lilah took a step forward, holding the man in her sights.  Her cautious footsteps echoed through the empty foyer.

Lilah focused on the man’s face, trying to determine if it truly belonged to William Gottlieb.  She slowly moved closer, expecting him to turn in her direction.  A loud, electronic tone rang from the phone at the front desk.

Lilah walked back to the counter and reached across to answer the call.  By the time she picked up the receiver, the caller was gone.  She replaced the phone and turned back to the Old Man.  He was gone.

Lilah returned to the hotel office and gazed at the bank of monitors that displayed the hotel’s security system.  One by one, the screens each confirmed that nothing was out of the ordinary.  Convincing herself that nothing was happening, Lilah finally returned to her paperwork, occasionally glancing up at the empty monitors.

Around 1 a.m., Lilah saw on a screen a group of four men in suit jackets enter the lobby through the front door.  Recognizing that they were likely patrons of the Fremont Club, she nevertheless exited the office to greet them.

Lilah stood at the front desk as the men walked silently by.  None of the men so much as glanced in her direction.  As Lilah returned to the office, her cell phone vibrated on her desk.  Another missed call from an unknown number.

Without hesitation, she returned to the front desk and looked over to the seating area.  Though nobody was occupying the chairs and sofas, she could see movement through the glass on the far side of the room.  On the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows, standing on the poolside veranda, was the Old Man in the brown suit.  

He stood motionless, his back towards Lilah.  The longer she looked at him, the less he seemed to be there.  Frozen in unease, her inclination to approach the man was gone.  She stepped away and returned to the office.

Looking again at the security monitors, she saw no discernible movement.  She looked closer at the camera covering the veranda and made out what she thought was a shadow cast by an unseen figure.  

The green-tinted image on the screen glitched and Lilah became distracted by a glowing white moth bouncing off the lens of the camera.  She focused on the moth, the rhythm of its movement, and drifted into a trance.

A sharp ringing echoed through the room.  A middle-aged woman was hammering the service bell at the front desk.  Craning her neck in an attempt to look into the office.

“Hello!” the woman bellowed, “hel-lo-o!”  She rang the bell continuously.

Lilah scurried to her feet, grabbing her cell phone from the night auditor’s desk.  It vibrated instantly.  Another missed call.

“There’s a man in the pool,” the woman said.  “In a suit, a business suit.”

Lilah stepped from the office towards the woman, squinting her eyes to make them focus.

“He’s not real,” Lilah said.

“What?!” the woman replied.  “He’s in the water.  Call 911!”

Lilah stepped around the end of the front desk, into the public space of the lobby.  Turning towards the sitting area and looking through the tall windows on the far end, she could see people standing around the pool, their attention focused on the water.  Suddenly, one of the men from the Fremont Club emerged from the periphery and jumped into the water, fully dressed.

Liliah finally recognized the urgency and hurried back to the office to call for help.

About two hours later, a police officer was sitting at Lilah’s desk writing down her answers.  She sat across from him in an ordinary office chair, her arms folded across her chest.  She watched him carefully as he methodically investigated how a young businessman, a member of the private club down the street, somehow ended up at the bottom of her hotel’s pool.  Lilah didn’t mention seeing the Old Man.

After finishing his questions, the officer closed his notepad and looked at Lilah with focused scrutiny.  After a moment, he spoke plainly.

“Miss, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know much about premises liability,” he said, returning his pen to his uniform shirt pocket.  “But I do know that there will be consequences from tonight’s event.”

Lilah sat motionless, determined not to betray her anxiety.  

“It might be a good time for you to start looking for a new job,” the officer concluded.

For the first few weeks after she quit her job, Lilah stayed at home and tried to focus on her coursework.  She tended to the needs of her son, and even spent more time with her mother.  But when her next rent check was due, Lilah realized that her situation was unsustainable.

The money she received from John Heiser would eventually run out, but she had also considered whether she should even be using that money at all.  Lilah began looking for a new job, focusing on openings in the hospitality industry.  Initially, she found only postings for housekeepers and part-time kitchen help.  

She was considering whether she should do gig work as a delivery driver when she happened upon a hostess job at the Fremont Club.  She first dismissed the idea out of hand, then began to imagine what it would be like to work among the men she disdained from her last job.  Certainly not all of the patrons of the Fremont Club would be horrible people.  She decided to apply for the job.

A week later, Lilah was driving Michael home from school when her cell phone rang.  The screen read “Fremont Club” and she considered answering it as she drove.  She looked back at Michael in the backseat of the car, distracted with a game on his digital tablet.  She sent the call to voicemail and promised herself that she would follow up as soon as she reached home.  

A moment later, the phone buzzed again.  The screen told her that she missed a call from an “Unknown Caller.”  Lilah instinctively looked again to the backseat and saw the Old Man sitting next to her son.  

Lilah reflexively jerked the car towards the right lane, nearly colliding with a car next to hers.  Lilah pulled back to the left and stepped on the gas.  “Mom!” Michael cried out.

Lilah looked back to the backseat.  Michael and the Old Man were both jostled by her driving.  “Hold on, sweetie,” Lilah told her son, as she again tried to maneuver the car off the road.

She slowed, then sped up, then looked over her shoulder, and was rammed by a crossing vehicle.  The impact to the front quarter of her car sent the vehicle spinning, and airbags deployed.  Michael’s screams filled the space left by crunching metal and glass.

When Lilah began to wake, she understood instinctively that she was in a foreign space, seeing a drop ceiling overhead and hearing only a muddled mix of sounds.  She felt her back lying against a firm surface, her fingertips sensing rough, industrial-grade bedsheets.  

She cautiously tried to wake up fully but found her brain foggy, her grasp on consciousness tenuous.  Sounds then became crisper, closer, and a nurse was talking to her.

“–accident, but you’re going to be okay,” the nurse was saying.  “You’ve had a pretty bad concusion so we’re going to hold on to you a little bit to keep an eye on you.”

Lilah felt herself mumble something in response.  “Michael,” she said.

“I’ve contacted our plastic surgery resident to have a look at that cut on your face,” the nurse said.

“My son,” her voice creaked. 

Lilah felt her hand reach up to her face and touch a gauze pad.  She then noticed the pull of medical tape along the edge of the right side of her face.  Her face was numb but she felt the tingle of an open wound under the bandage.

She closed her eyes and slept.

The next sensation was the feeling of her upper body being elevated by the hospital bed.

“Hello, Ms. Romero,” said the nurse, this time louder.  “How are we feeling?”  The nurse had pushed a wheelchair up next to the bed.

“I don’t– ,” Lilah began, failing to find the words.  Her mouth was dry and she felt powder on her tongue.

“We’re going to need to move you into a different area of the hospital,” the nurse said.  

“Where is my son?” Lilah croaked.

The nurse guided Lilah into a wheelchair and pushed it out of the room and into the hallway.  The nurse then led her down a corridor, through a set of double doors, and around a corner into a different corridor.  Lilah felt her head spinning.

“Wait right here for a second,” said the nurse as she walked away.  

Left sitting along the right side of the corridor, an odd calm came over Lilah and she looked down the edge of the wall, forcing her eyes to scan through the space ahead of her.  Ahead she saw a wall with an arrangement of framed photos, each appearing to be a medical professional.  

On the adjacent wall, Lilah saw a row of letters, arranged in an arch, under which hung a large framed photo.  Struggling to make out the words, she rose to her feet and took a few cautious steps forward.

“Our Benefactor,” the wall read.

Lilah took another step forward, finding reassurance in her footing.  The photo was a portrait of William Gottlieb wearing a brown business suit.

Lilah then remembered the Old Man’s face in her rear-view mirror.  

She instantly turned in the opposite direction, moving as quickly as her weakened body would allow her.  She shuffled back down the corridor, turned at the next corner, and found herself along a row of indistinguishable doors.

Footsteps and conversations echoed through the corridor.  She forced herself on, turned a corner, and found a door marked as an emergency exit.

Lilah forced open the heavy door and stepped outside, and immediately felt cool air whip through her hospital gown.  She was in an alley somewhere on the hospital grounds, and felt hard, rough pavement on her feet.  She stumbled forward, resting her hand on the brick wall for support.

Lilah arrived back at her apartment without a clear memory of how she got there.  She felt disconnected from the world, as if her body was moving without her control.  She opened the front door and immediately felt cold air in her face.

Stepping into the living room, she saw the glass doors to the patio were open, the drapes billowing in the breeze.

“Michael?” she said, stepping as quickly as her body would allow.  She moved into the hallway, then Michael’s room, then her own.  No signs of life.

She stood in her bedroom for a moment, trying to restore her bearings.  Nothing made sense anymore.  She heard a digital tone in the other room and followed it.

Returning to the living room, she saw an unfamiliar cell phone sitting on the far end of her coffee table.  It continued to ring.

Lilah slumped into an armchair on the opposite end of the table and looked at the phone.

She made no effort to answer the call.

After five rings, the phone went silent.  Lilah stood from her chair and walked slowly to her hallway closet.  Opening the door, she sorted through the coats hanging there and pulled out the garment bag containing the beautiful, black, funeral dress.

Some time later, Lilah woke to the sensation of cool, hard glass on the side of her face.  Sunlight pierced the window in the back of the bus, causing her to straighten away from the window.  Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked down the center aisle of the bus and saw a young girl, maybe eight years old, staring back at her.

Lilah reflexively turned her face away and felt the bandage on her face scrape against her shoulder.  She raised her hand to her face and realized how she must look to the little girl, or to anyone who would see her in this state.  

She used her fingers to comb her hair forward, obscuring her face as best as she could.

A few hours later, Lilah exited the bus, walking the final two blocks on foot.  When she reached the gateway to the Eternal Peace Cemetery, she saw a narrow paved road that sloped upwards into a field of tombstones.  She passed a small building containing the superintendent’s office, ambling down the road without direction.

As the path bent through a patch of old-growth trees, Lilah noticed an arrangement of large monuments to one side that seemed to denote wealth and influence.  She stopped at a grave decorated with flowers, picked up a single rose, and stepped barefoot onto the cool grass.

Over the next several years, a diminishing number of people would speak of William Gottlieb, his business career, or his charitable work in the region.  Over time, whenever people mentioned his name, it would only be with the intention of locating his gravesite.  

Indeed, as the years passed, only keen observers at the Eternal Peace Cemetery would notice the name of his wife Beatrice identified on a grave nearby and question the significance of Gottlieb being buried under a large, dual tombstone with no name or dates added for a spouse.  

But all visitors to the site, regardless of their background or their level of belief, only traveled to the cemetery with one purpose.  They only hoped to witness the appearance of the grave’s perpetual visitor, the scarred young woman, mysteriously dressed in black.