Maria Pianelli Blair

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We avoided the ghost tour.

Something about it rubbed us the wrong way. Pay $25 to trample across old graves. Squint your eyes over the flash of twenty-odd iPhones, in hopes of spotting some woebegone ghost. Try to duck out of selfies and FaceTime calls while absorbing dramatized folklore, relayed by an underpaid theater major.

We read the pamphlets. We knew St. Louis No. 1 was the most famous, the most haunted. But the whole thing seemed sacrilegious. And while we loved ghost stories, we couldn’t bear to become those tourists the locals scoffed about. So, months prior, when our New Orleans sojourn was but a daydream, we agreed. No St. Louis No. 1. No ghost tour.

Which was a shame because I loved visiting cemeteries, especially when traveling. What better way to know the locals, the true locals. It was time travel, or as close to time travel as I’d ever get. Back at home, we had visited my great-grandmother in Moravian for as long as I could remember.

“It’s the oldest active cemetery on Staten Island,” my mother had said. “It opened in the 1700s. Grandma’s buried in a newer section. But if you look hard enough, you’ll probably see some historic graves.”

The thought of my great-grandmother, who died in the 1980s, buried in the same resting place as those from centuries before, blew my mind. And so, as a child, I’d sit on my heels as my father’s Saturn trudged up the ever-long hill, watching the names, the years, etched on tombstones flit by. Born 1782. Died 1827. Italian names. Irish names. Extravagant mausoleums, housing entire bloodlines.

It was existential, contemplating how many lives, complex and vibrant in their own right, had preceded me. It was humbling, realizing how many would exist, ceaselessly, long after I had expired.

Yet, years later, Mike and I remained steadfast in our decision, though my disappointment was evident.

“There’s plenty of other cemeteries in New Orleans,” he assured me. “We can go to another.”

And so, we did.

With the taste of beignets still sweet on our lips, we tread into the small graveyard, somewhere west of the French Quarter. We were alone, save the slate-gray tombstones, bent with age. Tepidly, we followed the winding paths, past knotted oak trees and thick webs of Spanish moss. Beads of sweat kissed my forehead as we crept beneath gnarled boughs. Dutch clovers danced at our ankles.

In the oldest sections, modest headstones sat in haphazard rows, blanketed by overgrown crabgrass.

In Loving Memory.

Dearly Departed.

Beloved Mother.

Father.

Son.

“At least it’s peaceful here,” I murmured, brushing a ladybug off my arm. “No Instagram Lives.”

“As far as ghost tours go, Holt is probably just as interesting as the other cemeteries, maybe even more so,” Mike replied. “It’s had its fair share of ghost hunters and grave robbers. It was a potters’ field when it first opened, you know.” He stopped to examine a wooden cross, splintering at the edges. “I read up on it on the drive over. Families could get a plot for free if they dug the graves themselves. They made most of the markers.”

I squinted at a crumbled stone to my right, broken in two, the inscription barely legible. “That’s probably why some of these are so weathered.” I brushed away a patch of weeds from its reach. To my surprise, another stone, reduced to jagged pebbles, sat at their spindly roots. “I always feel bad for the graves that are forgotten. When they outlast their descendants and stop getting visitors.”

Mike nodded, solemnly. “Yeah, but we can be their visitors.”

Prayers from my Catholic youth overpowered my thoughts. Hail Mary, full of —

An itch seized my attention. The ladybug had returned, shuffling down my wrist.

Mike turned. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just a ladybug. I think it likes my perfume. I don’t want to hurt it, but…”

“Here.” Mike reached over and scooped up the critter with his finger. With bated breath, he padded to a low-hanging branch, and gingerly, released the hitchhiker. “Safe and sound.”

I smiled. “Thanks. How about we go down that way? Towards that lamp post over –”

“Hey, now he’s landed on me!” Mike gazed at his elbow, where the ladybug had perched.

“Is it the same one?”

“Yeah, four spots, just like before.” Once again, Mike lifted the bug with his finger, this time, gently blowing him away. “Stubborn little guy.”

We walked on and I resumed my silent invocation. I tried to visualize those surrounding me, hoping they’d feel my presence.

I wandered off path, weaving between toppled headstones. Scattered wildflowers splay among eroded grave curbs. I had done my research. Somewhere, in this field of souls, were the burial sites of early blues and jazz musicians, known and unknown. There were some thousand military veterans. Victims of a yellow fever epidemic in the 1870s, the catalyst for the cemetery itself. And hundreds of graves without a marker or plot of any kind. With every step, I whispered another prayer. You’re not alone. You’re not alone. You’re not–

“He’s back again,” I declared, raising my arm. Anxiously, the ladybug padded back and forth, his wings fluttering in anticipation. “He must really –”

My voice trailed off.

“What?” Mike quickened his pace. “What is it?”

A few yards ahead, the cemetery gave way to a more modern section. Even from a distance, I could make out polished headstones, erected in recent decades. Many were draped in flower beds. Begonias, zinnias, a rose or two. Others housed small tokens — smooth taupe stones, candles… and a stuffed ladybug, resting on a nearby grave.

Mike too fell silent. “Oh.”

The ladybug on my wrist fluttered away, set adrift in a passing breeze.

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Banner Art:
Photograph by Deborah Bates, Pixabay, 2014

“We avoided the ghost tour” was originally published in Gypsophila Magazine in August 2024.