“Susan,” the ghost whispered, her gaze nervously darting between her husband’s spirit and her descendent. “Susan, get up and finish it. You are the only one who can end that,” she waved her hand at the men, momentarily drawing Susan’s attention back to where Justin had failed to avoid another blow from the scythe, “horrible battle.”

Concerned for her husband’s safety, who was now losing blood from a shallow thigh wound, she glanced over at Emma and asked, “What can I do? I can’t even hold a weapon at this point, much less parry a blow.”

Emma winced when Archibald avoided a jab from Justin and then swung the curved blade of the scythe up over his head, then down, the deadly tip aimed for Justin’s face. When the younger man moved the shovel handle above his head and stopped the blade’s downward progress, it bit deeply into the wood of the handle, and lodged there. Locked in a battle of strength, the men began to turn in circles, each pushing against the tangled weapons, trying to dislodge them and gain the advantage.

“You must complete the task that was interrupted,” Emma pleaded. She looked from Susan’s tear-streaked face, to the flowers that had been scattered across the ground when Archibald sent her flying through the air. “Susan, finish honoring us.” As her voice faded away, Emma slowly disappeared from sight.

Susan stretched her uninjured arm and gathered up a few flowers that were lying discarded within her reach. Hearing the cracking of wood, she looked back at the battling men and saw that Archibald had forced the lethal blade of the scythe almost halfway through the handle of the old shovel.

Careful not to alert Archibald to her intentions, she cradled her broken arm to her chest and softly spoke the opening words from a Robert Frost poem that was quoted at her mother’s funeral the year before, while slowly pulling her legs beneath her and into a kneeling position. “‘Nature’s first green is gold,…’”

Susan paused to verify that Archibald had not noticed her movements. Seeing she had gone undetected, she continued the poem and began inching her way toward the graves. “‘Her hardest hue to hold…’”

A blur of movement across the greenhouse caused Susan to stop, as Justin dropped to his knees and used the rapid change in position to pull Archibald over his shoulder, arcing him through the air and causing him to land with a loud thud on his back. Still holding onto the shovel’s handle Justin turned to kneel across Archibald’s chest with a knee on either side, pinning him to the ground, Susan spoke the next words. “‘Her early leaf’s a flower;…’”

As the men continued their struggle on the ground, the scythe finished cutting through the handle. Stretching one hand out to try and restrain Archibald’s weapon arm, Justin positioned the other, still clutching a severed piece of wood, over the ghost’s throat in an effort to impale him. Scooting as fast as she could go, Susan continued to move closer to the graves, and as she said, “‘But only so an hour.…’” she smelled the pleasant aroma of roses and her back hit the long dead branches.

Archibald looked up into Justin’s sweaty face, chuckled and said, “You think it will be that easy?” Then he suddenly disappeared and Justin, his weight already pitched in that direction, fell forward onto the hard earth. When the ghost rematerialized, he was standing over the sprawled man and was positioning the scythe inches from his neck.

As Justin quickly rolled onto his back and away from the blade that would have taken his head off, Susan whispered, “‘Then leaf subsides to leaf.…’”