[ When he crouches nearby, she feels a wave of discomfort as if the air he's displaced is washing over her... though that's no fault of his. She spent six months in busy London, but that isn't enough time to completely overwrite the sensibilities she developed for a decade before that.

He's right that talking will probably help, so she readily obliges. Her voice steadies as the topic turns to something she's actually knowledgeable about, though it retains its naturally soft timbre. ]

Being a gravekeeper... is very solitary, and a lot of strict work. Maybe other cemeteries were different, but ours only had a couple people to attend it. We would prepare graves, tend the landscape, maintain the headstones, conduct funerals, and practice exorcism techniques, among other things.

But since ours was a very small village, people didn't die that often. It wasn't uncommon that I might spend half a day without seeing anyone.

[ To this day, it's easy for her to fall back into her memories of a monochrome world drowning in mist, rows and rows of black silhouettes crammed and errant with the age of the earth. ]