The cemetery gates are still locked when Sean arrives.

New Orleans wakes slowly, but the dead usually wake slower.

Today is different.

Eljara is already standing beside the iron fence of St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, reading from a thin folder.

“You look like you didn’t sleep,” she says.

Sean lights a cigarette.

“I did.”

“Liar.”

He exhales smoke into the humid morning air.

“What do we have?”

Eljara opens the folder.

“Police report says vandalism.”

Sean nods.

“Which means it isn’t.”

She hands him the photograph.

A tomb door stands slightly open.

The stone seal has cracked clean across the mortar line.

From the inside.

Sean studies the picture for a moment.

“Family vault?”

“Yes.”

“Anything stolen?”

“No.”

“Animals?”

“Three hundred pounds of stone.”

Sean flicks ash onto the gravel.

“So the options are narrowing.”

Eljara folds her arms.

“Yes.”

They walk through the narrow paths between the white tombs.

Above-ground graves stretch in every direction like a silent neighborhood.

That’s how New Orleans buries its dead.

Because the earth here refuses to keep them.

They stop in front of the broken vault.

Sean crouches beside the crack in the stone seal.

“Pressure from inside,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Body still there?”

“No.”

He opens the tomb door slowly.

Inside, the air smells like damp limestone.

Not decay.

Not rot.

Just emptiness.

Four coffins sit undisturbed.

One is open.

The velvet lining holds the shape of a body that is no longer there.

Sean stares into the coffin.

“How long buried?”

“Six months.”

“Cause of death?”

“Heart failure.”

“Seventy-two years old.”

Sean nods once.

“Not ideal resurrection material.”

Eljara kneels beside the entrance.

“Look at the ground.”

Bare footprints press into the cemetery dust.

Leading away from the tomb.

Calm.

Even.

Walking.

Sean follows them with his eyes.

“He didn’t crawl out,” he says.

“No.”

“He stood up.”

“Yes.”

“And then he left.”

The morning sun climbs slowly over the cemetery wall.

Somewhere outside the gates a streetcar bell rings.

Eljara closes the folder.

“The caretaker saw him.”

Sean looks up.

“When?”

“Just before sunrise.”

“What did he say?”

Eljara hesitates for a moment.

“He asked what month it was.”

Sean sighs quietly.

“And when the caretaker told him?”

“March.”

The humid air shifts slightly through the rows of tombs.

Sean looks toward the swamp beyond the city.

“What did he say then?”

Eljara’s voice lowers.

“He said…”

She glances once more at the empty vault.

“…good.”

Sean stares at the broken tomb door.

“You remember what Caelwyn said about spring?”

“That it activates patterns.”

He nods.

“Well.”

Sean flicks the cigarette away.

“I think the first one just woke up.”

The wind moves through the cemetery.

Soft.

Warm.

Like the city itself has begun to breathe again.

🜍 BIRTH — Week 1
In New Orleans
spring does not wake the living first.

Sometimes
the dead remember the way back.

---

🜍 One theme. One month. One descent.
🜍 Birth. Rebirth. Return.

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