There were only four graves left that Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair considered worth opening.

His earlier visits to the old Saint Clair family burial ground at Blackthorn Hall had already produced a collection of ancestors and distant relations whose return to the world of the living had been rather less dignified than their original funerals. Some had answered his summons almost eagerly, others had required considerably more persuasion, and a few had emerged from the earth with little remaining beyond an instinctive loyalty to the blood of Saint Clair. Lucien had persisted because family, as he frequently observed, was family, even when several members of it had been dead for the better part of a century.

These final four were different. Their graves lay in the oldest part of the burial ground beneath weathered stones whose inscriptions were already disappearing beneath moss and Virginia soil. They belonged to an earlier generation of Saint Clairs, men whose lives had been violent enough that perhaps death had never entirely suited them. Lucien performed the rites one final time, and beneath the moonlight the earth began to move.

Ambrose Saint Clair

Ambrose Saint Clair had been a gambler, horse breeder and occasional gentleman of uncertain employment who died in 1829 after a disagreement over cards became a disagreement over pistols. Family tradition insisted that Ambrose had been cheated. The surviving account of his opponent insisted precisely the opposite. Since Ambrose had already been accused of cheating in Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans, the truth was probably best left buried alongside him.

Unfortunately, Lucien dug it up.

Ambrose returned wearing the rotting remains of what had once been an expensive coat, one hand still curled as though holding the pistol buried with him. Death had done little to improve his temperament. He remains suspicious of everyone around him and occasionally reaches towards his coat when another member of the posse looks at him for too long. Lucien considers this encouraging. A man prepared to fight over a card game while alive is unlikely to object to fighting Yankees, monsters or anyone else Lucien points him towards after death.

Nathaniel Saint Clair

Nathaniel Saint Clair had been the respectable one.

At least that was what the family records claimed.

A planter, magistrate and prominent member of local society during the early years of the nineteenth century, Nathaniel cultivated the image of a sober Virginia gentleman who believed deeply in order, property and the proper behaviour of everyone except himself. Behind closed doors he possessed a vicious temper and an enthusiasm for settling disputes personally when the law proved inconvenient. Several men who crossed Nathaniel subsequently discovered compelling reasons to leave the county.

He died peacefully in his bed in 1841, which disappointed a surprising number of people.

When Lucien called him back, Nathaniel emerged slowly from the soil, straightened what remained of his clothing and stared at his descendant with an expression of profound disapproval. He has maintained that expression ever since. Nathaniel obeys Lucien, although there is something distinctly uncomfortable about the relationship. Lucien may command Blackthorn Hall, but Nathaniel behaves as though he merely allows him to do so.

Silas Saint Clair

Every respectable family possesses at least one relative whom everyone agrees not to discuss.

For the Saint Clairs, that man was Silas.

Born in 1778, Silas disappeared westward as a young man and spent much of his life drifting between frontier settlements, trading posts and places where respectable Virginians generally preferred not to admit they had relatives. Stories eventually returned concerning gambling, smuggling, stolen horses and at least one sheriff who had apparently developed a permanent dislike of the Saint Clair name. Silas returned to Blackthorn Hall many years later carrying scars, several pistols and enough money that nobody asked where it had come from.

He died in 1836 after being thrown from a horse, although one family account rather suspiciously mentions a bullet wound.

Silas has returned as perhaps the most animated of Lucien’s Revenants. There is still something of the old rogue behind the dead eyes, and he occasionally displays what might almost be amusement when violence approaches. Of all those Lucien has raised, Silas seems the least troubled by being dead. Indeed, given his previous existence, undeath may represent only a modest change in lifestyle.

Gideon Saint Clair

Gideon Saint Clair was already an old man when the War of 1812 began, but age did little to discourage him from involving himself. He organised local militia, supplied horses and weapons, and loudly complained that younger men lacked the determination of his generation. This opinion appears to have survived his death.

Gideon was remembered within the family as stubborn, argumentative and absolutely convinced that Saint Clairs were naturally qualified to command anyone unfortunate enough to stand nearby. He died in 1822 and was buried beneath one of the largest stones in the family burial ground, presumably because nobody wanted to risk him climbing out again.

Lucien should perhaps have taken the hint.

When Gideon rose, he did so violently, breaking through the weakened lid of his coffin and clawing his way through the earth before Lucien had completed the final words of the ritual. He now stands among the other Revenants with the posture of a man inspecting troops whose standards have disappointed him. Even in death he seems incapable of accepting that someone else is in charge.

The Family Gathering Is Complete

With Gideon’s return, Lucien finally closed the old family burial ground.

There would be no more midnight expeditions beneath the twisted trees, no more ancient coffins dragged open and no more increasingly irritated Saint Clair ancestors summoned back into a world they had probably been quite happy to leave. Lucien had exhausted the graves he considered useful, although the distinction between useful ancestor and best left buried had become increasingly difficult to identify.

The Revenants now form one of the strangest elements of the force gathering around Blackthorn Hall. They are not merely undead servants but fragments of the Saint Clair family itself, drawn from different generations and carrying into undeath the violence, pride, grudges and questionable judgement that marked so much of their mortal existence. Lucien has raised his ancestors because he needs soldiers he can trust, although whether resurrecting several generations of difficult Saint Clair men actually achieves that objective remains open to considerable debate.

For the moment, however, the cemetery is quiet.

Lucien has finished raising the family.

Probably.