Generations or wickedness and torment never seemed to be laid to rest, but still hovered over the abandoned headstones of lords and ladies passed. Carlton had always been a farming land with simple needs and unlike other nobles here Robert’s family was laid to rest under the stars rather than locked away in some gothic crypt. The iron gate stood open in its rusted state. Ivy had grown over the gate and fence, swallowing it whole. So much time had passed since he last looked upon his roots and so much had happened since the latest tenant was buried; it was for that reunion he had come. Robert could see the pair of headstones in the little garden separating them from the others. Memories came in a haunting flash of him as a boy standing over his mother’s open grave. He stood by and watched as her narrow casket was being lowered into the ground and his father walking away, leaving a six-year-old Robert to be comforted by only a much younger Stephens.