The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Author:Neil Gaiman
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Dead, Ghost Stories, Magic, Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction, Family, Fantasy, Juvenile Fiction, Children's Books, Fantasy & Magic, Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror & Ghost Stories, Supernatural, Children: Grades 4-6, Ages 9-12 Fiction, Large type books, Orphans & Foster Homes, General, Orphans, Juvenile Horror, Cemeteries
ISBN: 9781410414410
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2009-04-15T05:00:00+00:00

Bod woke the next afternoon in the Owenses’ tomb feeling like he knew a huge secret, that he had done something important, and was burning to talk about it.

When Mistress Owens got up, Bod said, “That was amazing last night!”

Mistress Owens said, “Oh yes?”

“We danced,” said Bod. “All of us. Down in the Old Town.”

“Did we indeed?” said Mistress Owens, with a snort. “Dancing is it? And you know you aren’t allowed down into the town.”

Bod knew better than even to try to talk to his mother when she was in this kind of mood. He slipped out of the tomb into the gathering dusk.

He walked up the hill, to the black obelisk, and Josiah Worthington’s stone, where there was a natural amphitheater, and he could look out at the Old Town and at the lights of the city around it.

Josiah Worthington was standing beside him.

Bod said, “You began the dance. With the Mayor. You danced with her.”

Josiah Worthington looked at him and said nothing.

“You did,” said Bod.

Josiah Worthington said, “The dead and the living do not mingle, boy. We are no longer part of their world; they are no part of ours. If it happened that we danced the danse macabre with them, the dance of death, then we would not speak of it, and we certainly would not to speak of it to the living.”

“But I’m one of you.”

“Not yet, boy. Not for a lifetime.”

And Bod realized why he had danced as one of the living, and not as one of the crew that had walked down the hill, and he said only, “I see…I think.”

He went down the hill at a run, a ten-year-old boy in a hurry, going so fast he almost tripped over Digby Poole (1785–1860, As I Am So Shall You Be), righting himself by effort of will, and charged down to the old chapel, scared he would miss Silas, that his guardian would already be gone by the time Bod got there.

Bod sat down on the bench.

There was a movement beside him, although he heard nothing move, and his guardian said, “Good evening, Bod.”

“You were there last night,” said Bod. “Don’t try and say you weren’t there or something because I know you were.”

“Yes,” said Silas.

“I danced with her. With the lady on the white horse.”

“Did you?”

“You saw it! You watched us! The living and the dead! We were dancing. Why won’t anyone talk about it?”

“Because there are mysteries. Because there are things that people are forbidden to speak about. Because there are things they do not remember.”

“But you’re speaking about it right now. We’re talking about the Macabray.”

“I have not danced it,” said Silas.

“You saw it, though.”

Silas said only, “I don’t know what I saw.”

“I danced with the lady, Silas!” exclaimed Bod. His guardian looked almost heartbroken then, and Bod found himself scared, like a child who has woken a sleeping panther.

But all Silas said was, “This conversation is at an end.”

Bod might have said something—there were a hundred things he wanted

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